User talk:Atlant/Archive 2

This is an archive of my Talk page from August, 2005 through mid-January, 2006. Note that the several inter-related ACLU discussions from the time period are now in User talk:Atlant/Archive 3.

The current page is, of course, located at User talk:Atlant, as per usual.

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Mary Poppins

From the Category:Children's films description:

This page is devoted to films, both animated and live-action, created exclusively for young audiences.

Since Mary Poppins, like most of the films Walt Disney himself made, was a family film and not exclusiveley a children's film, it doesn't belong in that category. It's already in Category:Fantasy films where it belongs. --FuriousFreddy 21:48, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Director template

You dropped in to my Talk page to offer your support for director template. Thanks, I thought I was the only one. Maybe you would like to comment on Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Lynch which is currently up for deletion. --Commander Keane 06:53, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Centronics

Thanks for the updates to the Centronics page. I couldn't quite figure out how to put that image in the right place, but now that I see, I fixed it on some of the sister pages. The old guys around here mention this stuff from time to time and I've been wanting to get some type of history up before it gets lost. I added a micro ribbon page similar to to the D-subminiature page- IMHO this is where the connector illustrations belong.

Gadget850 16:15, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

You're entirely welcome -- thanks for straightening out the "protocol vs. company" stuff!

I spent quite a few happy hours listening to the "Zing...." of Centronics printers printing source code listings and still drive by what used to be the old Centronics plant now-and-again on my way to errands.

Atlant 16:37, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Apple Computer

Regarding [1]: why do you feel the links as presented are correct, while my single link was incorrect? The only difference I can see is that giving two links provides the reader with a pointless link to the state. Personally I'm a strong advocate of making links that are relevant to the context. That Apple is based in Cupertino is relevant. That it is therefore also based in California doesn't seem to be. JRM · Talk 22:25, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

It's not a pointless link, it's a link to the state, and the user can choose whether they'd like to browse their way specifically to Cupertino or to the larger topic of California. Given that somebody took the time to do it the more-difficult way, you should leave it that way.

Atlant 23:34, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Interesting approach. I cannot agree with the reasoning that, since someone spent time doing it "difficultly", we should therefore leave it alone; edits should be judged on their own merits, not the amount of effort somebody put into them. By the same token you're saying that my edit is inferior because it's "simpler". This criterion is not tenable.

Of course, the last thing I'm interested in is a discussion on whether there should be one link or two... There are more sensible ways to spend one's time. So everyone who visits California from Apple Computers has you to thank that it's still possible. JRM · Talk 06:14, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

No, I'd say your edit is inferior because it's clearly less functional than what was there before. So you spent valuable time decreasing the functionality of the article. You could get a job in TV broadcast news. :-)

Atlant 14:18, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, I see it now... I will try to make my edits more functional in the future!
Kidding, of course. You think it's more functional, the original contributor apparently did too, I think it's not... Potayto, potahto. Oh, and can I use you as a reference if I ever apply for anchorman? :-) JRM · Talk 15:10, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and can I use you as a reference if I ever apply for anchorman? :-)

But of course!

Atlant 15:16, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

IDRIVE

Thank you for your support of This week's Improvement Drive. This week Spice trade was selected to be improved to featured article status. Hope you can help…

A Thank You!

Thanks for getting Linac squared away. Good move! You beat me to it, as one month ago I did not know how to do it. Much thanks and best regards. You need a barnstar LOL Scotty

Thank you for the kind words!

Atlant 20:21, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Welcome.....Brother Scotty

Hokusai image

Thanks for reverting that. I was going to do it later, but was perhaps being overly cautious and left the anon a message on their talk page (does that even do anything for anons?) asking them to explain why. They seem new, so they might not know to fill in the reason box yet.

Looking at the image in question, it looks more chinese in style. It has the overall golden coloration that I find odd for Ukiyo-e...but I also agree the attribution says it comes from a site of Ukiyo-e images. Hopefully if the anon feels strongly about it being added again they can explain why it doesn't fit. :) --Syrthiss 17:49, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, assuming that they don't do something to change their IP address, anons can create user pages and can read what gets posted at the talk page associated with their current IP address. Whether an anon knows to read their pages is, of course, another question, but I think they get the same "You have new messages" message that registered users get when their personal talk pages are modified.

Hopefully if the anon feels strongly about it being added again they can explain why it doesn't fit.

Right. That's all I ask for, and if a good reason is given, then I'll certainly assume that the editor knows more about the topic than I do (which, in this case, is quite likely). But simply coming along and doing a drive-by deletion from an article is a very common behavior of true vandals, so I mostly-always revert such things with the message that I posted. Serious editors simply come back and do it again, telling me why I'm wrong. :-) And that's fine by me. ;-)

Atlant 17:58, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Looks like I was partly right. He edited more, putting it in its own box as painting on silk (the golden coloration I noted)...which would make it not Ukiyo-e I guess. (?) --Syrthiss 13:36, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that. And we're definitely into that knowledge-domain where I will defer to my betters!

Atlant 14:51, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I attempted to ask my old professor of Japanese Art History from college (whose dissertation was on Hokusai) about the image in question, but he has either retired or passed away. His colleage who responded to my email is a professor of Chinese Art, and said it looked Japanese to him but that it wasn't good enough quality for him to read who it was signed by. I guess my suspicion was unfounded, that the webpage it was found on was mislabeling it as Hokusai when it was Chinese in origin. --Syrthiss 14:53, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Deployment

Thank you for fixing this "deployement" thing, I was just too lazy to do it... nice thing you came around ! Rama 12:33, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I always worry about stuff like this because I don't know the British English spelling of every word and I wondered if "deployement" might have been an example of that. But when I started seeing comments in the articles stating that this was a known miss-spelling and that some of the articles were already using "Deployment" and thereby failing to display correctly, I kinda figured I was on the right track. :-)

And thanks for your kind words!

Atlant 12:40, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

image copyright tags

Atlant, you need to release your images for commercial use, otherwise they will have to be deleted. I suggest you either adopt the GFDL, or if you want something a bit clearer and simpler, use a creative commons licence. You must allow downstream commercial use and modification. You can force downstream users to credit you and share alike, however. See image copyright tags for more information. Dunc|☺ 11:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks -- I'll look into that and make the appropriate changes!

Atlant 11:03, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I made changes. Will this do?

Atlant 11:18, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, cc-by-2.5 is fine. Dunc|☺ 12:36, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!

Atlant 12:36, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Pré-salé

Re: your edit to Mont Saint Michel - is not pre-salted a mistaken or jocular translation of pré-salé? Man vyi 13:19, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's jocular. Allegedly, the mutton or lamb harvested from the sheep that graze on those salt flats is, in fact, saltier ("pre-salted") compared to ordinary sheep. But feel free to revert me if you wish.

Atlant 16:09, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, one of the modern reasons for setting the sheep to graze in the salt marshes is for the flavour of the meat. I wondered whether non-Francophone readers might not get the joke, so thanks for your agreement to revert. I'll have a think if there's a way to salt up the text without being misleading. Man vyi 16:30, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll have a think if there's a way to salt up the text...

:-)

Atlant 16:33, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Barnstar

Thanks! It's a dirty job... --GraemeL ^(talk) 16:29, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

You're entirely welcome.

Atlant 16:30, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Picture

There is now a missing image in Fairbanks-Morse. I believe you know where the replacement is. -- RHaworth 18:32:41, 2005-08-26 (UTC)

Oops! Sorry 'bout that -- fixed now. Thanks for calling it to my attention!

Atlant 18:45, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Highland Games photo

Very nice caber toss image for the Highland Games article! I thought it was better than mine from Tacoma, so I removed my own.

I am in the process of creating a photo library on the Commons related to Highland Games activities (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Highland_games). If you have any photos you would like to contribute, they would be more than welcome.

I am also the founder and admin for the Highland Games wikicities (http://highlandgames.wikicities.com). There are several photo galleries listed on the Main Page. Again, if you would like to contribute to the Highland Games wikicities, photos or otherwise, your contributions would be greatly appreciated.

JFPerry 15:07, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Gee, I though your photo and my made a nice counterpoint to each other, with the two photos showing different phases of a toss! :-)

But I have photos from at least several years of the NH Highland Games from when they were done at Loon Mountain; the photos cover most of the heavy athletic events there certainly including the caber toss and probably including the stone carry, weight toss, and sheaf toss. I'll take a look and see which of my photos are "presentable". If I can't decide, perhaps I'll just zip up the lot of them and let you decide; you'd be welcome to use any of them anywhere you wanted on Wiki.

Atlant 13:57, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Comments requested

Hi Atlant, Noticed you were on. Wouldnt mind some comments from you on my input to Talk:Operational amplifier when you have some time! Light current 12:53, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Sure! But if it requires deep thought (Deep Thought?), it will be later in the day.

Atlant 12:57, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - any thoughts (deep or not) will be most gratefully received! Light current 13:16, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Earth article, first sentence

I agree that my wording was incorrect. How about "third closest" or "third-closest" planet? And why did you remove the link to planet? I will fix the planet link and wait for a reply. 4.255.42.26 23:49, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Either "third closest" or "third-closest" would be fine by me. And if the link to planet was removed, it only happened as a result of reverting the other change; there was no intent there on my part; sorry!

Atlant 11:22, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Red alert

You reverted my edits to Red alert stating that piping makes it easier to read. I think piping makes it harder to find the place you want to go to, and extra wikilinks further comlplicate the article's goal - to disambiguate. The Manual of style agrees, take a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). --Commander Keane 03:21, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

That's okay, in a few months, the MoS will give diametrically-opposite advice. Wiki's style guide is as volatile as any hot political article.

Atlant 12:39, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Pictures of transformer windings

Hi, Atlant. I remeber seeing you refer to some pictures of the internals of power transformers and linking them. Cant find them now. Can you let me know how to get at them?? THanks --Light current 17:16, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Here: Talk:Transformer#Poly Phase Transformer.

Atlant 17:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

DEC HQ spellings

Chambers 20th C, which is usually fairly good on US spellings, makes no mention of the 2 (wool(l)en, plurality of HQ ) you've made - but it's your company :-) . Now can we have 'nationalisation' back... Linuxlad 19:13, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

For once, I didn't have a dictionary handy (let alone the two or three that I often have at hand) so I polled Google and "woolen" won over "woollen", and also seemed to be the U.S.-biased version as compared to "woollen" which seemed to be U.K.-biased. But I don't feel strongly about this particular spelling in any case.

And with regard to "nationalisation", as far as I'm concerned, you can have this whole country back, not that you're likely to want it in its current rather-damaged condition. I can learn to spell everything with an "s" instead of a "zed" or with that extra "u". :-)

Atlant 13:29, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Boston, Massachusetts - critique needed

I placed the article for peer review and someone has mentioned a problem with the economy section (too much mention of companies outside Boston city limits). I was wondering if you could be able to write a better overview of the economy within the city of Boston as well as include a list of Boston-based companies. Thanks. Pentawing 02:45, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your confidence in me, but I'm not sure I'm a sufficiently-informed source. Still, time permitting, I'll be glad to do what I can to help!

Atlant 12:34, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that I have fixed up the economy section. At the moment, I think the article is close to featured status. However, I still need someone to look over the entire article to make sure that nothing is missed. Pentawing 01:48, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I nominated the article for featured status, but I am running into some problems. If you have the chance, can you look over the article and comment on it? Thanks. Pentawing 04:13, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Request/invitation

As I've had spare time, I've been trying my best to improve the Central processing unit article from what it was to something that I could called a "respectable article on CPUs" with a straight face. Since you obviously are much more knowledgable of DEC minicomputers and probably pre-microelectronic computers in general than I, I'd appreciate any input or assistance you could provide with this article. Since I'm pretty much the only person who has seemed to take an interest in improving this article, I'm worried that it slants too much to my own perspective. As you have extra time, if you could just provide any input, additions, or edits to what I've done so far, I'd be very grateful! -- uberpenguin 17:11, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for inviting me! I would love to contribute, and I will try if I can. But I must warn you that I'm in the middle of a very busy time at work so I may not be able to do much right now.

and probably pre-microelectronic computers in general than I

Wow! Suddenly I feel old! :-) Just FYI, my first training on actual computer hardware was the TTL SSI ('TI '7400 logic) stuff embodying the PDP-8/I and 8/L (and pretty much the same generation of logic in the 8/E/F/M). But I did have some experience with the older discrete-transistor modules that we used for the "Straight 8" as well. (They were also very common in the older I/O adapters that were still interoperable with the 8/I and 8/E/F/M.) But if you start suggesting that I worked on vacuum tube computers, I may have to report you to the WikiPolice for civility violations ;-). We had several big pieces of Whirlwind at Digital, a logic rack in the entrance to Building 10 at the Mill and a (4KW?) memory rack in Marlboro, but they were passe well before my time.

Atlant 11:50, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"Instantiated" is the correct word for "Creating an instance".

Not precisely or even generally, according to any English dictionary that I've checked. But I did eventually find a technical reference that supports the use of the word in programming jargon. Thanks. --Craig (t|c) 13:17, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

We computer people just make it up as we go along. But trust me on this: if you want to be admitted to the club of computer cognascenti, you'll have to learn the "instantiated" secret handshake and say it often. :-) Sad, but true.

See also: Instantiation, Instance

Atlant 14:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I did see the first link before my edit and tried to see the connection, but couldn't. I guess I'm doomed to be one of the computer illiterati forever. :) --Craig (t|c) 04:47, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Merge on voltage regulator

Hi. As you probably have noticed, it has been suggested again to merge voltage regulator with voltage regulator module. This time, I suggest to collect some opinions in the talk page before removing the merge tag (and possibly add a note in the pages saying what is the difference). Otherwise, it is likely that the merge will be proposed again. Do you agree? (you can answer here). Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 14:40, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Tony Blair pagemove vandal

Thats all. ;) --Syrthiss 15:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!

Atlant 15:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject Macintosh

I have started a WikiProject that aims to improve all Apple Macintosh related articles to featured article standard. The project is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Macintosh, I hope you are interested in becoming a participant in the project to improve hundreds of articles in a group of valuable Wikipedians. Thanks! — Wackymacs 12:03, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Portal:Mythology

I'm not entirely up on the rules of this, and given your apparently clean record compared to an unknown IP number you are probably in the right (certainly he/she has no right to call you a "vandal"), but what exactly is the big problem with the little link they keep adding to bottom the Mythology article? elvenscout742 21:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The person I reverted also deleted a huge swath of the article in making their edit; check the history. I accept that it was probably inadvertent. I have no opinion on the "portal" question and that played no part in my decision to revert them.

Atlant 13:03, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh. Sorry, didn't notice that. elvenscout742 14:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

No worries! :-)

Atlant 14:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The deletion in Mythology article seems to be a computer bug. The page was saved without all the information sended.

Some browsers have a problem with long (>32,767 byte) articles. Perhaps Mythology is such an article and provoked the problem, chopping off everything after the 32,767th byte?

Atlant 14:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Revert test and other experiments

Hello, please use Wikipedia's Sandbox for testing. Thanks! sikander 22:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

What on Earth are you talking about?

Atlant 13:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I saw "10:15, December 5, 2005 Atlant (Revert test)" on [2] so I thought you were just testing stuff and I thought i'd mention Wikipedia's Sandbox. sikander 04:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Watership Down

Hello, concerning your edit to Watership Down where you removed the link and said "Revert the linkspam again". I noticed you decided to remove one link but leave in this link. Do you somehow consider a fan page on 8m.com on the level of a proper external link while the one youy removed isn't? Did you examine both links? Or our you just taking DrBat's word without thinking about it? --Boycottthecaf 04:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Your link is the one of many links from the DumbBaby site which you contribute to. It also seems you only add DumbBaby links. The Watership Down link in question just makes fun of the book, making dumb comments about it, ect ect. The Degrassi site you keep on posting is crude and innapropiate. --DrBat 12:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikiproject New Hampshire

I noticed you've done some work on NH articles. Have you considered joining Wikiproject New Hampshire?
- Jokermage ^{"Timor Mentum Occidit"} 16:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm busy rebuilding our kitchen so right now, I'm a pretty unreliable Wikipedian. ;-) But I'll certainly continue contributing in those small ways that I can; thanks for the invite!

Atlant 23:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

PDP Disambiguation

About a year ago you were part of a discussion about moving PDP to Programmed Data Processor for disambiguation purposes. I've stumbled across a few more PDP terms, so have already put together a PDP (disambiguation) page and cleaned up most of the PDP links already (see Talk:PDP#Disambiguation). However, since I'm a Wikipedia newbie, I can't move either the PDP page to Programmed Data Processor, nor the disambiguation page to PDP. Can you take a look and possibly help out? Thanks, Greg 15:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Done! (And a bunch of redirects and links fixed-up to match the move.) Thanks for the impetus!

Atlant 01:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for moving the page and cleaning up the redirects. I was going to go back over them once the page was moved, but you beat me to it :-) --Greg 09:48, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Luton flashover

I have started a section on substation design and protection, and I would value your input on something. It is the Luton flashover and related matters.

The Luton flashover was interesting becuase what happened was that an arc from a HT conductor to earth occured. This short then caused circuit breakers to open becuase of the overcurrent. Too many protection devices were activated and then everything went to pot. The defense against such an overreaction in the event of such a fault which I was told about was that a substation has all 'earthed' metal work isolated from earth except for one cable which passes through a current transformer. If current is detected in the earth cable then the location of the fault is clear to the protection electronics. Hence with good design of the protection systems it is possible to open fewer circuit breakers then it would be otherwise. The problem is that I do not have the references to back up this design concept which I was told about some years ago by a substation expert.Cadmium 21:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is pretty far outside my area of expertise. I am pretty sure that American practise isn't as you describe, though. AFAIK, Most of our substations have some sort of ground-plane, but it tends to be actually buried in the soil/gravel under the substation and not isolated from it, so it has pretty good direct connectivity with the earth; as a result, you couldn't measure current flows through it to the ground. I think all of the station structural steel, equipment cases, external fencing, and such like is all tied to this common ground plane. But again, this is not an area I really know much about.

Atlant 14:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: 3RR

Thanks for the concern. I thought of that myself, but I'd be willing to defend the user's actions as vandalism. He has been warned numerous times to discuss links before adding them, but simply persists in his actions without any explanation. He's been blocked once, but that doesn't stop him either. His site is relevant to the topic, but is a personal site with little to no (current) use as external reading for those articles. If he had shown any effort to defend his adding the link to several articles, the situation would be different. So far all he has commented on the matter is that he "does not consider it vandalism because it is relevant to the topic." As it is other administrators have reverted his addition and I have no qualms with calling his actions "simple vandalism" or at least stubborn, ignorant vandalism. -- uberpenguin 19:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay; I just didn't want you to get caught by surprise. If you feel all your ducks are in the correct row (and having an admin also reverting the links certainly helps assure the row is correct!), then no worries!

Atlant 19:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)