SMP0328. (talk) 01:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Section archived Ti-30X (talk) 04:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC) : /Archive early[reply]

Section archived Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 04:02, 28 March 2010 (UTC) : /Archive 1[reply]

Section archived Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 04:02, 5 May 2010 (UTC) : /Archive 2[reply]

This is a concept which I learned from Andrew Joseph Galambos, who was a rocket scientist in the 1950s. Galambos used the term 'flowstream' to signify the ideas of human civilization, and how they propagate from one person to the next. Galambos used this term to describe the intellectual ancestry of a person's ideas, and where the ideas came from. You can read more about this in Galambos' book.

There is another usage for 'flowstream', for the water used to separate out the gold nuggets in a gold mine. Thank you for asking. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 14:23, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This might save your typing time: "cite journal" does not need (i.e. those fields are clutter)

• issn,
• publisher,
• location,
• id.
• number of pages
• issue No (not a clutter, but may be skipped)
• last page (not a clutter, but first page is well enough)
• all authors (First Author et al. is well acceptable and is even obligatory in medical literature)

If there is a personal url giving full text for free - great; add something like |format=free download pdf
(the text in that field could be anything, it is just a comment). If the url is from the publisher and there is already a doi then no need for url (doi link is better). Accessdate is only needed if you have 3-rd party urls (doi or pmid links do not expire and thus don't need accessdate). Cheers Materialscientist (talk) 00:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Steve, thanks for creating those journal articles! I actually did not see that the editor on the society page was different. I usually take my cues from publisher's pages, in case of discrepancies, because they tend to be better up to date than society pages, which are often updated by volunteers. In this case, the society is right and the publisher is wrong: I just checked the "publication information" in the table of contents: issue 1 of 2010 gives Ponchak, but the latest issue gives Tsuang. Apparently the change was just made. I'll revert my change in the article. As for the abbreviation, we do not use that field for simple acronyms, but for ISO abbreviations, which are international. I had no time to look up the one for this journal, so I just removed the acronym. Hope this explains. Happy editing! --Crusio (talk) 13:42, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for not getting upset with me for simply removing your comments. They certainly were in good faith, and I know it isn't the best etiquette to remove someone else's comments. Sorry about that. Glad it is all sorted out. -AndrewDressel (talk) 01:19, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Steve, I was puzzled and distressed at the revisions you made to Childhood's End on 27 April last. It seems to me they are obviously inconsistent with the text, which I have read countless times since 1955, when I was 13. One possible explanation occurs to me, and that is that you may be working from the revised introduction, published after the end of the Cold War, ca 1989. (I purchased a hard cover copy of the 1953 edition a few years back.) Clarke did like to revisit and revise his earlier work extensively, publishing outtakes from 2001, etc. I thought the revised introduction to CE was markedly inferior to the original, but of course that is a matter of taste, and I am not sure how to reconcile two conflicting visions in a non-POV way. (The two have been published together in some more recent editions, to allow the reader to pick his choice, so both have some status.) My own gut feeling has been that Clarke wanted to bring his text up to date with history, with what actually happened (possibly for commercial reasons, always a consideration), so it would not seem weirdly anachronistic in the post-1980's world. I, on the other hand, vividly remember the terror of those middle years in the 1950's, when islands started disappearing in the Pacific. I was 12 a few days before the March 1, 1954 Castle Bravo test, which few remember now, but which created a huge sensation in the press at the time as people imagined it transported to the great cities around the world.

Anyhow, we have to find some way to reconcile this, and rather than start a fight on the talk page, I thought I should consult with you here. I see that you are an experienced editor (and that we both have some particle physics background), but probably much younger than me. I have also left a message for John Sherwood, an old journalist friend (and friend of Clarke's) I've known for 15 years or so on the ACCIFC internet discussion group, and who has edited here lately.

I think we cannot let your edits remain untouched for long, as I really think they are violently at odds with the "original intent" (? never dreamed I would be taking Scalia's side....) of the author and misleading enough to be almost embarrassing for Wikipedia's reputation, but it probably does make sense to give a more balanced treatment to the two versions. Meanwhile, I will be collecting quotes from the 1953 text to support my claims, which will take a while I guess.

All the best, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 23:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Will, I have noticed before that you are a reasonable person, and you are exhibiting such reasonable behavior here. First, I am surprised that my edits have caused such a strong reaction. If you don't mind me saying so - WoW!

What I mean by this is my edits were very few, and the objective of my edits were to merely avoid, or remove WP:OR as a result of WP:SYN. My veiw was that if a source didn't say it or write it, then most likely it should not be in the article. Otherwise, it is an interpretation of the editor of the Wikipedia article, which amounts to WP:SYN.

Second, I have no wish to promote inaccuracies, so please feel free to make any necessary corrections that you feel are warranted, right away. I would rather be wrong, and the article be accurate. And I have only one question - are you sure that you are talking about my edits? I may be wrong, but it seems to me, that I made such a small number of edits as to have hardly any effect on the article. Unfortunately, I am in the dark right now, to which of my edits you are refering.

Third, I have every confidence that your edits will be correct and accurate, so I am sure I will stand aside and not get too involved. I may discuss your edits with you, but I am not going to engage in an edit war. Also, as I mentioned on the article's talk page - I don't see a problem with using your edition of the text as a reference for the plot summary of this article. I thought I was clear about that on the article talk page. I meant go ahead and use page numbers from the book itself for the plot summary if you wish, or however you intend to use the book itself. Also I think John Sherwood, would be a valuable editor to have on board with this. Especially since he was friend of the late Arthur C. Clarke.

As an aside, I am sure "the revised introduction to Childhood's End was markedly inferior to the original" as you say. It may not be just a matter of taste, but the real deal. ----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 02:03, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Very strange. I now recall our previous conversation on talk, which was reasonable. I saw no problem with your edits at that time, but can hardly believe I did not read them. Today I did a compare just on your 4/27 changes, and was startled. I must have missed doing that previously. Am I correct that you have been working from the revised introduction? I must really be losing it! Anyhow, I am going to go through my old edition of the original CE, and document my issues with the the current text. I'll try to run that by you, and by the talk page, but I will probably make changes pretty quick, but we can negotiate the differences. Thanks! Cheers, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 02:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, So I believe now that you never saw the old version. The editions immediately after 1990 had only the new version, then later both. I think we have to put in two subsections at the beginning of the plot summary, outlining the two variations. You might want to keep an eye on this process, but I think things are no longer in crisis. I'll try to take a stab at patching it up over the weekend, though I have to get part of a proposal out in the next day or two. Thanks! Bill Wwheaton (talk) 03:57, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Will, when I did those edits my thinking was to be as literal as possible regarding the book and not be involved in any kind of personal interpretation or meaning derived from the text - unless there is an outside source, such as a magazine or news article, that expresses that interpretation. This type of editing is in agreement with Wikipedia's syle of editing, guidelines, and policies. For example, my first edit involves the following original statement in the article, which I changed: "dealing with the role of Mind in the cosmos and the plausible implications of that role for the..." There is no role of "Mind" in the book. Moreover, what is "Mind" ? In the story, there is something called the "Overmind" that is directing the "Overlords". When we start getting into "the role of the Mind" we are getting into philosophical synthesis. Instead it is better to state this or that about Overlords or Overmind, because that is what is in the story.

Furthermore, during the same edit the article now reads "Childhood's End narrates a transformation of humanity. Nationalism, racial prejudice and cruelty to animals are outlawed. A utopian society eventually develops, but this is not the climax." This is a more literal and simpler version of what is in the book. Instead of saying it touches on certian matters, why not simply be in agreement with the book and write, "Nationalism, racial prejudice and cruelty to animals are outlawed. A utopian society eventually develops...

Hopefully, you see what I am getting at. ------Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 07:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, edit the article as you see fit. I think you have more background knowledge on this book than I do. And if you don't like some of my other edits please feel free to say so. I don't mind being corrected when I am in error. ----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 06:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks. I just haven't had time to think much about it. Your point above was why I asked that question about an author's own work of fiction being a valid source for itself. I believe I can find good quotes from CE for some of what you reverted, but it is going to take some work. For example, it is clear from the text that the Overmind is an amalgamation of ancient civilizations, and that it has purpose. And it is called the Overmind, after all. There is also an explicit discussion of the nature of consciousness; though it is sketchy and incomplete of course (since it is not clear anyone on Earth understands it very well). But anyhow, I have to do it, dig out those supporting passages that I think are mostly there first, and then I will confer with you and on the talk page. But this work in the text involves some selection of course, cherry-picking maybe, and might be called OR. I feel it should really no worse than doing "research" in outside works, as long as the paraphrasing is accurate and the interpretation clearly does not stretch the point. That is where I have to be careful, as I do have strong feelings about the core significance of CE. I hope my "OR" will be found acceptable to other editors. Anyhow, we'll see how that turns out. Thanks for keeping WP (& me) honest, anyhow. The summary was much worse a year two ago I think, and certainly needed further detailed supporting references to the text, I've just been poky in providing them. Also, I'm not absolutely certain that all the material I think I remember has been retained in the later editions, I hope I don't have to struggle with differences in that. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 06:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You did a really good editing job on this article. Thanks for following up after my addition to the introduction. Your edits have made this a much improved article. I was not expecting these results when I "generalized" the introduction. ----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 02:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you're happy with it. It does look good, though I'm still not sure I'm happy with what happens in the "non-reactive near-field" because I'm not sure I fully understand it myself (Jackson, which I've been consulting, is somewhat short on antenna theory). The problem is energy conservation. It's one thing to say that the energy trapped in the non-reactive near-field zone doesn't radiate, nor does it return to the antenna (being so far away as to be badly out of phase in the emfs it produces), but then where does it go? It has to go someplace. I would suggest it also goes back to the antenna, so that that no power is drawn by the antenna circuit at all. I have in a mind a pure inductor at low frequency which essentially has no far-field. So what do we have? The near-field is the changing induction field, and if it crosses no conductors, the net effect of it is to produce a nearly 180 degree out of phase reactance that acts as a huge impedance to the input signal. Currents and voltages are completely out of phase (and would be totally so in the limit of no resistance) and so no power is drawn by the circuit at all. So current sloshes back and forth, but since no power is drawn, any energy in the H field that exists, is completely returned on each cycle to the antenna, and that includes the supposedly "non-reactive" part of it also, no? There are non-radiative static terms that extend far into the non-reactive part of the near-field. But if they're no-radiative they must be at least self-reactive.

By the way, I'm also a fan of Clarke and thought of Childhood's End as one book in whole genre of "Singularity" type pictures where mankind "transcends" into a state which can't be understood from our end. It is a hyperintelligent godlike state, often involving an all-encompassing group-mind. Naturally it involves the destruction of the host planet. The other common fate of planets that have transcended is that they're left empty. Have you read any Vernor Vinge, specifically A Fire Upon the Deep? His "Cricketsong under the High Willow" critters who have made a fanatical study of transcendance because they themselves cannot transcend, are very much modeled after the Overlords. SBHarris 02:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No I have not read that book. I just, now, read some of the summary and analysis in the Wikipedia article, and it looks like it has a lot of complex structure to both the narrative and plot. In other words, it looks like a really good book, and hope I get the chance to read it some time.

It is also interesting to have a species of "critters" who themselves are unable to transcend, yet who are fanatical about it. It appears to be in contrast to "Childhood's End". In that story, one could say the Overlords in Childhood's End are finding purpose in helping other species who are capable of transcending. The Overlords are being of service in contrast to being fanatic and obsessed. Hence, it is an interesting plot twist, which shows the other directions that an idea or motive can go. Hopefully, that makes sense ----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 03:51, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I highly recommend A Fire on the Deep. As an exploration of distributed intelligence, it has no equal. Of course, our own intelligence is distributed, too, as there is some scale within anybody's brain where the individual components are far dumber than the whole. But that insight can be extended in both space and time to huge extents, and Vinge explores this all though this fascinating space-opera. 15:56, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I've already discussed a couple of these topics on individual pages with you from two different IP addresses, including comments on nonlinear, negative index, etc pages. I decided to help out more with these rather than just list suggestions on individual pages, so I've created an account to track my edits/collaborate. I plan on implementing some structural changes with the various metamaterial articles, some of which have been discussed. Just a heads-up. RFenginerd (talk) 05:38, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Classical_mechanics#Classical_mechanics_task_force

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Good job on that article - it looks great now. - TB (talk) 10:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the compliment----Steve Quinn (talk) 01:27, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Due to a bug of KingbotK plugin WP:PLUGIN++ of WP:AWB, if the 1 parameter is missing from WPBS, AWB may freeze and this will cause problems to AWB bots. Please, add |1= instead of removing it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Steve, I see you just reverted an edit by Yobot. This is a bot, not a human being... As far as I know, bots are only used to perform some common maintenance tasks. As far as I can see, the edit that you reverted did not change the layout of the talk page. So I guess that WPBS and WPJournals (which I myself always use) actually are redirects to the things Yobot put in their place. In any case, don't get irritated by the dumb thing, because sooner or later it'll get back to that page and perform the same edit again... Its operator is User:Magioladitis, so you should perhaps contact him directly about these edits. Cheers! --Crusio (talk) 23:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Oops, just see on the bot's talk page that you're aware of it being a bot and that there is ;ore going on than I thought. Ignore my comments, sorry! --Crusio (talk) 23:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. There is a discussion about this type of editing going on. You are right I was getting irritated. It is the user's responsiblity for the bot. The edits are trivial and serve no purpose. The user had the nerve to undo my edits when I was going to leave the other edits as they are. That is what got me going and irritated. Anyway, thanks for this message. I have calmed down.----Steve Quinn (talk) 23:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Steve - I fully agree that these edits should not be done on their own, but they are slightly useful in that they reduce the number of total transclusions on the page (and make it easier to read in wikitext form)... in this regard, as they are already committed, undoing them is actually inappropriate as well. Note also that when the |1= is removed from the shell, it can cause certain bots to choke and die (some kind of regex issue, don't ask me. I think there is a leprecaun involved somewhere). So, while I hope that Magioladitis will discontinue these edits (I will be sending him my "shelling" code [ looks for active talk pages without shells ]; to use in testing AWB instead), I would also appreciated it if we could leave them as is. Cheers, –xeno^talk 23:35, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Dear Steve, I apologise for irritating you. Maybe my answers were not exactly what you were expecting to hear after watching your watchlist to full from Yobot's edits. As I said I won't do any trivial edits in the future but please, please don't revert these edits. I lost hours of my life because AWB was stuck due to the lack of |1=. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:39, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can confirm that this one is a huge PITA. It will freeze the bot, causing you to have to babysit it (or come back hours later and see it's frozen itself at the B's). –xeno^talk 23:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK thanks. I will leave all edits as they are, especially since parameter 1 ia an issue. Thanks for your comments. And thanks for the apology. Also, please note parameter 1 does not seem to work well with WPBS, unless I am doing something wrong. Anyway, it appears some issues are resolved. I will read the (edit conflict) page. Ciao ----Steve Quinn (talk) 00:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give me an example where 1= isn't working? –xeno^talk 12:36, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Xeno, I just tested it over at Web of Science. The problem was if I use a parameter one without the "equals character" it leaves a gap, and that is what I was doing. I didn't realize the "equals character" is neccessary. So this is the correct format - WPBS|1= . If I had known this I would probably would have been adding the parameter 1 a long time ago, even if I had no idea what it was for. I just noticed it on other talk pages. So, now, in the future I can place WPBS|1= instead of just WPBS|. Hopefully, this makes sense. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 19:03, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the "1=" is an explicit call to the "first unnamed parameter" - {{Foo|bar}} is equivalent to {{Foo|1=bar}}. –xeno^talk 19:18, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok thanks. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 19:29, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Steve: For "semiannually" I prefer "biannually", because we have a Category:Biannual journals. I don't think either of these words should be wikilinked, according to WP:OVERLINK. Now that I am reading that, I realize that I probably should stop linking the country name in the infobox (and often also in the text). Cheers, --Crusio (talk) 08:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, bianually makes sense mostly because we do have such a category. I see what you are sayinhg about overlinking. These are common words. Is it acceptable to change 12 times per year to monthly, even though a journal and maybe other sources say 12 times per year? What do you think about this? ----Steve Quinn (talk) 19:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I only use figures for frequencies that have no easy words, like 8 or 10 times per year. For the rest, I use biannually, monthly, biweekly, etc. In my book, 12/year is the same as monthly and I feel that the latter is nicer. I don't know of any journals that publish 12 issues in a highly irregular rhythm (like, 8 issues in the first 6 months and then 4 in the last 6 months). They usually even date them Jan/Feb/etc. --Crusio (talk) 20:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am so glad someone else finally showed up at the Time article --JimWae (talk) 03:32, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the compliment. I guess that was you that wrote an excellent lead for this article. I would like to keep that one. However, as you pointed out - the first sentence is not even really needed. I can revert this last edit and then another editor will have to step in because of the three revert rule. However, this may not apply with matierial that is WP:OR ----Steve Quinn (talk) 03:43, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently, the lead is just fine right now. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 03:56, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the good words. I have now made 1 (perhaps 2, if being very strict) reverts today. Steve has had his 3.--JimWae (talk) 04:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Steve Quinn. You have new messages at Materialscientist's talk page.
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-Stevertigo (w | t | e) 20:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]