Toomas (Tom) Karmo
("metascientia"):
Support Services in Astronomy,
in Applied Information Science,
and in Technical and General Publishing

"metascientia":
a single-person
Toronto-based enterprise
embracing spiritual poverty
and scientific service
in imitation of St Benedict of Nursia,
of Catholic Worker pioneers
Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day,
and of Catherine de Hueck Doherty

SPECIAL NOTE ADDED 2007 AUTUMN: Visitors looking for my essay on the envisaged shutdown of the David Dunlap Observatory can find it by searching in the "QUASI-LITERARY" section of this site (as described below), or alternatively, and more rapidly, by clicking on this shortcut link.

BUSINESS pages: advertising a mix of editorial and technical services for a predominantly scientific clientele; readers not from that clientele may still enjoy my opening essay, "Helping to Build a New Civilization in the Shell of the Old, as a Catholic Scientific-Support Worker and Scientific Editor-Indexer in the Crisis of 'Peak Oil': Principles Guiding My Business"

TECHNICAL pages: supporting a couple of already-started projects (including materials on Iraqi peace activism), and so of interest mainly to the particular associates already involved; not directly relevant to prospective clients

QUASI-LITERARY pages: archiving writings on several unrelated themes, including the envisaged David Dunlap Observatory shutdown (in my "Future of the David Dunlap Observatory: Corrections in Language from the University of Toronto Press Release of 2007 September 10"), the looming fossil-fuels crisis (in my environmentalist manifesto "Utopia 2184"), no-frills GNU/Linux and noosphere conservation (in my "No-Frills GNU/Linux: Philosophical Foundations" manifesto), the indexing of tomorrow's Web-delivered World Wide Library, current best practices in Web development, the core-American-values case for restraint in Iraq, Catholic homosexual chastity, Canadian railway travel, and the future of TeX typesetting under XML; conceivably useful to anyone, whether prospective client, established associate, or casual visitor

"Strenuous labour and the contemplation of God's nature are the angels which, reconciling, fortifying, and yet mercilessly severe, will guide me through the tumult of life." - Einstein at age 18, as quoted in the A. Pais biography Subtle Is the Lord (Oxford University Press, 1982)

"Since his primary aim was union with God, the material results of his work were less important to [a certain kind of medieval Catholic] than the growth in virtue that accompanied them. Undistracted by desire for visible success and fear of failure, [he] was able to concentrate all his energies upon the task at hand. He was freed from the enticements and terrors of the world and its values and from the tyranny of his own passions by his desire for God. Refusing to be the slave of the material universe, he became its master. As a result, he moved in serenity. A leisure of spirit marked all he did with the sign of freedom and peace." - A. Meisel and M. del Mastro, introductory note to the 1975 Doubleday (Image Book) Rule of St Benedict