User:RaviDesai

Contributer to both Nupedia and Wikipedia. I love math and computer science - can you say Geek? I live in the beautiful state of MichigaN, and wouldn't want to live anywhere else - ice, snow and all. I'm a bit of bookworm - I read and write (surprise!) ScienceFiction and FantasY, as well as AutoBiographies of interesting individuals. I also love MythologY (Greek, Hindu, and Icelandic).

In real life I am a programmer - mostly in Java and C++, but I've seen it all (everything from Snobol to LISP to Pascal to Fortran). I have a bachelor's degree in ComputerScience and a Masters degree in MathematicS that I got more or less because I thought it would be fun. I got interested in SetTheory and NumberTheory there and have been blessed to work with some incredibly good people in that field.

I used to work in the Automotive industry, but now I work in the Telecom industry (in MichigaN?!!!?) and develop software that is used by ISPs to provision ATM switches, routers, and various other equipment and man is it a lot of fun!

I am also a ChristiaN, and belong to the FreeMethodist church - which is similar to the MethodisT church, but more EvangelicaL. If that means nothing to you, don't worry, it means nothing to me either. I tend to think along the lines of CSLewis in MereChristianity and see our likenesses more than our differences.

Finally, I am a family man (hey, I'm in the midwest, remember?) and have a beautiful wife of 12 years and 3 kids (all boys, all 7yrs and younger). The most I can hope for is that I give them the same hunger for knowledge and love of God that was given to me in my youth.

Hey, Ravi, I noticed you were pulling in some of the genesis chapters. Are you planning on doing this to the whole bible? After all, it's really big, and it might be better to just refer people to an on-line translation. Btw, which translation are you using? -- JoshuaGrosse

I, too, was wondering which version this was. Personally, I think it's cool. Wouldn't it be wild if we could read the entire bible, koran, whatever in an encyclopedia? Finally the brevity with which encylopedias address subject matter would no longer be dictated by space considerations. I once postulated a educational model for a search engine of reference sources, which would be cross-referenced in "trees" both alphabetically and by subject. You could look up "sloth" under "S" or arrive at it by going to Science/Biology/Taxonomy/Animalia/Mammalia and whatever. Same with Harper's Ferry. Look it up under the alphabet to go to History/American/Civil War/John Brown or Civil War/Battles, etc. Wikipedia has a potential to do something very much like this. As we are not limited by physical space, we don't have to say "you can't put that here. It's too big."

I tend to agree, but I do wonder where we might want to draw the line (if at all). I posted in the UnitedStatesConstitution and the JapanConstitution, just on the theory that it is free and that it is useful background information.

Similarly for the Bible, I suppose. Especially if we wikify it. So when you see a character like AdaM or JesusChrist, you can just click to read who that person is. You could weave in and out of the text and public commentary on the text.

But what about the full text of MobyDick? Does that belong here? I'm less convinced. It might be more useful to simply point to an un-wiki copy, because permitting people to wikify that text is probably fairly pointless.

Still... this is such an exciting experiment, I'd like to see us play with everything! :-)

Hi all! Its been a while since I've been able to play on the wiki, sorry I didn't respond to your questions earlier. To Joshua, yes, I was planning (as a test) to pull in all of Genesis and wikify it. The amount of work required to do the entire Bible, is, of course, beyond comprehension if it were all to be done manually - but the good Lord has provided me with a few programming skills. That and a half-way decent SNOBOL compiler - who knows what I could come up with!

Right now I'm pulling in the KingJamesVersion because I know there are no copyright considerations there. Unfortunately, a lot of people find it hard to understand (a little like reading Shakespeare), so perhaps this is not the best of all worlds, but if anyone knows of another version that has no copyright restrictions and is more 'accessible' I'm all ears! However, I'm not at all certain that wikifiying the entire Bible is something that would be a completely valuable use of the disk space here. I'm treating it as something of an experiment, if more people like it than hate it, we leave it, if more people hate it than like it, it could certainly be moved elsewhere.

I would also like to see someone with a linguistics background to be able to take a lot of the material placed here and translate it into some other languages. Any takers?

You're gonna use Snobol? Snobol??? Brother, dear Brother!!! please `come up hither' into to the TwentyFirstCentury and use Icon. At least it's design by the same guy who "cursed" us with snobol!!! :) LOL. Btw, I'm BrotherBrian! :)