User:Rafi Neal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hi! I'm a new user at Wikipedia, as of March 2007, so I haven't had much time to edit my page. Still gotta figure out those user boxes. Thanks for visiting!
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[edit] My style pet peeve
is the overuse of parentheses in many Wikipedia articles. Unnecessary parantheses break up the flow of a paragraph, are visually unappealing, and just make articles less professional. Of course, sometimes parentheses are necessary, but there's usually a better way. Parenthetical comments should be incorporated into the sentence, or made into new sentences, as the case may be.
[edit] A bit about me
- I've lived in the Chicago area since my birth in October 1988.
- I'm a proud, serious and well-educated Orthodox Jew. I can identify with Religious Zionism, Modern Orthodoxy, Da'as Torah, and Hassidus, and I wish these streams could get along with each other better. It will take senseless love to bring Mashiach!
- I love Israel; I'll be spending the year after high school at Yeshivat Hakotel.
[edit] My hobbies
- Painting, sketching, and computer art
- Shotokan karate, my rank is second kyu by the JKA system
- Ragtime piano, especially Maple Leaf Rag, which I can play for hours at a time
- I'm a ba'al korei (Torah reader); I guess that's more a duty than a hobby, but I enjoy laining. I primarilly use the Polish-Lithuanian Ashkenazic melody, and I also know the Jerusalem Sephardic and Greek-Turkish Sephardic melodies, as my mother's family is Sephardic.
[edit] My favorite Wikipedia articles
Be sure to look at the external links!
- Conic sections and Dandelin spheres. There's a lot to read about them on the internet, the conic sections have so many amazing characteristics: their geometric and algebraic definitions; the foci, eccentricity, moires, and reflection properties; their everyday appearances; and so much more. Spend a few hours familiarizing yourself with them, and greatly enhance your appreciation of this universe in which we live.
- Ambigrams. Apparently they're big in Dan Brown's books, which I haven't read, but I discovered them on Wikipedia and think they're sweet. John Langdon's tutorial at his website is especially worthwhile.
- I've done a lot of writing for Amidah and Chametz. The articles still don't do their subjects justice, but I'm proud of the work I've put into them.
[edit] My favorite websites
Where I am online when not editing Wikipedia...
- vbm-torah.org, Yeshivat Har Etzion's Virtual Beit Midrash. If you love Torah, you'll wonder what you did without this site. It's especially good for getting ready for holidays.
- jpost.com, the Jerusalem Post, my favorite news source for Israel's current events.
