User talk:CobraA1

Hey, this is where you discuss stuff concerning me & Wikipedia stuff. I'm relatively new here, do please don't be too harsh on my poor coding and ignorance of policies. ..

BTW, the order is a bit reversed from the normal wikipedia convention - everything up to "Three Revert Rule" has the top items being the most recent. . . —CobraA1 23:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, the conservapedia is too far gone . ..
The conservapedia was theoretically a good idea - but after trying to edit several talk pages (including my own!!) and finding out they are all locked, I've pretty much given up on them.

I believe in free and open dialog. There's no reason why people shouldn't be allowed to discuss articles and issues. If they won't allow open discussions, forget it. I don't want them and I don't support them, even as a conservative myself.

Just noticed the Freethought article
Heh, just noticed the "Freethought" article. The freethought people are a rather amusing bunch. Encountered them the first time in college. They start with a good premise: People should take the time to think about their own own ideas, beliefs, and philosophies, and should be open to change if necessary.

Unfortunately, the Freethought movement also carries the baggage of a logical fallacy: Most of them carry the mistaken belief that lack of proof is equivalent to disproof - especially when concerning the supernatural and/or the belief in a deity.

The idea that "Freethought" necessarily leads to Atheism is wishful thinking. Logically, the existence of the supernatural and/or deity(ies) can be neither confirmed nor denied. Ultimately, both atheism and all forms of religion are based upon faith rather than logical principles.

Am I religious? Yup. Am I willing to admit there's an element of faith in my religion? Sure. You got a problem with that? Too bad.

Just because science and logic can't explain it doesn't mean I can't believe it. IMHO it's pretty narrow to limit one's philosophies to just science, math, and logic.

Am I a freethinker? In one sense of the word, yes. In another, no.

The first sense is that of the ability to examine one's own thoughts and the willingness to change one's own philosophy. That sense of the word I agree with and follow. That's why I'm switching to the Constitution party.

The second sense is that it's "wrong" to believe something without "sufficient" evidence. Unfortunately, it suffers from the logical flaw I mentioned earlier (equating lack of evidence with disproof), as well as begging the question of how much evidence is "sufficient." It's that sense I disagree with and refuse to follow.

CobraA1 05:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Added constitution party userbox
Just added the constitition party userbox to my bar.

I've been historically a Republican, but the honest truth is I'm not terribly excited about my party anymore:

-Quite frankly, Bush has done a very poor job in respect to the size and role of the government. Normally, I blame the Democrats of making a bloated government - but guess what? Now the Republicans are as well, and worse they claim it's for our own protection and a part of fighting terror.

-Remember the Patriot act? Yeah, it did go a bit too far. Fighting terror = good, but trampling human rights and the constitution = BAD. In a nutshell, one of the sections "authorized" warrantless searches - which is 100% against the fourth amendment of our constitution. Luckily the courts have sided with the constitutional, and that particular section was declared unconstitutional.

-Both parties are too wrapped up in the politics of the Iraq war, and bashing the other party. Neither of them are stepping back, taking a deep breath and looking at the big picture. They'd rather squabble about whether or not to pull back troops rather than finding the root cause of the problem.

-None of the other political candidates excite me. They're all floundering around in Bush's wake, weakly trying to find a way to win back votes for the party. None of them are leaders, and all of them are too scared of public opinion.

Is the Constitution Party perfect? No, I have some disagreements with a couple of their policies. But quite frankly it's a lot better than the major two parties in the USA.

Holographic memory and speed of access
Just noticed on Holographic_memory:

"As of 2002, planned holographic products did not aim to compete head to head with hard drives, but instead to find a market niche based on virtues such as speed of access."

I sincerely hope not. Why in the world would they not want to make this product for the mass consumer? Think about it: The entire hard drive market is pretty much defined by lack of speed of access. Even with the high data rates of modern hard drives, once those heads start to fly to other sectors they become as slow as molasses. I can't even begin to count the number of times a computer has frustrated me or a friend when the OS decides it needs to access information from a million places. Swapping software to/from the swap file can be especially painful. I think anybody with a computer would benefit from instant access rather than having to wait for a physical head to move across a platter.

Thinking that this would only appeal to a niche market is IMHO a critical lack of judgement. CobraA1 03:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

A small bit on a fossil sorting article
As the wikipedia is not really a discussion forum, I've decided to discuss an issue elsewhere. It's a page arguing about fossil sorting. But it's the typical senseless debate: Two opinions, but no solid basis for discussion. I've done my share of arguing in debates, and without solid data, it's utterly useless. You can talk all day and at the end of the day nobody's made any progress. It's sad to see that some people don't like to look at the data, and would rather talk in circles in futility.

A small bit on the reliability of the wikipedia
And despite being an occasional editor, I really don't consider the wikipedia to be a reliable source of information. As an occasional reference material, it's OK. But it's no replacement for real research.

Here's one of the reasons why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essjay_controversy

He was able to fake his credentials, and quite easily. Is there really any way of knowing who else may be doing this? Not really.

That, plus wikipedia's policy against original research. When doing something like, say, a research paper, it's preferable to find the most accurate information possible - and that information is actually found often in original research. Of course the information must be checked to ensure the researchers aren't pulling a fast one, but I for one prefer my information to be as close to the original research as possible. Facts and stories tend to get changed further from the original source, and can become unreliable quickly.

For those reasons, I'd never recommend the wikipedia for any sort of serious research.

Wirth's law - so true!
I just found the article on Wirth's law - and it's so true! It seems that as hardware gets faster and faster, sofware just keeps getting slower and slower. Somebody I know has two computers, and she complains that one is slower than the other - the newer, "faster" one. It just seems that no matter how fast our hardware gets, our software offsets any gains in hardware :(.

And oh, yeah, I think I finally figured out how to create a wikipedia link. ..

User boxes
Found User:Jigs41793's page, and say his userboxes. So - I made my own userbox :). For some odd reason, though, the set of "religious" userboxes were being deleted.

Three-revert rule
As you revert changes, please be aware of the three-revert rule. You appear to have already broken this rule, but since you were not warned I'm not going to get on your case about it. Please be careful not to break the rule again. —Remember the dot (talk) 21:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, maybe I went a bit overboard - but your super-legalism is a bit annoying. Keep in mind that this is a community project, that we are all volunteers, and that we are encouraged to be bold. Nothing here is considered legally binding or inflexible, and frankly I'm not too concerned about the threat of you getting on my case. Yes, I will pay more attention, but don't expect me to lose any sleep if I accidently do it again. I have bigger things to worry about in life than occasionally tripping over a guideline in the wikipedia. —CobraA1 07:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Mainstream science the only acceptable science?
Okay, it appears the mainstreamers are always right and us people who actually dare to believe a little differently must be wrong. A little blurb pointing out that we are not mainstream must be inserted into every article talking about other viewpoints, often accompanied by how we have been "refuted." Is this really NPOV? Personally, this sounds like the tyranny of the majority to me. —CobraA1 04:20, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You maybe interested in the Article Rescue Squadron


I noticed that you are part of Category:Wikipedians against notability.

I would like to invite you to join the Article Rescue Squadron. Although Rescue Squadron members do not share any official position on notability, and are simply focused on rescuing articles for deletion, you may find our project matches your vision of Wikipedia.

Caveat: I am writing this as a wikipedian, not as a representative of Article Rescue Squadron. Ikip (talk) 19:57, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I am far too busy in real life for a Wikipedia project. I suppose I'll do what I can, but I rarely perform any Wikipedia edits anymore. —CobraA1 01:18, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Replaced "its" userbox.
No, I do not speak Itsekiri. ..

Even facts aren't facts anymore . ..
Well, looks like facts just aren't facts anymore - looked at the Evolution as theory and fact article, and it's totally off base. They apparently want to create a totally new definition of "fact" that I've never heard before - a definition that makes even the word "fact" subjective.

What that basically tells me is that the "philosophy of science" has pretty much broken down into something that is neither philosophy nor science, and has done so in a rather poor attempt to take sides in an issue that should not be taking sides.

Science is not about what we believe, it's about how stuff works, and ultimately about how use harness that knowledge to create technology. Redefining every little word in our language to suddenly have both broad and narrow meanings just to satisfy the quibbling of some philosophers with axes to grind is not gonna advance the state of science or technology. —CobraA1 03:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/The 50,000 Challenge
--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:38, 8 November 2016 (UTC)