>From: "Richard Plourde" <rplourde@scoot.netis.com>
>Date:          Thu, 13 Jul 1995 01:43:00 -0500

I go by the name of Richard or Dick or, from time to time, some other 
names -- sometimes perhaps affectionate, sometimes perhaps not.  I work 
as a consulting electronics engineer, with most of my work in the areas 
of control systems, optics, and acoustics.

I was born just over fifty years ago, on April 15, and immediately 
decided to 'become' a libertarian;  it seemed only fair.  This, of 
course, horrified my parents, who were human.

I spent my childhood in Rhode Island;  I suppose that today some people 
would describe my circumstances at the time as 'in poverty,' but it 
didn't seem that way.  Hmmm.  Many good things happened during that 
time, but I survived anyway.

After school (University of Rhode Island) I married, started work 
(designing headphones and tape recorders and eventually loudspeaker 
systems);  more quickly than seemed possible, our family grew to five 
with the births of Adam, Nicole, and Donna.  On the work-front, I moved 
to Bose (a consumer audio company) where I had the wonderfully good 
fortune of doing original research into the behavior of sound in rooms, 
and into the perception of sound by human beings.  That research pounded 
into my somewhat thick skull two things that have never left me.  First,
if you can't describe how something operates and apply numbers and 
functions to the description -- you don't know how it operates.  The 
other was that even very precise numbers and functions don't tell the 
whole story.  I learned both those things the hard way.

Eventually, almost eight years ago, I divorced.  I do a lot of learning 
the hard way.

My non-social, non-work interests include 'classical' music, ballet, 
sailing, jazz, and a few other things.  And I read a lot.

My specific g.s.-interests started about a year and a half ago, with 
joining this group.  The similarities between g.s. and what little I've 
learned of science continue to please and surprise me;  interestingly,
the explicit non-Aristotelian approach of g.s. has operated in a way 
that has clarified my thoughts about science.

In addition to gs@lumina, I also subscribe to the nonserve and skeptic 
mailing lists.  I suspect that the people I enjoy probably indicate more 
about the process-me than any words I might use.

-R
--
Richard Plourde (rplourde@scoot.netis.com)