User talk:DavidWBrooks/2011 archive

The Hatter
"I have no opinion" is not helpful. -- Evertype·✆ 19:27, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There is still no consensus to keep the article where it is. Can you support The Hatter? -- Evertype·✆ 09:54, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Penn Jillette/Walter Block --> Free State Project
Penn Jillette brings some notoriety with him; he has a TV show and has played bit parts in various TV shows. Same situation with Tom Cruise and ADHD - he's no doctor, but he atracts publicity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.3.212.100 (talk) 18:24, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * So what? He has no knowledge or standing on this particular issue (FSP) so any comment he made is irrelevant. (And I say that as a fan of his.) If Oprah or Glenn Beck or Jay-Z said they liked it or didn't like it, that would be irrelevant, too. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 23:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

He does have knowledge of it- that's why he endorsed it. He's as much a libertarian as Block ...somehow...Block sets the bar pretty high. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IVxb5EBR-E —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.225.238.60 (talk) 02:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * But as I said, his opinion is irrelevant to the article. This isn't Facebook, where articles try to compile as many "likes" as possible, and that's the only role that Penn's opinion on the Free State Project would add. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
My advice would be to check the first addition of the quote to Wikipedia. That should generally be correct. Kaldari (talk) 17:32, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * True, I guess there isn't really an efficient way to check it. My only advice would be to be skeptical of anything that sounds fishy :) Kaldari (talk) 17:37, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Categories
I'm replying here so as not to derail discussion. I wasn't planning to get into a debate about the guideline status of Categorization, but by your logic, why have categories at all? Although in practice a lot of incoming traffic comes from search engines, I strongly believe that Wikipedia shouldn't rely on third parties (such as Google) to organize its content. This is the reason for having categories, and why we should try to do a good job. You might prefer arguing over American-vs-British spelling, but I personally find categories to be a useful and interesting way to find information. Feezo (Talk) 22:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * DavidWBrooks—I thought you made a good point. I've responded to you here. Bus stop (talk) 19:11, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

VPP
Would you please repeat this, perhaps a little louder? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

{[cn}} on Kununurra Page
Hello David

I notice you edited the Kununurra page and I wonder what {[cn}} means a search on wiki did not find anything. I also notice that there is a square bracket in there and a search with a curly bracket also did not return any results.

Regards,

Andrew KHS-Boab (talk) 11:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Numerology
OK, so you removed the "ad" section; but you did not comment the corresponding discussion section, Talk:Numerology. By your removal, you also eliminated the article from the appropriate category, and removed the link to the aforementioned discussion section.

Hence, I'll probably not get any advice from others as regards whether or not the section should be replaced by a substitution text, like I suggested. Therefore, I'm rather interested to know your opinion. Do you think that the section should be replaced as suggested (or otherwise), or should it stay removed?

Best, JoergenB (talk) 14:52, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Astronaut.
I agree with you. I am new to Wikipedia editing so I am aware that the fashion in which what I wrote doesn't suite an encyclopedia. Although the content is something that is a major part of the hypothesis. In the same way Einsteins theories evolved, the ancient astronaut theory has also evolved.

Although I do think that people who read about ancient astronaut theory have the right to see the full picture, which the Wiki page is not offering.

The only reason I signed up to Wikipedia was because I was shocked about how inaccurate some of the page was.

Obviously if ones knowledge base about the ancient astronaut theory mirrors some of its Wikipedia page one would come to the conclusion that its all nonsense. Even I would.

Though the Wikipedia page is missing a lot of info.

In other words, after being a Wikipedia user for a long time I have come to expect a Wikipedia page to represent the subject as accurately as possible. And the Ancient Astronaut Wikipedia page just doesn't deliver.

I'm sure you would agree with me that if the ancient astronaut theory does get 'proven' by mainstream science it would be a great thing.

So I'm asking if you could help me do a little rewriting for the Wiki page. I have all the reference for all that I wrote, I just don't know how to make the little number sign next to the statement for a reference, for a lack of a better phrase.

I have an extensive knowledge on the subject and would like to add the best evidence to the page. In the spirit of the Wikipedia culture, I'd like to ask for your hand in helping me presenting the knowledge in an unbiased fashion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Warmcocoa (talk • contribs) 16:39, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Autoconfirmed RfC
A formal Request for Comment has now been started on this topic. Feel free to contribute; best, Ironholds (talk) 20:27, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Ancient astronauts points
Firstly I want to put forward the idea that inevitably one day we will in effect become 'ancient astronauts' to other civilizations in the universe. Given the age of the universe and the number of habitable planets in our galaxy (let alone the universe) it is highly likely the same thing happened to us. And explains a lot of the anomalies as I will touch upon later.

Even the co-founder of DNA, Francis Crick, said that it's impossible that DNA just happened, an analogy many scientist use is that your more likely to have a hurricane pass through a scrap yard and ensemble a fighter jet than you are to have amino acids form to make genomes and DNA.

This is less rumination and more a way to present the theory in a fresh way to new people. The same way string theory is explained with different props and analogies. By the way the analogy isn't coming from my mouth, Giorgio Tskoulos a ancient astronaut researcher actually said this at MUFON 2007 ( even NASA has protocols if they were meant to come in contact with intelligent but primitive life) so that's a reference from a respected archeologist who's been studying this for over 10 years and not just sitting at home researching on Wikipedia pages he and his team travel the world to these sites.

Another thing I'd like to add to the article is all the anomalies we see that science just can't currently explain. Anomalies only really happen when theres a missing variable. Ancient astronaut theory best explains the thousands of anomalies we see in our history and everything starts making sense. One of the many examples is that there is a huge gap in human evolution, where we were living in caves for millions of years then just in a couple thousands years our brain size triples and then over night (in geological terms) we're building pyramids and doing mathematics. It just doesn't make sense. What was the missing link?

And I will have to disagree with you, obvious is wrong to state an extreme with no evidence but you can safely say most Gods & Dieties in most religion do come from the sky. See the etymology of Deity and you'll see that the actual word is related to sky. And God on Wikipedia is a related to deity. Is it just coincidence that every culture ranging in vast time and space come up with the same thing? Space brothers as the native indians

There is a ton of things this page is missing such as the dogon tribe and the Sirius star system, the native indians, all chinese cultures, indian cultures were they speak of Vimanas, flying ships that used to sail the skys, nuclear wars that was written in religious books, and when we go to the sites of these so called wars in the sky, we find something interesting on the local rocks, they have glass embedded which is called vitrification which is common in when rocks are exposed to nuclear level heat. I'm telling you thats just the tip of the ice berg.

http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/oldufos/astropi.jpg http://ancientaliens.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/flyingobjects26_05.jpg

Also the mention of cargo cult is extremely vague and doesn't draw similarities as much as I did. It doesn't talk about straw planes and monuments and doesn't bring up the point that most religions probably started out as cargo cults.

A last thing I'd like to touch upon is that angels were probably ancient astronauts, they never had wings, our ancestors we're just trying to tell us that they fly. It's symbology. When you look at the Apollo mission logo: http://www.trvth.org/uploaded_images/Apollo11_LOGO-737240.JPG. I highly doubt we were landing eagles on the moon, we were just trying to say that we had flied there. If this information is lost will future generations think we landed eagles on the moon? Especially when they hear audio on the mission such as 'the eagle' has landed.

I know I've written a lot, I'm just trying to put forward that this is an extensive theory with many areas. The Wikipedia page isn't doing it justice.

http://static.atlasobscura.netdna-cdn.com/images/place/cargo-cults-tanna.1326.large_slideshow.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.249.221.180 (talk) 20:32, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you take a look at this article. Warmcocoa is at it again at Ancient astronauts, seeking to uses IMDB of all things to cite that plenty of scientists, etc. support the ancient astronaut theory. I'm about to his 3RR with them and could use some help or input.  He  iro 21:44, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Bogosity
Hi, David; I've reverted your edit aboug the unit of measurement for 'bogosity' because it appears to rely on a self-published source? Best, ╟─ Treasury Tag ► Woolsack ─╢ 14:35, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

The Phantom Tollbooth illustration
Regarding my edit about that the map illustration being originally drawn by Juster, this information was from a talk he gave at the Dallas Museum of Arts about his life and literary works. I did not record what was said, so I cannot directly verify it. Juster did say that the map illustration was originally drawn by him, and the drawing was given to Feiffer, who traced over it and added detail so that the drawing would fit the artistic style of the rest of the illustrations in the book. --DidgeGuy (talk) 15:50, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps an entirely different illustration from the book could be but in place of the map, so as to avoid all this non-variblity? --DidgeGuy (talk) 16:11, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate removal of the tooshort tag
This has gone on for years now. If you dislike tooshort, then please take it to TfD with a view to having it removed from the cleanup toolbox entirely. Do not simply remove it from random articles when used perfectly appropriately. We have a warning template for this sort of behaviour for a reason: it is disruptive, and upsets the workflow of editors who use such tags to plan their editing. You are an experienced enough editor (and administrator) to know all this already. I should not have to start a user conduct RfC on such a trifling matter to get you to respect this. For now I have restored the template to that page until such point as I (or another like-minded editor) am in a position to expand it to meet our basic quality guidelines; who knows, I could perhaps have already done that, were I not spending time asking a fellow administrator to show a basic level of respect for a cleanup system which has enjoyed broad support for many years now. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 12:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Spiral Island Kickstarter Project
Hi David, Regarding Spiral Island, the Kickstarters project is a bit hard to find since the keywords aren't really appropriate, but it's here: "Birthing of Floating Recycled Plastic Bottle Eco Art Island". It's an interesting read, but the project failed so it was rejected. It also of note that Rishi doesn't call it "Spiral Island II" but instead "Joyxee Island". Whether this is worth changing on the wiki page, I'm not sure.

Thanks for understanding my edits were in good faith. Regards. 49.227.105.184 (talk) 07:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Astronaut - Reception
While I understand and agree with your position that the "Reception" section is for their response to a.a. ideas and not others' response to them, I do not see the relevance of this particular response to a.a. ideas. If there were a page discussing the number 3, its importance as a prime number and its historical appearance in various religions, art and culture and someone said, "nope, 3+3 actually equals 10, so therefore none of this is true," would that warrant a mention in the reception section? The other pieces of the reception section are relevant to the a.a. discussion and address questions of plagiarism and a.a. proponents turned opponents but this young earth creationism piece simply doesn't belong. The a.a. theory has about as much to do with young earth creationism as different theories of meteorology and weather patterns have to do with those who think the sky appears blue because someone painted it blue and not because of the nature of gas molecules in the atmosphere so why is a response from a young earth creationist a relevant piece for this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phx8715 (talk • contribs) 01:59, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

hundredths of a mile
(Almost) every other wikipedia article on county size includes figures to the hundredth; I am simply making sure that there is consistency.

Minced oaths
David W Brooks. You have a new message at Talk: Minced oath. Please come to the discussion. VegetaSaiyan (talk) 23:39, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Kolosimo
There seems to have been an effort to promote him recently, even calling him the father of pseudoarchaeology. I just reverted the IP's other edit which was similar. Dougweller (talk) 21:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Your removal
Calls are free. It is free information. Glad you found it hilarious. Free speech censorship? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cytra (talk • contribs) 18:05, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Actun Tunkul
I answered your note on my Talk page by creating Chiquibul Cave System. It needs alot of work, including basic formatting of references, and some of the gross survey numbers don't add up. Feel free. Oh, and have a look at the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies 58(2) (Google it). Ian mckenzie (talk) 23:10, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Google map of energy sites
Hi David,

When updating Wind power in Vermont, I happened to notice that there are some errors in your "Google Map of alternative energy and nuclear sites, including wind, in New England".

Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station is shown in Lanesborough, Massachusetts, instead of in Rowe. Also, several of the other nuclear sites are a few miles off. I've marked them on this map. (For some reason, Seabrook is lightly obscured by pixelation on the satellite image.) —WWoods (talk) 21:54, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Mathematical joke / Jokes with numeral bases
Hi,

why you did reverted my change from last night on "Jokes with numeral bases"? This joke only makes sence with "trinary". Also I found it at http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/10-kinds-of-people.html

Best Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.223.81.162 (talk) 12:38, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I misread it ... instead, as it turns out, I've removed the whole joke, which adds nothing to the article because it's no different than the previous joke. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Deleted Hanoi Post
Dear Mr. Brooks,

The paragraph I added about the iterative solution to Towers of Hanoi, which you recently deleted, is a well-known but unpublished version of the iterative solution, and indeed it is simpler than the one currently published on wikipedia. I am a computer science professor at Stonehill College, and I would be happy to chat with you about it.

Please read the post again and try the solution.

If you still believe that the post is not clear, then I would be happy to rewrite the explanation. If you agree that algorithm is in fact clear, then please repost the submission.

Shai Simonson

http://web.stonehill.edu/compsci/shai.htm shai@stonehill.edu — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.144.15.10 (talk) 14:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Why did you delete my edit? I am trying to add a well-known iterative algorithm that computer scientists know but that is not recorded on the Wiki page.

The link I referenced discusses this algorithm albeit not as simply as my shorter summary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.104.55 (talk) 00:14, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Vegemite
Maybe it's just me, but I tend to think our friend isn't really serious about adding to the article. He seems more interested in getting somebody to talk to him than contributing productively. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:18, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Habeas Corpus
Thanks for re-doing the format of my comment on the Talk page for this article. I am only an occasional contributor to the Wikipedia, andstill a bit at sea with the mark-up conventions; but of course, Indentation is preferable to Bold, in differentiating one comment from another. What do you think about Habeas Corpus? It's a difficult one, but needs tackling, I'd say.

g88keeper (talk) 09:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

December 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States
--Kumioko (talk) 04:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Chaldean Numerology
CHALDEAN NUMEROLOGY DESERVES MENTION IN THE SECTION ON NUMEROLOGY, SINCE IT IS THE ORIGINAL FORM OF NUMEROLOGY ON OUR PLANET. IT IS THE SYSTEM WHICH IS ABSOLUTE, WHEREAS THE AMERICAN FORM THAT USES #9 AS I IS ONLY THE RELATIVE BASIS!

YOU HAVE SUBVERTED OUR ENTIRE CULTURAL PROGRESS BY REVERTING THE SECTION. YOU SHALL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE IN THE HEREAFTER. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yanclae (talk • contribs) 15:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Numerology
30th December, 2011

Dear David W. Brooks:

Even if what I say is not considered scholarly enough for you, you are definetly blunting the readers by leaving other works up.

Chaldean Numerology is the most advanced form.

You know not what you do. The world will suffer.

May you be penitant.

Sincerely, I, Stephen Sela Kelly — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.65.100.103 (talk) 17:10, 30 December 2011 (UTC)