User:84user/Sandbox

Newspaper archives

 * Chronicle Herald at http://thechronicleherald.ca/cedrom_archives/
 * New Jersey Titles at http://www.newslibrary.com/sites/stlb/

Sourcing webcomics
Sources for webcomic-related subjects mentioned in WikiProject Deletion sorting/Webcomics. Google Books: Genre studies in mass media: a handbook By Art Silverblatt single mention page 19: "Commenting on the fifth annual WCCA, Boxer observes ..." followed by a paragraph about Narbonic winning and that it was difficult to read.
 * Articles for deletion/Newshounds: Thomas K. Dye created Newshounds. Amazon lists several books by Thomas K. Dye mostly available via lulu.com. Dye has been publishing a webcomic since 1997.
 * Articles for deletion/Ursa Major Awards, Articles for deletion/Ursa Major Awards (2nd nomination): Ursa Major Awards now redirects to List of webcomic awards.
 * Articles for deletion/Dave Kelly (artist). Dave Kelly (artist) redirects to Purple Pussy which is itself nominated for deletion
 * Articles for deletion/Purple Pussy.
 * http://webcomicoverlook.com/ appears to contain serious independent reviews of about 200 webcomics. Mentioned by Maclean's at Making fun of Canadian history about Kate Beaton.
 * T Campbell's History of Online Comics (later published as The History of WebComics: The Golden Age: 1993-2005, Volume 1, ISBN 0976804395) posts found directly or archived at Internet Archive: part 1; part 2; part 3 (1993 to 1997); part 4 (1997 to 1998); part 5 not found; part 6 (switch to no style to view this one, approx 2000 to 2004); part 7 (2000s); part 8; part 9 (mentions Ctrl+Alt+Del (webcomic)).
 * Sources mentioning Ctrl+Alt+Del (webcomic), "Tim Buckley" or "Winter-een-mas": January 2011 / Going to the Comic Con; Happy Winter-een-mas! Keep on playing January 24, 2008 on Lincoln Journal Star; Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (GA) - March 25, 2007 - D1 LOCAL ; reposted at Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (GA) - April 25, 2007 - 18 NORTHLAND "Winter-een-mas is a yearly celebration ..."; Online Summer Entertainment Knows No Bounds "Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic). It, and imitators of it (like Ctrl+Alt+Del: http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/), tend to deal with game-related topics"; http://www.404techsupport.com/2010/10/09/webcomic-ctrlaltdel-old-rss-feed-gets-hijacked-and-thousands-of-followers-instantly-for-lil-boosie/ Webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del Old RSS Feed Gets Hijacked and Thousands of Followers Instantly For “Lil Boosie”, October 9, 2010, "Ctrl+Alt+Del, the high quality and popular webcomic".
 * Sources found with Google Scholar: SPANNERS FOR THE VIRTUAL EGO: AN EVALUATION OF FACILITIES FOR ONLINE COMMUNITIES ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB, Christopher Phillips, University of Southampton, uses cad-comic and Tim Buckley in "Figure 4: An example of an atom in an RSS feed" in 3.1; Interactions, Delegations and Online Digital Games Players in Communities of Practice, Volume 6, Issue 1, (May 2009), "A comic strip from Ctrl+Alt+Del (2006) suggests the key difference between newbies and noobs is the willingness of newbies to learn, and that a appreciative and respectful approach will be meet with a supportive and obliging response." and it cites it under References: "Ctrl+Alt+Del (2006) ‘GLOSSARY: NEWB/NOOB’ [WWW document] URL: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060823 [visited 15.05.08]"; pages 34 onwards, "6.2.3 Webcomics" Table 6-3 Webcomics Data lists data for six webcomics ranked by number of downloaded objects, ctrlaltdel is first.
 * Google Scholar search for ctrlaltdel-online
 * Sources found with Google News for "Web Cartoonists Choice Awards": ; example on Girl Genius and "Outstanding Writer in the 2008 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards"
 * Sources found with Google Scholar for "Web Cartoonists Choice Awards":

Wc notes

Borislav dzodzo
This is a copy of a note I left at Borislav dzodzo which I found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion.

Google News archive search finds nothing, but Google Scholar finds this in Serbian (Šest decenija naučno-istraživačkog rada Instituta tehničkih nauka SANU u oblasti brodogradnje i brodarstva na unutrašnjim plovnim putevima, translation Six decades of scientific research Institute of Technical Sciences Academy in the field of shipbuilding and shipping on inland waterways) which mentions him on pages 3, 6, 7 and 8. A search of the Serbian wikipedia for "Borislav Dzodzo", "Borislav Džodžo", "dzodzo" or "Džodžo" does not find anything obvious - is there an article on the person there? The online Who's who search requires a subscription, what does it say?

This and this contain mentions of another Borislav Dzodzo active in biocomputing, apparently from Pensylvania, USA. -84user (talk) 21:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

UK Net millionaires 1999
Some possible articles or redirects from a 1999 BBC News list of "Net millionaires", selecting just those over 100 million pounds:
 * Paul Sykes and Planet Online sold to Energis, providing part of Freeserve
 * Kevin Leech and Townpages.net and topjobs.net
 * Chris Anderson and Future network
 * Dan David and Serge Crasnianski and Photo-me
 * Ben Hayman and Mediasurface
 * Stelios Haji-Ioannou and Easyeverything
 * Charles Nasser and ClaraNet
 * Christine Maxwell and Isobel Maxwell and CommonTouch
 * Jim Mellor and Bigsave.com

Source:

Windows larger than screen
How can I make application windows larger than the physical monitor screen?

Or, how can I stop some websites from forcing the browser canvas size?

The operating system is Windows Vista. I have a choice of browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera.

Why? Several reasons:
 * I want to view webpages at a size of my choosing and not the website owner's.
 * I wish to override websites that use Flash or other scripts to render a fixed size.
 * Some websites have broken code such that embedded windows fail to fully render when I zoom in.

What have I tried?
 * read Windows shell replacement, Virtual desktop, twm
 * used Cygwin shell to start xterm with wide geometry but it gets limited to the screen width - is there a way to overcome this?
 * In startxwin.bat I replaced
 * REM %RUN% XWin -multiwindow -clipboard -silent-dup-error
 * with
 * %RUN% XWin -screen 0 2000 1050 -scrollbars -clipboard -silent-dup-error
 * and that created a root X window of width 2000 pixels, wider than the monitor
 * But I could not create a wide xterm in this window...
 * Also tried:
 * %RUN% XWin -multiwindow -screen 0 2000 1050 -silent-dup-error
 * and in that I could launch xterms, but after a few tries, xterm stopped launching, note Microsoft Security Essentials was running at the time

To continue later ... -84user (talk) 19:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Gangway (disambiguation)
Snapshot of Gangway (disambiguation) from at 2010-06-18T14:58:06.

Gangway could mean:
 * an aisle or walkway between apartment buildings or houses. It was originally a walkway between the quarterdeck and the forecastle on a sailing ship. It later became any raised walkway or platform
 * an alternative name for a Tramway ''
 * a possible English translation for the French word passerelle
 * a boardwalk
 * a skyway
 * the Danish band Gangway
 * Gangway (film), a 1937 film

Kukuburi, Butternutsquash and Ramon Perez
Kukuburi, Butternutsquash, Ramon Perez and Ramón Pérez have never been created. Let us see what the sources say.


 * Special:WhatLinksHere/Kukuburi - no pages link there
 * Special:WhatLinksHere/Ramón Pérez - one link from Resistance (comics)
 * Special:WhatLinksHere/Ramon Perez - ambiguous links here
 * Star Wars: Clone Wars (comics) under Star Wars: The Clone Wars--Crash Course has "Cover Artist: Ramon Perez" - which I have just made a redlink

Claims to notability?


 * Google News search 2000-2009
 * Newsarama - Feb 7, 2009: NYCC ' 09 - Dark Horse's Star Wars Panel. "Clone Wars' artist Ramon Perez will also be providing art for this year's Free Comic Book Day Star Wars issue."
 * Comic Book Resources - Nov 7, 2005. Something Tasty: Ramon Perez & Rob Coughler talk "Butternutsquash". "Perez's line work and color palette ..."
 * Paul Terefenko. August 19-26, 2008 | VOL 27 NO 51. Lofty plot ousts artists - in connection with a commercial lease case
 * Milo. The Toronto Comicon 2007. The Toronto Comicon 2007 - one paragraph mention in a comic convention report
 * Mark Medley. May 07, 2009. Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2009: Q&A with Ramon Perez - National Post's books blog interview of Ramon Perez
 * Michael C. Lorah. 07 February 2009. NYCC ' 09 - Dark Horse's Star Wars Panel. "Clone Wars pencillers Scott Hepburn and Ramon Perez"
 * - "Degrassi graphic novels ... Ramon Perez, who illustrated Vol. 2 of the series, including the book "Suddenly Last Summer."" and now redlinked from Degrassi: Extra Credit

Danielle Corsetto
Danielle Corsetto was an article on an artist, deleted in 2007 together with the associated article Girls with Slingshots. This section considers a possible future article.


 * Special:WhatLinksHere/Danielle Corsetto
 * Special:WhatLinksHere/Girls with Slingshots

Primary sources:

Claims to notability?
 * one of few self-supporting webcomics?
 * Bat Boy (character) has the uncited "Danielle Corsetto of Girls with Slingshots took over for Peter Bagge on the weekly strip." but there is a primary source

Googled sources


 * Google News exact matches from 2006 to 2009
 * strongest example: Andy Ihnatko. Chicago Sun-Times - NewsBank - Apr 24, 2008. Article: Dilbert.com revamp done the right way "serious downside I love Danielle Corsetto's Girls With Slingshots daniellecorsettocom sometimes not worksafe but I have to remember to visit ..."
 * Sequential Tart: The Seventh Annual Tartie Awards (vol XI/iss 7/July 2008). "Best Use of Squiggly Lines and Stars To Indicate Pain Tartie: Girls With Slingshots, by Danielle Corsett"
 * Danielle Corsetto talks "Girls With Slingshots" in Comic Book Resources
 * Ann Gibbons. February 19, 2010. Conventional fandom - The Daily Freeman Life: Serving the Hudson Valley since 1871(DailyFreeman.com). single mention
 * and a few more
 * Google web search:
 * Websnark: State of the Web(cartoonist): Danielle Corsetto in Websnark
 * Eric Griffith. The 10 Best Unsung Webcomics. # 08.05.2008. PC Magazine. "includes Don't Forget to Validate Your Parking, My Life In a Cube, Sinfest, Girls With Slingshots, Kukuburi, ACT-I-VATE, Octopus Pie, and Overcompensating."

References

The Two Towers (MUD)
The Two Towers (MUD) has been nominated for deletion, see here. Here is my draft improvement using available sources.

I searched Usenet archives to determine the likely history: History references
 * before 1995-09-22 started at empires.stanford.edu 9999 with I.P. address 171.65.30.7
 * 1996 to 1998 the mud appears to have been running from towers.angband.com port 9999
 * 1996 Stephen R. Tisa may have been a Two Towers admin in 1996 with in-game name Morgoth
 * December 1996 until July 2008 http://www.angband.com listed by Internet Archive
 * February 1998 until December 2005 http://towers.angband.com listed by Internet Archive
 * February 2005 until May 2007 http://www.t2tmud.org/ listed by Internet Archive

The Two Towers, or T2T, is a MUD, a multiplayer text-based role-playing game, set in Tolkien’s universe. at the time of events in the third volume of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The mud is free to play and the developers claim it was created in 1994. The mud is played either with direct telnet, java connection, or a mud client.

Description
The Two Towers Mud is an LPMud derivative The world depicted in The Two Towers contains many thousands of uniquely described rooms, thousands of non-player characters, tens of thousands of objects, and hundreds of quests. The world holds, in total, nearly a hundred thousand rooms that players can explore. The regions represented in the game include Eriador, Rhovanion, Gondor, Umbar, Harondor, Harad, and Mordor. The scope ranges from cities such as Bywater and Minas Tirith to small homes and farmlands, as well as huge dungeon complexes such as the Mines of Moria.

The Two Towers also includes representations of most of the members of the Fellowship of the Ring who were living during its setting.

The Two Towers is set in the world of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In particular, The Two Towers depicts the date of March 15, 3019, Third Age when Minas Tirith was under siege. The mud plays host to a battle between good and evil, with the free races (Hobbit, Sindar, Silvan, Dwarf, Edain, Dunlending, Dúnedain, and Eorling) generally contesting against the minions of Sauron (Uruk-hai, Easterling, Númenórean, Haradrim, and Variag), although members of the free races may choose to betray their heritage.

History
The Two Towers began as a project between a few students and has from the start been free of charge. It is run with help from player donations and the administrators' private funds. Under constant development from the very start, the game is now a complete virtual world almost completely identical to the geographical properties of Arda, with game areas including west and east Middle-earth, Harondor, Harad, Umbar, and Mordor. The ability to play as a minion of Sauron was removed in 2001, then reintroduced in 2005 after a major overhaul.

Playing
In the game, players explore the fantasy world of Tolkien, fighting monsters and enemies for treasure, equipment, and experience points. As they progress, players advance in level, gaining power, reputation, and different skills and abilities.

Technical infrastructure
The Two Towers runs on the MudOS game driver with a customized mudlib originally based on TMI-2.

Cyrus Safdari
Sources for a possible article on Iranian analyst Cyrus Safdari or as part of Iran Affairs: an independent Iranian analyst" Registrant:  C S   POB 215   c/o Island Dog   San Pedro, Ambergris Caye 000000   Belize   Administrative Contact:      S, C  editor@iranaffairs.com      POB 215      c/o Island Dog      San Pedro, Ambergris Caye 000000      Belize
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cyrus%20safdari&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws
 * http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/156-iran/26409.pdf : "said Cyrus Safdari,
 * http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/newsletter/vol2_no4_Iran_next_target_PRINTABLE.htm : Le Monde diplomatique (November 2005)
 * Un droit incontestable au nucléaire civil - Manière de voir, 2007 - cairn.info
 * "Cyrus Safdari, a respected and independent analyst on Iran" from
 * whois iranaffairs.com returns the following:

-84user (talk) 17:36, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Marine jargon
"mbsf" appears in diagrams related to depths, but what is its definition? I am guessing "metres below sea floor" but I cannot find a definitive reliable source (neither wikipedia nor wiktionary has it). Examples: has "shipboard mbsf depth scale" ; this methane phase diagram shows Depth (mbsf). Ok, I just found this which has "meters below sea floor" but the PDF interface to read defeats me. Which wikipedia article would be the best place to add the definition? Somewhere linked from Jargon or under Category:Terminology? -84user (talk) 21:54, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Assorted marine jargon:


 * mudline
 * transect
 * Core sample: core, coring and sediment core
 * cold vent
 * accreted ridge, accretionary sedimentary prism
 * Logging, wireline logging redirects to Well logging, downhole logs
 * advanced piston corer, extended core barrel systems; piston corer
 * pressure core sampler
 * Northern Cascadia margin, probably means Cascadia subduction zone but where exactly?

Thumbnail tests
Scroll down. Thumbnails commented out to save the server work:

Above images are a test of how wikimedia serves images, in response to Commons:Commons:Help desk.

The Henry Farman aeroplane image renders an image that is bitwise identical to that which I uploaded. This is to test whether wikimedia performs any post-upload rendering.

Each of the above Concorde images renders the same on my Firefox 3.6 browser. Each image is in fact bitwise identical.

Some hash sums of the Concorde image are: MD5         : 3004D9F6 AA66049B 8B1D668A CE3E95E6 RipeMD128   : 8D638636 7F1B8CA7 CF9C749D C9013869 RipeMD160   : F3B4441B E32F782D 527C9675 E3929A82 A54F94ED SHA1        : 65A81FFA 97ACBDC2 0C56869E CA06DA82 276414EC

Thumbnails commented out to save the server work:

This is a set of notes and thoughts regarding wikipedia and commons, newest first.

Carbon dioxide solubility

 * states 80 to 90 mg of carbon dioxide per kg are found in sea water, mostly near the surface
 * this is generally less than the solubility of CO2 in water, which varies significantly with both pressure and temperature:
 * at 0 degrees Celsius and 1 bar it is 3.056 g per kg (0.0693 mol/kg)
 * at 4 degrees it is 2.871 g per kg. (it gradually decreases with increased temperature)
 * at 0 degrees and 5 bar it is 14.852 g per kg (it dramatically increases with pressure)
 * at 0 degrees and 10 bar it is 28.50 g per kg (it always increases with pressure)

84user (talk) 19:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Media help (Ogg)
Media help (Ogg) contains instructions for playing Theora video and Vorbis audio media from Wikipedia. Here are my notes concerning my Vista system after the Windows instructions excerpted below.

Referring to the preamble above, I asked at Wikipedia talk:Media help (Ogg) what the Illiminable plugins are and how to get them.

Step 2 above links to http://www.xiph.org/dshow/ which has:

The downloads page has:

My "Add/Remove Programs" shows no oggcodecs, but it did list these codecs: (While typing this, Microsoft Security Essentials popped up asking me to send SUPER.exe (the useful video converter) to them for checking.)

After installing oggcodecs
2010-01-03 20:20: After closing all browsers and media players I installed oggcodecs as described in the above instructions. I then tried a standard set of test videos; some are described in Commons:User:84user/Video tests.
 * 1933-04-06_Commander_Describes_Akron_Tragedy.ogv
 * double clicking launches Windows Media Player (WMP) version 11.0.6000.6353 which then pauses and does not function. Ok, the oggcodecs install wizard said it would change the associations. It used to launch VLC. I try with VLC, which works fine. MPC also works but starts paused and needs to be kicked as usual (move the seek slider). Firefox 3.5.5. plays this completely Ok.
 * Krazy_Kat_Bugolist_1916_vorbis.ogg (audio only)
 * WMP, VLC and MPC all play this Ok
 * File:Prosthemadera_novaeseelandiae_vocalizations.ogg
 * WMP, VLC and MPC all play this Ok
 * vdubtestrgbcube4secsuncropped_convertedbyvlc103.ogv
 * WMP, VLC and MPC all play this Ok
 * vdubtestrgbcube4secsuncropped_fr2.avi.convertedbyvlc103_fr2.ogv
 * WMP and VLC play this Ok, but MPC only plays the even-numbered frames (?)
 * vdubtestrgbcube4secsuncropped_fr6.avi.convertedbyvlc103_fr1.ogv
 * WMP and VLC play this Ok, but MPC only plays the odd-numbered frames (??)
 * vdubtestrgbcube4secsuncropped_fr6.avi.convertedbyvlc103.ogv
 * WMP and VLC play this Ok, but MPC appears to vary among even-numbered odd-numbered and all frames (???)
 * Flight1549After15Minutes.ogg
 * WMP, VLC and MPC all play this Ok
 * Test_avi.vq10.ogv
 * WMP, VLC play this Ok, but MPC gets the audio sync wrong
 * Cal_2flip2_click1in4track8secsmono22khz16bit8khzvbr_vlc3.ogv
 * WMP plays only the first frame and no sound; MPC plays nothing; VLC plays all but the first click. Firefox still plays this completely Ok.
 * Cal_2flip2click8khzvbr_vlc.ogv
 * WMP plays only the first frame and no sound; MPC plays nothing; VLC plays all but the first click. Firefox still plays this completely Ok.

Conclusions: instaling oggcodecs did not harm my existing media player functionality (MPC always had problems and I never tried WMP); but because WMP still plays worse than VLC and plays fewer than half my test videoa I am changing my file associations back to VLC.

Overlaying SVG images
Inspired by this proposal on the Commons:Village pump, I created File:Knot table-blank unknot.svg to see how images can be overlayed on one another.

Using Lageplan

Lageplan with half-sized base image:

Using Superimpose

Superimpose with half-sized base image:

Note that Lageplan uses percentage positioning which allows the caller to alter the underlying base image width without recalculating the position of the overlaying marker image. However, both templates require the caller to adjust the marker width.



Article popularity statistics
Popular pages


 * all
 * WPAstronomy
 * WPSpace

Request to ISRO for free image license
Timeline:
 * 16:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC) (or five minutes before) I sent a repeat email to info (at) isro.gov.in
 * Sunday, December 7, 2008 2:43 PM (timestamp on email, so someone's clock is wrong) I received "Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender" in response to email I just sent 14:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 14:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC) (approximate time) I sent the first email request to info (at) isro.gov.in (the box at the bottom)

Here is the request I emailed on December 7, around 14:45 UTC. 84user (talk) 14:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

time
Examples of #time use:



84user (talk) 12:10, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

EasyTimeline tests
See Help:EasyTimeline syntax. Note bug from 2008 November appears fixed by Brion Vibber. I have updated these tests. 84user (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Above: Featured articles per section; below: sorted by number in each section.

The above timeline should be visible but was blank, but now works after the bugfix. 84user (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The below timeline generates html with an img tag with src attribute URL that does not exist on wikimedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/1455f41de5ae0fa00af5fe18dc65879b.png

Above URL shows the chart missing the text, when the bug was active. After the bugfix, the img tag's source URL is http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/067dc5326eb942425c40e1cc5bc8cd27.png, which now included the text. 84user (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Does the timeline mechanism no longer work on wikipedia? It works now. 84user (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The above should be a bar chart, but is blank containing a non-found URL. and was broken but now works. 84user (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Below is a third try at a timeline. Which was blank, but now shows "London" and "Paris" in large font (truncated).84user (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Another :

Sometimes the timelines partially render, other times they do not render at all (completely blank images or no wikimedia image file at all). Now they work. 84user (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Iraq is country least affected by crisis
Basil al .... (spelling?), financial advisor of ..., stated that Iraq is unaffected by the Financial crisis of 2007-2008, and is infact a very good investment. He said the best sectors are real estate and the stockmarket.

Roger Bootle notes
In 2008 Bootle explained he was a fundamental economist and that he had detected and announced the overvaluation resulting in the Financial crisis of 2007-2008 ten years earlier. He now believed he was too early in his announcement and felt he should have waited a few years, when the signs would be clearer to others. He said now in mid-crisis that he was more worried about the coming reaction by people to what they are seeing, and that there is "a lot of anger but not a lot of understanding".

Article sizes
Some wikipedia article web pages take a long time to load. It seems the reason is some combination of: the total kilobytes in the page's html, css, javascript and images; the total number of HTTP requests made by the browser when loading.

The actual number of bytes in the page's wikicode is not a good predictor for the total kilobytes experienced by a user that clicks on a particular wikipedia link for the first time. (See Wikipedia talk:Article size for long discussion)

To find out whether this lengthy page loading time is only caused by a minority of articles, I'll start a table to record total kilobytes and time takes for Featured articles (FAs).

I chose the first FA from each of the first few sections in that list and then tried Phoenix (spacecraft) followed by two DNA articles.

Kilobytes is the total kilobytes downloaded (HTML, CSS, JS, XHR, Images). Load time is in seconds with a fast ADSL. Load times were generally not affected by the downloading computer, ie. neither CPU was ever taxed beyond 25% and the network use never exceeded 40% (except for the DNA articles). All non-DNA articles peaked around 15%. The Computer was run with over 1000 megabytes of spare memory (which did not get used, but I set this to avoid any chance of page swapping). I noticed a variation of around plus or minus 20 % in load time when I repeated the fresh reload.

I was surprised to see the Citizendium's DNA article fully loaded in 4.33 seconds, despite the massive 3 megabyte animated image. Of course that giant image could make both DNA articles useless to a dial-up user.

How I made these measurements: I used Firebug 1.2.0b7 on Firefox 3.0.1 on Windows Vista on an Athlon 64X2(W) 5000+ 2.6GHz with a 2.4Mbps ADSL, starting at 21:50 UTC on August 5, 2008. I loaded each page using control-shift R to ensure each element is loaded afresh in order to duplicate the experience a reader would get the first time a wikipedia link is clicked. I stayed logged in which probably made the load times somehwat longer than for an IP user. -84user (talk) 23:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

What prompted me to do this test was this version of the Phoenix (spacecraft) article was taking a long time to load. As it was over 2300 kilobytes and took over 17 seconds to load I reduced the images so that it is now "only" 732 Kilobytes and takes "only" 9 seconds or so.

How to search Village Pump for an exact phrase.
This searches for "article size"

Disable visual effects in windows media player 11?
How can one disable the visual effects that Windows Media Player 11 (WMP) displays when playing audio streams in the Firefox plugin? System is Vista Home Premium. I have already installed Microsoft's Windows Media Player Plug-in for Firefox when I haf Firefox 2. I now use Firefox 3.

For example use Firefox to launch this BBC Radio 4 stream:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/meta/tx/nb/summary5min_au_nb.asx

and the WMP plugin displays a distracting animated graphic. There is no option available that will disable it.

Here is one way to do it, outside of Firefox and outside of the plugin.

Launch Windows media Player 11.

If you think the answer is in right-click / Visual effects you will be mistaken as that leads you to lots of options but none of them disable the graphics.

Instead, right click and select "Passa alla modalita estesa" (extended skin). Then right click in this larger skin and you will see the option "no visual effects".

Fare clic sulla freccia sotto la scheda In esecuzione, quindi su Effetti grafici e infine su Nessun effetto grafico.

Frustrating software.

Images
See User:84user/Images uploaded.

Statistics

 * my stats on en:
 * my stats on de:

CollapsibleLargeCategoryTOC
Adapted from German wikipedia's w:de:Vorlage:TOC Große Kategorie:
 * Template:CollapsibleLargeCategoryTOC
 * Template:CollapsibleLargeCategoryTOC/sandbox
 * Template:CollapsibleLargeCategoryTOC/testcases

Category diffusion overview
After looking around, I now think my expressed view (about social fixes) is a bit pointless.

There are higher level problems, a big one is that editors (myself included) easily forget that most readers want and can manage simple, intuitive mechanisms.

Back to categorisation, yes there is probably too much pointless diffusion occuring. But indexing all Men, or all Women is best done by an automated mechanism with access to a database. It seems the German wiki makes more use of Persondata than the English.

In conclusion here are some main categories found in biographical articles (unusual in bold and note the interwiki links are not logical).

"automation" means I think automation should one day place articles in either a fully-indexed category or in some other kind of indexable mechanism, maybe using Persondata? Also, Category:Man would become Category:Concepts Man

"use CatLargeTOC" means from w:en:Template:LargeCategoryTOC create w:en:Template:LargeCategoryTOC2D to behave like w:de:Vorlage:TOC Große Kategorie - this should not need any social persuasion (change ausklappen to "show", of course)

"leave for concept" means leave the category for its currently defined concept

This is a quick presentation on how an ordinary wikipedia reader might look for something. This compares searching for something on English wikipedia with German wikipedia.

First a little rant to set the scene.

Pretend you only use wikipedia as a reader (the majority), you only click on things, and maybe type a little into boxes. Like the great majority of internet users you are NOT technically proficient, you do NOT want to edit things, you do NOT want to read long lists of instructions. You could be an intelligent layman but with little spare time. You do not like scrolling (yes, otherwise intelligent people are unfamiliar with scrolling).

You like google because it is FAST and has just two buttons. You do not need to scroll to use the search.

You understand how a printed dictionary works, and index books one sees in libraries (those buildings which house books for people to read, maybe to borrow).

So, you see some television programme on a Polish film animator, but maybe he's Russian, you have forgotten. You remember his name started with "Zbi".

Google does not help here. So you think "wikipedia?". You type "Zbi" and search - nothing.

You try Poland and under Culture you see four paragraphs. You find Zbigniew Rybczyński and that's who you were looking for. Good, yes? Yes, but only because ZBig is quite famous, what if it was another Zbigniew?

Ok, you could find "List of Poles" (via "Polish"). There some 18 people named Zbigniew. Are they in one place? No. Is there an index? No. Right at the bottom (people do not like scrolling, remember) you see "Polish people | Lists of Polish people". I try "Lists", impressive, but no list of all Polish people. Is my Zbigniew a painter or a poet, or is he both?

As I am a busy, inexperienced internet user, I give up at this point. Wikipedia is nice if you know what you are looking for, but for searching stuff when you only have some details, it does not help.

But wait, I am bilingual German, so I try the German wikipedia. "Polen" gives me the country but no list of people, but it does have "Kultur in Polen" with a list of people. Also not sorted, (and the one I'm looking for is not there anyway). It does have a "Begriffsklärung" (disambiguation) header though, and that leads to de:Kategorie:Pole ... which has an index by last name.

Here it seems that even the German wikipedia does not provide full people indexes for every nationality. Also it does not sort by FIRST name either.

What the German wikipedia DOES HAVE is: This means that "Polnischer Künstler " has ALL the Polish artists, indexed. The same for "Geboren 1949" - every single German wikipedia article for someone (believed to be) born in 1949 is listed. It also has subcategories, but the article is in BOTH subcategory and the parent one.
 * Each biographical article has all the categories and does not remove the parent ones
 * Example: "Kategorien: Filmregisseur | Kameramann | Polnischer Künstler | Mann | Geboren 1949 | Pole"

This brief exercise has shown me things are not so simple, but also that wikipedia could benefit the user by doing testing the site with real users (not editors) to see how they use it and what works and what is annoying.

A subject for later.

There's a long list of famous Polish people. The one I am looking for is actually there, but I simply do not find it. Why? It is not sorted. There is no A to Z index. It is a long list. My eyes glaze over scrolling the long list. After the entertainment list I keep scrolling. Gosh, there are lots of people listed here. Keep scrolling. Maybe in Others? No.

Now I wonder if this guy is Russian? All I know is it starts "Zbi".

I am bilingual German, so I try the German wikipedia. "Polen" gives me the country but no list of people, but it does have "Kultur in Polen" with a list of people. Also not sorted, (and the one I'm looking for is not there anyway).

third party tracking cookies used by the BBC
I have found that BBC News uses doubleclick tracking cookies when you access some of their video clips. I normally block all doubleclick domains in my Hosts file, and I log all doubleclick attempts using Homer from funkytoad.com. I set Homer to display a small red bar at top left of any web element that gets blocked. Some BBC news videos were showing this red bar, and it was associated with some SWF. I temporarily disabled my doubleclick blocking and was able to view the BBC news video. Does the BBC tell users that it is doing this? Here is the particular cookie URL: "ad.de.doubleclick.net #[Tenebril.Tracking.Cookie]".

The BBC Privacy policy states: Under BBC - Homepage - Privacy and Cookies Policy it lists:
 * The BBC is committed to protecting you and your family's personal information when you are using BBC services.
 * we are sometimes required to collect information about you.
 * Doubleclick
 * Doubleclick 'Spotlight Tags' are used to measure the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns for the BBC. Doubleclick is also used by BBC World Limited and BBC Worldwide Limited's online advertising delivery service. This service gathers information regarding visits made by international users which is used to decide on the insertion of adverts. For information on the cookie set by Doubleclick plus information on how to opt out please go to http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx

So, in summary, the bbc does use third-party trackers and it does explain that it does so.
 * Of course, I also block that domain, so I temporarily unblock it, and also doubleclick.net, so I can read it.

Google advanced search to decide common name

 * I believe wikipedia should be descriptive and not prescriptive. Google searches seem to show a slight majority have an intervening space. Maybe change it when the majority have been spelling it without the space in the last 6 months say?

I used Google Advanced search to find the occurrences of the two names like this: I first specified anytime in the date field, to restrict the search to pages within a certain time period. I also tried past year and past 3 months, in order to see if there has been a recent change in how people spell these Gliese names. Example:
 * allintext: "Gliese 581 c" -wikipedia
 * allintext: "Gliese 581c" -wikipedia
 * allintext: "Gliese 581 c" -wikipedia in past 3 months

Search pattern /  when         /  occurrences "Gliese 581 c"   anytime         56,200 "Gliese 581 c"   past year       36,300 "Gliese 581 c"   past 6 months   22,600 "Gliese 581 c"   past 2 months    1,080 "Gliese 581 c"   past month         531

"Gliese 581c"    anytime         33,500 "Gliese 581c"    past year       20,800 "Gliese 581c"    past 6 months    3,420 "Gliese 581c"    past 2 months    1,630 "Gliese 581c"    past month       1,040

Note all languages were included in the search. Better results when search restricted to English.

Trivia

 * Firefox and Opera wishlist | My Sandbox
 * I write the numeral 1 a bit like this: [[Image:Linea1-tvrcas.png|24px]] and I have learnt to avoid writing 1 as a single vertical stroke because some confuse it with a non-numerical vertical separator - some write a 1 to look like an upside-down "V". I write the numeral 4 a bit like this: [[Image:Four handritten a.svg|18px]] and the numeral 7 like this: [[Image:Hand_written_7.png|18px]]

Are some templates becoming backward incompatible? Is this related to recent changes to Template:rnd ?
 *  66 ft 
 * 66 ft
 *  33 x 
 * 33 x

I am wikipedia user number 7107054.

David Schwarz (aviation inventor)/draft
Saved these notes from my draft page before it gets deleted.

These notes are not part of the article proper.

The German wikipedia article which I have partly used to structure this draft, has, like some of the sources themselves, possible errors and contradictions. Some of the problems are discussed on the Talk page of the German article.

Looking at David Schwartz wikipedia articles in other languages, it seems they all use the same very restricted set of internet sources. The German article appears to be partly based on a 1926 book by Carl Berg's son and partly on a museum presentation at http://www.traum-vom-fliegen.de (link now dead and not in archive.org).

Here is what the language versions (apart from Hebrew) have: Hebrew appears to place the birthdate at 1852 January 20. Ante Sucur's site also has 1852. They all agree on date and place of death. German, like Hungary, has 1850 for year of birth. Hungary has him born in Keszthely, 1850. december 7 (could be a Julian calendar date?). Hungary's talk page shows they looked at several sources, all English and German internet sites, and noticed the variations. One site has Schwarz born in 1845 instead of 1850. Half the listed sites are now dead, and a few are clearly wrong.
 * Czech: (20. prosince 1852, Zalaegerszeg, Maďarsko – 13. ledna 1897, Vídeň) byl chorvatský průkopník letectví židovského původu. V roce 1896 postavil první celokovovou ztuženou vzducholoď. -- Croatian
 * English: (1852-12-20, Zalaegerszeg, Hungary – 1897-01-13, Vienna) a Croatian aviation pioneer of Jewish ancestry.
 * German: (* 20. Dezember 1850 in Zalaegerszeg; † 13. Januar 1897 in Wien) war ein kroatisch-ungarischer Erfinder, jüdischer Abstammung. -- Croatian-Hungarian
 * Hungarian: (Keszthely, 1850. december 7. – Bécs, 1897. január 13.) a merev szerkezetű, könnyűfémből készült, kormányozható léghajó feltalálója. --
 * Slovakian: (* 20. december 1852, Zalaegerszeg, Maďarsko – † 13. január 1897, Viedeň) bol chorvátsky priekopník letectva židovského pôvodu. V roku 1896 postavil prvú celokovovú vystuženú vzducholoď. -- Croatian

The German article has place of birth as first Zalaegerszeg and later as Keszthely, with a Talk Page query answered since 2004.

Category intersection using Wikimedia search
Drawbacks:
 * results shown in database order, not alphabetical
 * results shown in search format and not in category format
 * two dimensional table limits searches to combining two categories

Note this user-intuitive browsing only works if editors refrain from diffusing categories!

All the technology is already in wikimedia.

merged from sandbox
Hellas Planitia thoughts.

Brittanica has 7000 km for the whole structure including the elevated ring.

I believe the wikipedia article refers to the Planitia (plain) part of the Hellas region, while Brittanica just refers to "Hellas", however a definition is still lacking. I fear my attempt verges on original research (I looked at NASA's elevation profile and guesstimated where the zero elevation is). As I see it, the problem with large basins is that the impact energy was so large it caused effects considerable distances from the apparant basin floor, and that post-impact rebound and slumping had yet more effects. These effects "cover up" the initial crater and possibly any crater rim wall that formed.

German wikipedia has "von bis 2.100 km (andere Angaben berichten von bis 2.000 x 1.600 km)". This translates as "from 2100 km (other sources report 2000 by 1600 km)" without cite.

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Solar System.

Graf Zeppelin Path news clips
This search URL gives this list of clips 1 to 20 of 27:

"GRAF ZEPPELIN" 1932-07-04   683.05  Great shots of the Graf Zeppelin airship as it comes to collect passengers at Hanworth Aerodrome. SOUND AIRSHIP OVER "THE ETERNAL CITY"! 1933-06-05   707.33  The airship - Graf Zeppelin - pays a quick visit to Rome. SOUND MOVING MECHANICAL MOORING MAST 1930-06-12   713.22  A new mooring system helps to berth the airship Graf Zeppelin. MUTE HER 22ND ATLANTIC CROSSING 1933-11-02   735.31  The Graf Zeppelin - piloted by Dr Eckener - lands in America. SOUND GERMAN AIR PAGEANT (aka GERMAN AVIATION 'MEET') 793.13 Zeppelin impresses the crowds at German air show. SOUND "WITH NO BOMBS THIS TIME" 1931-08-20   863.25  The German Graf Zeppelin airship pays a goodwill visit to London. MUTE THE HINDENBURG 1936-04-06   879.14  Shots of airship the Hindenburg - flying over Berlin and a look at lavish interior of cabin. SOUND HOCH! HOCH! HOCH! - GERMANY 1928-10-11   746.15  The people of Berlin turn out to cheer the Graf Zeppelin as it returns from a 36 hour flight over Central Europe. SILENT AMERICA GREETS GRAF 1928-10-25   746.27  The Graf Zeppelin arrives in New York after a four day flight from Germany. SILENT AMERICA GREETS GRAF 1928-10-25   746.28  Cuts and extra footage from item about the Graf Zeppelin arriving in New York after a four day flight from Germany. SILENT AMERICA GREETS GRAF (orange tinted cuts) 1928-10-25   746.29  Brief cuts from item about the Graf Zeppelin arriving in New York after a four day flight from Germany. SILENT THE GRAF ZEPPELIN 1928-11-05   748.16  The Graf Zeppelin airship returns to Friedrichshafen in Germany after 68 1/2 hours voyage. SILENT TO NEW YORK IN 4 DAYS AND 16 HOURS 1928-10-18   768.07  Graf Zeppelin takes off from Friedrichshafen in Germany to fly 20 passengers to New York. SILENT THE FLIGHT THAT FAILED 1929-05-23   790.09  The Graf Zeppelin airship is rescued and housed by French troops after it had to fly with only one engine working. Toulon, France. SILENT WITH THE GRAF ZEPPELIN TO AMERICA 1929-08-15   798.28  Footage taken from the 'Graf Zeppelin' flying from Germany to United States of America. SILENT GRAF ZEPPELIN - MAIDEN FLIGHT 1938-09-19   981.27  The Graf Zeppelin takes off on her first test flight. SOUND LAUNCHING 'GRAF ZEPPELIN' 1938-12-15   989.40  Count Zeppelin's daughter launches new ship the "Graf Zeppelin" at Kiel in Germany. SOUND THE NORTH V SOUTH CUP FINAL 1930-04-28   828.13  Football - Arsenal beat Huddersfield in the F. A. Cup final at Wembley Stadium. SILENT AS EASILY AS A SHIP "COMING ALONGSIDE" 1930-05-01   828.14  The Graf Zeppelin airship picks up Commander Dr Eckener from Cardington and sails away within half an hour. Bedfordshire. SILENT THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN 1936-03-12   1656.29  Joe Noble item about breathing, perspiratory glands, blood, and pretty girls, of course! SOUND

Sortable table
All 1 to 27 clips posted to Talk:LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin

Meanwhile, www.britishpathe.com keeps giving PHP and other errors when I try to download a free preview clip. The latest error is The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers.