User talk:Calbaer

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Contents 1 Articles for deletion 2 Diaconis 3 Information theory intorduction edits 4 Allah in the House 5 Request for edit summary 6 Collective punishment 7 Excuse me 8 Muslim conquest 9 1982 Lebanon War and Hezbollah power 10 IMAO 11 lead to AOIA article 12 0.999... Discussion Page 13 0.999... 14 Package Merge Algorithm 15 Jellybeans

[edit] Articles for deletion

Hey Calbaer, thanks for your thoughtful comments on Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Allah_Is_in_the_House. Seing that this was unquestionalbly a notable blog, and the delete vote was being linked to by some of the bloggers mentioned, I think you helped Wikipedia avoid bad press (and, experience suggests, possibly preempted a flow of sockpuppet delete votes). ProhibitOnions 20:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks much; the linkage and support was surprising and gratifying. Do you know which blogs (aside from Malkin) linked to it? Calbaer 22:16, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Not offhand (the link has since disappeared from MM's site) but if I find it I'll let you know. Cheers, ProhibitOnions 23:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

PS: Glad to see you've created a user page. I've enjoyed reading your own blog. ProhibitOnions 23:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Calbaer, I am new to Wikipedia and appologize for any inappropriate entries. Thank you for taking the time to review my submitted article. Based on your feedback, I am neither spammer nor crank, I have edited hopefully all to which you object. Further discussion for improvements of the netricity article welcomed. Jthomp4338 19:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diaconis

His Erdos number is 1 as follows from this publication:

Diaconis, Persi; Erdös, Paul On the distribution of the greatest common divisor. A festschrift for Herman Rubin, 56--61, IMS Lecture Notes Monogr. Ser., 45, Inst. Math. Statist., Beachwood, OH, 2004

Please revert your correction. Mhym 19:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry - Diaconis' web page doesn't list such a paper and I let the question of what this alleged paper was stand on talk:Erdős-Bacon number for two weeks before deciding to make my "correction." Looking it up now, it was originally a 1977 Stanford technical report and it was posthumously part of a book of lectures. Thus it is debatable whether Diaconis "published with Erdős." However, by the definition given on Erdős number, that it merely be a mathematical paper with common authors, in this case a technical report, it qualifies. Calbaer 00:05, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Mhym 01:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Information theory intorduction edits

C, You left a comment on my talk page, and I have replied at Info theory. My changes were not motivated by any technical matter, but by clear writing concerns, and so, intellibility to the Average Reader -- the most difficult part of the audience for editors of technical articles. You may not tht I made not one change in a heavily mathematical section, nor to a technical point.

Is there a significance that an admin made changes not long after mine? As I understand it, being an admin (though not so actively admining one), there isn't any.

Thoughts? ww 01:16, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe the changes were made by Chancemill because this user found the intro incomplete, e.g., no mention of lossless compression or entropy. Please see the talk section for my suggested more-thorough-yet-still-short intro paragraph. I didn't mean to imply that the admin status meant the user's rewrite was better; if I thought that, I wouldn't have reverted said rewrite. Calbaer 02:35, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

C, Looks like we've some differences on the English writing side of things. I've been watching for a while, and waited until things seemed to have settled down before attempting a cleanup. Your reversion suggests a love of certain phrases (grasp when meaning understood, for instance) which doesn't coincide with my own. More importantly though, I still think we're moving too quickly in the intro after your edits. Quantification of information is tough (if central) for the Average Reader to get his head around. I was dodging that until I'd gotten that Reader hooked (maybe we need John Lennon or the Stones to help with the hooks?) before going to the slippery concepts. IT is sufficiently odd that it's only recently that humans have managed to get to it, and it took Shannon's unusual mind to do it.

If you were to argue that it's longer that way, I'd have to agree. But I would observe that, like programming's tradeoffs, you can have any two of the C's (clear, complete, concise) and maybe an I (intelligible, interesting) but not all three. I chose clear and both of the I's. In the interest of comprehension builidng in the mind of our Reader first and foremost.

Have you and I reached a compositional (English, not content) impass? Perhaps we should hash it out away from the article and install after having reached teh big A (accomodation or agreement)? ww 22:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't sure how to approach this, but it seems like your revisions were trying to make things clear by adding notes and examples, but these made things less clear, in my opinion, for these reasons:

• I believe that examples absent of context confuse, not clarify, e.g., "Spectrum allocations by national Communications Regulation bodies are directly affected by this work." I got my degree in the subject, and this sentence requires more explanation for me, since I thought that spectrum was allocated according to frequency and power, not capacity (which is affected by a third variable, noise). The relation between these values is important, but only to the user, not the regulation bodies. This will confuse novice and expert alike.
• Rhetorical flourishes ("for the first time in human history," "intuitivly qualitative," "undersatnd the limits of possibility in maximizing use," etc.) distract flow.
• There are numerous spelling errors.
• Run on sentences make the revision very difficult to read, especially by a novice.

If you want to work more on the intro, it might be best to work it through on the talk page, since we seem to be able to find fault in each others' use of the English language, and Chancemill and 130.94.162.61 can contribute as well; hopefully, a middle ground will be more understandable to all. Calbaer 22:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Allah in the House

My bad - a mistake on my part. I *did* nominate it - and then I saw that it had just finished a cycle with a KEEP result. I intended to go back and remove the nomination tag and forgot to do so. You are absolutely correct - there is no reason to renominate once it passed muster through that process. Sloppiness on my part for not cleaning up after myself. I'll fix it now if nobody has already fixed it. Thanks for pointing it out to me! --AStanhope 21:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for edit summary

When editing an article on Wikipedia there is a small field labeled "Edit summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this:

The text written here will appear on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history, on the diff page, and in the watchlists of users who are watching that article. See m:Help:Edit summary for full information on this feature.

Filling in the edit summary field greatly helps your fellow contributors in understanding what you changed, so please always fill in the edit summary field, especially for big edits or when you are making subtle but important changes, like changing dates or numbers. Thank you. – Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It would help me if you told me to which article you're referring. Is it JPEG-LS? Special:Contributions/Calbaer shows that I do this for almost every edit that involves more than a word or two of change; when I don't, it's because I believe the edit to be self-explaining (by, for example, a diff). I can be more careful, but it's kind of a guessing game for me as to why you thought I needed a reminder. Calbaer 02:17, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collective punishment

I meant that those same supporters fell it should be applied, so it wasn't Pro-Israel POV, but you made my intention much clearer with your edit; Thanks! -- Avi 21:52, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, when I realized that it was a matter of ambiguity, I probably should've changed the edit summary, but, either way, glad it's better now. Calbaer 22:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Excuse me

That addition to the article on American music is not "spam." It links to another article about an important form of indigenous American music, including the music of composers referred to elsewhere in the article, such as Billings. However, I understand that because it is on the first page you would revert first, and read later. I will add it in again tomorrow. Amity150 00:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Our edits were nearly simultaneous, so I didn't even see what you'd written by the time I reverted. Note the time stamps. My revert deleted the "Hipinion" section. Calbaer 01:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Muslim conquest

I had this question where did you get this information:

This, combined with military defeats and strong military resistance from Vikramaditya II of the Chalukya Empire and the Turkic Khanate in Transoxiana, I couldn't find those in the two pages you referenced.

The problem with the Turkic Khanate and India is bigger and one I was intending to re-orient they don't go well with the article which is limited to the Umayyad era. Indian expansion was basically driven by the Turk tribes who took over the Abbassid eastern portion, i.e the Ghaznavids and the Ghurids, while Persia and Arabia was overrun by the Seljuk Turks (against whom the crusades were launced) before they were all replaced by Mongols in the 13th century. For the Umayyads there was not one Khanate in Transoxania to contend with, while the Khazar-Arab wars particulary taxed the Umayyads in Caucasus, however all over Transoxiana was in flux after the crumbling of the Gokturk empire and the entry of the Tang, anyrate the contest with the Turks countinued for over 300 years until the Turks assimilated, converted and took over the Muslim worked, by the end of the 11th century. Anyrate I was intending to rework and fix a lot of that page just can't find the time!!--Tigeroo 06:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Understood. Like I said, I just poached the information from a variety of sources (especially Umayyad), some of which may have been changed to something else by now. I was just trying to get enough in there to get rid of the "Western viewpoint" tag. Thanks for doing it for me (from a more knowledgeable perspective). Calbaer 17:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1982 Lebanon War and Hezbollah power

Saying Hezbollah came into power in South Lebanon in some nebulous "80s" timeframe as a result of this conflict, isn't false, it just makes too many leaps along the way. Various militant factions clashed over the territory southeast of Beirut when Israel retreated to the Awali river, and yes, the militia movement got a huge boost after the Lebanese army collapsed, but that wasn't until 1984. Hezbollah was barely even concieved in 1982, and certaintly didn't jump out from behind a rock and suddenly overcome all the other rival factions fighting the Lebanese Civil War and fill the PLO vacuum. Look at who was fighting in the War of the Camps, for example, and you would think you were staring at a bowl of alphabits.

Of course, the '82 war did lead to the 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict, which does tell the tale of Hezbollah slowly growing in and consolidating its power, and the outcome of that conflict was indisputably Hezbollah control of Southern Lebanon.

I suppose my edits were only mildly more acurrate than what you put back. I'd be happy with "Various militias controlling South Lebanon (1983-present)" or you could even say it resulted in "Hezbollah's conception" or that a result was "the 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict" -- otherwise you are lossy compressing 18 years of history here. -- Kendrick7 01:50, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

One of the problems is the definition of the "war" and when it ended; that seems to have been left nebulous. It's important to look beyond 1982 for the result, just as saying the result of the Vietnam war (Second Indochina War) was ceasefire, although technically accurate, doesn't include the eventual collapse of the ceasefire and North Vietnamese victory. The war period is difficult to define and the result can't be determined on the day the war ends. Another part of the problem is that some people like to say the war result was "Hezbollah victory," which, in light of your reasoning, is utterly ridiculous. This is another reason why the extended timeframe and explanation are needed. Keeping that in mind, the results section is entirely consistent with history. What isn't consistent is saying that Southern Lebanon was controlled by Israel until 2000 since most of it was not. Calbaer 07:11, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IMAO

Thanks for the editing of the IMAO article. Since I saw it up there, I figured it was best to leave it alone if I wanted it to survive.--AmericanRonin 13:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] lead to AOIA article

Are you saying the David Matas reference supports what you've added? -- Kendrick7^talk 05:01, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

No, that was just lazy referencing on my part; I fixed it. Calbaer 05:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 0.999... Discussion Page

Thanks a lot for what you added about squaring a "smallest possible number," which was passed off by JohnLattier as an infinitesimal. I was a little shaky after I started reading some of his comments, but I'm clear about it now. Robinson0120 01:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Good to hear it. After looking at JohnLattier's responses for a few weeks, I realize that he's not gaining much out of the discussion, so it's very heartening to know that others are. Calbaer 02:01, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 0.999...

I tend to respond when JL has made an obvious error and I think he might actually understand it. There's no real purpose to it, I suppose, except that other people who are curious about the arguments will see that we actually do know how to answer his objections. His ranting about how I'm evil bothers me very little; my wiki-fu is strong, and I know exactly how far his accusations will get him. I guess in the end I'm just amusing myself, and not accomplishing much else. You may have a point that we should all, collectively, stop answering him... I'm not sure. -- SCZenz 02:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I think we should. He drives down the signal-to-noise ratio. I mean, he didn't even bother to look up the meaning of the word "bound"! He ignores the more mathematically interesting/involved posts. And his name-calling, while silly, allows us to suspend our assumption of good faith. Hanlon's razor prohibits me from judging him a troll. But, as is said on Wikipedia talk:Assume good faith, "Remember that at least trolls know they're trolls; the dedicated crank doesn't understand they're a crank." Calbaer 02:18, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Package Merge Algorithm

Don't you think we ought to remove the "importance" and "verify" tags from Package-merge algorithm? Those tags were posted when it was a struggling stub; it's filled out quite nicely, IMHO. Vegasprof 10:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jellybeans

Here are some Jelly Beans for you.. I love Jellybeans as they have sugar in them and most people love sugar.. But on the other hand just recieving somthing from somone else just makes you happy and also just giving this to you makes me happy.. I hope to spread the Jellybeans all over Wikipedia so here you can have this lot.. I hope you enjoy these Jelly Beans.. (I Like the Lime ones)

Editors need a bit of a Sugar Hype too..

An Apple a day keeps -The Doctor- Away.. Or does it! ^{(talk)(contribs)} 02:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)