User:Rusty Cashman
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[edit] Professional history
I am a software engineer with many years experience working on embedded system software and on data communication protocols, on devices such as cable modems, VoIP systems, and wireless comunication devices. I played a role in the early development of both the CDPD and DOCSIS systems.
[edit] Personal interests
Besides the areas where I have professional expertise, I have a strong interest in many areas of science, and in particular in evolutionary biology. I am also somewhat of a history buff, especially the history of science.
[edit] Brief history as a Wikipedian
I have used Wikipedia as a reference for years, but I only recently became a Wikipedian, when I stumbled across an incorrect fact in the polar bear article. Naturally, after I corrected it, my edit was reverted out (probably by someone who thought I was a vandal) the next day. I managed to find some online references to support my position and managed to make my edit stick. Once I made one edit to the article I just had to make a few more improvements...
The first article I created was nylon eating bacteria and the second was History of paleontology.
I have also made significant contributions to the Georges Cuvier article, in particular the section on his scientific ideas and their impact, and the article on catastrophism. I have made smaller contributions to polar bears, pierolapithecus catalaunicus, DOCSIS, and history of biology, as well as a bunch of minor edits here and there.
I am a member of the Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Science project and its sub project the Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Biology.
[edit] Personal beliefs relevent to Wikipedia
- I believe it was no accident that the greatest literary project of the enlightenment was an encyclopedia.
- I believe that Wikipedia represents a major step towards Isaac Asimov's Encyclopedia Galactica, a nearly comprehensive summary and distillation of human knowledge.
- I also believe that Wikipedia is one of the best practical realizations of Ted Nelson's hypertext concept even though he probably hates it. Whenever I use Wikipedia as a reference I never stop with the article I started with, so I believe that cross linking between articles is incredibly important and I try to spend time adding cross links wherever I find them missing.
- I believe that Wikipedia should be as easy to use as possible so I also spend time adding redirects.
- I believe that many otherwise reasonably good articles on scientific topics don't have enough historical context.
- I believe that biographical articles should always tell you why the subject was important enough to merit an article. In particular I think that means that a biographical article on a scientist should always include some discussion of the subject's work and how it fit into the historical development of whatever scientific field that person contributed to, not just a laundry list of career achievements.
Rusty Cashman 06:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
