User talk:Gauss

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Archives for this talk page: , (new)

Newton, Bayes & now Gauss! Welcome, pull up a goat, have some apple pie & enjoy. Susan Jayne Garlicktalk 12:11, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Ha - SIJHAS - caught me Susan Jayne Garlicktalk 12:18, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Hmm, seems Newton has sworn off this place. Too bad. From the look of things, his reincarnation here didn't seem to have much similarity to his 17th century ideals anyway. I guess the task of haunting the place is up to us now.--Bayesupdate 15:00, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
He's [[conservapedia:leaving and never coming back|leaving and never coming back]]. Just like TK. And Heart of Gold. -- מְתֻרְגְּמָן וִיקִי שְׁלֹום!

new template[edit]

Did you see {{sci-outline}} template - also sticks cats in. SG 19:01, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

Yes. In fact, I copied it for Sci-intro. I felt that Sci-outline dismisses the seriousness of the article a little too much, and some middle ground was needed. Now, this may have entered into controversy -- RW says it is not an encyclopedia, but I'd like it to become slightly more of one. RW is many things: serious liberal positions on matters of rationality, serious liberal positions on politics, bashing CP (with a bit of humor), bashing fundamentalists (with a bit of humor), just plain goofing around ("pull up a goat"), etc. etc. Anyway, I'd like RW to provide a bit of an educational oasis for things that really ought to be able to be discussed without all the CP fundamentalist crap.
I hope that's OK. Gauss 20:34, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
My thinking was, it says "here's a quick overview, hopefully enough for you to stay on our site for now. We know Wikipedia (etc.) cover it in way more depth." humanbe in 21:25, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
See what you mean but: I don't like the invite to go to WP in the header - before they've even read it. My thought was that anyone who read the article & wanted more could check see alsos & refs. There's also the cats that invite others to expand the article. 193.113.235.169 21:32, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
I agree. We aren't here to send people off-site. Everyone know how to copy and paste in a WP search box if they don't understand anything. Does the template still/now send people to WP? I thought I prettied it up a bit, maybe I missed that... humanbe in 21:34, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
OK, I went and looked. Junk teplate, unnecessary, sorry to be mean. Outline works reasonably well (it sort of says, look it up if this isn;t enough). We also have template:wp, whichis off to the right and says Wp covers this. And, as I said above. People know WP has articles on everything! Sorry if I sound mean. We aren't a linkwell for WP. To make a good website, you make it "sticky" - don't send people elsewhere, give them more on-site. In fact, I think "sci-outline" should add the category of articles in need of more. humanbe in 21:45, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

Make it so! (that was me up there - carping!) SG 21:50, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

Perhaps we should defer further conversation to Template Talk:Sci-intro? Locke User is Vandal/sysop Always Watching...... 21:53, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

Done (by SusanG and others.) Now using Template:Sci-outline and Template_talk:Sci-outline. Gauss 20:12, 8 September 2007 (CDT)

Curiouser and curiouser...[edit]

Don't know why I didn't pick up on this earlier, but this image used on CP's relativity article shows a simplified, 2-D illustration of spacetime curvature. Andy apparently accepts spacetime curvature, but has no idea that spacetime curvature is a relativistic idea. He even mentions gravity wells in the image caption. He's actually using an image showing the predictions of GR in a positive context, and then he attacks GR in the article/talk page. We already knew he doesn't know what he's talking about, but this still ranks pretty high on the "are you kidding me??" and "unintentional ironic hilarity" scales.--Bayesupdate 17:19, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

Lately I've been taking an interest in math stuff on CP. (Well, the way one "takes an interest" in looking at auto accidents.) The stuff about "Linear Algebra is the division of algebra dealing with lines" is a little too much. Looking around, the place is as insane as the science and politics, but in a more genteel way. I haven't yet come across anything suggesting that homotopy is a deceitful liberal plot, but it's still insane. And there's this issue with user Robert publicly taking Andy to task for his monumental ignorance. And the whole thing was (ahem) "archived" only about 2 days after Robert's last entry. Too big a coincidence. Also, there appear to be a few people taunting CP over the math class, and being promptly banned. With any luck, this could turn into another FBI thing. I was instrumental in putting the FBI page together, so maybe I need to get ready for another battle.
Furthermore, it turns out that Robert was briefly blocked a week ago. He might not even know that, and he might not be as suspicious of the timing of the page archiving as I am. In any case, I'm going to try to recruit him soon. Gauss 18:50, 18 October 2007 (EDT)
From what Robert posted over there, he looks pretty knowledgeable. Meanwhile the math class, along with the Supreme Court class, is still linked from the main page. Maybe they're on deck for the spring semester.--Bayesupdate 22:42, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, Robert did a pretty thorough job of researching Andy's mathematical ignorance. Though his task was easier than most people's—Mathematics is "hard science", so Andy couldn't hide behind all his usual crap. Heck, he never even asked whether Robert supports school prayer, or whether Robert thinks Benjamin Franklin was a deist. (I never did figure out what all the fuss about Franklin was about.) So Robert was able to nail Andy to the wall quite solidly. His last missive, after I alerted him to the fact that he had been blocked, pretty much dared the CP powers that be to delete his stuff and/or block him, which they don't seem to have done. I suspect that the reason is that they don't want to create another FBI incident, in which they get taunted and have to block everyone, and they can't admit that they were wrong, so they keep getting taunted, and keep blocking. A small amount of taunting has taken place (Look around; you see occasional questions about the math stuff) and the CP sysops just let it pass. There was even something recently on the course for the math page—someone else has noticed that the curriculum is insane. [[1]].

I'm probably going to create a "Conservapedian Mathematics" page, to go along with your "Conservapedian Relativity". Though there's nowhere near as much to say. Just preserve Robert's stuff from the memory hole.

Robert has turned down my invitation to come over here and contribute to RW. Says he's too busy, and there's really nothing he can add over here.

That class has a zero percent chance of happening. Gauss 15:46, 10 November 2007 (EST)

I like the idea of conservapedia:mathematics. KNock yourself out, maybe I'll join in. Jes' 'member, rashfly is a phd mat'met'ishin! humanUser talk:Human 23:02, 10 November 2007 (EST)
Done! Conservapedia:Conservapedian mathematics. Well, I still need to go through the topology category and show how it is mindless copying from some glossary. Like the ships registry business, but more damaging because students might actually read it. Gauss 19:56, 18 November 2007 (EST)

Rollback[edit]

It undos all by the last editor until it reaches a different one - apparently. (see the vandalism ilink in RC header) Susanspeak your mind 19:16, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

archive management[edit]

You might like the {{talkpage}} template. Check the documentation to make it find your archive path and naming scheme. humanUser talk:Human 17:14, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

I deleted the redirect left behind your move. By the way, we don't have a "standard", we just have that cool template that stevo wrote. Although it allows some leeway with its "variables". Anyway, you're welcome. I like it because it is so easy to use. humanUser talk:Human 17:28, 1 November 2007 (EDT)
The problem I had is that I had used the WP "standard" naming of "Gauss/Archive 1" with a blank, because I used the WP help files to guide me. The RW documentation for {{talkpage}} said that, with no argument it would give "Gauss/Archive1" (which I therefore took to be the "RW standard"), and it seemed to say that {{talkpage|archive path=archive }} (note the blank before the close curly brace) would handle the format that I had used. But it didn't work, so I just renamed my archive. Is this a bug in the template that should be reported? Gauss 18:32, 1 November 2007 (EDT)
I dunno. The guy who made that and a couple others vanished soon after, sadly. It would be nice if it allowed virtually any choices. Then again, if one simply starts with it in default, there's no problem. I wonder if there is a way to "force" a space, since the software ignores most of them? humanUser talk:Human 18:37, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

terminological breakdown[edit]

Re: wandalism, lulz, pwn, etc. - most of these are covered at RationalWiki:DysLexicon for the uninitiated. (kind of replying to your edit comment) Doesn't mean the articles shouldn't exist, just that we do have dicdefs of them in a central location. humanUser talk:Human 17:14, 4 November 2007 (EST)

An Honest Sock errrr Man.[edit]

Nice dose of reality for teh Assfly. Excellent travail, mon ami. PFoster 13:37, 28 February 2008 (EST)

Thanks. Sorry about changing your stuff, but I'd been mentally composing the "2300 year search" line for days. You were way too fast for me! Gauss 13:50, 28 February 2008 (EST)

August[edit]

Argh, you're right. My internal calendar is completely off-course these days. It didn't fully register yet that it's already August again! XD --Sid 20:06, 1 August 2008 (EDT)

Large Hadron Collider[edit]

You are in our "go-to guys" under physicists, I am curious if you would at all be interested in working on an article dealing with the LHC craziness? I figure that is right up our alley, plenty of places talk about the LHC itself, but with all the crazy "end of the world" crap out that it will destroy the earth in a black hole is crying out for some rational commentary. tmtoulouse heckle 21:48, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Heh, remember, the first nuclear weapon engineers weren't sure the chain reaction would "stop". I think that leads to a lot of crazy confusion about particle physics sixty years later. ħumanUser talk:Human 00:54, 28 August 2008 (EDT)
Yeah, I believe they thought the a nuclear weapon would A)Set the sky on fire by burning all the oxygen or B)if detonated in the ocean it would burn up all the hydrogen. But this LHC project sounds interesting. Strangelets, black holes and the like. Ace McWickedwhisky 01:08, 28 August 2008 (EDT)
The LHC has the potential to be the coolest thing ever, all the crazy crank end of world craziness just pisses me of. However, some of the videos here are classic. tmtoulouse heckle 01:20, 28 August 2008 (EDT)
Hell yes, the LHC is the largestpiece of scientific equipment ever built. It is truly staggering. Remember they had the same uproar before the turned on the earlier accelarator at CERN. Ace McWickedwhisky 01:23, 28 August 2008 (EDT)
Check out this video over at Blake Stacey's new blog home. It is really pretty awe inspiring. Better than water into wine any day. tmtoulouse heckle 01:26, 28 August 2008 (EDT)

This one is great, as in greatly over exaggerated.

Demotion[edit]

Always assumed that you were a Sysop - put it right now! SusanG  ContribsTalk 17:19, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Andy, WIGO, Bible[edit]

I thought Beth's skewering of Andy of over the Bible-citing was great, but after thinking about what you said I think your point belongs in it's own entry. One point is how Andy's "chivalry" movement is destroying the very morale it's supposed to improve, the other is about Andy's basing the legitimacy of an argument on whether it has Biblical backing or not.

Where the second point is concerned, the line from Andy that I found lulzy is this one: "a lack of chivalry pulls people away from the Bible also". I'm not quite sure how to WIGO that bit of nonsense, but I think it would be along the lines of this:

"Ah, Chivalry, you fickle beast. Too little and it pulls people away from the Bible. Too much and it pulls people away from Andy's History class.

--SpinyNorman 11:16, 31 October 2008 (EDT)

Hey[edit]

No offense, but you can use the SHOW PREVIEW button when editing. JJ4eI christen thee Sir Annoyz Alot 12:24, 6 January 2009 (EST)

Yeah, but it doesn't work for templates; that is, it doesn't show the effect of the change. So I got real grubby with what I did. Then, when it didn't work, I repaired the damage, realized that this was no way to operate, and looked at how User:Frohlich was doing his stuff. Answer: experiment with a copy in a sandbox, saving it each time, and then look at the effects by refreshing another page that invokes the template. What a pain! But at least it doesn't mess up everyone else while I'm working on it. Gauss 12:34, 6 January 2009 (EST)
OK, I didn't know. Godspeed, JJ4eI christen thee Sir Annoyz Alot 12:48, 6 January 2009 (EST)

Math offering[edit]

Great ideas! I'll try to contribute my (i.e., DiEb's) share. BTW:

  • CScience: not blocked at CP
  • Bayes: not blocked at CP
  • Robert: not blocked at CP
  • 21:26, 29 August 2008 Ed Poor (Talk | contribs) blocked DiEb (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of infinite (account creation disabled) ‎ (not an error - user is disruptive)
  • 06:00, 4 January 2009 TK (Talk | contribs) blocked BRichtigen (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 5 years (account creation disabled, e-mail blocked) ‎ (insistence on last wordism: argue, argue, argue. See CP Guidelines)
  • 19:19, 31 December 2008 TK (Talk | contribs) blocked AlanS (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 5 years (account creation disabled) ‎ (Abusing multiple accounts: SamHB was sock)
  • SamHB: 19:17, 31 December 2008 TK (Talk | contribs) blocked SamHB (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 5 years (account creation disabled) ‎ (Sock of blocked user: his is a sock of AlanS, previously blocked. )
  • 01:30, 30 December 2008 TK (Talk | contribs) blocked ElizabethK (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 5 years (account creation disabled) ‎ (Abusing multiple accounts: ElizabethK = RWillow = JaydenK = JTitor = GParker across multiple IP's)
  • William Beason: not blocked at CP

So, while Ed Poor (and Foxtrot) are the most obnoxious to argue with, TK has the biggest head count (at least in this sample) LArron 02:51, 11 January 2009 (EST)

Sorry about that.[edit]

I seem to have turned you into a Bureaucrat. You now have the ability to repress the souls of users make other users into Sysops, and other user rights managment tasks. In general, as you probabally know, we wait three or so days before doing so. Good luck! Javasca₧ no hell below him

Law of Gravity[edit]

Check out Talk:Essay:Quantifying openmindedness, and scroll down to near the bottom. Enjoy. --IlTrovatore 19:14, 16 February 2009 (EST)

Burning the evidence at conservapedia[edit]

Um, isn't it already abundantly clear from the word "conservapedia" at the beginning? Totnesmartin 16:35, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Well, that's clearly mostly true. Because of the recent split of the two "burning" pages, I wanted it to be abundantly clear, at all times, which one one is looking at, and which one a wikilink will go to. The title bar certainly has "conservapedia:" in it, but I somehow thought there were cases in which a vanilla wikilink might not. So I wanted the word in the title itself. Now that I'm trying to construct a case in which the namespace doesn't show, I can't. Dunno. (Of course, one can always concoct a deceptive wikilink, but that's not what I was trying to prevent.)
In any case, that was the reasoning. Do you think this was the wrong thing to do? Gauss 19:28, 9 March 2009 (EDT)
Yes, because now we have "Conservapedia" in the title twice, which looks clunky. Totnesmartin 06:32, 10 March 2009 (EDT)
I guess it's an issue of having an article's title sound nice. We have a number of articles with names like "Conservapedian Relativity" and "Conservapedian Mathematics". The names roll off the tongue nicely. You can say "I saw this over on Conservapedian Mathematics" and everyone knows what you are talking about, without thinking about namespaces or funny word order. I admit that "Burning the Evidence at Conservapedia" doesn't roll off the tongue very well. How about "Conservapedian Evidence-Burning" or "Conservapedian Burning" or "Conservapedian Memory Hole" or something like that?
The goal is for people to be able to say "I saw this at XYZ" (the way they say "Let's WIGO this") and have there be no ambiguity about the CP burning vs. the general burning. I definitely don't want the name to be clunky. WIGO, for example, is a wonderful and euphonious name.
Perhaps the problem originated with the splitting of the mainspace burning page from the CP burning page. There was originally just one page, the CP version, with a small amount of stuff about Stalin and "damnatio memoriae", etc. The latter part got split off into its own page. Each page is consistent in style with its part of RW—the mainspace page with its just-the-facts information about a topic in support of RW's general goals, and the cp page with its intense snark. IMHO the cp page is by far the more important and popular one. Whenever people speak of "burning the evidence" here at RW (or at CP, just before being banned!) they mean the cp-namespace page. So maybe the other page is the one that should be renamed, and this one should go back to just "Burning the Evidence", in the cp namespace of course.
Or perhaps I'm over-reacting to the confusion, and everyone knows, when talking in the context of cp, what page is intended. Your thoughts? Change it back and forget the whole thing? Gauss 13:18, 10 March 2009 (EDT)
You were right. I've changed it back. Gauss 10:54, 12 March 2009 (EDT)

A fellow connoisseur[edit]

Hi Gauss. Good to know I'm not the only one who appreciates the brilliance of cp:Law Terms D.-- Kriss AkabusiAAAWOOOGAAAR!!1 09:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Student Two[edit]

I took the addition you made to WIGO:CP off because it seems to me that it's almost certainly a different student. Look at the current answers and the ones currently here. I can't believe it's the same person - more likely it's reusing a number. SuspectedReplicant (talk) 22:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, you're probably right. I had guessed that it was the same person because (a) sane people never re-use an index number, and (b) "ShannaP" sounded fairly likely to be the daughter of "JamesRP". But I could see that the essays were rather different. Different person? Same person after daddy made her drink the Kool-aid? We'll never know. Gauss 13:18, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
The first poster was "AmandaP" (see Assfly's talk page). I think the P is just a coincidence. SuspectedReplicant 13:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Oops. You're right. My detective work was substandard. (My research is usually quite thorough. Really!) Gauss 17:08, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Just the man I have been looking for.[edit]

Could you weigh in on Talk:Russell's_Teapot#Physics Phail and Talk:C-decay#Edit war? My physics has gone to shit in the last 5 years and I think I am making an arse of myself. - π 05:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

email[edit]

Hi - did you get my letter? larronsicut fur in nocte 10:16, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

No. Email? To me at RW? Gauss (talk) 04:00, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
yup, I'll play it again... larronsicut fur in nocte 06:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

SamHB[edit]

OK, I'm here. We no longer need to argue over what's appropriate to say, or whether I should come here. I no longer need to be careful not to let communications from me reflect badly on my presence at CP. SamHB (talk) 23:45, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Impressive...[edit]

career(s)! I enjoyed you all your work, especially as it was constructive, but nevertheless annoyed the powers-to-be

larronsicut fur in nocte 06:52, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I am aLSO IMPRESSED. My legs are shaking! --Idiot number 59 (talk) 07:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)--Idiot number 59 (talk) 07:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
All 1 of them? Gauss (talk) 14:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I see that you are really clever. I like that. But you probably didn't know that I usually count my penis as a leg; it's just so big. You can ask SusanG if you don't believe me. --Idiot number 59 (talk) 15:41, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
But I still think that now it's time to get a life. --Idiot number 59 (talk) 07:05, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Rev delete[edit]

Please explain why you tried to delete the revision you made to the Capturebot2 sandbox. Otherwise, it will remain undone. Gooniepunk2010 Oi! Oi! Oi! 06:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Cheers[edit]

Cheers, buddy. Be well. Nutty Roux100x100 anarchy symbol.svgUser:Nutty Roux/sigtalk 04:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

WIGO[edit]

Did you really think that WIGOing a budding new parodist was a good idea? DeltaStarSenior SysopSpeciationspeed! 14:17, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Greetings from E.L. Wisty[edit]

You * of a *. I outed myself on CP because I thought SamHB was a real Conservapedian. Should have checked first, shouldn't I? It's probably all for the best, since I have little to no talent for parody, and the fall semester starts on Monday.

Cheers,

Rick.

While I think that half of the CP sysops are batshit crazy and the other half are thugs, I am, and have always been, absolutely, totally, positively, genuinely opposed to vandalism or parody there. So, when I saw the 3 cubic cubits junk, I actually didn't care whether you were ignorant, stupid, or a parodist. It really didn't make any difference to me. When you "outed" yourself, I just thought "Oh, yeah. That would explain it."
Anyway, welcome. And anything in double curly braces (single curly braces have their normal meaning) is considered a "template" and is expanded to whatever the template author wants. Double square brackets leads to an internal hyperlink, as in [[User:SamHB]]. You can make the link appear any way you want by putting in a vertical bar followed by your own text, as in [[User:SamHB|Sam's stupid user page]]. Anything in single square brackets, if it looks like a URL, is an external internet link, as in [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/]. And you can control what it looks like by putting in a space (not a vertical bar; remember that URL's are not allowed to have spaces), as in [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ some left-wing evolutionist blog]. In all of the preceding, I used some wiki-magic to show the stuff to you. But if your type it in without the magic, you will get the actual effect.
Also, a pair of single quotes gets you italics. (A single single quote, or any number of double quotes, has its normal meaning.) Triple single quotes gets you bold. That's really what you need to know about editing.
SamHB (talk) 03:52, 21 August 2011 (UTC)