User:Ttiotsw
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[edit] Please Avoid Talk on this user page - use talk page
Please use the talk page at User_talk:Ttiotsw. Please do not alter this user page text with what is usually thought of as commentary, discussion or talk. Ttiotsw 18:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Explanation on my username
It is simply taking the first letters of each of the words of the phrase The Truth Is Out There Some Where, which some may recognise contains a slogan from the show The X-Files with some extra words to make a unique name that gets no Google hits at create time. It is thus not a member of the class of Names that consist of random or apparently random sequences of letters and/or numbers. I feel that I'll be reasonably precise on Copyright and attribution: with some coding for Open Source projects (mainly GPL licensed) you get a reasonably complete understanding of the copyrights that protect both content and code. Ttiotsw 19:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Why not my real name ?
It has been commented on that: "...why do I not use my real name ?". Obvious, really but I will explain; A real name would allow anyone to identify where I live through trivial Google searches as I have domain names which have my real details in them for a company. Giving this ability to trace where I live to all and sundry could restrict the subjects I could edit. I couldn't easily revert vandalism nor cross paths with difficult editors without a lingering feeling that they could track back and then move threats from the Wikipedia world to the Real world. Lets face reality - I'm an atheist who edits Islamic and Christian pages; in some Islamic countries what I believe in may probably be illegal and in some Western countries what I've said or could say may be blasphemy. I am risk adverse thus it is anonymous but it is a unique username in the world as I Googled to make sure it matched nothing else when I created it. I have also not used it anywhere else; if you see it outside of Wikipedia it is not the real Ttiotsw but a fake. Ttiotsw 19:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Edits
- Just done my second edit; this time with a external link. Whoa hooooo. I didn't bother with a reference yet as the article didn't have a references section so I didn't want to be alone.
Ttiotsw 09:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
- Done a few more. Had to do a revert on a messed up talk page. I'm using Popups. Slowly getting hang of this. Ttiotsw 01:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
- Done a few hundred more by end of 2006. Had a few hiccups. Ttiotsw 12:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Technology
Rely on for Wikipedia editing...
- IBM R31 laptop (I just love this clunky machine),
- 2Mbps ADSL (640kbps downstream),
- 802.11G Wireless AP with built-in ADSL2+ modem
- Belkin 54G PCMCIA card on Laptop (not as good a built-in but its OK),
- dual-screen (i.e. extended desktop),
- Logitech optical mouse,
- Samsung Laser printer (for extended reading),
- Firefox for all browsing.
Use WPA if anyone asks. Yes it probably could be brute-forced but trust me when I say that no one will be doing wardriving where I live. (last updated Ttiotsw 12:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC))
- Hadn't done much on Wikipedia as recently started to get click of death on the above Laptop's HDD (it was a TravelStar that has been around the world so after around 60,000 kms I can't really complain). Did a full backup, using Acronis True Image to a USB based HDD (one of my backup devices). Swapped the old with a new Samsung 60 Gig drive and then restored the partitions from the USB disk, booted to Windows to check if OK then booted Ubuntu install DVD and used gparted to increase Windows C Drive by a few gigs and then rebooted for Windows to do chkdsk on the NTFS volumes. Then installed Ubuntu 6.10 on spare space on drive. Now I boot to GRUB and can choose Ubuntu GNU/Linux or Windows without using Linux inside of VMWare Player. Now hopefully back into Wikipedia edits. Ttiotsw 20:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Point Of View
I'm an atheist in that I'm a secular humanist. Equally I'm a pluralist when it comes to religions. Spent reasonable amount of time travelling around the world and have thus seen quite a few different religions and cultures to say anything other than religion is very much so a cultural artifact first. Though people try and intermingle it with race, you can't change the genetics of your race but you can change culture thus any religion should be able to be discussed and criticised whereas race should be protected from criticism. The cultural artifacts I hold dear as thus my "religion" too and they include other religious artifacts that I see people have made. Be these books, temples, churches, barrows, crypts, icons or cathedrals; All these things are equal - I am neutral on the motivation as to me it is a fact that there isn't anything above nature (a self fulfilling view in that if a supernature did appear they would then be part of nature). All supernature is thus a fiction.
Atheist or related pages get some weird vandalism though probably not any more than other religious pages so I make sure I keep those clean. This also extends to other religious pages where it touches on humanist, rationalist or atheist subjects. My edits are thus neutral in that all is seen from the point of view as to what is falsifiable and not a matter of faith. The only faith should be those transient hypothesese that are then tested through experiment or observation. That's verifiability.
So ask yourself when you update any religious page: are you doing this because of your unfalsifiable faith and if so then how do you verify what you say ? Ttiotsw 06:06, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Time Bandits
Had to clean up my talk page. It got so bad that some people were looking to see if the wr or wr1 Templates applied. IMHO they don't as they are related to removing warnings not just cleaning up general comments. If someone is really interested in history then they can just do that - look at the edit history. Some people are what I call Time Bandits - they steal your time. This is the most valuable resource you have. How do I address this ? With the following two filter methods...
[edit] Matter Is Closed
These are magic words. They mean that within the context of what I am saying that I don't feel that there is more to be added. Time is short. Anyone disputing stuff with me on my talk page and really winds me up then thats the warning that you're now trespassing on my time. Doesn't mean I won't take timeout to respond but just don't expect a long running repeat of the same loop but a new slant which I feel is more effective to disengage from the dispute. For some it may just be blanking the whole discussion out.
Don't take it personal; it may be that you have just hit on a argument that I've already re-run many times before. This is especially true with fantasy stuff like gods. If it isn't falsifiable it's not worth the effort unless its recognised by both parties as a fiction e.g. discussing Lexx or Star Trek.
This obviously never applies to legitimate warnings. I spend a lot of time editing even the smallest of sentences in articles so I hope to never get any warnings in those but you can trust my good faith in the ideals of Wikipedia.Ttiotsw 04:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Falsifiability
Falsifiability is a very good filter to work out what is worth spending time arguing over. When anyone starts an argument about something that can't be falsified then it's kind of a waste of time unless the aim is to highlight that arguing over what can't be falsified is a waste of time. Another good reason to argue this is if the other person is theatening you in some way. Usually religions and politicians will use threats (spot the difference). In that case just go with the flow as any point of view is meaningless in the big picture. Occams razor basically eliminates the extra entities so if they have invented a fiction, you are able to believe that without consequence.
People go into contorted arguments (Just look at what the Pope writes !) on something that should really be quite an easy subject. When this happens then alarm bells should ring; what the person is talking about can't be falsified. It could be an advertising claim, a political statement, an economics statement or some religious dogma. They are all the same if they can't be falsified.
This argument about falsifiability generally comes up in some discussions surrounding science subjects where either the scale of either the distances or the time is great - for instance Evolution and Astronomy. In these two fields proving a hypothesis is difficult but it happens and theories are maintained though they are subject to criticism on the grounds that they disregard the possibility of supernatural causes; these fields as not alone - all of science has no need for the supernatural. I guess this is why mathematics is not seen as a science as it is safe from the demands to include a supernatural prime mover. Ttiotsw 00:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Notable (or Not) Books I'm Reading
I just got Understanding the Linux Kernel version 3 (D.P. Bovet & M. Cesati. O'Reilly 2005) which has the kernel 2.6. Quite a change from my old copy (v2). Truth be told I've only contributed code in userspace but it's always nice to stay in touch with the nuts and bolts end. At 900 pages of pure geek pr0n this'll keep me happy for quite a few months.
Most of what I read is newspaper plus internet news sites (very few, if any, blogs). I've just started The Singularity Is Near by Raymond Kurzweil. It has lots of pretty charts. Finished Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion. Yeah it's OK, I wouldn't call it his best. I'm guessing a sequel will be out sometime which will be more critical: maybe pick on the Muslims next time. Maybe not: between the sectarian violence and the Pope they don't need any more critics. Ttiotsw 20:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Current Wikipedia focus
I did have a look at some Islam-focused pages related to science but truthfully those pages are simply bubblegum; you can chew but it's not nutritional. In my humble opinion, reconciling these two is a lost cause and that's renewed my faith in the scientific method. I'm really now working back to core pages related to Evolution and Natural Selection and making sure the balance is right. I'm happy to state now that I don't agree with the idea of NOMA (NonOverlapping MAgisteria) and it's a toss-up between the pro-Islamics or my recent reading of Dawkins' The God Delusion as to who helped this change in view. I now feel (it's a hypothesis) that any field of human endevour is open to scientific enquiry be it traditionally demarked as faith or reason. This is going to be fun. Ttiotsw 23:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Reverting vandalism
I just love reverting this and I really do prefer complex vandalism like slow edits over a period of time or user + IP edits; to me it is a game of cat and mouse. When I find some I check the user or IP contributions and quickly see if any of their other edits are still flagged as "top". These are dead-givaways that others have missed other vandalism. I then check each diff and revert as I see fit. With Firefox middle-click into tabs I can check this quite quickly. I use Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popups. Sometimes I flag a suitable TEST warning to a userpage; I don't usually bother warning low-edit count IPs. On some articles I get the feeling that a user is not playing fair in Wikipedia and look around at what else they edit to get a sense of what they are and then remember them as a hostile or not.
Sometimes what I see is simply just enthusiastic but POV edits and not really a vandalism problem so I try and get a consensus with a more neutral alteration. I do this by editing the article and asking to see talk and then placing why I edited the article on the talk. With these type of clean-up edits I work on the theory that I know nothing and must verify everything I write. If I'm writing to any of these articles it doesn't mean I support either side. Ttiotsw 11:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Working towards 500 mainspace edits
I really want to use the WP:AWB tool so working towards the 500 edits of main space that they use as an acceptance criteria. I'll also want to try the Database Scanner function: they should make that file available as a torrent (after all if you use it and are online then why not p2p share the file too ?) so as to really deeply mine this. So far over 800 edits but under 300 in article main space. I actually think this is a really good trigger level as it is not easy but not hard to get to that. If you haven't hit a psychological barrier on Wikipedia and it still feels like fun by 500 then you'll probably go further and any automation tools are a good thing.Ttiotsw 20:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Then a desire for admin status
mwahahahah, when I become admin then that mere users will tremble at the sound of my contribs. This is probably why I am not applying for admin now as I read too much Dilbert and hopefully by the time I get around to applying for Admin say at 3000 edits then my Karma will be such that I will be as the garbageman and not as Dogbert. Not that I'm saying Dogbert is bad or anything. Hello, hello, say who could that be at this time of night ?.....^*&^6(&*
NO CARRIER
[edit] Getting bored or disillusioned ?
I started getting bored recently with Wikipedia but then discovered WP:MISSING. This does look like a very good way to step out into new areas without coming across the same set of editors. I'm going to start working on some technology articles and see if I can get into the swing. Ttiotsw 11:26, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Articles I think I should start
Antony Thomas needs an article. He was key to the film Death of a Princess (I haven't seen that) and it would seem other films (but with large gaps). Has the writing credits for "Rhodes: The Life and Legend of Cecil Rhodes." (which I did see and I loved that). Sounds notable enough person to me as two other articles in Wikipedia could wikilink to his name. Ttiotsw 20:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Aldebaran Robotics has a French one and needs an English one. Ttiotsw 15:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
The phenazine (see under Natural Products) pyocyanin has no page yet it probably has sufficient links inbound from e.g Pseudomonas aeruginosa to make it sticky as an encyclopaedic subject. Ttiotsw 12:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Mukto-Mona is a web site that is dedicated to articles focused on Bengali and South Asian secular humanists. It has a reasonably large range of authors, [1] and it's origin is intertwined with the Faith Freedom International so I think an article could be made that is sticky enough as the site seems notable enough and we should be able to get inbound cites from relevant 3rd parties. Being British I obviously love my Bangladeshi foods (as interpreted by curry houses in London). In fact just writing this has made me hungry for a curry (and a few beers) - imagine Homer going "donut,... donuts" and "beer,...beer..." only for me it's curry and beer. I like Mexican too and Thai and while I'm at it I admit I eat raw chillies and garlic as a sandwich on bread with Tabasco sauce (when at home obviously). I guess I need help. Ttiotsw 10:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Caelestis kind of missing, though she was romanised as Tanit based on say [2]. Ttiotsw 10:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Learning Italian so some translation of articles could be fun, for instance, [3] is quite topical as his most recent book Perché non possiamo essere cristiani (e meno che mai cattolici) (Longanesi, 2007. ISBN 9788830424272) has been in Italian bestsellers lists for over 71 weeks. Ttiotsw 20:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Articles I have created
In no particular order,
- MANIFESTO:_Together_facing_the_new_totalitarianism - never read this thing but it seemed notable,
- Victor J. Stenger - haven't actually read much of his stuff but he's cited enough in Wikipedia so he's notable,
