User talk:BenFrantzDale

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You have new messages (last change).

Hello Ben, welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you have a lot of fun here. There are lots of resources around to help guide you. be sure to check out:


If you want add any images check out:


If you need any help try:


Don't be afraid of making the odd mistake, there are any number of others eagerly waiting for a chance to correct it!

Contents

[edit] Mega Kabuterimon and Tentomon

These do not seem to be candidates for speedy deletion, according to the criteria. You could try listing them at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, according to the instructions at the bottom of that page. Please specify a reason... "this looks malicious" isn't sufficiently clear. -- Curps 08:18, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] George Washington

Please be careful on some of your edits. The previous editor before you had vandalized the article, and your contributions were placed on top of them. -- AllyUnion (talk) 08:59, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mano cornuto

Just letting you know that your addition to Mano cornuto included a hoax. If you had read the entire page you cited, at the bottom it admitted the hoax. [1] for reference. I've left the link in the external links section, but it should probably be removed or flagged as a hoax too...


Just giving you a heads up, make sure your sources are valid first. Thanks! Sponge! 05:04, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dammit Spock!

I was waiting for somone to spot this bogus gesture before we had an interstellar incident. A buddy told me the one I photographed means something like "May your Pan-far be long and sweaty." jk 06:38, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Electoral districts

Hi Ben. I noticed your edits and page moves on Chicoutimi—Saguenay electoral district. Please do not mess at this time with the page titles for electoral districts... People involved with creating these articles are quite aware that while Emdashes are correctly used for the separator, the use of these (and ndashes as well) are deprecated in article titles, although a consensus has not yet emerged on how to deal with this. You have now created a series of page moves that cannot be undone without administrator privileges, which will cause a nuisance when automated procedures are used later to standardize the names. The problem is that some district names properly have both hyphens and mdashes, especially for Quebec districts (a fictional example: St-Henri—St-Denis) Fawcett5 15:40, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Sory about that. I won't do it again. I saw what I thought was an error and then it got out of hand—and it may not have been an error. (By changing it to "Chicoutimi–Saguenay", I was going by the typography rule that symmetric relations are "hyphenated" with an en-dash rather than a hyphen.) Anyway, I'll stop. —BenFrantzDale 20:14, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tetris on the Green Building

Where did you get the idea that the TMRC Green Building Tetris hadn't been completed? It was complete and operational last summer, and the last I knew passers-by could play it from outside N52 outside N52-118 through the display window. Of course, if it's been taken down since (removed for an upgrade they "haven't got around to yet", knowing TMRC) then the page should be updated to say so. —Blotwell 06:23, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I havn't been back there recently enough, I guess. Last I was there people were still talking about what the best lighting setup would be. —BenFrantzDale 08:38, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Interested in an L.A.-area Wiki meetup?

It appears as though L.A. has never had a Wiki meetup. Would you be interested in attending such an event? If so, checkout User:Eric Shalov/Wikimeetup.

- Eric 19:31, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)


It's official! The first-ever L.A. Wiki Meetup will be occuring on July 25th, 2005. Are you coming? Would you like to help host? More details on the Meetup page. Be sure to check back regularly for updates! - Eric 30 June 2005 10:48 (UTC)

[edit] vfd

read WP:VFD for info about how to correctly start a VFD. -Stoph 20:04, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] L.A. Meetup Reminder

Don't forget! L.A's first Wiki meetup is TONIGHT at 7:30 at Philippe's in Downtown. Check out the meetup page for details. See you there! (If you can't make it, come to the next one! - Eric 22:01, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bolted joint

Hi Ben, thanks for pointing out the error in my illustration- I'll fix it. But I've asked for some input first at Talk:Bolted joint. --Duk 18:56, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mathworld Copyvio

The list of articles from Mathworld is a copyright violation, and should be merged into an existing topics list or deleted. Please see my comments at Wikipedia_talk:Requested_articles/mathematics#MathWorld.3F. Dragons flight 04:26, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images on afd

Images don't belong on afd. They go to WP:IFD. I've moved Image:JacquelineKennedyHoldingHerChildren.jpg and Image:OnassisCasket.jpg there.

Even if images did go on afd, you didn't complete the listing process, so it would likely have been weeks before someone noticed and completed them for you. See the bottom of WP:AFD for the full instructions. —Cryptic (talk) 11:47, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks —BenFrantzDale 15:46, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Pigeons-in-holes.jpg

Hi!


If you were the one to have taken this pic and it is indeed GFDL, would you please upload it to WikiCommons? (And perhaps place a deletion request or a {{NowCommons=}} template in this pic's page?


Thanks.

Done. —BenFrantzDale 13:50, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] i.e.

Comment from 24.199.77.27 moved from my user page:

From "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" by H.W.Fowler:
i.e., id est
It should not be followed by a comma unless the sense requires one, to introduce a parenthesis for instance. "He attacked reactionaries, i.e. those whose opinions differed from his own," BUT "He attacked reactionaries, i.e., it would seem, those whose opinions etc."


e.g. is short for exempli gratia & means only 'for instance.'
Non-latinists are apt to think tht it does not matter whether e.g. or i.e. is used.
Italics, and a following comma, are unnecessary, but not wrong. Both abbreviations should be reserved for footnotes or very concise writing; in open prose it is better to write for example or for instance; namely or that is to say.
I would say that both of the above examples need the comma in as much as "i.e." can be read as "that is". We have "He attacked reactionaries, that is those whose opinions differed from his own". Without the comma after "that is", I think this sentence isn't defining

reactionaries", it's just saying that reactionaries are "those wose opinions..." whereas I would read "He attacked reactionaries, that is, those whose opinions differed from his own" as defining "reactionaries" at a higher level.

The second version, the one with the parenthetical "it would seem", is a red herring because the commas on both sides of "it would seem" are there to make it parenthetical; after removing "it would seem", it is unclear if "i.e." is followed by a comma. —BenFrantzDale 18:45, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] looks good

Nice job on the steels template. Tom Harrison (talk) 15:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. —BenFrantzDale 18:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] test messages

just wanted to comment you taht usually the {test} messages are put on the talk pages where other admins usually check, not on the main user pages. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 04:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, wow. You're right. Thanks for pointing that out. —BenFrantzDale 04:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Your last edit in QR decomposition

Hi, there is a page matrix decomposition where all decompositions are listed. Perhaps a link to this page would be more appropriate. Trifon Triantafillidis

[edit] Solid mechancis

Please merge the page you created (Solid mechancis) into the pre-existing article Solid mechanics. Hu 03:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Will do. My mistake. Thanks. —BenFrantzDale 03:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Brueggers Photo

Thanks for getting that picture! Improves the article immensely. -Lanoitarus (talk) .:. 04:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Steel Template: carbon steel carbon amount.

[edit] Converting units by using dimensional analysis

This doesn't seem encyclopedic. Perhaps this should be moved to Wikibooks? ―BenFrantzDale 06:44, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why you feel this isn't encylopedic. The factor-label method of using dimensional analysis for conversion of units has been in use by chemists and engineers for decades. Do a Google search on the keywords and phrases "units conversion", "factor-label", "dimensional analysis" and you will get a great many hits including very many high school and university course sources. The Wikipedia already includes an article on the more formal and rigorous use of dimensional analysis but it doesn't include the technique of conversion of units ... which I believe merits an article of its own.
mbeychok 18:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] flames in microgravity

I'm actually quite new to the whole concept myself, but it appears currently the whole plethora of articles devoted to combustion on Wikipedia is systemically biased towards flames in gravity environments (surprise, surprise!). You may want to take a look at http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/combustion/, (if you haven't already heard of it) since you're an engineering student, I think you will have a larger clue how to update it, and articles on diffusion flames, accordingly. I have tried mentioning it on flame and fire but the mechanics need to be generalised. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 04:58, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I saw your post on one of the talk pages I watch. That's a great picture. I actually found a similar one on wikimedia commons. Have a look at the changes I made to premixed flame and diffusion flame. (Those pages may really want to get moved to flame or to some engineering fork of flame, but whatever, it's a start. —BenFrantzDale 16:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neumann

Concerning this edit, note that I am not sure if he is the right Neumann. On the article talk page somebody wrote Franz Ernst Christian Neumann. Do you have any information yourself? Let us talk this out at talk:Neumann boundary condition. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] PET

Hello Ben,

Thank you for your note.

With reference to the two hazards sections of the PETE article and the placeholder to refer to discussion page.

1) My understanding from WP:REVERT is that "reverting is used primarily for fighting vandalism" and Wikipedia:Vandalism "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism." Ben if you find my placeholder is vandalism according to this official policy please explain in detail why if not please replace the placeholder and let the discussion unfold on the disscussion page.

1a) As what is in my opinion a suboptimal alternative perhaps you could find a way to empower the discussion from the article page that you find more appropriate than the placeholder I edited.

2) Please be more specific about how the two hazard sections moved to discussion are inconsistent with wikipedia policy. (FYI as I recall at least two others have copy edited in that area including User:217.136.253.220 who added a well cited and linked section headed "No hazards in food contact applications demonstrated"

3) Please consider saying more about yourself on your user page.

4) When I work on an article I really try focus on asking questions (I need to learn the comment tags), clarifying, re writing in a neutral voice, adding information as opposed to deleting or removing information

FYI I believe that this is a public interest and a right to know issue as billions of people seem to be eating and drinking foods that have been in intimate contacte with PETE and other polymers. I percieve a structural obstacle to the disemmination of this type of information that may even be extending to the exact situation which we find ourselves in now. I intend to help disemminate the little that is know from reliable sources about the potential food contact hazards of plastics.

Susten.biz 15:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC) Ken Huck Truth, transparency and trust. May be the keys to freedom and progress.

[edit] WikiProject C++

The WikiProject C++ aims to increase the quality of C++-related articles on Wikipedia, and has discovered that you have participated in the editing of them! So don't hesitate, join us! --Deryck C. 15:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Monte Carlo molecular modelling

No problem, as I wrote in the edit summary, there were two reasons: 1) no content, 2) doubtful article name. I know there is such a subfield and that MC methods are very diverse, but is Monte Carlo molecular modeling a good name? Google gives like only 10 results, and I've never seen that exact phrase. What phrase do books and articles use? Karol 07:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I reverted your change and added mention of "Metropolis Monte Carlo simulation" which is a particular algorithm. Still, unless that particular versiono fmolecular modeling is enough to fill an article, I think the actual title should be general so there is a place for information on all molecular Monte Carlo methods. If you have a better idea for a name, feel free to move it. —Ben FrantzDale 12:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Santa Barbara meetup

Hi Ben,

We're having a meetup in Santa Barbara on Saturday at noon. I realize it's short notice, but Angela is going to be in town for a conference. I'm leaving this note for people who went to the last LA meetup and who have recent edits. Hope to see you there! Antandrus (talk) 00:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of matricies

Ben,

Without meaning to sound patronizing, the spelling is "matrices". I have changed this article to a redirect, as there is already a substantial list at List of matrices. The El Reyko 03:36, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Duah. Thanks. —Ben FrantzDale 03:53, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Image Tagging Image:IPod photo free.png

Warning sign
This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:IPod photo free.png. I notice the 'image' page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then there needs to be an argument why we have the right to use the media on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then it needs to be specified where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag then one should be added. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media qualifies as fair use, consider reading fair use, and then use a tag such as {{fairusein|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other media, consider checking that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. 70.212.214.134 15:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Pigeons in holes, redux

Ben, I absolutely love the pigeonhole picture, and was in the middle of placing it up for featured picture peer review when a thought struck me, causing a mild concussion. After recovering, I came here to discuss it: would it be in any way feasible to take another 'pigeon picture,' but with 10 pigeons in 9 holes, so that one contains 2 pigeons? The two pictures together would then make a completely awesome demonstration of the principle. Let me know; if not, I'll just continue the process with the current picture, since it's still both adorable and cool. Mineralogy 08:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sory to hear about your concussion; I hope you are recovering well. Thanks for your interest in the picture. I don't have access to pigeons in general so I can't make up an n=10 picture easitly. I suspect you could take one at any good zoo, though, at least if you waited long enough for the pigeons to arrange themselves like that, which might take a while. (Also the picture I took could do with being reproduced; it was done in low light through glass so is grainy and low-contrast.) —Ben FrantzDale 11:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
You're asking me to do work to obtain what I want? Well I never! Haha, that's a good idea though. If I can ever find the time, I'll try to do that. I didn't even think about the zoo thing — duh! I thought you, like, knew someone who owned messenger pigeons or something. I'm a doofus. Mineralogy 02:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ph.D

You're right about the misspelling. Thanks for catching my mistake. Wmahan. 19:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bokeh!

I added the pics you made for Talk:Gaussian blur to the main article on bokeh, I hope you don't mind :) (Well, you did license them under a free license so nyah! ^_^) Could you edit their description pages to say why and how you made them? You could just copy the Python script and stuff from Talk:Gaussian blur to the description page for the final image and then link from each to the other for example. They're really illustrative IMO, so thanks for making them! – ∅ (∅), 16:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I made some chagnes along those lines. —Ben FrantzDale 17:18, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Ballast (electrical)

You tagged this page for clean up. It looks pretty clean to me. What specifically do you think needs attention?--Light current 07:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll add more information there. I may have been getting excited. —Ben FrantzDale 11:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help on dispute process

Ben,

Could you help me? I updated the article on Virtual Inheritance (object-oriented programming).

I need to know how to start the process of getting the dispute removed from the page.

I looked over the 'dispute resolution' info which was really confusing.

Can you help?

Much thanks in advance.

Shawn wiki 15:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I've never done it myself, but I'd be happy to help. The first thing I'd do is format the talk page so the threads can be followed. In particular, remember to indent your comments with a colon like I'm doing here. I'll look into it more soon. —Ben FrantzDale 15:27, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Looking over that talk page, I can't see what the dispute is. It looks like you are debating things with yourself. I made an attempt at formating what you wrote, but in general be bold and make edits to the page itself. Also, you might want to brush up on wiki markup. —Ben FrantzDale 00:49, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
You are correct - The WikiPedia administration removed the disputed status and replaced it with a cleanup. I'll remove the cleanup when I'm done in a few days. Thanks for your help :-) --24.12.95.75 03:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speckle

It's all a giant Mudd conspiracy. Speckle is but the first sign.

I graduated in 2004 from Atwood, but I also lived in Case. I recognize your name from my Mudd days, but I don't know that we ever met. It's good to hear that there'll be another Mudder at Wikimania. — Laura Scudder ☎ 01:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Clean up on Virtual Inhertiance

Ben,

Sorry about removing the clean up tag (just looked at the history).

I'll go through the WikiPedia articles on 'perfect article' again and the clean up process.

Have to go now. Will look back at this later today/tonight.

Are there and specific problems you have with the content relative to correct/incorrect knowledge?

If its formatting, etc. could you be specific on recommendations?

Finally if your busy (know how that goes) I'll just check back tommorrow.

Thanks for your help.


Shawnk talk —-Shawn wiki 16:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

PS I'm especially interested in knowledge errors. PS Also, do you code in C++, Java, C# ???

It's not a problem. I'm glad to help new Wikipedia (lower-case "p") contributors. I'm primarily a C++ person. As for factual information, see my to-be-made comment on Talk:Virtual inheritance. —Ben FrantzDale 02:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Ben, Thanks again for your help. WikiPedia has been a Godsend as I'm constantly asked by newer programmers the difference between MII, II and VI and funcitonal normalization. I want to focus on getting the knowledge and content in the articles complete as well as finalize the articles in the WikiPedia style.
After the code and references are in I believe their should not be any knowledge disputes. The initial versions may be a little bloated (I'm still trying to be minimal, closed, complete) and poor style but the in final editing process I'll cut and reformat as per WikiPedia conventions.After that others can take up the banner (as I have limited time) but I expect everything of core relevance should be in the articles.
Thanks so much for your patience and help.
Shawnk
talk
—-Shawn wiki 12:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
PS I'm pretty busy so it make take a few weeks to complete the whole process :-)
PPS I know the topic map may need to be redone in the sense of spawning off a topic map but I'll do that after content, knowledge, style-reading_flow.
Have a solution to your VTable article/VI article concern. Will be in the next few days. Very short solution.
Shawnktalk—-24.12.95.75 13:48, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Double redirect

Thanks for showing me how to do it. I was waiting for some instruction on how to do it. I will clear up all of the redirects in relation to Type I and type II errors within 24 hours. Best to youLindsay658 22:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Virtual Code Elements

Ben,

Thanks for your input on the VI article. Please hold off on the clean up for a few more days.

In the mean time I'd like to discuss content thesis and citations with you since you actually seem like a nice guy who can focus on the problem professionally.

I have citations, etc. but you may wish to review codeproject.com.

I have over 1000 projects downloaded from that site (no not kidding) and I think its the best test of current industry practice aside from the books, etc.

Will get back to you in a few days (Wednesday, Thursday) to discuss the language independence aspect along with virtual code elements and the virtual control mechanism.

Have moved some other content out to other sections (still in progress). If you could focus on the the questions I posted in the discusssion of Virtual Inheritance relative to content I think we can get to your core concerns quickly. Please feel free to site references if you want. However I think a look at www.codeproject.com is good for both of us this week.

Good luck on the current degree efforts (looked over your bio).

Shawnktalk—-Shawn wiki 11:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your vote of confidence. I've seen codeproject.com before. The thing I would like to see is citations for the facts in the VI article. I'll post specific questions to that article's talk page. —Ben FrantzDale 12:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Ben, working with people such as yourself makes engineering a true pleasure.
I will open a short section in the VI disscussion on the article NOT being another shallow regurgitation of VI.
The stratified approach, style, etc is secondary to the code and phenomena of VI. I want to come to a concensus on the code phenonmena and article thesis. If we can agree on the current intro (language independent phenonmena of VI) all the other stuff will fall into place.
I really hate wading through so much junk on the internet and I am hoping that WikiPedia can prove to be the single world best resource for major programming concepts.
Again, I'm very focused on the code, the core VI phenonmena. This includes coexistance with other key phenomena to separate the keyword/phenomena issue (which is a learning curve level with college summer hires).
I have the same concern on citations. We need to agree on the intent and thesis (code phenomena Vs. keyword) and then we can do a keyword/phenomena listing prior to citations search and alternatives to phrasing.
Also I want to keep the article as minimal overall but especially minimal at the top end with drill down links at the bottom end.
Thanks again for efforts.
PS. I have a few days of intense work on another project so I may be a slow responder the rest of the week.
Shawnktalk—-Shawn wiki 13:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Solvents

By adding a spot of "natural" surfactant to "natural solvents" you can dissolve just about anything. The trick here is that the use of the word natural is slightly missleading. If you want to know what the active ingredients are I'm almost 100% sure that it would be on the side of the bottle, my best guess would be that it's sodium laureth sulfate, it's pretty common. GreatMizuti 11:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Dubious"

You beat me to a comment I wanted to make (and did make) about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Dubious . I support what you're suggesting there. Want to go ahead and change it, or even add a non-inline tag which asserts doubt rather than dispute? Thanks! CHE 16:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Template:Elizabeth Islands

I've revised your template, Template:Elizabeth Islands, with an eye toward making it fall more in line with other templates that are used for similar purposes. Please comment on the talk page or just leave me a note if you have any concerns about the text that I removed/added. -Harmil 15:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New info for reconsidering a vote

Hi Ben! I have provided additional information to support International Institute of Management article. I have listed the new information for verifying sources and notability at this article's entry . I kindly ask you to support this article by reconsidering your vote. I'm hoping you gave your recommendation in good faith and you will reconsider it in the light of new information. Miro.gal

  • Comment Hi Ben, thank you for posting a comment on the subject. Did you try searching for (IIM) or (IIM USA) in google, MSN and Yahoo? their website come in the first or second page. There are several institutes with the same name in other countries. The iim.org is in Hong Kong. However iim-edu.org is the only one in USA and the name is a registered trademark. Also if you conduct a search about EUMEDIS you can find how notable is this organization and validated their claim to international network. It seems to me you are working in good faith rather than being an extreme deletionist. If the solution is editing the article and adding more references, I kindly ask you to help me with this article. I'm willing to work with you on another article if you help me clean this one up. Miro.gal

[edit] Pumpjack

OK, good call on that one. Emoscopes Talk 11:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adhesives

Hmm. Just noted your comment on the cyanoacrylate page, when in the bottle the adhesive exists only as the monomer form, it couldn't be sticky even if it wanted to. Once exposed to air there should be sufficient water (even surface wetting should suffice) to initiate the chain polymerisation, the rest is just sticky.GreatMizuti 12:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Right, but does it bond to a surface by chemical bonding or just by wetting the surface and then hardening, forming only a mechanical bond. That is, if I had an atomically-smooth metal crystal surface, could I superglue to it or would the glue fall off? —Ben FrantzDale 13:23, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Urm, it's pretty much completely unlikely that you'd have a surface that was perfectly smooth. I think there are some STM images around there that show that even surfaces that are created by boiling metals onto a receptor are fairly imperfect. As to your question, unless the surface has been coated by something that has something the monomer can join to, no, there's no covalent bond to the surface.GreatMizuti 08:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "if and only if" / your edit to normal matrix

I have reverted your edit to normal matrix. Please do not change it back. It is a convention in mathematical writing to use "if" and not "if and only if" in definitions. If you would like a style reference, a popular one is Nick Higham's "Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences." On page 20 of the second edition it says:

By convention, if means if and only if in definitions, so do not write "The graph G is connected if and only if there is a path from every node in G to every other node in G." Write "The graph G is connected if there is a path from every node in G to every other node in G" (and note that this definition can be rewritten to omit the symbol G).

Thank you. Lunch 19:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I won't get into an edit war, but for the record I do prefer iff. —Ben FrantzDale 21:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Can you quote any refereed mathematics journal that allows the use of "if and only if" in definitions? Or any style reference that advocates its use? Or any textbook or research monograph that uses that style? Lunch 19:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Not off the top of my head :-) —Ben FrantzDale 07:30, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Symmetric matrices

Regarding your concern about symmetric versus normal matrices:

To be clear, let's distinguish between the complex spectral theorem and the real spectral theorem. The complex spectral theorem says that a complex-valued matrix has an orthonormal basis of eigenvectors if and only if it is normal. On the other hand, the real spectral theorem says that a real-valued matrix has an orthonormal basis of eigenvectors if and only if it is symmetric. Certainly it's true that one can consider a real matrix as a complex matrix (as the real numbers are a subset of the complex numbers). This is no contradiction since a symmetric matrix is certainly normal. However, a normal matrix is not necessarily symmetric. A normal matrix with real entries, then, need not have an orthonormal basis of eigenvectors.

The reason the distinction is important is since if we are referring to symmetric matrices, it is assumed that the entries are real. Otherwise, it doesn't really make sense to speak of symmetric. The analogue in the complex case is called a hermitian matrix, but a hermitian matrix is equal to its conjugate transpose, not its transpose.

I hope that's helpful. I may take another look at the article and try to clear up wherever I can that we need to be looking at real entries. VectorPosse 04:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Covariant transformation

In following a line of reasoning for a physics article I was working on, I was surprised to see that Covariant transformation somehow got removed. Since I am not following the history of Covariant transformation, I just reverted to a version by a known-good editor. Please feel free to update the version, but I believe this article has something to say. In particular, it is linked to by other articles in physics. However, there was not a redirect on the page after it was removed. Please consider the other pages when merging from this one. Thank you, --Ancheta Wis 10:16, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I am surprised

to see that you pulled the Angel of Grief EP cover from the article. The picture of the monument in Rome is mine and i am charging all over the place trying to research more about this work and the effect that it had on subsequent cemetery works [or were some similar ones earlier?] but felt that the ccover that you'd posted was a good thing in the article. I've posted a lot of my old EP covers various places - - Manfred Mann, the Hollies, the Shadows and more - - and was disapointed that this one is gone. I'm an old guy and not familiar with the band involved, but I did check them out and . . . ... well consider returning it. Carptrash 06:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll put it back up. My sense is that the fair use under which cover art is used here means they should be used primarily to illustrate the album. When it was the only illustration of the Angel of Grief, it seemed a bit inappropriate. Now that there's a real picture of it, those album covers actually illustrate the album covers, which is interesting. —Ben FrantzDale 15:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Well I try not to be toooo loose in my copyright interpretations, but you were using it as an album cover - just not in an article about the cover or band. I see no problem. i have three other versions of the A of G located and am trying to get some info about them. Carptrash 15:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion on Spam- Blinds

For Ben, from Ben I have watched the changes that you made to the external links listings for "Blinds". There were 4 listings there: Yourblinds.com, therighttrackinc.com, bestbambooblinds.com, blindsfactorydirect.com, and a german language site. Clearly the German language site does not belong and is spam, the bestbamboo site is a page of ads from a parked site, the righttrack site is a promotional site for their business, yourblinds contains definitions, and blindsfactorydirect links to a range of articles related to the topic. I think that there is spam on this document, but it is not in yourblinds or blindsfactorydirect. I have family in the Blinds business, which is why I have the expertise on this topic. Your thoughts?

[edit] Unspecified source for Image:Transparent duct tape roll.png

Thanks for uploading Image:Transparent duct tape roll.png. I notice the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this file yourself, then there needs to be a justification explaining why we have the right to use it on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you did not create the file yourself, then you need to specify where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the file also doesn't have a copyright tag, then one should be added. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Fair use, use a tag such as {{fairusein|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 20:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It's GFDL-self. —Ben FrantzDale 23:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] High Sierra (biome)

Since the article is just a short stub, it looks like it would make sense to merge High Sierra (biome) (AKA "High Sierras") into Ecology of the Sierra Nevada, which is a full article on the topic. The stub hasn't grown since you created it so this may be more helpful for readers. If you have nay thoughts about it please share them with us at talk:Ecology of the Sierra Nevada. Cheers, -Will Beback · † · 08:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unspecified source for Image:LA cloudbasin.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:LA cloudbasin.jpg. I notice the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this file yourself, then there needs to be a justification explaining why we have the right to use it on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you did not create the file yourself, then you need to specify where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the file also doesn't have a copyright tag, then one should be added. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Fair use, use a tag such as {{fairusein|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Nv8200p talk 14:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] redhot

I invite you to comment at Talk:Redhot Alvis 06:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Substubs

Hi Ben. Thanks for all your work. However, I must say that I'm not so fond of a series of one-line articles that recently appeared: Incomplete Cholesky factorization, Incomplete LU factorization, Matrix-free methods, Modified Richardson iteration. I'm sorry to say so, but in my opinion, these articles are worthless. While I know that it doesn't work to tell other editors what to do, please consider writing one decent stub instead of many one-line articles.

I hope you don't mind my criticism, and that you'll also feel free to correct me if you deem it necessary. Best wishes, Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Jitse, I appreciate the criticism. Those were on the very-short side. In my experience, tiny articles like that can grow or can wind up redirecting somewhere appropriate. I don't know too much about these topics so I don't have much to add to them right now. I was reading documentation that mentioned these terms and since Wikipedia couldn't explain them to me, I figured I'd add them as sub-stubs. I generally add more than a sentence, though. In the future I'll try to add a bit more. —Ben FrantzDale 15:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Snap (physics)

What did you mean by "erronious symbold"[sic]? If you're unsure what the markup means, look at WP:MATH. In this case <math>x\,</math> displays the symbol "x" graphically: x\,. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 17:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I've always seen x representing a position. I assumed that <math>x\,</math> intended to be something else, especially since it has an unnecessary \,. Was I wrong? —Ben FrantzDale 17:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I suppose it's not an obvious bit of notation. \, forces graphical rendering of a math block (otherwise it would have appeared as a plain old "x": x.) -- Earle Martin [t/c] 17:46, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Aah. I assumed it was an attempt at manual italic correction. Much as I like semantic markup, I think Wikipedia's typography standards say it should be ''x'' in this case. (Really the math-to-html converter should be fixed to italicize things.
Is it true that it actually is just a lower case x to represent snap? —Ben FrantzDale 17:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rock music Wikiproject invitation

Hello WikiProject Metal member.
WikiProject Metal music is important in expanding encyclopedic coverage of the metal. It brings attention to the lesser-known bands, and significantly improves the quality of the famous ones. Five Featured articles and two formers is proof of that.
This is the stuff I wish to achieve with the somewhat recently resurrected WikiProject Rock music. I hope to also attract attention to rock music articles of all sorts, and hopefully change some to GA or FA status. I invite you to come join us, and embrace the links between metal and rock music in general.
Rock on.
--Reaper X 04:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clapperboard

The current picture mentions "Wikipedia". That's not appropriate. —Ben FrantzDale 21:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. Image:Clapperboard.svg --Indolences 03:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. —Ben FrantzDale 16:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Orphaned fair use image (Image:Papa Johns logo.gif)

Thanks for uploading Image:Papa Johns logo.gif. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable under fair use (see our fair use policy).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any fair use images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. This is an automated message from BJBot 17:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It appears someone replaced it with a better (png) one. —Ben FrantzDale 17:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conservapedia

This article was deleted as a repost of an article deleted by consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Conservapedia. Please don't repost it again. If you want a review of the deletion decision, go to Wikipedia:Deletion review. NawlinWiki 16:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Appropriateness: self-described v self-reported & -based is improper when used to describe wiki

Described -- to tell or depict in written or spoken words; give an account of: He described the accident very carefully.
Reported -- To make or present an often official, formal, or regular account of.
wiki is dichotomous: it is either wiki or it is not wiki -- there is no base. you might consider citing something that is wiki-based.
Usage of self-describedand wiki-based in the instant article is, at a minimum, less correct.
Commas deleted are used to distinguish the only self-reported term used in the sentence, self-reported conservative.
During editing disputes, proper etiquette requires both editors to prepare themselves before undermining an edit by others:

  1. become technically familiar with article's content, including context, discussions, and pertinent external sources
  2. acquire additional editing information about the specific editing conflict
  3. communicate with the other editor

when i revert contributions, i notify the editor of the revert and perceived problems. it is my responsibility as a collaborator, and a courtesy they deserve because they could be correct.

παράδοξος 02:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


Thanks for the feedback, but I respectfully disagree. Perhaps I should have contacted you directly rather than reverting your change. However, I don't think this disagreement is due to a lack of background in the subject on my part; this is entirely a matter of language.
I don't disagree with your definitions of "described" and "reported", but "self-described" and "self-reported" have their own meaning. When I hear "self-reported conservative", I think "Conservapedia reports as 'conservative' when asked on a form". When I hear "self-described conservative" I think "Conservapedia proudly and openly says 'hey, look at me, I'm conservative'" which seems to be the case.
I see the desire to set off the adjective that Conservapedia uses to describe itself, but I don't think commas can do what you are asking them to do. Commas can set off parenthetical phrases but in "Conservapedia is a, self reported conservative, wiki online encyclopedia project..." it just doesn't work. Perhaps we should rephrase that sentence entirely.
I agree that something is either a wiki or not, but an encyclopedia is not a wiki. The text originally said "wiki online encyclopedia project", which makes no sense. I say it is a "wiki-based encyclopedia project" which is to say it is an encyclopedia project which is based around wiki technology. —Ben FrantzDale 02:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
fair enough. it is better to revamp than piecemeal, which is difficult for a newcomer like me. thank you for responding. παράδοξος 11:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
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