User:Eric Shalov
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Eric Shalov is an American male of mostly European descent. He was born in 1977 in the United States of America. He has worked in several roles in the Information technology industry.
Eric welcomes comments on his Wikipedia contributions on his talk page, and, like Jimbo, encourages editing of this page as well, if the reader feels that it can be legitimately improved.
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[edit] Location
Eric Shalov divides his time between the communities of Winnetka in the southern San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, and the borough of Cuauhtémoc, in Mexico City.
[edit] Name
The surname Shalov is an "Ellis Island name", the product of a common practice during a period of mass European immigration to the United States of altering the family name to be easier to spell in the English language. It is derived from the Russian language name Soloveitchik (Соловечик).
Eric may be distantly related to the Soloveitchik European Rabbinical dynasty of Brisk, of whom Chaim Soloveitchik is the best known in recent times, as Eric has geneological roots in Ukraine.
[edit] Interests
- Travel
- French Language and film
- Arabic Language
- Spanish Language and Mexican culture
- Japanese Language and culture
- Wikipedia
- Computer security
- Computer programming
- Rollerblading
- Motorcycles
- American history
- Mexican history
- The United Kingdom
- Politics
[edit] Wikipedia
Eric's first Wikipedia contribution was an addition to the Winnetka article made on 3 July 2004.
In considering Eric's choice of contributions, one must remember to consider Wikipedia's policies on maintenance of neutrality in editing, including writing for the enemy. It might be best to avoid making any assumptions relating Eric's contributions to his personal opinions, interests or political positions.
- Eric's Wikipedia To Do List.
- Articles Eric has initiated.
- Some of the articles that Eric has initiated / contributed to.
- Eric's Wikipedia Javascript settings
- Eric monitors the Mexican nonsense campaign.
- Some of the more unusual articles on Wikipedia
- He is currently helping to coordinate the Wikipedia Meetup in the Los Angeles area.
- Australia's version the CIA World Factbook, useful for article reference.
[edit] Some of my Favorite Quotes
- "Veritas liberabit vos" ("The truth shall make you free")
- -Ioannes 8,32
- "We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them.
- "I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate."
- "Being a language, mathematics may be used not only to inform but also, among other things, to seduce."
- -Benoit Mandelbrot, "Fractals : Form, chance and dimension" (San Francisco, 1977)
- "We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams."
- "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."
- "There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it."
- -Aldous Huxley (At a speech given in 1961 at the California Medical School in San Francisco)
- "What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."
- "Misery is robust, it is resourceful and tenacious."
- "This is as far as I go."
- -World War I veteran Harold Wobber to a stranger on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge walkway, before becoming the first person to jump off the bridge, August 7, 1937.
- "Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains."
- "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government..."
- "Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discoverer's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combatted, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle." – Nikola Tesla (at the end of his dream for Wardenclyffe)
- Annie Hall: Alvy, you're incapable of enjoying life, you know that? I mean you're like New York City. You're just this person. You're like this island unto yourself.
- Alvy Singer: I can't enjoy anything unless everybody is. If one guy is starving someplace, that puts a crimp in my evening.
- -Woody Allen, (Annie Hall)
- "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it."
- "Pobre México, tan lejo de Dios, tan cerca de los Estados Unidos."
- (Poor Mexico- so far from God, so close to the United States.)
- -Porfirio Diaz
[edit] Interesting trivia extracted from Wikipedia pages
- Stanislav Petrov: Petrov is a retired Russian Army colonel who, in 1983, averted a potential nuclear war by refusing to accept that the United States had launched missiles against the USSR, despite the indications given by his computerized early warning systems. The Soviet computer reports were later shown to have been in error, and Petrov is credited with preventing World War III and the devastation of much of the Earth by nuclear weapons. His actions were kept secret until 1998.
- Extinction: According to a 1998 survey of 400 biologists conducted by New York's American Museum of Natural History, nearly 70 percent of biologists believe that we are currently in the early stages of a human-caused mass extinction, known as the Holocene extinction event. In that survey, the same proportion of respondents agreed with the prediction that up to 20 percent of all living species could become extinct within 30 years (by 2028). Biologist E.O. Wilson estimated in 2002 that if current rates of human destruction of the biosphere continue, one-half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in 100 years.
- Aldous Huxley: Aldous Huxley, C. S. Lewis, and John F. Kennedy all died on 22 Nov 1963.
- Sonic boom: In late October 2005, Israel used F-16 jet planes to create sonic booms over the Gaza Strip as a method of psychological warfare. The practice was condemned by the United Nations. A senior Israeli army intelligence source said the tactic was intended to break civilian support for armed Palestinian groups, especially those firing Qassam rockets into Israeli population centers.
- Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: On a visit to the new Welsh Assembly in Cardiff, the Duke of Edinburgh told a group of deaf children standing next to a Jamaican steel drum band, "Deaf? No wonder you are deaf standing so close to that racket."
- Queen of Canada: A 2002 poll of Canadians found that only 5% were even aware that the Queen was in fact Canada's head of state.
- Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution: Originally, the U.S. Electoral College would elect both the President and the Vice President in a single election; the person with a majority would become President and the runner-up would become Vice President.
- Raven paradox: The statement "all ravens are black" is logically equivalent to the statement "all non-black-things are non-ravens". If we observe a red apple, that is consistent with that statement. A red apple is a non-black-thing, and when we examine it, we observe that it is a non-raven. So by the principle of induction, observing a red apple should increase our belief that all ravens are black!
- List of movies and television programs affected by the September 11, 2001 attacks: Perhaps the most eerie instance, the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen, which depicted a plan by terrorists to fly a highjacked airplane into the World Trade Centre, actually aired in Australia on the evening of September 11, 2001, at 9 PM local time. Given the 12 hour timezone difference from New York City, the show began airing and was soon interrupted by the real attacks.
- All Souls College, Oxford: Every hundred years there is a commemorative feast after which the fellows parade around the College with flaming torches, singing the Mallard Song and led by a "Lord Mallard" who is carried in a chair, in search of a fictional giant mallard that supposedly flew out of the foundations of the college when it was being built. The last mallard ceremony was in 2001 and the next will be held in 2101.
- Herman Hollerith: The tendency for computer terminals to have 80 columns originates with Hollerith's 1928 punched card system that stored data in 80 columns.
- Manhole cover theft: In the city of Calcutta, more than 10,000 manhole covers were stolen in two months. These were replaced with concrete covers, but these were also stolen, this time for the iron rods inside them. The thieves were believed to be buying lottery tickets with the money.
- Mars bar: The Mars Bar sold outside of the United States is marketed within the U.S. as the "Milky Way" bar, while the bar marketed internationally as "Milky Way" is called the "3 Musketeers" within the United States.
- Eighty Eight, Kentucky: On August 8, 1988, six thousand visitors descended on the town (population 300). The tourists wanted to buy postcards to be franked at 8.08 am with an 88 postmark. One couple drove there to be married at 8.08 on the church's eighth step.
- List of interesting or unusual place names: Many place names that appear odd to English-speakers are from other languages. Often they are either meaningless or innocuous in their own tongue. The arguably best-known example of this is Fucking, Austria.
- Hell, Michigan: In 1841, as the story goes, George Reeves was asked what he wanted the town to be called and responded, "I don't care, you can name it Hell if you want to." His later attempts to rechristen it Reevesville or Reeve's Mills proved futile.
- Saudi Arabia: Per capita income in Saudi Arabia has fallen from $25,000 in 1980 to $8,000 in 2003, up from about $7000 in 1999. The decline in inflation-adjusted per-capita income from 1980 to 1999 set a record, being by far the worst such decline suffered by any nation-state in history.
- United States armed forces: The United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next twenty biggest spenders combined, and six times larger than Russia's, which places second. The United States and its close allies are responsible for approximately two-thirds of all military spending on Earth (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for two-thirds), dollar for dollar. Military spending accounts for more than half of the United States' federal discretionary spending, which is all of the U.S. government's money not spoken for by pre-existing obligations.
- Tommy Chong: In 2003, Chong was one of those targeted by two nationwide investigations code-named Operation Pipe Dreams and Operation Headhunter, which sought out businesses selling drug paraphernalia, mostly marijuana pipes. He was charged for his part in financing and promoting Chong Glass/Nice Dreams, a company started by his son Paris. Chong agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute drug paraphernalia in exchange for non-prosecution of his wife, Shelby, and his son. While most of the approximately 55 individuals charged as a result of the operations were sentenced to fines and home detentions, Chong was sentenced on September 11, 2003 to 9 months in a federal prison, forfeiture of $103,000, and a year of probation.
- John Ashcroft: In 1992, while Ashcroft was Governor of Missouri, his nephews Alex and Adam Ashcroft and Alex's housemate Kevin Sheeley were arrested and charged with production and possession of marijuana. A raid uncovered 60 marijuana plants, with lighting, irrigation, and security systems, in a basement crawlspace. While the production of more than 50 plants usually results in a federal charge and mandatory jail time, 25-year-old Alex Ashcroft was prosecuted on a state charge and received 3 years of probation and 100 hours of community service. Kevin Sheeley was not convicted, and his record was sealed; Adam Ashcroft, who did not live in the house, was never prosecuted. Though Alex Ashcroft tested positive for marijuana in his first probation-mandated drug test, no further actions were taken against him. The parents of Alex and Adam have denied that the young men received a lenient treatment as a result of their connection to the governor.
- Tijuana: Today, the Tijuana-San Ysidro border crossing is the most crossed international land border in the world. Although tourism is a big part of this, Tijuana and its surrounding area has become a major player in NAFTA with new maquiladoras and industrial plants springing up every month.
- El Camino Real (California): The iconic status of El Camino Real on the San Francisco Peninsula (where it is signed as Route 82, and usually abbreviated as El Camino) is such that navigation is usually done relative to it, and it defines logical north and south in the area, even though it is closer to north-west/south-east. Visitors to the area are often confounded by the street numbers on El Camino Real, which reset (often to 100) when each new city is entered (roughly every two or three miles). To make matters even more confusing, the road alternates between West, East, and (plain) El Camino seemingly without much logic.
- Blindfold chess: The Czechoslovakian player Richard Réti played 29 players simultaneously in Sao Paulo and amusingly commented on his poor memory after leaving his briefcase behind after the event.
- Precious metal: For a while, aluminium was more valuable than gold; bars of aluminium were exhibited alongside the French crown jewels at the Exposition Universelle (1855). However, the price dropped continually and collapsed altogether when an easy extraction method, the Hall-Heroult process, was discovered in 1886. The rarity of various metals may again be in for a shift, however. According to USGS statistics, at current production rates all the gold in the earth's crust will theoretically be processed within several decades. Meanwhile, silver is in a structural supply deficit, with 300 million troy ounces (9,000,000 kg) more being consumed each year than is mined--it may currently be more rare than gold.[1]
- Bellamy salute: Because of its similarity to the Hitler salute, the Bellamy salute (to accompany his Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States) was replaced in 1942 with the modern gesture of placing the right hand over the heart.
- USS Liberty incident: The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry's legal counsel, Captain Ward Boston, has stepped forward and stated that the U.S. government ordered him and Kidd to falsely report that the Israeli attack upon the USS Liberty was a mistake, and his statement says that he and Rear Admiral Kidd believed the attack was deliberate. He wrote this declaration with regard to the evidence and conclusions presented to the inquiry that he and Admiral Kidd, President of the US Naval Court of Inquiry, shared regarding the incident. He wrote, in part, "The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.
- William S. Sessions: Former FBI director Sessions became associated with the phrase "Winners don't use drugs", which appeared often during demos on idle arcade game screens, or after the player finished playing a game. By law this had to be included on all imported arcade games, for a long time after Sessions left office.
- Acting President of the United States: On July 13, 1985, President Ronald Reagan underwent surgery to remove cancerous polyps from his colon. Prior to undergoing surgery, he transmitted a letter to the Speaker of the House and the President pro Tempore of the Senate declaring his incapacity. Vice President George H. W. Bush then acted as President from 11:28 a.m. until 7:22 p.m., when Reagan transmitted a second letter resuming the powers and duties of the office. On June 29, 2002, President George W. Bush declared himself temporarily unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office prior to undergoing a colonoscopy which required sedation. Vice President Dick Cheney acted as President for a little over two hours that day (from 7:09 a.m. to 9:24 a.m.), whereupon Bush transmitted a second letter advising resuming the powers and duties of the office.
- Large denomination bills in U.S. currency: In September 2003, an unknown individual in North Carolina used a $200 bill (with George W. Bush's likeness on it) at a Food Lion to purchase $150 in groceries. The cashier obligingly cashed the fake bill and presented the perpetrator with $50 in change.
- Amazon River: It is said that offshore of the mouth of the Amazon potable water can be drawn from the ocean while still out of sight of the coastline, and the salinity of the ocean is notably lower a hundred miles out to sea.
- Luis Carrero Blanco: Within about six months of being named prime minister, he was assassinated in Madrid by four Basque members of ETA, who carried out a bombing while he returned from mass in an armored car. ETA placed one ton of explosives in a tunnel they had excavated under the street, which was definitely more than enough to assassinate Carrero. The blast catapulted the vehicle over the church it was parked in front of, and it landed on a second floor balcony on the other side. Because of this, Spanish people joke that Carrero was the first Spanish astronaut.
- BT Tower: In 1981 it was superseded as the tallest building in Britain by the NatWest Tower (renamed Tower 42). Until the mid 1990s, the building was officially a secret, and did not appear on official maps. Indeed, even by taking a photo of it you were breaking the Official Secrets Act. Its existence was finally "confirmed" by Kate Hoey, MP, on 19 February 1993: "Hon. Members have given examples of seemingly trivial information that remains officially secret. An example that has not been mentioned, but which is so trivial that it is worth mentioning, is the absence of the British Telecom tower from Ordnance Survey maps. I hope that I am covered by parliamentary privilege when I reveal that the British Telecom tower does exist and that its address is 60 Cleveland Street, London." [1]
- Penis panic: In September 2003, the Middle East Media Research Institute reported an hysteria of "penis-melting robot combs" in Khartoum, capital of Sudan. Sudanese victims were made to believe by force of suggestion that their penises would melt away after they shared an electronic (or "robot") comb, shook hands, or received a verbal curse. The so-called "penis-melting" has been blamed on Zionists trying to wipe out the Sudanese people by making their men unable to reproduce. The hysterical reports were spread throughout Sudan by means of cell phone text-messaging.
[edit] See also
[edit] External Links
| Interested in attending a Los Angeles Wikipedia Meetup? |
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Thanks to all who attended Meetup #1, Meetup #2 and/or Meetup #3. |
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