User talk:Vonkje

Frans Hals

Nice rework! Hals is one of my role models. When I grow old I hope to retire in an asylum in Haarlem Netherlands ... however there was one thing mentioned in his biographical sketch:

"His widow later died obscurely in a hospital after seeking outdoor relief from the guardians of the poor."

... a wonderful turn of phrase, and I sense this may have been made with a delicious sense of irony ... only I don't quite know what it means. I tried pinpointing its introduction via the history page. Was she mugged .. or just looking for a social worker .. or was the social worker looking for her?

Anyway, thanks again. Vonkje 14:55, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Vonkje! (Sparkit is my variation of "Sparky" ;) )

I puzzled over that sentence for a long time when editing the article, and the only similar reference I found on the web was the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (http://88.1911encyclopedia.org/H/HA/HALS_FRANS.htm) from which most of the article is lifted. (... we find his widow seeking outdoor relief from the guardians of the poor, and dying obscurely in a hospital.) Which doesn't answer the many questions about her death.

I've posed the question on the article's talk page. --sparkit (talk) 16:36, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, Vonkje, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I saw you already found the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics. Its talk page is where the math community hangs around. Enjoy! Oleg Alexandrov 23:02, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Convergence

I'd like to thank you for your reworking of the Convergence page. When I suggested that the article be turned into a disambiguation page, I had no idea of how thorough it would become. Thanks for pursuing this transformation to its proper conclusion. NatusRoma 07:13, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Unified Modeling Language

As for your UML comment, you should be able to change a redirect to an article without admin privs. —BenFrantzDale 05:16, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

I've converted the redirect in Modelling language into a stub. So, good luck in fleshing it out. :-) --S.K. 10:00, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Composition (Computer science)

Taku, Great rework .. When I started this article, I knew there were a few rough edges, but couldn't quite identify them .. BTW: Now that you have your Math degree, have you considered graduate study in the Netherlands? Vonkje 14:14, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I am currently looking for a graduate program. (I should have put a note on this in my page) I applied several schools in the US, but I didn't get into any of it. Are you saying that I have a shot in the Netherlands instead? -- Taku 14:22, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

(I moved this from my talkpage because I like to have conversation at one place. -- Taku 18:07, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC))

Yes, however the setup is slightly different. Let me explain.

Since the mid-1990's the NWO (the accreditation agency for the Netherlands (think Mid-States Association of Schools)) put Math and the Sciences to the same degree system as the U.S., namely B.S. followed by M.S. followed by PhD. Also they mandated English as the official language of instruction AND evaluation for M.S. on up. So far, so good.

The difference from the U.S. is that to get your PhD in the Netherlands, you absolutely **have** to complete your M.S. first. In the U.S. there are still programs that allow you to go directly from the B.S. to the PhD in 3 years (ie: you sit for and pass your qualifiers without necessarily having to take the classes) -- not so here in the Netherlands.

So in the Netherlands you are faced with taking the Giant Leap Forward in many short, comfortable hops. The M.S. degree program **officially** takes one year, but everyone I know, took two additional semesters for their M.S. thesis. Regarding finances, there is bad news and possibly good news. The Bad News: The last I checked the tuition was pricey. The cost of living is comparable to Washington D.C. (on the high side). The possibly good news is that you might be eligible for an assistantship for your thesis work (although most assistantships require EU citizenship).

For your thesis, you could work at a research institute like CWI -- Researcher Nirvana for those in Math and Computer Science. The Dutch Model is based on the strong professor while the U.S. model is based on the strong department. This means, to get an assistantship or research appointment, you will need to favorably impress a full professor by demonstrating some form of research potential. It is not unusual for that same faculty member to later head your committee if you so decide to go on to the PhD.

Requirements for entry into the PhD program are simpler. By getting a satisfactory grade of 8 (out of 10) on the same classes as would appear in the PhD qualifiers in the U.S., you are presumed to have command of that subject, so there are no written qualifiers for these M.S. Degree "core" subjects. In the U.S. there is a written research potential part of the qualifier exam. In the Netherlands, research potential is evaluated by interviews that resemble those for a job. Whereas the U.S. Model has a classroom orientation, the Dutch Model has an apprenticeship orientation. Thus, a job interview rather than written exam is more appropriate. The nice thing here is that if you bomb on one interview, you can always go on to another (unlike the two strikes and your out policy for qualifiers in the U.S.). If, however, during your M.S. degree studies you already found a full professor (Promoter), you will not have to go through all that.

The PhD programs also require classwork in the form of many short (3 day to 2 week) courses of an advanced topics nature, but 90% of your time will be in dissertation research, since the PhD requires four more years after your M.S. This seems long until you look at the actual median completion times from the Bachelor's degree by field for the PhD's by field. Computer Science in the U.S. takes 6.4 years, so the six years in the Netherlands seems about right. They will also ride herd on you to make sure you finish on time, partly because tuition for the PhD in the Netherlands is free. 'Nuff said.

May I suggest that you work backwards. First go to http://www.cwi.nl and surf the site for papers that interest you, identifying the researchers. Of those who are a full professor, identify where they teach. If you already have an idea for a contribution you could email them directly. More likely, you would just apply to that university that happens to have the most researchers who do the most stuff that interests you. For Mathematics, I personally would be partial to Vrije Universitiet in Amsterdam.

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck. Vonkje 21:15, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for my late reply. As we know, Wikipedia has been down. Anyway, I didn't expect to get this kind of a detailed guide. I am still not sure if I want to go to a program in your country. I don't mind to get M.S. first but the financial side may be a problem to me, as a financial aid is a must to me. In any case, I will follow your suggestion: see if there is a piece of interesting research that has been going. If so, from what you said, that is what really matters in the end. Thanks again. Even we might to write some of this in wikipedia, like how graduate education and research works in the Netherlands. Maybe in an article Education in the Netherlands or something. -- Taku June 29, 2005 01:04 (UTC)

No problem, ... it might be a good idea in general, regardless of where you plan to go, to look up the work at various institutes (in the U.S. even) for the affiliate schools that best fit your interests. One of the things that made me go to the Netherlands was the fact that our friend just got her PhD and owed one-hundred-thousand dollars in student loans. That is one trap you will need to avoid. Vonkje 29 June 2005 02:16 (UTC)

Partial Function

Thanks for the heads up. Quite frankly, much of the language used in archaic editions of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica scares me. ;) I haven't been around lately, but I'll get to stuff here when I can. That is, I don't know if I will have the time to contribute anything significant right now, but I'll see what I can pull out of my hat before this upcoming semester begins. If nothing else I will try to make the suggested modifications to partial function (the formal definition bit) and maybe do the same for some other articles. As far as the WikiProject, it sounds like a great way for me to "get my feet wet." I'll see what I can do. Take care! --Kooky | Talk 10:43, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikiproject: countering systemic bias

Hi Vonkje, I wonder if you might be able to help - I'm writing an article for openDemocracy about the Wikiproject:countering systemic bias. I'd like to get some quotes from Wikipedians about why they're involved, what they're working on and some other general issues. I wonder if you'd be willing to talk to me over email? Mine is daviddariusbijan@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks,

David

86.133.23.227 18:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Petri net

Hi! Thanks for the additions to the article. I would greatly appreciate if you could give some feedback and/or do some editing on the article: there are too few people who know anything about the topic to get real feedback. You seem to have some OK knowledge on the topic, maybe you could help(I wrote 95% of the article). Thx in advance, Msoos 22:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Quality control

Hello. I've started a page User:Dbuckner/Expert rebellion. This is simply a list of user pages whose users have expressed frustration with the poor quality control at WP. You wrote an excellent appraisal of the problem on Chris Hillman's page. Could I have your permission to put your page in this list? I wouldn't have asked if what you said had been on your page, but it's on somebody else's.

Do let me know of any other users who have publicly expressed frustration in respect of this particular problem. Dbuckner 15:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Turán graph

Hi! In July, you proposed merging Turán graph into Turán's theorem. Can we close this off? I think my recent edits demonstrate that there is plenty of content to Turán graphs beyond their application to Turán's theorem, so I would like to see the merge request removed, but if you still disagree, perhaps we can continue the discussion on Talk:Turán's theorem. —David Eppstein 17:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Logic gate

In the real world anything takes time , even a logic gate or transistor needs time( picoseconds ; limit speed of light) to conform the output to the input.

Another example is the cruise control on your car needing seconds or minutes .

Zelfs een bliksem moet tijd hebben.

Wdl1961n (talk) 15:34, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

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