User:AlMac

Click here to message me on my talk page. [ Purge server cache]

Introduction
I"m Al Macintyre, currently residing and working in Evansville, SW corner of Indiana, USA.  Traditionally, irrespective of individual communities, my interests include: Science Fiction; Simulation games; and topics from my profession, as a midrange systems computer programmer.  I am also a news-junkie and book-a-holic.



Plagarism warning: If I see an image I like anywhere on Wikipedia, and can figure out how to incorporate it on my user page, I will do so. But now I am holding off on this until the WP:AUM crisis is resolved sufficiently so that Image newbies like me have how-to instructions to fix what we've done with minimum of hassle.

I just got invited to Jury Duty, which I imagine will be a great addition to my continuing interesting life education. I do not yet know how much of that education I will be permitted to share with others ... confidentiality until case is over for example. I did not get selected. They asked really good questions, of the kind that belong here & in Yahoo Answers.

I extend my sympathies to the people of the region of the latest terrorist attacks,

In the News

""

My edit count:
If we been away from Wikipedia for too long, we may need to revisit Cheatsheet.


 * 2006 January 29 = 3400 edits on 340 pages,
 * 549 edits on articles, 1000 on project pages, 700 on User Talk pages, 470 on article talk pages
 * 450 pages being watched
 * most recent contributions to human extinction avoidance
 * 2006 January 21 = 3050 edits on 310 pages & 400 pages watched
 * 415 edits on articles, 435 on their talk pages, or approx 1/3 of my efforts here
 * 920 edits on project pages, 220 on their talk pages, and a handful on category pages, also aggregate about 1/3 of my focus
 * 385 edits on user pages, mainly mine, 675 on user talk pages ... lots of small byte do something, save so far
 * 2006 January 7 = 2600 edits on 250 pages & 300 pages watched
 * Last few days I helped out the Cyberlaw Project and posted some stuff at the Harvard Law School students wiki
 * 2006 January 4 = 2500 edits on 215 pages & 250 pages watched
 * 15% Articles
 * 15% Article talk pages (seeking consensus)
 * 30% Projects (much more than I realized ... I suspect Wiki codes some stuff as Projects that I not realize as such ... how are the Help desks coded?)
 * 4% Project talk
 * 8% User (too much)
 * 25% User talk (too high ... I gotta spend higher proportion of my time here contributing to the encyclopaedia)
 * 2005 December = 2000 edits Christmas Eve
 * on 180 pages and recently only 100 pages watcched
 * (12 edits / page)
 * with 60 edits been deleted.
 * 2005 June 28 was wikiborn = Joined WP

Season's Greetings
Hopefully in the next year I will have time to contribute more here than I was able to do last year.
 * May 14 US postage rates go up
 * first class up to
 * 1 ounce = 41 cents
 * 2 = 50 cents
 * 3 = 75 cents
 * 3.5 = 92 cents
 * Thank God its Friday, on steroids.

New Year Resolutions

 * Take a break from giving lip service to losing weight, and just enjoy life.
 * Here's a picture of me from a few years ago.

My activity
Heavily defined with the aid of userboxes. Where I give links to various WP articles about topics of interest to me, I have also been rather involved in editing many of those articles.

Archives

 * User talk:AlMac/2005 Jun-Oct
 * User:AlMac/2005 Sympathies to terrorist victims

Userbox Concept
Userbox concept technique plagiarism from User:Ali K from User:Redvers with help from Userboxes, assuming I can figure out how to work this concept (I not want wrap around vs. next sub-topic, nor do I want very wide pages, and I want the colors to be very readable to my aging eyes.).

Point of View
We all have a POV or bias on some topics, and need to be careful not to contaminate factual WP articles with our opinions.

I identify with a collection of view points from different competing philosophies.
 * I share the libertarian view that we all need to be accountable for our actions.
 * I share the liberal view that we all have a responsibility to help our fellow humans with some kind of social safety net.
 * I share the conservative view that a nation ought to have a strong economy to pay for a strong military to protect itself.
 * I favor a variety of international efforts to make the world a better place for us all.

Geography
Time CDT


 * I reside and work in Evansville Indiana USA. 🇺🇸 which is on Central daylight savings time ... I guess no user box yet for CDT time.
 * I have been selected for jury duty, which i expect will be an educational experience.
 * I got my college education in Cincinnati Ohio and Sacramento California.
 * I was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, which is part of Great Britain, or United Kingdom.

Who Am I?
This is from before joining WP. Much about me is subject to change. If I could, I would boycott death.


 * My e-mail MacWheel is a play on my surname.
 * My full name is Alister William Macintyre.
 * I sign my name with William shortened as Wm.
 * In the work place I am generally known as Al Macintyre.
 * Except for leg pullers who insist on using MacAlister, or some other variant.

Career
I work in the computer profession, currently programming ERP {version 405 CD of BPCS} on the IBM AS/400 operating system. At previous employers I have developed applications for: retail; wholesale; publishing; transportation. Sorry Y"all. I have been frenetically busy of late, so there has been a lapse in my contributions here.

Wiki WP Involvement
Note that I have joined some projects, and identified interests, but made significant contributions, in only a few areas, and I often manage to get over-committed.

I am interested in helping out with the Cyberlaw project. However, my cyberlaw know-how is that of spending many decades in the computer professional trenches, having had computer security responsibilities for about 40 years, and having no formal training in the law, and not a lot of academic credentials.

I've been a bit heavy with suggestions on many WP talk pages, while rather timid in actual article editing, other than where I tried to start new articles.

Computer Security
This is a major professional interest area, a great degree due to my career.
 * Security breaches
 * I failed to find the time to rewrite to Wiki standards ... i may try again some time in the future ... see Articles for deletion/Security breaches
 * Computer security audit and Talk:Computer security audit
 * I began to rewrite this, my spare time has evaporated ... hopefully it won't go the same way.

Book a holic
user book-a-holic

I have enjoyed reading Science Fiction since I was a pre-teenager, then branched out into other genres. My apartment has grown cluttered with many things, including looking like a section of a library. I started the Time travel in fiction article, which has exploded with numerous other contributors, and now there is a Category:Time travel in fiction.

Gamer
I enjoy many traditional games like Go (board game) and not so traditional, although it has been a while since I played some of them.

Time Travel Game Designer
I have designed a few Science Fiction Games, such as Time travel in fiction "Simulation". In my later life, I hope to put this stuff in the public domain, so that people can play my designs over the Internet. I have worked on the Time travel article and Time travel in fiction, in fact I started that secondary article, to split the growing content between the main article which presents Time travel as being factually plausible, and the Science Fiction perspective.

Userbox enhancement needs
There are several boxes I need to figure out how to revise, that are not precise mesh with my interests, just in the neighborhood. Locate the template. For example, color combinations are hostile to my eyesight through the browser I have used. I have heard that some of my solutions are hostile to other eyes as seen by other eyes through other browsers.

Copy it to your page. Then revise it.

My interest in RPG is both Role Playing Games and the computer language Report Program Generator.

Other Wiki Interests
Wiki places I been intermittently pretty active so far (this list is far from exhaustive), excluding those already mentioned elsewhere in this collection.
 * Asteroid deflection strategies
 * BPCS
 * Military history and Talk:Military
 * Trade article and discussion of potential improvements
 * AlMac_Talk about ideas for improving the Trade article.
 * User talk:Jayant412/Userbox design kit
 * WikiProject Usability and its discussion

New ideas

 * AlMac/Growing Expertise

Why I love this place
Let me count the ways.

High Ratio of Signal to Noise
There are some problems, but proportionally small compared to some other Internet sites.
 * By Signal, I mean information that interests me.
 * By Noise, I mean people saying or writing stuff that gets in the way of me getting at the information I want to see.

Many discussion groups have a high ratio of noise to signal.
 * People misconstrue what we said (some deliberately), then attack what they say we said, which is not what we said.
 * There can be a lot of Deja Vu (didn't we have this conversation already?)

Massive Value

 * User:AlMac/Wiki Start Map explodes this so the individual details are readable, and here's the context from which I plagarized the diagram.
 * Lots of people have contributed information and links of great value, but there's lots more work to be done. We all can contribute to making a great service even greater.



Al not yet figured out how to rename this as self, without copying the image.

Watch out for Correct Speech


Wiki Correct Speech takes a bit of getting used to.
 * Not just be nice
 * Be Very Nice
 * Be Bold
 * But also be neutral
 * and find ways to do emphasis on steroids without resorting to 4 letter words

High Focus on Truth
High Focus on Truth, without having to cite every assertiun in rigorous academic sense. Systems for resolving disputes when different volunteers cannot reach a peaceable settlement in this community. However, there is the risk that the concensus committee approach will occasionally design a camel in place of a race horse.

Useful External Links

 * Tutorial on Wiki Commands

Sig
(see how to do this) Al Mac repaired User:AlMac|(talk) 09:44, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * 1) Since you can read this page, thank a teacher.
 * 2) Since it is in English, and you have the freedom to get to it, thank a soldier.
 * 3) But keep an eye on politicians trying to regulate the Internet.
 * 4) and where some info seems to be gobbly gook, thank a spammer.