User talk:SteveBaker/archive15

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it's and its

I notice in many of your posts you use these words incorrectly, especially it's for its. Just a correction, since you make so many posts. Sandman30s (talk) 10:00, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - good luck with that particular crusade. SteveBaker (talk) 13:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I recall watching the reactions from the NASA room on the news when one of the rovers landed on Mars a few years ago. The biggest guy in the room just caught the little guy and gave him a truly vigourous shaking. It is one of those pictures that I will never, ever forget. The guy doing the shaking obviously thought he was hugging this little guy. It was like turning on "The Funniest Home Videos" and instead of seeing people almost hurting themselves, they really do appear to pick up some nasty bruises. Like seeing the Jackass guy was on "Jay Leno". You'd think he might wipe his hole in Lenos face or something queer and stupid. Nope, he started smashing the place up! If he was big enough, I reckon he'd have slapped Jay a bit, without even recognising him. Steve pretends that he has never seen the merit in such "crusades" but in evidence from his familiarity with knowledge and apparent distaste for error, Steve has a cherish and affection for the whole kaboodle in there somewhere. Don't you, Steve? Do you not accept the immaculate prose of some fine physicists, nay, promote, defend and even champion such worthy heros? I think so. Is there a little tickley Steve in there somewhere near the little "na! na!" noises? Yup. Has to be. ~ R.T.G 10:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the relevance of that diatribe is - but I have a problem with correct use of the apostrophe - and so do about 90% of other writers. The full rules for the use of this punctuation mark are baroque to say the least. I'm not usually one for language reform - but this is a case where the rules could use some aggressive simplification. Meanwhile, I recognise that I won't always get it in the right place - and the reduction in clarity as a result is so minimal that it's really not worth the effort. I'm certainly not going to stress out over it. SteveBaker (talk) 12:18, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

...But "It's"/"Its" is confusing because they're a homophone, not because of some obscure usage rule. (No one tries to add an apostrophe to "his" or "hers".) APL (talk) 16:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

As the old joke goes... its very important that you use apostrophe's correctly :-p —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.115.23.15 (talk) 18:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Steve, rather than focussing on the full "baroque" rules, just concentrate on the rules for its vs. it's. It's really simple to master.

It's is an abbreviation, meaning it is - "It's (= it is) a fine day today"; or it has - "Our dog is sick, and it's (=it has) been taken to the vet".

It's is in the same camp as "For he's (= he is) a jolly good fellow", "She's (= she is) a lady", "We're (= we are) off to see the Wizard", "I'm (= I am) one of the good guys", "You're (= you are) my favourite Ref Desk respondent", and "They're (= they are) coming to take me away". All abbreviations, and all take the required apostrophe. You wouldn't not use an apostrophe (I hope) with any of these, so follow exactly the same rule with it's, if it's an abbreviation you're using.

If the word you're wanting to use is not an abbreviation, don't use an apostrophe. The only other possibility in this case is the possessive pronoun "its". The full complement is my, your, his, her, its, our, and their. In the case of pronoun predicates (This book is mine, This land is ours, etc), the words are: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs. Not a single one of these 14 possessive pronouns take apostrophes - none.

If you're not sure if you're wanting to use an abbreviation or a possessive pronoun, simply replace the its/it's with "it is" or "it has". If it still makes sense, then it's an abbrevation, so an apostrophe is required. If not, it's a pronoun, and there's no apostrophe.

Example: "Our cat has hurt <its/it's> leg". Could you say "Our cat has hurt it is leg", or "Our cat has hurt it has leg"? Well, no. That would make no sense at all (and I know you're a great believer in things making sense). So, this cannot possibly be an abbreviation, and it must therefore be a possessive pronoun. Therefore, the word you need is its, no apostrophe.

It's that simple, really it is. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:24, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

No need to be a prick

If you can't answer, you don't have to. If it sounds like nonsense, I am all ears. No need to give me the BS, troll crap and if failing to equate MRI to anti-matter makes me dumb, I must be dummm ~ R.T.G 13:45, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

No - you are not "all ears" - and that's precisely the problem. You aren't listening to one word the ref desk people said to you. Let me quote:

You said: "As for saying anti-light... in a universe of dark-matter and anti-matter on faith,"
Dauto corrected you: "Anti-matter has been produced and observed in labs and cosmic rays for more than 70 years now and its existence is a very well stablished fact of nature" - that is (of course) a true statement - which you'd know if you'd read anti-matter.
You came back with: "If I am correct dark-matter is matter of enormous mass beyond that we can even analyse and anti-matter is a speculation,"
I told you that it's not speculation - and provided you with ample proof. I didn't say anything about MRI's - I talked about PET scans - the machines look similar - but the mechanism by which they work is entirely different - MRI's use magnetic resonance. But PET scanners use POSITRON emission - positrons are antimatter - which proves very elegantly what what you were saying was bullshit. I shouldn't have had to have told you that so firmly - but you'd ignored Dauto's efforts and reposted your nonsense - so you had to be told in a way that would make you sit up and listen to what we're telling you. That seems to have worked because now you're paying attention.

If you're going to ask a question on the Ref desk then you should listen to the answers. Dauto went to a lot of effort to pull apart that string of near-gibberish you wrote in your previous three posts and tried to straighten you out. You then immediately (and ridiculously!) post that in your opinion antimatter is speculation! What arrogance! Dauto is a working physicist and I've been studying the subject for 40 years - you know less than nothing on the subject! How DARE you ask a question then tell the qualified respondent that your utterly uninformed opinion matters more than 70 years of solid science!! You needed to be brought down to ground level. You need to really understand that you know NOTHING about this subject - you need to stop posting and listen. You need to read about these things...it's not like there is a lack of information out there.

I didn't think you'd listen to me just saying "Well, actually, anti-matter is real." - because you hadn't listened when Dauto said it either. So I decided that you needed to have this fact pushed in your face where it would be impossible to ignore. So there it is. PET scanners are real - people use them every day - and they use antimatter - antimatter is as real as you or me and we've known that for more than 70 years.

But that's just the start of it. I could have reached back over your four posts to that thread and pulled apart every single sentence you said - it was all precisely as much bullshit as your statement about antimatter.

For example: Your "opinion" is that Dark Matter has "enormous mass" - but you clearly have not read a single word about dark matter or you'd understand just how ridiculous that statement is. Dark matter was postulated as a way to account for certain gravitational anomalies at the galactic scale. It's mass/density is actually almost the only thing we know about it. That's why it's called "Dark matter" - we know it's "matter" because it has mass and we can't see it - so it's "dark". So it can't have "an enormous mass beyond that we can even analyse" as you said because it's mass is really the only thing we know about it with any certainty.

Again - I could cope with you not understanding what dark matter is - but after several people tried to straighten you out - you still come back with your arrogant BS. If you had taken even 1 minute to read the very first sentence of our Dark matter article - as at least a couple of people suggested you do - you'd know this! So - I deduce that you are either totally ignorant of the basics of science and despite that, impossibly arrogant - or you are a troll who is deliberately typing nonsense in an effort to get a reaction. Either way - you need to be told that this is not a good situation - and that if you want to be taken seriously - you need to stop doing it.

I could cope with the fact that you don't understand these things - we're there to help you with that. What I cannot stand is that even after we tell you the truth and point you to more truth - you persist in pushing your crazy ideas as if they had some merit. Picking words from a science dictionary at random would produce about as much sense as your posts to that thread.

So - read the articles. Stop posting your own ideas because without knowledge of the necessary background material - they are worse than useless. When the books and articles and popular science shows on TV cease to provide answers for you - by all means come back and ask deeper questions...but read what we post in reply and have a little humility when it comes to a subject that you clearly know nothing whatever about. OK?

SteveBaker (talk) 17:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Steve, if dark matter, theoretical or not, comprises most of the universe I would grant it the title of enormous mass. Professor or not, you think you are whipping me but you are just being snotty. My query had nothing to do with dark matter. I mentioned dark matter and antimatter to suggest that there are some things beyond our current science (how dare YOU suggest that science is complete or infallible. pah! that's crap and useless! I could say that myself.) because an answer along the lines of "Science as we know it knows everything and speculating beyond that is dumb." wouldn't have given me a very interesting answer and those are the lines you are giving me. You are obviously one of the best helpers on the science desk so, if you must, why don't you just add something wildly speculative about the properties of light or, better for you, why don't you point out to other people who may read not to be confused by some of the things I said and which things those are? Dauto said that he would speculate or divulge some of the properties of light with me further if I would like so I continued on and you butted in and convinced him I was making some sort of an insult. I would say go stick your head in the oven until you cool down but that contradiction could disrupt the very fabric of academia as we know it, and then you'd have to give out! Come on, I've seen plenty of your posts, you're far from a narky old git aren't you? (did you see me post a question in the last lot of months? You'd think I was stalking you all you nut!). You posted enough to make a page in a book and you didn't even talk about the speed of light and time dilation which was the topic. Boo! How dare you say that speculating that topic has no "merit"? ~ R.T.G 17:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

First sentence of dark matter (as prescribed above): "In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is hypothetical matter that is undetectable by its emitted radiation, but whose presence can be inferred". I don't see anything about light and I don't see anything about conclusion. Do I confuse darkmatter and antimatter? What do you want? The only "arrogance" I have shown is to post a question in the first place. Look at what you say above "If you are going to ask a question..." you are one step from saying "...you should first know the answers." ~ R.T.G 18:07, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

You have my respect Steve, don't belittle me! Here is the first reply that Daruto gave me "Could you say that again but using phrases that make sense so normal people will understand it?" If you are looking for arrogance, you have found it. Tango and Red Act gave decent answers. Yourself and Daruto didn't even get off the horse. ~ R.T.G

I see you removed my reply from the ref-desk page. You should be aware that this is against Ref desk rules. If I were you, I'd restore it ASAP before the admins get on your back. I did not say (nor come close to saying) that in order to ask a question, you must already know the answer. I said that if you ask a question (which could certainly entail you not knowing the answer - or suggesting things that are untrue) that you should listen to the answers and not argue or contradict them without first being very sure of the ground on which you stand. SteveBaker (talk) 18:21, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Now, rather than continue to insult you here I have insulted the whole wiki by postulating another inconsquential, physical matter hypothesis. Adieu you narky old git. ~ R.T.G 18:25, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Wait Steve! You insulted me one end to the other. If all goes fairly I can seek an admin to remove it. It's my duty to remove that type of thing. I wasn't insulting anyone (except your intelligence or something I really can't say) ~ R.T.G 18:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Well - I warned you...and I see you're already in trouble for edit-warring. Tread carefully. SteveBaker (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah!! But in that 3RR I was right!! :) ~ R.T.G 21:10, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

RTG, stop it. Step back and stop.

You have posted walls of meaningless text using words that you read or heard somewhere, but clearly have not understood. Fair enough, this happens. We all have to start somewhere.

Therefore, people tried to pick apart what you were trying to say, why these sentences and ideas didn't even make sense, and what basic ideas you would need to understand so that you could build more knowledge on them and get to the ideas you want to discuss. They directed you to places you could read about these basic ideas. It was assumed that you would read these replies and either: a) understand the science in them, and thus see where you'd gone astray or b) realise that you didn't understand the science in them and start reading.

When you posted more nonsensical sentences using random 'science' words in ways that had no meaning, it was apparent that you had not really read or taken on board any of the replies. You had not taken the opportunity to educate yourself and come back with questions based on this; you were just acting as if nobody had said anything worth listening to.

After you'd done this a few times, then you started getting ruder replies. At least then you gave responses that indicated you had read them!

If you will, here is an absurd rendering of the impression these exchanges left on those who have some knowledge of the ideas you were using:

P1 - If we apricot the purple, doesn't this lead to a new life form? Aren't we omnibenevolent gods with our quantum beakers?

P2 - I don't quite follow what you are saying. Could you explain in clear English? An apricot is a fruit; the word is not a verb. Purple is generally a colour; are you using it to refer to something else? Without knowing what you mean here, it is hard to answer the question as to whether this leads to a new life form, but I would guess not.

As to whether we are gods, that isn't really a science question. I would question whether we are omnibenevolent! As to quantum beakers, I don't think you understand what quantum means. Have a read of the linked articles and, if you still want to ask your question, try to make it clearer.

P1 - But I think the quantum beakers make the purple apricotted. This leads to DNA, which is quantum, so we are omnibenevolent.

Obviously, absurd. But notice how P1's reply fails to learn from the help given by P2? How it gives no impression of having read what P2 said at all? 80.41.126.158 (talk) 02:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

You are a nut, friend (apricot the..?). This is a persons talk page. It is not for messages to me. ~ R.T.G 13:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

You don't read anything else anyone says - so I doubt you'll have read the pretty peach-colored banner at the top of this talk page. SteveBaker (talk) 13:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Loook Steve, I am done with it. I didn't post "The if bit on left green for the blue." and I didn't post anything that couldn't be thought about. You want to beat me up a bit? Didn't I put the right particles in the accelerator this morning? Aw. If you were any good you would have both answered and restructured my original question or just left it alone/said very little. You weren't that good. end. ~ R.T.G 14:57, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

What you posted (and continue to post) is every bit as meaningless as "if bit on left green for the blue" - or "if we apricot the purple, doesn't this lead to a new life form?". Your latest question: "...it would have to be equal parts implosion (sorry, define that as equal parts shrinking internally), both internal and external elasticity, accounting for all angles of everything." - is every bit as meaningless as "apricot the purple". It's not just me saying this. Dauto, Abecedare, Consumed Crustacean, APL and Tempshill all said this of your last question, 80.41.126.158 and I said it above, and 98.217.14.211, Dauto and I said it of your previous post. That's EIGHT different people all telling you essentially what I'm telling you. Please listen. SteveBaker (talk) 17:55, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Steve, you say I am full of bullshit and then you go on to give someone a whole pamphlet worth of "Life can be extended through electronic memory banks". If I wasn't convinced you had made some fine ref desk additions before I would be convinced you are an idiot. It's a ghost, pal, give it up. The most respectable physicists theorise folding light years of space to travel. Don't tell me about meaningless ideas. If I find who put you in this mood I will have to thump them. lol ~ R.T.G 20:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

What if it's you? APL (talk) 20:49, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

Here is a new random kindness barnstar to show some thanks for your "help" on the Science Reference Desk. ~ R.T.G 13:50, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

The link is right here. If you think it was no personal attack, by all means, put it back in yourself I won't even discuss it. ~ R.T.G 18:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

		The Reference Desk Barnstar
		Thanks for helping me make my userbox!--Ye Olde Luke (talk) 00:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Easy on RTG

Steve - you're getting a bit hot under the collar in some of your responses to RTG. While it's obvious that he's deliberately goading you – and I've asked him to stop it in no uncertain terms – it would help if you didn't rise to the bait.

I'm not telling you not to correct errors in his responses, but you can be honestly, directly, clearly critical of his comments without attacking him. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll be happy to stop responding - but we can't let him feed his style of complete BS to our poor OP's. Errors have to be corrected and as promptly as possible. I'll work harder on limiting myself to correction of matters of fact - but as a community, we need to stop this particular brand of nonsense. SteveBaker (talk) 14:15, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, ...

I'm keeping this talk page on my watch list until you finally give in and tell us what happens "If we apricot the purple". I know you know. Stop holding out on us! APL (talk) 16:58, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

"if we apricot the purple" then "the witherings pond bifocal sweet." I thought everyone knew that. // BL \\ (talk) 23:33, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

That wasn't me! It was User:80.41.126.158 who mentioned that. I'm more a fan of Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. At least we have an article to explain that one! SteveBaker (talk) 23:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Apology

I've just returned to the reference desk talk page to review the thread about "victim", and seen your statement that you always intended the word as neutral. I see that I misread your intent all along (and I took your original response in a way that confirmed the misreading), and I now apologize.

--Anonymous, 01:57 UTC, June 17, 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.76.104.133 (talk) 01:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh - geez - it's OK. No apology needed...really. SteveBaker (talk) 02:05, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Dispute

Hey SteveBaker/archive15, I'm wondering if you could weigh in on this dispute between me and another editor:

It started here:

Talk:Sea_Shepherd_Conservation_Society#.22Violent.22_direct_action.3F

And spilled over here:

— NRen2k5^(TALK), 00:04, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Report the facts as they stand. Leave off the adjective. Let the facts speak for themselves. I do strongly agree that the word "violent" applies to what the Sea Shepherd does (also "dangerous" and "heavy-handed" and "counter-productive")...I just don't think we should use those terms here. Just make sure that all of their tactics are explained in the article...with references. Don't allow supporters to cover up the facts with flowery language - don't allow detractors to add opinion to the article. Make sure that as many notable, referenced facts as possible are listed. By all means refer to the TV series about them and explain what was documented there. Do not allow either supporters or detractors to add adjectives like "violent" or "non-violent". Allow our readers the privilage to make up their own minds. SteveBaker (talk) 13:31, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

		The Reference Desk Barnstar
		Thank you for answering my Earth as Time Keeper question on the Science Reference Desk! --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 03:52, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

upload life: copying and merging

Recently you wrote:

Being able to make copies of yourself is an interesting and difficult thing. If the computers involved are merely simulating a human brain using mathematical models of biological neurons - then there would probably be no way for your two copies to be merged back together again...so you couldn't (for example) have a copy go on vacation while the original stays home - then merge them back together again and have memories of both things...that (I think) makes it less interesting to make copies...

(I respond here because, intensely interesting though the subject is, it's not really a Ref Desk matter, and who ever reads Ref Desk archives anyway?)

Assume that each neuron is simulated as a function of a weighted sum of other neurons; let w[i,j] be the weight that neuron i assigns to the output of neuron j.

You have two parallel lists of neurons. For most pairs (i_A and i_B), if the separation has been brief, the input function has not diverged. Those pairs will be represented by a single neuron in the successor; but where its input neurons have diverged, adjust the input to be the average – that is, w[i,j] is replaced by two numbers, initially equal: w[i,j_A] = w[i,j_B] = w[i,j_old]/2

If the divergence is greater than this scheme assumes, you might instead have to start by 'clamping' the outermost neurons (those that interface with the world) and working inward. If this is possible at all, the new brain is twice as big as the old; unless there's a not-too-lossy way to prune it, you can only do this so many times! —Tamfang (talk) 14:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem is not with the weightings of the neurons - but their interconnectivity. The brain rewires itself continually. How do you merge such arbitarily rewired networks? SteveBaker (talk) 00:56, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Two names for the same thing: the weights table is a generalized adjacency matrix. Non-connection means zero weight. —Tamfang (talk) 05:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I suppose so...but I personally doubt that the way to merge two neurons that are in no way connected with the same two neurons that have a new and active connection would be to create a weak connection between them.

Huh? You wanna paraphrase that? (Or we can drop the subject, I don't mind) —Tamfang (talk) 22:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

But clearly we don't know enough about how brains work - (or how we'd desire them to work given the ability to tinker). It would be tough to estimate the "experience" of having your brain merged with a copy of yourself that has a somewhat different history, but I'm fairly sure that we'll find out sometime in the next 100 years! The good thing is that you can take a backup of yourself before the merge and if the consequences are confusion, splitting headaches and your sudden inability to perform lambda calculus on any expressions containing a '6' shortly afterwards...then you just revert to the last "known good" copy and lose a few hours of unpleasant memories. Of course, then you'll have forgotten that the merge didn't work and what the failure felt like! SteveBaker (talk) 12:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

You could save a record of the impaired version's visible behavior. —Tamfang (talk) 22:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello there...

Hi, Steve, Remember me ? I think you are being missed in this particular discussion... Drop in when you're free.... (before it goes into the archives)Rkr1991 (talk) 07:54, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

And your point is? Do we now have to make long, heartfelt formal apologies for making a mistake before falling on our swords? If so, then few here are innocent - if either you or Dmcq knew I was wrong then I should have been sternly corrected when I gave the incorrect answer - and not days later. I strongly suspect that you agreed with me in the original thread. Coming back with all of that ridiculous "neah-neah-ne-neah-neah" stuff days later is really inappropriate - and I'm certainly not going to feed that kind of behavior. Clearly the thread is answered - there is nothing for me to contribute there. SteveBaker (talk) 10:22, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

No. My point is not to say neah neah ne neah neah to you. That's already been done. Not by me. The questions raised further referred to you, and I had to say something about your opinion. I was waiting for you to either correct me, agree with me, or at least make a post in a discussion in which you were very much involved in. Please don't mistake me or think that I'm childish. I just thought you would have to say something which shuts everybody up. And thank you for answering my original post.. And a few other ones as well... You're something like a guide to me. I would never want to ridicule anyone, let alone you. Granted, some of us were trying to be funny, but no need to be upset about that. I'm sorry if I ever crossed the line at someplace. I just thought you would say something like you always come up with bin discussions, somehow proving that you were always right... That's your reputation.. Anyway, Thanks again for all your help... Rkr1991 (talk) 11:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

If there was something that proved I was right - I'd have pounced and shredded the prior discussion - but there isn't - so I didn't. The RD isn't a competition with winners and losers - it's an effort to establish "The Truth". That being done, nothing remains to be said. SteveBaker (talk) 11:39, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok... I'm very new here, so I would appreciate if you would, in general, let me know when I'm doing something wrong... I would be sure to take it in the right spirit... Rkr1991 (talk) 12:48, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

It's OK - you didn't do anything wrong. SteveBaker (talk) 15:56, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

X-ray background radiation

What lead you to believe that question asking if Wikipedia article statement is true/correct could be homework question??? And, that is unrelated, but where in the world topic of X-ray background radiation are taught in schools? Vitall (talk) 03:59, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

You have ruined WP:RD/MISC

Resolved

See headline. You may want to self-revert before someone complains. Ooops, too late :). Regards, decltype (talk) 01:22, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

It looks like someone already fixed it...but I didn't do a thing wrong! I hit the [edit] widget next to that question heading - added a paragraph with no fancy markup whatever and hit "Save page". There was about a 10 minute delay between hitting edit and hitting Save page - but nothing that should have wiped the entire page. There is absolutely nothing you can do that'll kill the ENTIRE page when you hit 'edit' on just one section. It seems to have erased all of the sections EXCEPT that one. Weird! Anyway - when something that drastic happens again - for chrissakes don't politely wait for someone to fix it! Hit that 'rollback' button ASAP! SteveBaker (talk) 01:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm..that sounds really weird. Anyway, I would have fixed it very, very shortly, but I see your point. Regards, decltype (talk) 01:50, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for this edit. I haven't had such a good, genuine laugh in a while. 152.16.59.190 (talk) 04:52, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

What's the deal?

Hi Steve,

It feels to me like for some reason you’ve been slapping pretty hard at my ref desk posts lately[1] [2] [3]

The second of those was indeed my mistake – I fell into doing exactly what the troll was hoping for. And on the third of those, I probably should have at least refined my ideas to be considerably more rigorous before presenting them, although it would have been more civil of you to simply politely point out whatever weaknesses you saw in my ideas, instead of using the word “bullshit” three times, including once in all caps with an exclamation mark.

However, I would feel considerably less demoralized, and more like continuing to hang out at the ref desk, if you would at least admit that your first attack on my post listed above was completely unwarranted, as it was based on an incomplete reading of my post, as I pointed out in my response to your attack.[4]

If after rereading my first post that you attacked, you don’t see how your attack was based on assuming I was saying something that was broader that what I actually said, then just forget I brought it up. Red Act (talk) 18:48, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I didn't even notice that it was the same person making all of those posts...however, they were all pretty poor answers - I think it's just coincidental that they all happened to be yours. You can't cover up a vague, fuzzy problem by using a lot of words like "Axiom" and "Definition" - it really sounds pretentious - more so for being quite utterly wrong. Whatever made you even THINK of writing down the idea that shorter answers are somehow less difficult than long ones? It doesn't take but a moment to think of hard questions with short answers and easy questions with really long answers. If you'd stopped for even a moment to think - you should have realised that. The result is just a mess that's (a) not true and (b) pretty amazingly useless to the OP. The first of the three examples you brought up was also a poor answer - but perhaps I did misread it a little. If I had realised that you were only talking about Yes/No types of question then I would still have complained about your answer - but I should perhaps have responded that this is a useless way to answer a question about difficult-answers in general because it completely fails to cover the tough case of answers that might require an infinite amount of time just to write out ("What is the exact numerical value of PI?"). But your idea that all "Yes/No" questions can be answered easily by just giving both "Yes" and "No" as answers is completely USELESS as a response - it doesn't get us any closer to understanding what the hardest questions to answer correctly are - and it completely omits to explain how you'd respond to questions requiring unlimited answers...your concept of giving all possible answers - and thereby providing the correct answer in with a bunch of garbage doesn't solve a thing in the case of non-Yes/No questions. You would need an infinity of answers in order to answer "What is 2+2" using your approach. So simplifying the problem to "Yes/No" questions doesn't progress the debate in any way - it just unnecessarily confuses the issue. Quite why you decided to make the answering mechanisms be computer programs baffles me...that adds nothing whatever to the position you're trying to push - it simply confuses things still more. But the point remains - your approach was completely un-helpful. If you can't answer a question completely coherently - don't bother to answer it because no answer is better than a confusing answer. SteveBaker (talk) 22:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I’m greatly saddened that you have responded in such a way that makes me feel that I need to spend time to respond to you in defense of myself, and of my posts, in order to gain sufficient respect from you that I can hopefully make posts on the ref desks without you attacking my posts in an unwarranted manner in the future. I enjoy trying to help people on the ref desks find answers that will help satisfy their intellectual curiosity, but having to deal with interpersonal political issues is far from enjoyable to me. Unfortunately, it’s feeling like a defensive post here may well be necessary to prevent further unwarranted attacks, in order for me to comfortably continue to hang out at the ref desks. So here goes:

First of all, what’s with still more attacks on that definition of a question’s “difficulty”? If you’ll look at the time stamps on this post[5] and this post[6], you’ll see that I discarded that admittedly weak definition of “difficulty” 2 hours and 31 minutes before your first attack on that definition. By my count, you have now posted a total of at least 17 sentences attacking an idea that was quickly discarded by its author shortly after it was originally posted. You have spent an awful lot of time flogging a very dead horse. Why?

I’ll tackle your current criticisms of my first post (this one) in pieces:

Your current criticism of that post begins “this is a useless way to answer a question about difficult-answers in general because it completely fails to cover the tough case of answers that might require an infinite amount of time just to write out ("What is the exact numerical value of PI?").” Uh, reread my post, again. The third paragraph of my post not only gives an example of a question that is impossible to answer due to physical constraints, but the example I give involves writing an impossibly large number of digits of pi. My post is doing exactly the kind of thing that you’re complaining that it needs to do in order to not be “useless”.

Continuing on, your criticism reads “But your idea that all "Yes/No" questions can be answered easily by just giving both "Yes" and "No" as answers is completely USELESS as a response - it doesn't get us any closer to understanding what the hardest questions to answer correctly are –…” Yes it does. The way it does so is by eliminating, or at least arguably eliminating, a large portion of the questions that had been proposed by previous posters, namely “Does God exist?”, “Are we alone in the universe?”, “Do the dead like strawberry jam?”, “Is Bono a cunt?”, “Is ZFC consistent?”, “Can this theorem (meaning an Gödel sentence) be proven?” and “Is the continuum hypothesis true?”.

Perhaps your objection is that considering Yes/No questions to be easily solved this way is trivializing the problem, but that’s part of my point in this post. My post starts off with “You have to be very precise by what you mean with a question like this”. The OP asked the question about the “most difficult question to answer” in an unsophisticated, childlike way. A major purpose of my post was to help encourage the OP to begin to think about this problem in a more rigorous, sophisticated way. One early, important consideration to think about when trying to make the question rigorous is what does it mean for a question to be “easy” or “difficult” to answer? That is not a trivial question to answer, and the second paragraph in my post helps to illustrate the difficulty with defining a questions “difficulty”.

The approach I’m taking with Yes/No questions, by the way, is consistent with the way an individual yes/no question would be handled in computability theory and computational complexity theory. A huge portion of computability theory is existence proofs – you’re given a description of some decision problem or some function problem, and you’re required to prove that an algorithm that meets that description exists (or sometimes, does not exist). One day in my grad-level computability theory class, the prof wrote the sentence “Does God exist?” on the chalkboard, and said “Today, I’m going to prove that there exists an algorithm that correctly answers this question.”, and proceeded to prove that there existed an algorithm (a recursive function, to be more precise) that basically always returned the equivalent of “yes”, prove that there existed a different recursive function that always answered the equivalent of “no”, and then prove rigorously that regardless of the value of the Boolean variable that represented whether God existed, an algorithm existed that produced that value. (The Boolean variable was not an input to the two recursive functions; the two recursive functions used no input parameters.) I have a vague memory that that proof was also in the textbook, but I might just be the prof’s class notes that I’m thinking of. I don’t know whether that line of thinking is considered valid in all philosophy of mathematics schools of thought, but my prof thought it was perfectly rigorous. And if it was good enough for my prof, I consider it good enough for using here.

As I recall, in my class, my impression was that at least part of the reason my prof did the “Does God exist” proof was basically as a motivator, so we could see why decision problems and function problems are defined such that they answer a whole class of questions, rather than just answering one question. From the perspective of computability theory or computational complexity theory, individual, unparameterized questions just tend to be too easy to answer to result in a useful theory. That’s one possible way to express the thesis of my second paragraph.

Your criticism continues “…- and it completely omits to explain how you'd respond to questions requiring unlimited answers...your concept of giving all possible answers -…” First of all, why are you continuing to demand that the second paragraph of my post must address all possible questions? As I keep having to point out[7], the second sentence of that paragraph very clearly temporarily limits the topic of discussion to a limited set of questions, and says absolutely nothing at all about any questions outside of that set. There is no claim anywhere that there do not exist questions outside of that limited set. The second paragraph begins “Even if the original question is modified to ‘What is the most difficult question to answer correctly?’, many questions that the poster might be thinking about are likely to be unintentionally easy to answer correctly.” Considering the Yes/No questions, which includes many of the proposed “most difficult” questions, is plenty sufficient to illustrate that point. In fact, it would have been sufficient in that paragraph to just consider one single yes/no question to illustrate that point, like my prof did with the “Does God exist?” question.

Secondly, the “…your concept of giving all possible answers…” portion of this criticism is referring to a post I made on July 13. I made the post we are discussing on July 11. So your criticism is basically that on July 11, I failed to predict an idea I would have two days later, and based on that prediction, broaden the scope of questions considered in my second paragraph, to be broad enough to help provide support for that idea that I would have two days later. A, requiring that posters have precognition is asking for a lot, and B, how does a failure to predict my idea that I would have on the 13th in any way make this post on the 11th less valid?

The criticism continues “and thereby providing the correct answer in with a bunch of garbage doesn't solve a thing in the case of non-Yes/No questions”. Again, my second paragraph makes no attempts whatsoever to address non-Yes/No questions. I’m only discussing a limited set of questions in my second paragraph.

The criticism continues “You would need an infinity of answers in order to answer ‘What is 2+2’ using your approach. So simplifying the problem to ‘Yes/No’ questions doesn't progress the debate in any way - it just unnecessarily confuses the issue.” Again, my second paragraph makes no attempts to address non-Yes/No questions at all. I made no attempts at all to address the set of all questions, until two days after I made this post.

The criticism continues “Quite why you decided to make the answering mechanisms be computer programs baffles me...that adds nothing whatever to the position you're trying to push - it simply confuses things still more.” How would it be possible to even attempt to have any serious formal treatment of the difficulty of “questions” being “answered”, without having some kind of formal model of “answering” a “question”? What do you propose is an appropriate model for whatever it is that provides the answer? A Turing machine? Recursive functions? The lambda calculus? As per the Church-Turing thesis, all those things are equivalent. Or do answers have to be hand-written or spoken by a human? Humans make for a rather messy, vague, formal model, although that would at least help make the concept of “difficulty” of a question fit well with the OP’s intuition of question “difficulty”.

The criticism finally finishes “But the point remains - your approach was completely un-helpful. If you can't answer a question completely coherently - don't bother to answer it because no answer is better than a confusing answer”. Confusion is partially in the eye of the beholder. Just because you’re confused by a post, doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody else is.

It looks to me like at least part of the problem is that you aren’t reading my whole posts – it’s seeming like maybe you’re skimming parts of my posts, and then immediately launching into a criticism based on what you think the post said, without making sure that you’re actually getting the whole picture. Please read my entire posts before criticizing them. Red Act (talk) 19:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Twaddle

Thank you for this edit, it gave me a good laugh and is right on the money. Too many myths surround bicycle mechanics, and our article on the subject is excellent. — QuantumEleven 07:37, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

4-way-stop

You seem to think they are lethal. Remembering what it was like to drive in Dallas I think I know why. You see, there's another rule of who goes first that you didn't mention: The guy or gal with the biggest/most rugged/hunkiest car goes first. (Usually no matter when they arrived or what direction they are turning.) In a pickup you go first unless there's a big rig or a hunkier model at another stop. A Corvette would outgun a limo or a Sedan but would wait for most SUVs. I'd muscle my old Olds in before a compact or small sports car. Since you seem to drive small cars I can imagine what that can be like. (I made the grave error of trying to bicycle in Cedar Hill TX once. I survived - barely. We had moved from a small town in Calif. where drivers don't actively aim to run over people on a bike.) I don't know a good solution, maybe revving your engine a couple of times before you go is going to work. Otherwise you'd just have to wait till everyone else's gone.71.236.26.74 (talk) 21:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem isn't just the people who go when it's not their turn - there is the other class of people: When you are 50 feet from the line - they pull up on the opposite side of the junction and just sit there - even though there is nobody else waiting - and sit there until you pull up and stop...only then do they go. Presumably they have some idea that you aren't going to stop or something?!? I have no clue. But on relatively empty streets, that's a huge time waster. I really miss living in the UK and we had "mini roundabouts" - they serve the exact same function as 4-way stops - and could even replace many sets of traffic signals where the traffic is fairly light - but they are much safer and WAY more efficient. When there is no traffic around the roundabout - or if the only other vehicle is directly opposite you and you are going straight on, you don't even have to stop - you can sail right on through it...but it rather relies on people actually using their turn signals - which certainly wouldn't work in Texas. SteveBaker (talk) 23:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The other person in the room..

Hey! Don't forget Wikipedia:Civility#Engaging_in_incivility when engaging in discussions with people on the reference desk (no-matter how unlikely you find what they are saying). eg <quote>If our OP had a hope in hell of doing that - he wouldn't be asking WP:RD/S whether it's possible to modify a TV set to do it!</quote>

Wikipedia:Etiquette#Avoid_indirect_criticism.

also 'our OP' implies some sort of gang ownership, and doesn't read well.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

GPU stuff

Hi, can you direct me to links concerning the mathematical functions for which GPUs are optimized? I'd be grateful. Thanks.--Leon (talk) 18:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Refdesk Cold Case :

File:Insectivorous Plants Drew's copy.jpg

Reading about Venus Fly Traps this evening made me think about an outstanding mystery on the Reference desk. However, looking back, I can't help but think I must have been a bit thick.

Besides the strangely amateur layout on this scan that we all noticed before, something else struck me. The apostrophe after "Venus" is a vertical tick mark and not an apostrophe at all. A strange anomaly on a book allegedly 50 years old. Then I noticed that the double-quote at the end was also made of vertical tick marks.

Of course, a moment's thought made me wonder why there even was a double-quote at the end of the text. It's not paired with anything, and it's not in Darwin's original text.

My new theory is that this text was simply copy/pasted from where I quoted Darwin earlier in that thread. The quote mark at the end was sloppily left behind.

A little examination of the image shows me :

Pasting the text, (After modifying the critical sentence) into MS Word in Times New Roman at 14pt and default margins breaks up the lines and and justifies them exactly as shown in that image.
If I screenshot the text in MS Word, then resize it to 550x150 it matches the image pixel-perfect except for a minor variation in line spaces.
The strange triple space after "most wonderful in the world." should contain an asterisk. The asterisk is in the original text, but a hoaxer may have thought it was added later and removed it.
The text is exactly level, with subpixel-perfect accuracy. (Even the anti-aliasing is consistent across the whole line.)
The image has very heavy jpg compression. A common fudge for image forgers.

I'm now convinced that User:Drew_R._Smith was hoaxing us for some bizarre reason known only to himself. I'm not sure why I didn't come to this conclusion earlier. Either I was assuming good faith, or being stupid.

The whole thing had left me rather curious, so I thought I'd mention my revelation on the subject here in case you were wondering about it too.

APL (talk) 04:54, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

That's amazing! An awesome piece of detective-work. Now that I re-read the thread with this new information in hand, it does seem a bit odd that Drew conveniently didn't have the front page with the copyright stuff - and had conveniently taken it out of a library, thereby absolving himself of any need to tell us the circumstances under which he'd bought it. I think we'd already deduced that his "copy of the book" was incorrect. I didn't think to look at the scan in all that much detail - but it's now clear that the background is suspiciously evenly lit for a scan or a photo of a real book. But it seemed like Drew started out answering the thread with reasonable correctness - are we to believe that he so urgently didn't want to be called on such a minor matter of fact that he'd go to all that trouble?! It seems pretty excessive. But look at his Talk: page - it's one L-O-N-G litany of blocks and warnings and bad edits and all manner of other nastiness. He's playing the "someone else who lives in my house did it" defense - which is pretty old and tired and doesn't win you much sympathy from the admins. Sadly, I think we have to put the facts out onto his talk page so that the admins can judge this little fiasco. Falsifying evidence to back up a false claim is a pretty serious offense around here. SteveBaker (talk) 06:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but your wrong on this one. Its a perfect photo of my copy of the book. I can take some more photos, and even include myself in some of them if you'd like. - Drew Smith What I've done 08:38, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey Drew. Yes, if you could take some photos of your copy of the book (including one with it opened on the specific page and you pointing at the paragraph in question, the resolution of the image sufficient to discern the text), it would be incredibly helpful in clearing up this matter. Some of the observations here do sound quite plausible - yet it baffles me as to why someone would seriously go to such lengths to 'not be wrong on Wikipedia' when a simple "Oops, I must've been remembering it wrong" would've brought the issue to a close, soon to be forgotten by everyone. I can think of a few sites on interwebs where users sometimes go to ludicrous extremes so as not to be seen to lose face - but come on! Doing that in a minor, minor disagreement about the natural distribution of Venus Flytraps? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 19:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh. I hadn't considered it against the backdrop of Wikipedia as a whole; It was just an irritating mystery that I was glad to have come up with a good answer to.

I can see your point though. This is Wikipedia, if he fabricated evidence here, it doesn't bode well for Mr Smith's other contributions. APL (talk) 17:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Above is a 946% blowup of the upper left corner of Drew R. Smith's upload. The JPEG artifacting demonstrates evidence of digital manipulation. Someone attempted to erase the artifacting from left to right, but gave up on the first line. Probably because the editor didn't know how to reconcile that with the anti-aliasing and realized this would be a lot of labor. What's left is a pattern that never occurs without human intervention: heavy JPEG artifacting with specific unartifacted patches that go straight to the edges of the letters.

I have found partial support for Steve Baker's interpretation. Drew R. Smith, do you have an explanation for this? Durova³⁰⁶ 16:01, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Fwiw, there's an unusual featured picture where I did similar work. At Au Clair de la Lune the Library of Congress made the unusual decision to work in JPEG rather than in TIFF format. So the original File:Au Clair de la Lune children's book.jpg has a fair amount of JPEG artifacting. I corrected for that manually during restoration. Durova³⁰⁶ 16:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

There are a couple of other gaps like that. One of them is right at the missing asterisk, but there are others where you wouldn't expect to see any manipulation. (Under the word "plant" in your screenshot, for example.) I'm not sure I'd read too much into it. I don't know enough about the JPEG algorithm. Can these sorts of smooth spots happen during compression? APL (talk) 17:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually I've located additional evidence that demonstrates not only the presence of digital manipulation, but also argues strongly that Drew's upload was not a historic image. It'll take a while to prepare a full presentation. Will follow up when it's ready. Durova³⁰⁶ 17:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The seemingly blurred parts of the blown up image are characteristic of JPEG compression. JPEG divides the image into aligned 8×8 blocks and quantizes the high-frequency components of each one, which introduces high-frequency noise in blocks where the raw components are large enough to be quantized to a nonzero value and blurs blocks where they get quantized to zero. Here the quality setting is such that any block with a portion of a letter in it exceeds the quantization threshold and any block with no text doesn't. It would be an impossible coincidence for deliberate manipulation to so perfectly match the effect you'd expect from JPEG compression. I agree with the other reasons for suspicion, like the fact that the text is perfectly aligned despite supposedly being a scan, and apparently Drew Smith has confessed in any case, but the analysis in this subthread is wrong. The histogram argument below seems highly dubious also. -- BenRG (talk) 13:55, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, it hardly matters - but I agree that the simplest analysis is always the best - and User:APL's first observation that the lines of text are perfectly horizontal clinched it for me. Drew had claimed to have photographed the book with a camera...so right there, you knew there was a horrible problem. I kinda zoned out through the histogram discussion - but it's certainly hard to make statements about an image that's been lossily compressed - particularly if you don't know what software did the compression and what settings it was on at the time. Anyway, it's all water under the bridge at this point. SteveBaker (talk) 20:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Histograms, histograms

Actually it's necessary to revise the opinion above. The thing that had prompted this line of query was that Drew's text appeared to be yellowed but not faded. Actual historic documents don't just turn yellow over time; they fade in characteristic ways so that whites become light grays (or light yellows) and blacks become dark grays (or dark browns). So I recropped the screenshot above just enough to take out the window border and looked at its histogram in the red, blue, and green channels. For comparison I also cropped text segments from the unrestored versions of two historic featured pictures.

The basic issue is this: an image histogram of a historic image will lose data at the extreme ends of the range. This effect is pronounced in the Currier and Ives screenshot, less extensive but still present in the "Au Clair de la Lune" screenshot. On the Drew upload it is visible in only one of six possible places: the right side of the blue channel histogram.

Upon further consideration and consultation with the book Digital Restoration from Start to Finish (chapter four), there are a few questions that I'd like to send the direction of Shoemaker's Holiday.

Small portions of chapter four are available online through Google Books.[8] During initial preparation of this report it appeared highly unlikely that a historic scan could generate the tonal range of Drew's scan without the "picket fence" problem.

A demonstration of the picket fence problem from Histogram_equalization#Full-sized_image

An unequalized image	Corresponding histogram (red) and cumulative histogram (black)
The same image after histogram equalization	Corresponding histogram (red) and cumulative histogram (black)

A smooth histogram that runs to both ends of the range is normally characteristic of new images. Usually, historic material either suffers from fade or develops a "picket fence" histogram from image manipulation. Per pages 95-98 of Digital Restoration from Start to Finish, I am uncertain whether a 16 bit scan with misaligned manual settings could have generated Drew's results. Durova³⁰⁶ 18:27, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Cropped sample from Drew's scan. Window border was removed before histograms were sampled.
Histogram, red channel
Histogram, green channel
Histogram, blue channel

Caption from File:Currier and Ives Liberty.jpg.
Histogram, red channel
Histogram, green channel
Histogram, blue channel

Phrase from File:Au Clair de la Lune children's book.jpg.
Histogram, red channel
Histogram, green channel
Histogram, blue channel

I'm afraid the heavy JPEG artefacting is going to throw off such analysis badly. It's not impossible, however.

What is vey noticably wrong is the word "THIS": If the first word of a sentence begins in small caps, hence indicating the beginning of a chapter, that paragraph is never indented. (Compare [9]). Likewise, the HIS would normally be x-height or just slightly above x-height. The HIS here is much bigger than is plausible for the period. Secondly, "Droseraceae" - This would normally be Droseraceæ in contemporary sources - see, e.g. previous link. Finally, the sample given uses modern-style punctuation, which did not exist for decades after the Victorian period: Have a look at the semicolons. They are pushed up against the previous word. Now, compare to the scan from Darwin Online, or any other book from the period: A space is left between the punctuation and the word.

If this is an actual copy, I don't believe it could possibly be at all contemporary. Furthermore, Darwin Online has three different editions, and none of them show Drew's text. I believe these represent all editions published in Darwin's lifetime, so I'd require some bibliographic information before I'd believe Drew's claims. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 200 FCs served} 18:54, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

A request: Drew, could you do two things please?

Scan the entire page unedited, with the spine darkening showing? Preferably laying very lightly on the scanner so the text distorts toward the spine.
Provide the full publishing data for the edition?

Durova³⁰⁶ 19:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Drew has previously claimed that the page containing the copyright and publishing dates is mysteriously missing from his copy of the book. SteveBaker (talk) 19:15, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Drew

Thank you, I will look in to this right away. Prodego ^talk 00:31, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

TP-stalker note: Aside from those who confuse their cyber-reality with really-real-reality and start making phone calls to wiki-editors and their bosses and family (which is an extremely serious issue), within this little cosseted realm I can't imagine a more serious charge than suggesting that an editor has fabricated a "reliable source". We need to approach this carefully, allowing Drew good time to present a defence. Durova and Kurt above have made reasonable requests and we should allow time for these to be met. Absent a reasonable response, this moves to a "terminate with extreme prejudice" scenario - hence my extreme caution about jumping to any conclusions, since the consequence seems logically to be hey-heyy, goodbye. Franamax (talk) 00:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I would encourage that Drew be provided time to respond in full. Unless new problems occur there's no need to rush. Durova³⁰⁶ 01:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I basically restated your request Durova. Prodego ^talk 01:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Copy of Insectivorous Plants

I can get hold of a copy of the work in question (actually I think I can get my hands on both a first and a second edition copy but i highly doubt I would be allowed to put a scanner anywhere near either of them). If anyone really really wants me to I might have time to go and scan the relevant page. Viridae ^Talk 10:12, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

We've already estabished that my book is worng, so I'm not sure what good it would do, but if you really want to go ahead. - Drew Smith What I've done 10:24, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe your image comes from any edition of this book. Jehochman ^Talk 12:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Nor do I. Viridae ^Talk 12:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, the first evidence presented is quite convincing - and utterly damning. Forget all the fancy questions about jpeg compression (which are actually pretty damning too) - by far the most convincing evidence was in the first post about this - above. Vis:

The text is lined up PERFECTLY with the raster lines and shows no foreshortening artifacts from either the curvature of page near the spine nor of the inevitable artifacting you get when you try to correct for that. The odds of this being the case for someone doing a quick scan of an old book with a camera or a normal home/office scanner are near zero. Even the scans of the books made by Google are not that perfect with the text rising and falling by several pixels over the length of a line of text - and they have specialised equipment to photograph the pages when they are dead flat and carefully aligned.
If you type this text, verbatim into Microsoft Word with the font set to Times New Roman/14pt - with everything else defaulting to normal - you get exactly the word breaks and spacing that you see here. That's so astronomically unlikely to be a coincidence that we can effectively discount any other explanation than that Drew typed the text into Word, grabbed a screen shot and doctored it to make it look old.
The color of the background is incredibly even (although there are jpeg artifacts that make it appear less so). The natural fade of a real book - combined with the need to correct for page curl near the spine would never produce such uniformity.
Books of the time were printed with around 60 characters to a line - this one has about 80 characters to the line...you might argue that this is a much more recently printed copy - but then why would it have all of that yellowing of the page?
Many ref-desk folks went to the trouble to try to find other copies of Darwin's work that shows the same error - I personally checked a dozen web sites showing the text from many reprints - from a first edition onwards. Yesterday, I checked a modern paperback edition. I even found Darwin's original hand-written notes that he wrote the book from and there is no indication that he ever said that this plant came from anywhere other than South Carolina. Some of us even checked foreign language editions just to be sure.

The evidence is utterly overwhelming. Added to Drew's less-than-stellar history here at Wikipedia - the conclusion is also overwhelming. Distasteful though it is to say so - I have to conclude that what we have here is an editor who is falsifying claimed references - that's just about the most serious offense I can imagine within a community who are writing an encyclopedia. Even vandals can be easily tracked down and their errors uncovered by reference to source material...but here we're faced with an editor who would go to such lengths to avoid saying the word "Ooops!" that he'd forge a "photograph" of Charles Darwin's own book! That's incredible.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

For those of us merely reading these explanations, they have been fascinating and enlightening. Thank you to everyone who has participated, and an extra thanks to Steve for being the host. Does WP have an article on such matters? // BL \\ (talk) 19:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Policy violation

While your intentions may have been noble, your rash assessment of the situation has not only violated WP:AGF, but had the potential to decrease your status in the eyes of someone with a lesser degree of sensitivity for those who are probably good yet still make mistakes, as we all do. I therefor do not consider this particular instance of poor assessment to be representative of your general evaluatory skills. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 01:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Could we speak? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 12:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure, talk already! This is my talk page after all. If you prefer something more private - you can reach me by email via the "E-mail this user" link in the toolbox menu to the left here - or you can look on my user page, find the link to my web page and thereby find my email address directly. SteveBaker (talk) 18:18, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

No no, here's fine. It is my understanding that what occurred here may be exceedingly frustrating for you, yet really not so much at all for me, except until you marked me as "someone who's edits will hereafter be considered less than everyone else's." That being the case, it must be entirely based on intent -- my actual action should not have caused this much of a stir had you been able to delve into my psyche and comprehend my motives. But you can't, and so you assumed (with bad faith, might I add) that I meant anything more than a simple joke. That's all I meant. I did not mean to build support. I am as much able as you are to count the 'for' and 'against' comments in the discussion, and I saw that it was a losing battle. I only say that because that's how everyone else, including you, either implied or outright declared it. But I don't think it was a battle at all. I had no agenda. I was merely proposing something that, it turns out, the vast majority of people were against. I don't think that's a battle, and it didn't hurt my ego even one little bit that so many people said so many things to support maintaining the status quo. What did hurt me, on the other hand, was your attack. You may not have thought about it for even a second, but in the slight chance that anyone you ever flare up at doesn't actually intend to harm you or Wikipedia by what they did or said (as in this case), you become the belligerent. But by you having clout here (apparently everyone knows who you are) and me not (I first learned of the reference desks on Aug 10, when I made my first edit to them), you possess the potential...and the way it looks to me, it's no longer potential...to cast a shadow on my name so that it is taken with less credulity upon these pages forever. So it's not even that I did something wrong without knowing it. Is unintentional soapboxing without the hope of even attaining a positive outcome for myself had I known that what I did would be construed as soapboxing count as sinning against you and Wikipedia? I would say no. You may feel differently. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. It's just that throughout Wikipedia there is a 'glass wall' between 'Talk' and public-side pages that we're not supposed to cross. Our internal debates and bickering is supposed to be confined to the Talk page so that Joe Public doesn't have to see how the sausage is made unless they really want to! It's obvious to almost everyone that this unspoken rule applies in the case of articles - but it applies to the RD too. Debates ABOUT the RD belong on the Talk page and should stay there. We don't mind people being joking (within limits) in response to a question - but asking a question merely for the sake of humor is not allowed. Wikipedia (in general - not just the RD) frowns strongly on canvassing for "votes" - and whether you intended it that way or not makes no difference. Your original suggestion to create a new RD branch was obviously done in good faith - that was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. There would have been no problem if you hadn't crossed the 'glass wall' by continuing to push the point out onto the public-side page. That's massively inappropriate.

Asking for new RD branches happens quite a lot - and they are almost always turned down on the simple grounds that if you count up the actual number of questions asked on that topic - it would result in a branch of the RD that's hardly visited. Ironically, this would worsen the response rate to religious questions - not improve them. There have been a couple of times in the past when we've been pursuaded to spin off a new branch of the RD (the "History" desk being the most memorable). In every case, it's been a disaster...and a disaster that resulted in dozens of innocent people not having their questions answered. Hence there is a heck of a lot of skepticism surrounding the making of new desks. Bottom line is that you'd have to show that more religion questions were being asked each month than questions on the least busy of the other desks...and even then, the consensus is more likely to be "then we should shut down that desk" than "OK let's start another one".

If there was a large volume of questions from a wide variety of questioners on the existing desks - to the point that they were drowning out other questions over a protracted period of time (as happened with computer-related questions on the science desk) - would you stand a chance of getting a new desk created. I really can't see that happening.

But the bottom line is that there simply wasn't the consensus - and when it becomes clear that you're (a) vastly outnumbered and (b) failing to convince anyone to change their minds - then the only polite course of action is to say "Well, I can see I have no consensus - the proposal is hereby withdrawn." and you escape looking like the fair and reasonable person you undoubtedly are rather than an argumentative person who doesn't know when to quit.

Only if there are a bunch of people sitting on the fence should you continue to debate.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

		The Reference Desk Barnstar
		In appreciation of our personal Détente, both general and specific. DRosenbach ^{(Talk \| Contribs)} 21:18, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Texan?

Our loud friend over at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science accused you of being a Texan - and so does your own user page. I always had the impression that you actually lived in England - seems that I'm wrong. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:12, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Outrageous! I am in fact British (English) and remain a British Citizen - but I live in Texas as a 'permanent resident alien' (ie Legal immigrant with greencard, etc). So there is truth on both sides of the story. SteveBaker (talk) 21:33, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Aha! That clarifies things a bit. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Re

I hate to beat a dead horse, but does his new explanation make sense to you? It doesn't to me. It feels more like a jab at our "detective" skills. APL (talk) 15:21, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, he admits he did a bad thing. I'm inclined to let it drop there - with the previso that even the smallest infraction in the future will bring down fire, brimstone, etc. I'm not sure the admins feel similarly - they've had a lot more run-ins with this guy. SteveBaker (talk) 22:04, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was never trying to create trouble for Mr Smith anyway. APL (talk) 22:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Religion vs. religion bashing

Hey Steve. I was wondering if you'd be able to take a look at this. I'll bet you have at least a somewhat more polished and refined understanding of reference desk etiquette than I do, so perhaps you can direct and advise me on anything I did wrong here, what would have been a better way to respond if something I wrote is improper and what you think about the difference, for example, between Bugs making a baseball joke or reference almost everytime he responds (and I'm not complaining about him, just using it as an example) and me (not always and not with the intention of proselytizing) making reference to religion. Thanks. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm never a big fan of the Humanities RD...I don't hang out there. A small amount of humor is permissable on the RD's - but not in place of answering the question properly. The question was junk - the answer should have been "The terms of your question are too vague, you are asking for an opinion - and we're not supposed to give opinions - and it's an invitation to debate, which is not allowed here." - that's all that it needed. Not one of the answers that I saw there was remotely reasonable. But a lot of people on the humanities desks (yourself and BaseballBugs included) want to see every open ended question as a way to POV-push a religious answer - and that inevitably draws in other people (such as myself - if I bothered to go there) to justifiably complain about that. I'd encourage everyone there to take the question strictly on it's given terms - and answer it with fact that can be backed up with articles and references if needed. If you want to say that "The coming of Jesus" was the biggest event in world history - then you should provide proof that this is the case because it's not something you can back up with facts - and it's very unlikely to be the view of the majority of people in the world. Your personal opinions and beliefs count for nothing...less than nothing in fact. You have to be prepared to say (despite your personal opinion) that the coming of the Buddah was bigger if that's what the facts say. What the facts probably actually say is that all of this religion stuff is just so much bullshit and that the abiogenesis event that started life with the first self-replicating molecule and kicked evolution into action was the single biggest event in earth's history - and the big bang was the biggest in all of history. That's not an opinion (although a lot of religious nuts would have us believe that) - we have solid proof that these things happened - with referenceable material that meets Wikipedia's standards and avoids pseudoscience, OR and POV. However, this problem in endemic on the Humanities RD - which is why I don't go there...it drags down the standards of the rest of the RD and (IMHO) is often no better than Yahoo Answers...which is exactly what the replies to "The Biggest" read like. SteveBaker (talk) 09:35, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

To begin -- I didn't realize that I was supposed to look here for a response. Is that the way it goes, or just your way it goes? Anyway.

I want to ask you a question about this, because I can see you are pretty grounded. Why should someone believe in anything that they did not experience, such as the signing of the Magna Carta or the existence of Abraham Lincoln. Isn't it based an overwhelming evidence of first-hand testimony that became overwhelming second-hand testimony, and so on and so forth, until we are alive today and have pictures and stories and articles and log cabins and big top hat/beard costumes, etc. so much so that it's either 1) a ridiculously large hoax or 2) Abraham Lincoln really existed. So why can't religion be believed on evidence of testimony. Is it because you think, as did David Hume, that the evidence against the existence of miracles (defined here as 'apparent violations of nature') is so great that even human testimony, which accounts for the strongest evidence we have in modern courts of law, cannot even begin to counter it? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Some people prefer to keep talk page chat on one page - others prefer to bounce back between two or more pages. People who (like me) prefer to keep it in one place generally use a template like this to say so at the top of their Talk page:

NOTE: I know some people carry on conversations across two User talk pages. I find this ludicrous and unintuitive, and would much prefer to follow Wikipedia's recommendations (see How to keep a two-way conversation readable). Conversations started here will be continued here, while those I start on other users' pages will be continued there. If a user replies to a post of mine on this page, I will either cut/paste the text to their page, or (more likely) copy/paste from their page to this one and continue it here.

I don't want to get into a "why religion" debate - you're not going to convince me that god (or gods) are any more believable than the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. I'm not going to change your mind either. If I had to base my entire life on the firm belief that Abraham Lincoln existed or that the Magna Carta was indeed signed, I'd need a lot more proof of those events happening. However, since they aren't really all that important to my day-to-day life, I'm prepared to allow for relatively flaky evidence of them. If someone told me tomorrow that they'd discovered that the Magna Carta was a huge hoax created by Fred "Abe" Link-coln in 1945 - I would be surprised and amazed - but it wouldn't affect my day to day life one iota. People believe that NASA faked the moon landings - and there is more evidence for them than for the existance of Abe Lincoln. But God (or, indeed gods) are not like that. If there is a literally infinitely powerful being out there who demands these arbitary (and frankly, kinda self-centered) "worship" events - and threatens you with a literal infinity of horrible torture in "hell" if you don't obey his rules (some of which, to be perfectly honest, are kinda arbitary) - then that is clearly the most vital piece of information conceivable for running your life. You should immediately drop everything, repent every sin, dedicate your life to nothing short of 100% worship and support of his/her/its' demands. (It amazes me that religious people don't often do that! The most frequently shop-lifted book in the USA is the Bible!) But before I'd consider doing such a drastic thing - I'd need some pretty amazing evidence...and there isn't any. Not one scrap. There are an infinite number of things I could choose to believe in that have the same amount of evidence as the existance of god/gods - why would I choose this one?

You asked: "even human testimony, which accounts for the strongest evidence we have in modern courts of law, cannot even begin to counter it?" - Testimony in a court of law disallows "hearsay" evidence - it's no good saying that "God exists because the bible says so" or "because my parents said so" or "because my priest said so" - that's inadmissible evidence. To meet the standards of the law, you'd have to have personally met god - and most people don't claim that. However, a few undoubtedly do - and that would meet the standards of evidence in a court of law. But in law, we aren't required to believe witnesses - they lie - they forget things - they embellish the truth. Let's examine your standards for accepting people's claims: Why don't you believe in UFO's? (or perhaps you do?) The evidence is just as compelling if you believe the claims of fellow humans who claim to have been taken aboard UFO's and such. You probably think the people who claim that kind of stuff are mentally deranged - but that's pretty much the degree of acceptance I have of your views of religion...I think you're crazy/deluded/indoctrinated! If you accept UFO's - then how about Auras? What about the Time Cube? How do you decide which humans to believe when they tell us that God(s) exist? You seem to be accepting the claims of people who believe in the same religion as you - but there is equally strong testimony about the existance of Mazu in southern parts of China. Why should I accept YOUR version? It's much more likely that everyone who claims to have met god/gods is lying/deluded/whatever than it is that one small group is telling the truth and all of the others are lying. If your sole evidence is what other people say - then you can't come to any conclusion beyond that so many of them MUST be lying that in all probability, they all are.

No - it's really clear that human opinion/claims/testimony cannot be trusted in this matter - your statement is demonstrably bogus.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

African plate

The article is not clear with the motions. I've ask the science desk and nobody answer it. I'm not certain if Africa plate is moving north or not. Scotese's site said Africa is continue to move north, but the slide show say African plate is not moving at all. The which place is Africa moving? The article said in 150 MY South Africa will be up at equator.--209.129.85.4 (talk) 20:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't have an answer when you asked it on the science desk - what makes you think I'll have an answer now? SteveBaker (talk) 21:08, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I thought you'll know oops!--209.129.85.4 (talk) 21:23, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Planet Color Guy

Steve, our Planet Color Guy friend from the Ref Desk came up on WT:RD over the weekend, and your past interactions were referenced. I've raised the question of whether he ought to continue to have editing privileges, and as you've dealt with him before, your input would be appreciated. — Lomn 18:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

it's and its

No need to be a prick

Barnstar

Thanks!

Easy on RTG

Incidentally, ...

Apology

Dispute

Thanks!

upload life: copying and merging

Hello there...

X-ray background radiation

You have ruined WP:RD/MISC

Thank you

What's the deal?

Twaddle

4-way-stop

The other person in the room..

GPU stuff

Refdesk Cold Case :

Histograms, histograms

Drew

Other questions

Copy of Insectivorous Plants

Policy violation

Texan?

Re

Religion vs. religion bashing

African plate

Planet Color Guy