User talk:Mindspillage/2005archive1

This is an archive of my talk page from January and February 2005. Please add new messages to my current page.

List of Polymaths

You deletion of Ken Jennings was wrong. A polymath by definition is "a person with extraordinarily broad and comprehensive knowledge". Ken Jennings is that. His success in Jeopardy! was because of his...to quote your words "knowing insane amounts of trivia". Knowing "insane amounts of trivia" is the same as having an " extraordinarily broad and comprehensive knowledge" Thus Ken Jennings is a polymath.

Replied on User_talk:67.131.36.99. Mindspillage | spill your mind? 03:16, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You know I never thought of it that way Mindspillage. We should talk of a compramise.

My grandmother and I both agreed that Ken should be listed as a polymath.

I had to laugh

Hi Mindspillage,

You should have heard me laugh just now. Great minds think alike, LOL. I had just finished a draft of Jean Françaix, posted it and got an edit conflict with your version! Yours looks very good though. Have you found his official site (www.jeanfrancaix.org) which contains a bit more not covered by the Grove (it's in French though). By the way I have the 1980 complete 20 volume Grove; do you have access to the more recent one? It might have his biographical information after midlife. (IMHO the 1980 article is NOT one of their better biographical articles; it's rather rare for them to be so un-thorough on the biography. I particularly want to know what he did during the Second World War.) Anyway, happy editing, and keep going! Antandrus 05:21, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the barnstar! I'm touched. :-) The new year brings good things. Your Françaix article reads better than mine. I just banged out a quickie article here based almost solely on the Grove and the Slonimsky (which is even shorter), and I'm frustrated by the lack of biographical info after the 1930s. Being a bassoonist, you must have played Françaix's music (it's really witty, light-hearted, and utterly anti-apocalyptic ... very refreshing). The article in the 1980 Grove is by Arthur Hoérée, so they must have replaced it completely with Muriel's article. GOOD.  :-) Thanks again and have a nice evening! Antandrus 05:57, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Françaix's one of the first composers I liked when I was a kid but I wasn't a wind player so I didn't get to play! Probably you have some acquaintanceship with Poulenc as well then. --Btw, nice work on the Madeleine Dring article; I just now noticed it. (Coincidentally, I just put up an article on another Madeleine--Maddalena Casulana, the first female composer in western music history to have music published). Stetson, huh? :-) How's the music department there? Good wind programs? Antandrus 05:24, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You read Proust too??? Impressive.  :-) Yeah, I live in Santa Barbara. Got my masters and doctorate at CCM in Cincinnati. Hey, happy editing, and hope you enjoy starting classes (tomorrow already??) Antandrus 06:00, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Dallapiccola

Nice job on Dallapiccola! I'm glad you have some time to edit this week.  :-) (I have to work. pffft.) Antandrus 04:11, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This may be utterly perverse, but I thought the GRE was fun. Do they still have a music part? But I see you were a quizbowler ... you'll have a good time! Antandrus 04:48, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, no quizbowler here ... always wanted to do that but we didn't have a team at my high school. The music GRE had lots of fun trivial-pursuit type questions too, like: "the following note (E below middle C), in concert pitch, is the lowest note in the range of the a) kazoo b) English horn c) bassoon d) alto flute." Oh man it was fun. Antandrus 05:04, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

List of percussionists

Hi. I noticed that you alphabetized this list and wondered if there was some Wiki-Magic-Utility way to do it or did you have to do it the old-fashioned way. hydnjo talk 03:30, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK - the manual way then. I just found it curious that all of the lists that I had come across in my short life here had been alphabetized and I didn't think that a community this size could be that neat :), and then I came across your edit. hydnjo talk 04:11, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The depiction there doesn't look like you - must be the hat ;) hydnjo talk 05:11, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

GEB Chinese title

Hi. The Chinese translation of the book was published by The Commercial Press in Beijing in 1996. Their website used the character '壁'(wall) which was what I based on. It appears to be a typo, as the records from the Commercial Press in HK and the library of Fudan University both suggest '璧'(jade). Sorry for the confusion! By the way, is exquisite the word Hofstadter used? The character '异' means different or strange, and usually doesn't have an implication of delicacy. I don't have the anniversary edition so I can't check myself. --Alaz (talk) 14:23, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ah, yes

Oh how embarasing, and from a foremer speling champoin tu. Whut next. LOL. (Not quite ready to repent yet, and sit in front of a TV though.) By the way, thanks for all the category fixage (that's laborious, and exactly the kind of work so many here shun because it's so unglamorous) and nice job on Daniel Read --it's great to see someone else interested in that old American stuff. Oh, here's a literary trivia question for you (based on above): what unites Gödel, Escher, Bach and Finnegan's Wake? Happy editing! Antandrus 02:05, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC) -- Oh, how did the GRE go?  :-) 02:09, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

They actually gave you the results that fast? Very fine! When I took the test there were four parts: Q, V, analytical and a music subject specialty. --Finnegan's wake uses a three-letter acronym (HCE) which permeates the whole work, and permutes continuously; it was quite clear to me when I read GEB that Hofstadter was doing the same thing with GEB, EGB etc. Curiously, MC Escher shares two of the initials of Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker (also Here Comes Everybody in the Wake). Hofstadter makes the Joyce connection clear in a couple ways, one of which you already saw.  :-) Antandrus 03:40, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you read the Wake -- (and you might want to read the Portrait and Ulysses first) -- read it out loud, at least in parts; it makes it ten times easier to decipher the pun-language. Which is diabolically funny, and utterly rich and delicious. --Joyce is one of my heroes; I think he's one of the most brilliant writers of the last century. Btw, another Hofstadter I loved was the Mind's I (which I see you know) -- unfortunately my copy went with an ex-. Alas. Antandrus 03:59, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Daniel Read

Thanks, Mindspillage, for your careful work on Daniel Read. Opus33 22:23, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Handstands

Hello! Nope, first time editor. Though I've been lurking on Wikipedia for a while. I never really felt compelled to add anything until I was shocked into it by the dearth of information on handstands, which are a recently acquired hobby of mine. I plan to add more in the future, but slowly, as I've barely even started and I see that this site has much more potential to devour my time if I don't watch out. Good luck! OneMoreTime 13:27, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

note

I chuckled at your 'hidden' note; honestly didn't think anyone would ever notice that. LOL. (To my great surprise, redlink had had an article already--a redirect to the wikipedia space article.) Have a great day! Antandrus 15:48, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mikrokosmos

Looking forward to your article on Mikrokosmos! That would be a fun one to write :-) Oh well, have to "work" today. Antandrus 17:48, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mignone! Good catch!  :-) Do you like Camargo Guarnieri's music (another wonderful Brazilian). In fact, the area of Brazilian composers is rather underdeveloped ... (he says, hoping the wiki is on good behavior today ...) Antandrus 18:41, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Slonimsky

Ah, you discovered the "failed Wunderkind ... who determined to excel beyond common decency ..." article! It's a fun read. (I just found it online here: [1] ... I wonder if he really wrote the painstakingly researched "Sex and the Music Librarian" ... LOL ... ) Antandrus 17:35, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the correction on my user page. I'm fixing it now. And thanks for the compliment too :).

BTW, most people will have no problem with others editing their user page for spelling, grammar and the like. Pakaran 21:05, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(Blush)

Thanks for the warm fuzzy. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:36, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

New Mathematics Wikiportal

I noticed you've done some work on Mathematics articles. I wanted to point out to you the new Mathematics Wikiportal- more specifically, to the Mathematics Collaboration of the Week page. I'm looking for any math-related stubs or non-existant articles that you would like to see on Wikipedia. Additionally, I wondered if you'd be willing to help out on some of the Collaboration of the Week pages.

I encourage you to vote on the current Collaboration of the Week, because I'm very interested in which articles you think need to be written or added to, and because I understand that I cannot do the enormous amount of work required on some of the Math stubs alone. I'm asking for your help, and also your critiques on the way the portal is set up.

Please direct all comments to my user-talk page, the Math Wikiportal talk page, or the Math Collaboration of the Week talk page. Thanks a lot for your support! ral315 02:54, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Ney Rosauro

Hi Mindspillage! Hope all the academic stuff is going well (assuming you're busy since I haven't seen you around much ... ) I just started a stub on Ney Rosauro to save a non-entry "hey look at this website" from being speedied, then I noticed it was on your to-do list, so hey there you go! Have fun! See you around, Antandrus 02:30, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)  :-)

References and external links

References and external links are VERY useful to verify accuracy, resolve disputes and find further information. Internal links (part of wikification) is also good for following one's interests. Thank you for your excellent additions to wikipedia. (P.S. If what I just said only makes you want to forget about contributing, then forget I ever said it.) 4.250.198.254 20:22, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)