wikipedia forever?

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AuthorTopic: wikipedia forever?
moonear
Infiltrator
Member # 5410
 written Sunday, January 21 2007 07:27 Profile #25
quote:
What did you teach at University? Look, everybody, it's a closet academic
Buildings and Environments. Basis course on what buildings are made of, construction techniques and alternatives (for agricultural people - to give them informed options and control over the expansion of their business) and then how to control the building environment to maximize profits - how temperature and humidity must be controlled to provide a productive environment that is healthy and disease free and the cost consequences of various regimes.

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"Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things."

"You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares."
Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00
Garrison
Agent
Member # 2820
 written Sunday, January 21 2007 08:34 Profile #26
Everything must be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism, and for Wikipedia this is especially prudent. What makes me laugh are the articles that have the citations needed tags to verify information on pop culture and myths.

What concerns me, however, is that Wikipedia is often within the top 5 results on any search from Google. It seems like an unfair situation for all the other sites that are actually specifically devoted to the subject at hand.

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Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are.
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Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies!
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Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos.
Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, January 21 2007 12:45 Profile Homepage #27
quote:
Originally written by Cryptozoology:

quote:
Originally written by Sic canis:

some people
Avoid weasel words. :P
"Most Wikipedians"

—Alorael, who hopes you're satisfied. He's gonna revert you fifty times now.

[ Sunday, January 21, 2007 12:47: Message edited by: Sic canis ]
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Sunday, January 21 2007 15:23 Profile Homepage #28
Heh. I'm replaying Alpha Centauri right now, and this just occured to me: Voice of Planet := Dumping the contents of Wikipedia into Planet.

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Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they make no such demand upon those who wrote them.
- Charles Caleb Colton
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Garrison
Agent
Member # 2820
 written Sunday, January 21 2007 15:49 Profile #29
The triple revert rule trumps even your sniping capacity, Alorael. The all powerful super wienies at Wikipedia will hold a conference to reach a consensus, and then they will punish you by blocking your IP (gasp). Not that the conference itself will have anything to do with your case, though. They just like doing stuff like that.

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Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are.
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Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies!
====
Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos.
Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, January 21 2007 21:41 Profile Homepage #30
Wikigovernment was proposed in a cartoon. It's a frightening and yet oddly alluring concept.

—Alorael, who is pretty sure the Constitution would be locked to all edits immediately. And then probably hacked.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Monday, January 22 2007 03:09 Profile Homepage #31
I would be less afraid of blatant Constitution Vandalism than sneaky edits that somehow go unnoticed - inserting "under God" or "but some are more equal than others" in certain key locations.

(Oh wait.)

[ Monday, January 22, 2007 03:10: Message edited by: Arancaytar ]

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Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum]
My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Slarty
Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
 written Monday, January 22 2007 06:37 Profile Homepage #32
That's especially ironic considering that Wikipedia has been repetedly vandalized from the buildings that house the US Congress.

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Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Monday, January 22 2007 07:26 Profile Homepage #33
Darn anarchistic government.

What Wikipedia needs to do is block the entire IP range of the US, like it did to Quatar. :P

(Well, the entire IP address of Quatar.)

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Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum]
My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Thuryl
...b10010b...
Member # 869
 written Monday, January 22 2007 14:13 Profile Homepage #34
There's no U in Qatar. The Q is an unaspirated k sound, not a qu sound.

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The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, January 22 2007 22:08 Profile Homepage #35
English feels that it has a right to spell anything any way it wants. Foreign with a K sound? Usually written with C or K when followed by an A? Let's make it a Q!

Is there any rhyme or reason to our transliterations from Arabic? I don't understand them at all.

—Alorael, who calls upon the linguists of Spiderweb to justify the ways of English to man.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Gavin
Lifecrafter
Member # 7538
 written Monday, January 22 2007 22:40 Profile Homepage #36
quote:
Originally written by Keeper Swap:

—Alorael, who calls upon the linguists of Spiderweb to justify the ways of English to man.
No one can possibly justify the ways of the English language. It truly makes no sense.

EDIT: You know, come to think of it, a lot of U.S. "traditionally accepted stuff" doesn't make any sense at all. Yes, I'm looking at you, English measurement system.

[ Monday, January 22, 2007 22:41: Message edited by: Nemesis ]

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Do not provoke the turtles.
They do not like being provoked.
-Lenar

My website: Nemesis' Refuge
Posts: 743 | Registered: Friday, September 29 2006 07:00
Garrison
Agent
Member # 2820
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 12:48 Profile #37
Cut them some slack. Their system of measurement coincided with things that they had to deal with in a day to day situation. A foot and a yard are each easy to visualize, and a cup of water is simple enough to estimate as well. One can imagine how heavy a cubic foot of hay is, but how about 28000 cubic centimeters of hay?

For most specialized fields these days the standard system has been phased out already, so it is not a big problem. But if I remember correctly, once a NASA launch failed because some idiot forgot to convert between centimeters and inches.

[ Wednesday, January 24, 2007 12:50: Message edited by: Garrison ]

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Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are.
====
Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies!
====
Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos.
Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 12:54 Profile Homepage #38
I can't imagine 28,000 cubic anything. First I need to take the cube root and know what the length is per side. 30 cm? That's fine. Now I have a pretty good idea, actually. Well, maybe. Kind of.

[Edit: Fixing grammar up of!]

—Alorael, who in fact has no idea at all. He would need to know how densely packed the hay is, and he would also need to have a basic ability with spacial reasoning or whatever the fancy term for it is now. The point is that 30 cm is no easier or harder than 1 foot, and that's ignoring the fact that they are in this case the same thing.

[ Wednesday, January 24, 2007 13:12: Message edited by: Serial 11532A-96M56E ]
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
moonear
Infiltrator
Member # 5410
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 13:11 Profile #39
quote:
For most specialized fields these days the standard system has been phased out already, so it is not a big problem. But if I remember correctly, once a NASA launch failed because some idiot forgot to convert between centimeters and inches.
Up until very, very recently, NASA was still imperially (dinosaurian) measuring things. Now they are metric (I think).

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"Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things."

"You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares."
Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00
Enraged Slith
Agent
Member # 27
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 16:35 Profile #40
Trying to find reliable material on the Internet is like trying to find a good meal in a garbage can.
Posts: 1233 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 18:21 Profile Homepage #41
By Garrison:
quote:
For most specialized fields these days the standard system has been phased out already, so it is not a big problem. But if I remember correctly, once a NASA launch failed because some idiot forgot to convert between centimeters and inches.
I believe it was a Mars probe, and the problem came up on entry. I can't cite sources, but I'm pretty sure I've read about in Popular Science or Mechanics a while ago.

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The band's okay, but, if I were you, I'd get rid of the singer with the tire-tread lips.
- BBC producer to The Rolling Stones (and Mick Jagger), 1963
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Garrison
Agent
Member # 2820
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 18:52 Profile #42
quote:
Originally written by Serial 11532A-96M56E:

I can't imagine 28,000 cubic anything. First I need to take the cube root and know what the length is per side. 30 cm? That's fine. Now I have a pretty good idea, actually. Well, maybe. Kind of.

[Edit: Fixing grammar up of!]

—Alorael, who in fact has no idea at all. He would need to know how densely packed the hay is, and he would also need to have a basic ability with spacial reasoning or whatever the fancy term for it is now. The point is that 30 cm is no easier or harder than 1 foot, and that's ignoring the fact that they are in this case the same thing.
That's kind of my point. 28,000 cm^3 is far more difficult to imagine in comparison to 1 ft^3. We could always say (30 cm)^3, but then there's the dangerous problem of becoming sloppy and not putting in the parentheses. Regardless, even down to the level of centimeter the metric system is annoying for eyeballing. I'm no fan of the pecks and gills of the standard English system, but I will always enjoy saying that something is 1 foot long more than I would saying that something is 0.304 m long.

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Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are.
====
Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies!
====
Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos.
Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00
Randomizer
Law Bringer
Member # 6785
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 20:35 Profile #43
That's because the US is going metric with the same resolve it's using to win the war on terror. There is no concerted effort to require people to switch so we get to stay out of step with the rest of the world. The metric system is only used where it is convenient.

[ Wednesday, January 24, 2007 22:23: Message edited by: Randomizer ]
Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00
moonear
Infiltrator
Member # 5410
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 21:03 Profile #44
Interesting, I prefer to state that I am two metres tall rather than 6'4", or even just rounding it off to six feet. And I'll take litres over gallons as a unit of measurement (especially since there are so many gallons to choose from).

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"Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things."

"You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares."
Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 21:57 Profile Homepage #45
Actually, NASA only declared the moon metric this month. Progress marches slowly on.

The problem isn't that centimeters are difficult. It's that picturing thirty of them (or anything) is difficult. Say about a third of a meter and I have no trouble coming up with the size. Really, your objection to the metric system seems to be based on the lack of an intermediate between centimeters and meters, and not anything important.

—Alorael, who has always wanted a chance to use decameters. They're still not quite a third of a foot, but they're better.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Arancaytar
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 22:14 Profile Homepage #46
quote:
Originally written by Randomizer:

That's because the US is going metric with the same resolve it's using to win the war on terror.
I would like to add that switching to the metric system has never killed anyone.

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Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum]
My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Thuryl
...b10010b...
Member # 869
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 00:03 Profile Homepage #47
quote:
Originally written by Serial 11532A-96M56E:

—Alorael, who has always wanted a chance to use decameters. They're still not quite a third of a foot, but they're better.
You mean a decimetre. A decametre (or dekametre) is 10 metres.

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The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 01:00 Profile Homepage #48
Um, yes. I very carefully thought that one through because I just had an occasion to use a deciliter and didn't want to make that mistake. In this case I planned carefully and then Freudian slipped.

—Alorael, who is all for decameters as well as decimeters. And, as long as astronomy is coming up, gigameters and picoliters.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Dryth'tor
Lifecrafter
Member # 7331
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 13:31 Profile Homepage #49
On a related note:

Some little vandal at my school has been vandalizing Wikipedia (playing musical words with the info), so I wrote an email to the gent who takes messages at Wikipedia to ask him to lift the ban on the school IP. He did so, and promptly six more vandals went and played around some more in there. Stuff like this makes me want to put my head in my hands and sit there.

But I can't do that, because I'd give myself a lobotomy with my claws.

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Posts: 794 | Registered: Thursday, July 27 2006 07:00

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