User talk:Dpbsmith/archive01

Howdy! Just letting you know that the standard way of communicating with Wikipedians is via their talk pages. Just click on their name when it's hyperlinked and then click on "Discuss this page". --Dante Alighieri 17:35, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Greetings! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you haven't already done so, please carefully read the following pages:

• Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers
• Wikipedia:How to edit a page
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions
  

You can sign your name with ~~~~ (or just ~~~ to leave out the date stamp). If you have questions or doubts of any sort first see the help pages, then do not hesitate to post them on the Village Pump and somebody will respond ASAP. Have fun! --Jiang 22:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

---

Re Jack London-- it was the story that was spread around at Cal when I was going there. I don't know if it's true or not, but I had no reason to doubt it at the time that I wrote the info. I'll try to hunt around and see if I can find anything. RickK 01:24, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi. Nice work on Nevil Shute's Style and Themes. But is it encyclopedic? RickK

I'm not going to delete it, like I said, it's good work. RickK 03:45, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

---

Re:Santorum -- you might want to add your $0.02 at User_talk:The_Cunctator/Agglomeration -- it's about the same issue you addressed on the Santorum talk page... -- BCorr ¤ Брайен 17:27, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

BUG REPORT referenced in SourceForge submission

from Village Pump discussion:

In Limerick_(poetry), in which successive lines are indented different amounts by using different numbers of colons, the appearance in Apple's Safari and IE 5.2 for Mac OS X is similar and problematical. The browser displays a blank line separating a source line beginning with a single colon and a source line beginning with two lines. Thus, the appearance of

:From the hag and hungry goblin
:That into rags would rend thee
::And the spirit that stands
::by the naked man,
:In the book of the moons defend yee.

in these two browsers is

File:Browserrendering.png

On the other hand, on my wife's PC running IE 6.0.2008 under Windows 98, the interpolated blank lines are not seen.

On whatever browser you're using now, it renders as:

From the hag and hungry goblin

That into rags would rend thee

And the spirit that stands

by the naked man,

In the book of the moons defend yee.

Whose bug is this? Is there something wrong with the HTML that the wiki is generating? It certainly is unpleasant that the same browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer,' gives different results on different platforms. Right or wrong, you'd think MS would at least be consistent with themselves. Dpbsmith 16:37, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

MSIE is hardly ever consistent with itself :-) Also, MSIE for the Mac is, to the best of my knowledge, developed separately from MSIE for Windows. The case you mention is probably just a situation in which the default spacing for definition lists (which is what is generated by leading colons) is different for various browsers. Not a bug, really; just a quirk. -- Wapcaplet 16:45, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The difference is almost certainly the handling of stylesheets between the various browsers - CSS handling between browsers is rather inconsistent (and will remain so for the next few years). In the meantime I suggest you a) file a bug against wikipedia's stylesheet (it is possible, with much effort, to make truly portable stylesheets) and b) stick with the nbsps in the interim. -- Finlay McWalter 16:47, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Lists for deletion

I listed it at Wikipedia:Lists for deletion. I found that {{msg:lfd}} didn't work, so I got lazy and just put in {{msg:vfd}} (sorry for the confusion!). --Jiang 22:14, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Genitalia

Re: [1]. My sincerest thanks. -- Cyan 03:46, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Service and London

Your speculation is interesting. I really don't have an answer for it. RickK 01:46, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Alice Lloyd and academic prestige

No, I've got no connection to Alice Lloyd College and had never heard of the place before you mentioned it. I just took the mention -- in a context which could've seemed like Wikipedia was passing judgment on it -- as provocation to add the article. And it did turn out already to be linked from a handful of other pages.

The general issue of academic "prestige" is one that Wikipedia will keep revisiting, I guess. I don't know if there is a good way to treat this issue neutrally, without either encouraging snobbery (and its evil twin, me-tooism) or ignoring all differences. Maybe a start would be to add articles discussing college rankings, how they're generated, and their critics (like the "Forget U.S. News Coalition")? I'll think more about this. -- Rbellin 06:46, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm also none too keen on college and university rankings, so I'm trying to report on their methodology more than their results in the Wikipedia article. I think you're right that it's possible for Wikipedia to say something more about this issue; but I'm not sure exactly what. "Famous" depends a lot on who you ask: e.g. most non-PhD-owning people who I talk to haven't heard of Swarthmore College and think the University of Chicago might be a state school, while the hyper-educated tend to think of them as among the cream of U.S. higher education. This makes it hard to use "famous" as a surrogate for the intangible "quality" which we subjectively perceive. The examples you give, which have a lot to do with institutions' history, will possibly not select more recently founded and/or recently improved institutions, and/or might allow some "famous" schools to coast on their reputations. But they are an interesting alternative, especially for research universities: maybe we could list locations of significant discoveries.

P.S.: I might lift some of your comment's text into the college rankings article, if that's all right. -- Rbellin 23:52, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

AtStart

I removed most of his/her additions because they looked like advertising for their site. The user didn't have any other contributions (besides some articles containing nothing but external links, which some other admins and I deleted). The user even added his/her links in articles that contained links to project gutenberg. I did not remove the links from some articles where they were the only ones, but I felt that we shouldn't set a bad precedent. Dori | Talk 00:40, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)

Animated gif

You expressed some concern over the idea of an animated gif, so I solicit your opinion as to whether my proposed image is a good idea. You can see it on Talk:Central limit theorem. Cheers, Cyan 04:18, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments! -- Cyan 16:04, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Homegrown images - UtherSRG 18:11, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Acklin

I should have been more verbose: I found that it was a copyright violation, and is now listed on the appropriate page. - snoyes 23:19, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Lazarus Poem

Hello, what do you mean - "[the location] is unclear"? See [2] — I find this neither an obscure reference nor unclear at all. (BTW, I meant no harm in removing your back-up info, but I think such things belong on the talk page.) Lupo 10:20, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining; I see now where the issue is. The writer of [3] clearly got it wrong; comparing the picture there with the one at the NPS link above clearly shows that the plaque in Battery Park is a different one.

> it's not obvious that the online guidebook is dated 1954

Indeed it isn't; I for one didn't notice that.

> I guess I'll copy all this stuff to the talk page, too.

By all means, do so. It's interesting background information. Lupo 13:46, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

tank top

Thanks for finding that photograph to illustrate "tank top." If it's not a trade secret... how did you find it? Even if there's a search engine for the usmc site or even if you used Google image search, it must have taken some clever lateral thinking to come up with it, given that the phrase "tank top" does not appear in the image's filename or accompanying text. Dpbsmith 00:21, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, the trade secret is that my job as a freelance journalist requires MUCH online research. This makes me dogged and determined. I went to the USMC site and started looking under "uniform," then "shirt," then hit pay dirt when I tried "athlete" or "athletes." I also found a good picture for wrestling there. -- Davodd 05:44, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Laura D.

Noticed that you removed the PoV notice, thanks. And, by the way, nice to meet somebody who seems to also be fond of Nevil Shute's books... --Palapala 16:54, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

attoparsec

Will have a good night's sleep over that; will probably re-write it within the next few days. No, I don't mind a helping hand: "a snail's pace" was the expression I was looking for :) --Palapala 19:39, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Seen that you moved all the stuff to "Strange_units". Could you give me a hint what the underscore is all about...?

And you mentioned, that you restored some "lost information". The whole article has been deliberately intended to be vague as far as the correct figures are concerned (see my introductory note on the top of page), and anybody, who might be interested in what a light-year or parsec is, will be happy to get them precise figures via the internal links provided. I think that to be utterly precise at this point spoils some of the fun. (On the contrary, being very precise on the snails' pace added to it :)

So, I like to bring back those two or three lines to what they originally were, but not before talking to you about it. --Palapala 20:40, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

About the underscore: I found that in one of the redirect pages, so somehow we had a double redirect (which didn't work out properly). Apparently, that's fixed now.

Hope we won't fight about who's got more humour :) I'll try to think of a compromise. About the beer-mat: I haven't so far been able to verify the last section (Hubble-barn), therefore the (agreed) non-encyclopedic remark...

Thanks for looking into it. --Palapala 14:43, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

---

Hi. Re Emacs, it's a minor point that doesn't really bear discussion in public, but I'm surprised it hurt your hand. Did your keyboard have only one Ctrl and/or only one Meta, or something? (I'm also surprised you could stand editing without Emacs afterwards, TBH ;)) -- Karl Naylor

---

Hi, I removed Erudite Pomposity from VfD as it has already been deleted by Bcorr. Angela. 15:35, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry about that -- it seemed like it could be summarily deleted, and it was so new it didn't occur to me to check VfD -- I hope I didn't cause any confusion. Thanks, BCorr ¤ Брайен 22:59, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I nuked Calalyze for you. Noel 05:25, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

surprise

I find your removal of information at New Haven, Connecticut surprising in light of the discussion on the talk page. Did you read it? - Nunh-huh 20:48, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Don't give them ideas. I hope they don't read what you wrote on my page.  :) RickK | Talk 20:01, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

They did. It was not particularly enlightened. -- Nunh-huh 20:10, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Discs

Kudos on your fine work improving Analogue disc record. I'm also impressed with your photoshopping skills on the Media:EBerlinerGramophoneDisc2.jpg Image. -- Recordially, Infrogmation 04:45, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

---

Nice to see TRAC article getting filled out...

[Heading & two edits copied in from my talk. --Jerzy(t) 02:52, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)]

...I couldn't write any more myself since I have no reference material other than thirty-year-old, wait, make that forty-year-old recollections of playing with the language for a few days.

IF possible, what I would most like to see added to this article would be just a couple of examples of what the language looked like (an example of a simple macro expansion), and perhaps a brief explanation of the difference between \ expansion and \\ expansion. (Or was it / and // ?).

Hope you're watchlisting me now, and that i don't need to look at the history to know how to reply to you in the absense of a sig, but i'll try to remember to do so if you don't reply soon.

Wow, i have no idea what you mean by

the difference between \ expansion and \\ expansion. (Or was it / and // ?).

and i wonder if one of us was using a non-standard implementation. Could the slashes reflect a difference between dialects; hmm, wait a minit, nothing to take back, but i was about to say

/ vs. (

but now i want to say

/ vs. #

Does than ring any bells? One and two were, i think, expansions that get rescanned immediately and the other not; i don't find the terminology i'm about to use familiar, but think its a sound one reflecting necessary implementation: # or ## controlling whether the expansion is inserted in the working string to the left or right of the "expansion cursor". (I'm a little uneasy about that, bcz i think this cursor jumps around as the interpreter pops nested functions off the stack, and i can't picture that process at the moment.)

I bet i have some serious TRAC code around somewhere, in a box of tab-paper (including the TRAC pretty-print program that i built on top of someone's (hmm, Leonidas Jones's) paren-nesting-display program).

Hmm.

#(DS,howdy,Hello(,) World!)##(howdy)

How's that look? -- not the most trivial implementation, but IIRC the minimal interesting one.

OK, i looked at the comma that's now parenthesized, and i want to say

Active function

#(DS....

Inactive function

##(howdy)

Protected function

(,)

Any bells?

--Jerzy(t) 20:41, 2004 Mar 22 (UTC)

My first thought was that you'd erred in mentioning slashes, but my odd brain eventually retrieved a single-argument TRAC primitive named CM, for Change Meta[-character], and i think the meta character must be the thing you call / or \ and i call #; offhand, i can't think of any other interpretation that would explain a comment about "and for the user you really can't bear to deal with any further, you write code that changes their meta to a RubOut character, which can never be received". The point was that if you can't transmit a meta that will be received,you can't type in any TRAC code that will do anthing about it, and have to just hang up the phone, and i think the # or slash is the best candidate for being described that way.

It seems to me that the only practical use of the CM prim that i was aware of may have been guaranteeing, at the start of a critical process, that the user couldn't hit the break key or something like that, and get access to the ability to key in their own primitives during that process. But it would also be a means of providing just the kind of difference you and i were discussing, between TRAC sites, for whatever reasons of esthetics or comm restrictions.

But, yes, i could talk a little abt segment gaps, and their creation and use. I think SS was Segment String; i'm trying to recall any logic explaining the use of "string" in some situations that i think of as indistinguishable from "form". Hmmm again.

--Jerzy(t) 02:52, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)

I've nominate you for adminship. Please indicate at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship whether you accept. Maximus Rex 21:59, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC) ---

---

Hi, thanks for you feedback. The square kilometre is not only a perfectly acceptable metric unit for measurement of land area, it is actually officially preferred to the hectare (if you are interested, the official SI website gives the status of units: www.bipm.org). There is no rule that says that people using metric units should follow the choices made by non-metric authors. So if somebody says 1,000,000 acres, then it is fine to use the smaller number 4,000 km&sup2 rather than 400,000 hectares. Similarly, if somebody says that 2 acres is available for commercial development, it is fine to say 8,000 m&sup2. However, you are correct to say that the hectare is found associated with land (e.g. European farm) sizes.

Metres and km have an obvious relationship along with their square equivalents. I can understand metric and non-metric units of distance and can understand their use when squared. Hectares and acres are, for me, incomprehensible oddities that sit in the middle of the area scale and very often overlap with reasonable square metre or square km values. I don't really understand them so that is why I avoid acres and hectares. If you prefer to use hectares as appropriate, I won't worry.

As far as the kgf example is concerned, it may well be more understandable in that particular case. I don't mind at all if my edits are further modified.

There are *lots* of pages in need of metric conversion. I am glad that you are interested in doing some. Please feel free to do conversions whichever way you think best.
Bobblewik 02:33, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

---

Thanks for your reply. I think we are probably of one mind in terms of the spirit of conversions. It sometimes it is difficult to do direct translations unit for unit and just as language (e.g. poetry, jokes, etc) is difficult to translate word for word. It is sometimes better for the idea to be expressed in a wholly different way. The link between pounds and pounds force is an feature of the non-metric system and it naturally maps onto a simple translation into kg and kgf. So your conversion is more rational than mine. Thanks for amending it.

I can imagine that if I were writing the original text starting with metric units, it would look totally different. There are lots of difficulties in unit translations such as how to translate something like "a simple guide for temperature lapse rate with altitude is 2 °C per 1000 feet".

My remark that BIPM prefers km&sup2 to hectare was a paraphrase. I am pleasantly surprised at your inclination to look it up - if I had known that you would look it up, I would have given you a more accurate explanation. In reality, it is not the km&sup2 that is preferred but it is the hectare that is not encouraged. If you go to the page:
http://www1.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter4/4-1.html
you will see that the hectare is listed in Table 8 of the SI brochure. The explanation of Table 8 is
"Table 8 lists some other non-SI units which are currently accepted for use with the SI to satisfy the needs of commercial, legal and specialized scientific interests. These units should be defined in relation to the SI in every document in which they are used. Their use is not encouraged."

Furthermore, that statement is a 1996 revision of the previous explanation (quoted at the top of the same page)
"The CIPM (1969), recognizing that users would wish to employ the SI with units which are not part of it but are important and widely used, listed three categories of non-SI units:
units to be maintained;
to be tolerated temporarily;
and to be avoided."
I have always assumed that these three categories map directly onto tables 6, 7 and 8 (hectare is in table 8 of course), and that the change in 1996 was to subdue the wording relating to table 8 from to be avoided to not encouraged.

Actually I happen to use the 'rule of 1000', but it is not an official SI rule. It will be found in other respectable publications. In any case, that is not the issue. The reason why the hectare has a low status is nothing to do with powers of ten. As far as SI is concerned, you could easily use the totally SI compliant hectametre&sup2 (hm&sup2). You will see that Table 8 explains that the hectare might be described in SI units as a hm&sup2 and that has exactly the same number of powers of ten.

The problem with the hectare is that it fails SI principles. I know that you know the following, but stick with me. There is one unit of length (metre) and as you go up or down the scale, it is still the metre. The system of prefixes applies to all units and we have a syntax where we attach the prefix to the left of any unit as in [prefix] + [unit] and get a multiple or submultiple of the unit. That is why we have [milli]+ [metre] = millimetre. Similarly we have kilometre. It is also why the anomalous unit micron was abolished in 1968 because the syntax requires [micro]+[metre]= micrometre, just as it does with microsecond, microwatt, microgram, microvolt, microfarad etc. It is one of the reasons why Centigrade was abolished because it sounded like there should be a kilograde and a milligrade.

Because SI has a unit of length (metre), it is most simple to derive units of area by using the square (metre&sup2) and volume using the cube (metre&sup3). But we could have quite easily started with units of volume and used the cube root for length. The non-metric system does not have this simplicity so we have duplication of units of volume e.g. cubic feet (derived from length) and gallons. It is for this reason that the litre is not an SI unit, it is merely a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI (Table 6). The SI unit of volume is the cubic metre. It just so happens that the litre has been around a long time and is used a lot (there are other reasons such as human difficulty with cube arithmetic). We use it with all the prefixes i.e. millilitre and kilolitre just as if it were SI.

Now the hectare is an anomalous unit of area derived from another anomalous unit the are. So one problem is duplication, we already have an SI unit of area (the square metre). However, a second problem is that unlike the litre, people do not scale hectares. We do not talk about millihectares and kilohectares or milliares and kiloares. Small areas are in square metres and large areas are in square kilometres. There is a logical scaling between them. Sticking hectares in the middle for large numbers of square metres or small numbers of square kilometres deviates from the syntax and the scalability of SI. The whole point of explaining this is that the issue with hectare is not to do with the rule of 1000, the issue is that the hectare does not fit with fundamental SI principles of coherence and minimalism.

I must add again that I am impressed with your google search for statistical evidence of usage. I do this but do not often see others doing it. Not only that, but you searched in French too! An even better scope for the data. Tres bien! Your findings are useful data and prove what I would have expected anyway i.e. that hectares are (unfortunately) in common use.

Although the focus of discussion is usually on how far the US is from adopting the 'metric system', it is fairly easy to see that countries that are traditionally metric are riddled with deviations from SI rules. The world would be a much easier place to organise rationally if it weren't full of people. I even admit to occasionally using hectares.

Thanks for your interest. Despite the impression that I might give of being a purist, I am all for pragmatism in communication (tinged with an element of educated leadership).
Bobblewik 14:42, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

adminship

A consensus has been reached by your peers that you should be an admin. I have made it so. Please review Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list and keep up the great work. Sincerely, Kingturtle 07:20, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Knuckles

Hey, congrats on your adminship! Use it for the good of all mankind! But what I really came here to say was thanks for the knuckle illustration in Mnemonic; while I was editing, I was thinking how nice it would be if I could draw, but it never occurred to me to whip out my digital camera. You did a better job with labels than I likely would have, anyway. Good job. Elf | Talk 03:54, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Your change to the description is probably OK, although I believe that describing in text is still important for a couple of reasons--people with slow connections who don't want to download images, and vision-impaired people for whom the images are useless. So you might want to put back in a little more detail to the description, but I think what you have is close. It explains the rationale nicely. Elf | Talk 20:03, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Nifty. Thanks. Elf | Talk 21:25, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Vocabulary Project

Hi there, I saw you are interested in one of my favourite writers, Jack London, and also in John Collier, an author not very well known but the one who wrote the short story De mortuis nil nisi bene... out of which I made a radio play with some friends. And you show some interest in computers on your homepage, so I wondered if you would not be a cool guy to cooperate with for the vocabulary project I am trying to start with some guys from here, from wiktionary and wikibooks. Check my page and let me know what you think about it. Get-back-world-respect 08:54, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Stata Center

Your question presumes that the building was actually designed with the needs of the current occupants in mind. There is very little evidence to support that presumption. That is about all I can say.

18.24.0.120 20:16, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

IBM PC

Thanks for tidying my picture up, t'was late when I uploaded and I was meaning to get around to that some time...guess you beat me to it ; )
Boffy b 10:44, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Desert Song

It's very much of its time. Overrated, in my opinion, but enjoyable in a slushy kind of way. Deb 18:53, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

ROAR (LDH)

Thanks. I'd forgotten about that, and I was in Boston during all (well almost all anyway) of that business. Not Boston's finest hour, I must say. Do you remember the Pulitzer Prize winning photo of the black attorney being attacked in front of the new City Hall by someone using a flagpole? Quite a two sided record has that town. ww 18:05, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Sovereignty

No sweat. I found your suggestion helpful in changing the wording of the article. In fact, between the time I made my comment and the time I changed the introduction, someone had made the whole thing look even better for Bremer. — Miguel 22:02, 2004 May 9 (UTC)

Re: Sharpie

In response to your question as to the value of the specific details of Sanford's Sharpie line of permanent markers, I would say that yes, indeed, it is valuble to include such information. The Sharpie page that preceded my modification had only a very small amount of information related to the marker line. I feel that an encyclopedic entry on any particular subject, no matter how trivial it might seem to some, should contain any detail that might be of use to a person researching said subject. I therefore respectfully disagree with your implied judgement upon my addition, while thanking you for taking issue with me, rather than simply deleting the information without prior discussion, as was quickly thereafter done by DavidWBrooks.

Bungopolis 02:19, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

---

There is no consensus regarding recepies and howtos. And IMHO they are quite useful kinds of articles. BL 17:49, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Wily heresiarch

Hi, in response to your question about the origin of the name -- somewhere in the earlier chapters of Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy there is a discussion of heresies in early Christianity, and Russell refers to Nestorius as a "wily heresiarch". It's just a joke, as Russell himself wouldn't care one way or the other who was orthodox and who was heretical; he was probably paraphrasing one of the opponents of Nestorius. The whole book is strongly colored by Russell's numerous asides. I rather liked it. Anyway, I've always thought the notion of a "wily heresiarch" is pretty amusing. Hope that helps, & happy editing, Wile E. Heresiarch 00:45, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Thinking better of things

My problem is I rarely think twice, for better or worse, before editing. I'd be better to follow your example. TronTonian

I'm adopting the twin capital Ts, by the way. 'S cool. Thanks. TronTonian

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I wanted to thank you so much for the warm welcome and the little pointers you've given me, having just started. I obviously still have a lot to learn and pick up about writing for Wikipedia. I just wanted you to know that I value your opinions/concerns about my first couple of entries and look forward to more pointers from you as I hope to grow with the site.

My interest in Wikipedia was by accident while doing some basic research for a little project I was putting together. I noticed some of the information I needed is nowhere to be found online, anywhere! I thought it would be a good idea to post some of what I learned (first hand, or through independent research for school) on Wikipedia that can't be found anywhere else online. It's good to have at least a little information than none at all, I think. (For example there is nowhere online that you can find the pre-metropolitan history of Rogers Park, Chicago. I thought I should just post some of the information I got about Rogers Park doing field research for my sociology degree program.)

I think the edits made on the Loyola University Chicago entry, which I'm very proud of, is a great template for me to work with for future entries. Thank you.

Gerald Farinas 15:32, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

"Scandal"

I completely believe you. You don't strike me as a censor or a whitewasher. I'm just not sure "scandal" is more pov than the rest of the English language. We may just interpret the word differently. To me, a scandal is when a bunch of people are upset about an embarrassing controversy. In my view, the My Lai atrocity came first, then the cover-up, and then, when the story broke, there was a scandal. In the Lewinsky affair, there was a scandal but no attrocity. The Russian rape of Berlin was something akin to an attrocity without a scandal.

But we may just hear the word differently. That's why I'm curious as to other people's opinions. Respectfully, Quadell 16:41, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for calling my attention to the poll about "scandal," but my failure to vote was deliberate, not an oversight. I just don't feel strongly enough either way. "Scandal," "reports" or even "incident" (which I think no one has suggested) would all work for me. I probably wouldn't have commented at all except that, when I happened to read the Voice article about "Torturegate," I immediately thought of your comment about the "-gate" cliche. JamesMLane 13:33, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Could you please tidy up your position aboit the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse? It may not be obvious to everyone that you changed your vote from Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse reports to Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. Get-back-world-respect 22:04, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

---

Re: The Washington Post (march): looks good to me. Ortonmc 22:46, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

It really doesn't deserve any thanks, I just happened to know there was already an article on the subject. With the breadth of our coverage these days, we have plenty of newly created articles that are redundant because somebody has already written it under a slightly different title. Now if only the depth of our coverage would catch up. --Michael Snow 03:38, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Global Warming, Biggie Size

I was under the impression that the current cosmological model showed the sun running out of energy and collapsing, not expanding. Anyway, maybe someone edited, but the page did actually say that because the sun will one day expand to engulf the earth, yata yata yata... bleh. Anyway, it appears the page has been deleted, so I guess it doesn't matter, damn anti-american sentiment means I'll never know the fate of the universe! lol.... --Starx 02:52, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Kudo's on the Steven Hawking referance :) --Starx 20:36, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

---

a.t.s. VfD

Hey, I just checked out your page and noticed that such a thing as "rescue edits" exist. What do you think of my attempted rescue edit for alt.tv.simpsons? Krupo 07:01, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Request for rollbacks

Hi, during my rare moments of prolonged freetime I've been working on a series of articles, the first which is Pulse-density modulation. But during the whole Mikula situation it was vandalized. Any chance I could get those edits [4] rolled back so the comments don't appear on the page history? --Starx 10:27, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanx :) --Starx 03:58, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

What do you mean?? (Answering this question is necessary, not optional.)

You are saying that the number names were coined just for pleasure and can be dropped from the English language. What names should be used instead?? What is the largest number name that you think should stay in the English language?? 66.32.105.24 17:13, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

---

On VfD, you asked for help with the table mark-up on Large numbers. I have a little experience with the tables and went to give it a try, but when I looked at the table, wasn't sure what wasn't working the way you'd like. It looks okay to me. Shoot me a message if I can help, though. Rossami 17:26, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

What is a doggabyte??

Here are the SI prefixes and their sources:

• Kilo: 1000
• Mega: Large
• Giga: Giant
• Tera: Monster
• Peta: Alteration of penta (5)
• Exa: Alteration of exa (6)
• Zetta: Z is the last letter of the Roman alphabet
• Yotta: Y is the next to last letter of the Roman alphabet

I don't see the source of "dogga". Can you explain its meaning and source?? 66.245.24.217 13:29, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Lyrics

Indeed. You are absolutely right. That's what you get for working late. Didn't think it through. Thanks for the heads up. Lyrics have been deleted, articles are empty and have been listed for speedy deletion.

Regards, Redux

The Washington Post

You found it! Thank you, I've been looking all over for that. I uploaded a smaller jpeg file that I think might work better in the article though. - `Hephaestos|§

Credibility/missile gap

Am I wrong, or did the phrase "missile gap" resurface during the Reagan administration? I wanted to add it in, but I'm not sure. Best, Meelar 15:26, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

HUGE Numbers

Anthere, I think you're a native French-speaker?

well... yes, I am french :-)

I'm working on Names of large numbers and would appreciate some input as to what current usage is in French. I'm just looking for what you know off the top of your head, not any deep research.

Have you ever heard of Pelletier, the 1550 mathematician who supposedly created the names ending in -illiard? That is, is the system that was adopted in 1948 referred to as "the Pelletier system?"

Wellll.... no. I checked with a few french. Noone knew

Which of the -illiard words are really used?

mostly milliard.

Are quadrilliards/quintilliards/sextilliards, etc. found in standard French dictionaries and textbooks?

It reminded me of nothing...so I looked in my Larousse. And the answer is no. No billiards, no quintilliards. However, I found a quintillion (10exp30). No sextilliards. However, I found a sextillion (10exp36).

Do I understand correctly that a billion in French was 1 000 000 000 up to 1948 and was then changed to 1 000 000 000 000?

I think that is true. 1 000 000 is a million. 1 000 000 000 is "un milliard", 1 000 000 000 000 is "mille milliard". Un "billion" is a million of million. But we never use the billion because of the confusion with english people.

As of 2004 today, what word do people use for 1 000 000 000 000?

Mille milliard

Are there differences between French and Canadian usage?

I do not know Canadian usage :-). Sorry.

Just wondering.... Dpbsmith 12:17, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

hope that help. I just know that the word billion is avoided as much as possible, first because it is scaring people, second because we know it is a different number in english. Hence mille milliards is best. Capitaine Hadock in Tintin (belgium) use "mille milliard de mille sabords as a swearing word". Cheers Ant

Of course you may quote me. Why scared ? Well... I'd say many people do "not" handle big numbers in real life. Everyone is not a mathematician, and 10exp36 for example is something that does not have any meaning for many people. Well, likely 50% of the population have never heard of exp and another 40% barely remember what it means. They get afraid to use huge numbers. For any number, there is a sort of conceptualisation. For example, if you consider a phone number, people will often divide it in sets of 2 like 04 73 17 25 25. Less often in sets of 3, like 04 73 172 525. But very rarely in set of 4, like 04 7317 2525. Most people have a conceptual representation of 2 numbers but no more.

Similarly, most people will have a representation of 100 000 (about the cost of a car), of a million (about the cost of a house). That is getting harder with the milliard (but well, that might be a couple of rich people, and part of state budget). Now, above, it is hard to represent a billion. There is no obvious daily used reference. So, that is easier for someone to imagine 1000 times a milliard :-)

SweetLittleFluffyThing 05:27, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"To his coy mistress" edits

I see your point, but I don't think "to have sex with" and "to penetrate" are at all colloquial — I've certainly heard the former on news broadcasts, etc. "Lovemaking" and "making the most of your time" are not really colloquial either, although they're certainly not formal. Cadr 03:44, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Like (preposition)

About your Vfd comment, the word is now being mentioned as one of the English words that can form a simile, so now the article should be perfectly NPOV. 66.245.9.63 18:32, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Silva Mind Control

Greetings,

To tell you the truth, I'm not completely happy with the "claimed" I put in there either. If anyone can think of a less inelegant phrase I'd be delighted. With many "human potential" movements such as this my experience has led me to doubt even their intentions to relieve the suffering of others, but to cast aspersions on their (undocumented) original motivations would be hopelessly POV on my part, I'm afraid. I felt I should qualify the statement as it stood somehow, even if the result wasn't entirely satisfactory. Fire Star 14:19, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hectare & km² discussion

You may want to join in the discussion at Wikipedia Talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Hectares, which is trying to make a standard for WP. -- hike395 14:45, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hampton Court

Oops! Thanks for spotting those! Mark Richards 23:16, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)