User talk:Knotwork

On page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Old_dogs_and_new_tricks "Does the challenge result from an initiative to edit-evolve a set of articles to a more world view?" the term "world view" is a link not to some such conception as multicultural view or non-nationalistic view or cosmopolitan view (as I, at least, evidently for some reason 'expected') but, rather, to World_view in the 'other' sense. To me this is weird to the extent that it seems grammatically wrong; that is to say, the phrase "a more world view" seems incorrect English. If the link is correct, then to my mind it seems as if the phrase should instead be worded differently, such as (maybe?) by applying something along the lines of s/a more world view/more world-views/ ; if not then maybe something like s/a more world view/a more world-wide view/ or s/a more world view/a more worldwide view/ ???

Reading my edit history from the beginning instead of from the end might seem to indicate I am an obsessive-compulsive proofreader of English. My motivation for joining wikis tends to be a desire to fix some trivial typo-type (spelling/grammar) glitch. The note(s) above could maybe serve in lieu of emailing the author of a website to point out an apparent typo on their site, or if I ever get edit privs it could serve as a to-do list for me, reminding me of things I'd've tried to fix myself to save others the labour had I been able to: action items for some day when I have spare time to go back and do stuff that once upon a time seemed to me ought maybe to be looked into or actually done. (It was when I tried to expand my scope from proofreading to editorialising or content-creating that I messed up, proofreading seems to be something I am not particularly awful at.)

Knotwork (talk) 15:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nikodemos/Asymmetric_controversy : quote

They assume that

* Competition on wikipedia is a good thing. * That other editors are interested in competitive editing.

This attitude is not only destructive, but the "logic" supporting it is fundamentally flawed. They think competing against each other brings progress. But progress towards what? Competition progresses towards the goals of its winner. And since the goals of the competitors are to push their own POV, the progress is actually not towards NPOV, but towards the winner's POV. In other words, competition can only breed (real, meaningful, constructive, unselfish) progress when competitors work towards the same goal. And if it so happens that the person which is trying to be NPOV "wins", then what a lot of wasted time and energy!

endquote

...Opinion, accounting for its living in userspace? Why is "fundamentally flawed" bolded instead of being a link to the proof of the fundamentality of the flaw? (Yeah, its true, I do like reading proofs, isn't that what proofreading implies/involves? ;) :D)

I have so many windows open now I am running into limitations of my hardware, on some tab of some window I've been reading that calling in the math project folk can be useful, plus I am a bit of a fan of intelligible mathematical (and mathematical physics and physics) proofs so combining that with a career in formal systems such as software languages for ideally-deterministic systems is it any wonder I'd even dig into "Laws of Form" trying to relate it to fonts and the topology of character-sets etc if doing so might help craft or discover an intelligible, executable, intelligibly-executable [something]?

I've grabbed this quote because it seems potentially relevant to research into whether co-operation can compete with competion and vice-versa. (Objective: feed, clothe, and shelter the sentient beings inhabiting Sol III; process: compete to provide all such beings all such things or compete to restrict access to such things in order to prioritise which ones get which such things soonest or in most quantity or quality? Objective: provide all such beings with all factual data and/or all factual information; procedure: ???)

Knotwork (talk) 19:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disjunction_and_existence_properties : quote

In mathematical logic, the disjunction property is satisfied by a logic if whenever a sentence

\phi\vee\psi

is a theorem, then either φ is a theorem, or ψ is a theorem.

endquote

The symbol between "either" and "is" displays as a clearly different collection/assemblage of pixels from the symbol displayed by the (tex? latex?) symbol one might attempt to describe by some such term as "backslash-phi". This obfuscates my eye's tendency to recognise by visual form-recognition any intended identity between the collection, set, or assemblage of pixels designated by the backslash-phi construct and the symbol appearing between "either" and "is".

If any identity is intended between the referent of the backslash-phi construct and the referent of the symbol appearing between "either" and "is", might it not convey less apparent attempt to obfuscate if one used the same construct when the same referent is meant-or-intended?

I am not generally regarded by laypeople as particularly unsophisticated in the realm of computer-literacy, yet I do not know offhand what character-set and what font are being used to generate the symbol appearing between the "either" and the "is".

Would "then either \phi is a theorem, or \psi is a theorem" preserve the intended meaning or obfuscate it???

(In other words, is the symbol between "either" and "is" the greek letter phi? If so, why obfuscate that "fact"?)

(If two forms differ, which pixels or bits (or topological or other properties) of the difference carry which pixels or bits or segments or portions (etc) of the "meaning" and what pixelogical, bitological, segmentological, portionological (etc) laws govern which changes of meaning are accomplished by which bits, pixels, or other "properties"?)

Knotwork (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing : quote

From Wikipedia:Neutral point of view:

NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all.

endquote

"may not"? that seems potentially ambiguous, as in does it mean should not or need not ("may" is often contrasted to "can" in some dialects/traditions of eduction/upbringing (citations needed ;)) in a way that intends to attribute an implication of "you should not do that" when authorities (such as parents or teachers) tell you "you may not do this that or the other thing": even if you can do it you "may" not do it.)

"might not", "need not", "are permitted not to" are examples of constructs that might (may? ;)) be less ambiguous of one possible reading, "should not", "ought not" might (may? ;)) serve better to convey the other kind of reading that I can well imagine some readers being able to read from "may not".

Knotwork (talk) 00:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_(mathematics) : says to see also signature complex but signature complex is a red link. Stub needed? Or don't bother saying to see also signature complex? (I am a user trying to look up stuff, how am I to know how vitally necessary seeing also that missing entry is to my quest to understand? One of these centuries I should maybe go back and check whether it is seeable or is no longer considered necessary to also be seen? Should I Google it or first exhaust all the other links that are not in red?) (As it happens, for me, now, a page already mentioned above, purported to be important in distinguishing "constructive" in intuitional and/or classical logic, seems maybe higher priority to understand than signatures are...(???))

Knotwork (talk) 01:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_logic : w00t, uses words that are spelt like English words using English alphabet in default, system, or website-specified (??? but even if website-specified, still seemingly default for this website) font but usage of those words seems pretty hard to reconcile with English. (The exponents of these usages presumably being or having been mathematicians? Maybe not mathematicians whose first language was English???) (Top and bottom? Would those textstrings happen to correspond usefully with the textstrings top and bottom as used in labelling or characterising quarks?) (Vending machine eh? How would the "first cause" be characterised in such notation/terms? A machine that vends quarks, perchance? Etc.)

Pretty darn good attempt to write about such stuff in plain English, but how much is the attempt to express such things in plain English encumbered, rather than enhanced, by such "not quite what a plain Englishperson might expect" usages of seemingly-an-English-word textstrings?

Knotwork (talk) 02:48, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia : "The concept of a neutral point of view (NPOV), which is regarded as a non-negotiable principle of Wikipedia,[32] has itself been criticized as an impossible ideal due to the inevitable biases of editors. In an interview with Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia critic Robert Cox, NPR commentator Mark Glaser stated:" (Note: NPR not a link, Mark Glaser a red link.)

Maybe its a good thing most Wikipedians aren't print journalists, else maybe we'd see a lot of such use of jargon or acronyms that some niche audience such as sports fans, business fans, politics fans (favourite section of newspaper fans in general?) is expected to automagically know in advance. (NPR, what the heck is an NPR? Neutral Point of Reporting? Some company or other that in some jurisdiction or other has managed to grab that acronym? Is it even an acronym? We don't even get to click through to Mark Glaser's page to see if it clarifies where he works or what denomination/faith/affiliation he might have that someone might choose to acronymify as NPR, let alone simply click on the textstring NPR itself to see an explanation of what it is intended to signify.)

I constantly see stuff like D(PA) or R(WA) and other arcane formulae when accredited journalists spout political info, gee I thought politics was a people thing not some arcane mathematical formulae thing.

Professional journalism seems often to attempt to obfuscate, couching things in arcane terms only some weird bunch of niche insiders could decode. (A marketing thing to try to get people to write in asking what all those weird codes mean or what?) (Reverse trawling inasmuch as the publication is doing the trawling rather than its being trawled?)

It is because Wikipedia stands out as not trying to similarly obfuscate that this occurence of an unexplained acronym (or is it a three-letter shout textstring?) annoys me. Like arg, at least on Wikipedia we can expect better, can't we? (Please some three-letter-labelled entity, keep Wikipedia from being taken over by accredited journalists...)

Knotwork (talk) 19:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1923 "a 9 men" ??? Knotwork (talk) 21:55, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

"Unconventional warfare (abbreviated UW) is the opposite of conventional warfare. Where conventional warfare is used to reduce an opponent's military capability, unconventional warfare is an attempt to achieve military victory through acquiescence, capitulation, or clandestine support for one side of an existing conflict."

Uhuh. Meanwhile, what about where conventional warfare is not used for [that purpose]? For example, consider wheres such that conventional warfare is used for any or all of the purposes the above attributes to unconventional warfare.

P.S. Ever heard of such wheres as, oh I dunno, lets say, uh, Geneva, (grabbing a wherestring out of thin air?) ?

Knotwork (talk) 02:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

http://icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/5JYKMC : quote

(a) any goods or other article upon of in connection with which an emblem, designation, sign, signal, design or wording was used by that person; and

endquote

upon of in ??? I know some languages, even including English, can do very deep imbedding (tip hat at Ian Watson's novel) but I'd feel more comfortable looking into such a possibility if I first was more sure that 'of' is definately not replaceable / interchangeable with an 'or'. As in "upon or in". ???

Knotwork (talk) 08:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

For some reason or lack thereof I seem to have tended to associate new roller-skates with lulu, cilla, and an episode in Kingsmoor era in which I expressed disbelief that a chap could throw a stone far enough to hit me (I was also thinking any stone managing to cover such a distance would presumably take long enough to do so that dodging it, artfully or not, ought not be a problem). (The stone skimmed the back of my left hand, maybe even a knuckle or two.) If that impression is correct then keys for skates would seem, in the timeline I traversed, to have preceded the reported in wikipedia origination with Melanie some years later... Hopefully my having allowed this matter to slide a few days might heve allowed any terra-security issues around the matter to have ameliorated themselves, but those dubious of psionics might in such a case become curious regarding the routes taken by packets on networks as I browsed the pages that have led to this outburst.

Knotwork (talk) 19:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basset_force :

"The Basset term accounts for viscous effects and addresses the temporal delay in in boundary layer development as the relative velocity changes with time."

in in ?

Knotwork (talk) 20:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_(TV_series) : "The Sanctuary aso uses a large submarine." s/ aso / also /

Knotwork (talk) 07:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Kiss_(book) : "The horror of each story is built around implication, and many horrific endings, involving death or unpleasent sutuations, can only be implied, since nothing is directly stated." s?sutuations?situations?

Knotwork (talk) 15:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilateral_pentagon : grammar is basically not English grammar.

Knotwork (talk) 21:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Gustloff_(ship) : "The women onboard the ship at the time of the sinking and were described, perhaps falsely, as SS personnel from the German concentration camps.[13]" : not English grammar.

Knotwork (talk) 07:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21-gun_salute : "The procession saw an armed police barricading where demonstrators including five students where martyred at indiscriminate police firing to crowd." grammar somewhat strange?

Knotwork (talk) 08:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucius : hmm, not quite the story that was taught at Kingsmoor (or was that Frensham?) hmm...

Knotwork (talk) 09:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_H : "It employed many mutants and other superhuman to fight for Canada by joining their three thier "Flight" program." maybe it meant to say three tier?

Knotwork (talk) 14:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_world_trade_center

quote

The WTCA is governed by a 24-member international Board of Directors, composed of executives from WTCA members around the world, and elected by the membership. Eight permanent committees have been established to carry on the work of the Association in the following fields:

* Committee on Facilities and Functions * Committee on International Relations and Development * Committee on Planning and Finance * Committee on Public Relations and Information * Committee on Tourism, Hospitality and Cultural Exchange * Committee on Trade Education, Training and Research * Committee on Trade Fairs, Trade Marts and High Tech Parks * Committee on WTC Standards and Quality * Committee on Peace & Stability through trade

endquote

Which of those nine committees is not international and/or not permanent? Or are there actually nine, rather than (as stated) eight international committees?

Knotwork (talk) 06:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECTRE : "Their debut appearance in Dr. No." As a stand-alone sentence the grammar of this is a bit strange.

Knotwork (talk) 06:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

http://www.degrees.info/online/about-us/ : "Learn about online education. Whether you come to Degrees.info to get matched with the right online schools or learn more about your educations options, Degrees.info is dedicated to providing informative and useful information about online education." your education's options? or your education options? or your educational options? (middle option seems best maybe?)

Knotwork (talk) 08:24, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

http://www.degrees.info/online/articles/10-best-college-degrees.html : "Earning an online degree in engineering certainly pays, especially since there are so many jobs in this career field. Mechanical engineers, for example, design machines, processes, systems -- anything mechanical. Because they are needed in almost every type of manufacturing industry, the job outlook is expected to increase, making engineering one of the best college degrees top pursue." to pursue.

Knotwork (talk) 08:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

same page: "Law Degree [eol,eol] Aspiring lawyers must attend three years of law school and pass the Law School Admission Test, but if you are interested in seeking justice for citizens and retribution for victims, earning a degree in criminal justice, one branch of the law, could be a great first step."

Ouch, retribution? so much for good site? or is it a trap, they plan to suck in people who are into retribution in order to teach them (maybe even some 'hard way' or other?) that retribution is not (NOT!) a good thing? Or what?

Knotwork (talk) 08:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

same site: isn't it potentially a scam to encourage people to spend money on education that is estimated to be obsolete after 2016? Maybe claiming the education is only estimated to be useful up until 2016 isn't a great incentive for people who think longer term than that? How fast would one have to complete the education in order to recoup one's investment by 2016?

Knotwork (talk) 08:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

http://www.degrees.info/online/military/ace.html : "Online colleges and degree programs in particular have been at the forefront of creating degree paths that take recognize the many different areas of learning and expertise that take place during a military career, and the ACE programs have made military-specific degree paths possible." take recognise? hmm maybe should simply drop the word 'take' from that?

Knotwork (talk) 08:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventio : "Invention is the division of rhetoric that investigates the possible means by which proofs can be discovered; supplies speaker and writers with sets of instructions that help them to find and compose arguments that appropriate for a given rhetorical situation (Crowley and Hawhee 20)." maybe should be that are appropriate?

Knotwork (talk) 09:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Network : "There stated objective is to develop and promote a modern progressive agenda based upon the ideas and experiences of social democratic modernisers. They argue that in order to meet challenges of globalisation, the centre-left needs to embark on a process of permanent renewal." s/There /Their/

Knotwork (talk) 10:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Finance_Initiative : "Smaller PFI projects - the majority by number - have typically always been funded directly by banks in the form of 'senior debt'. All PFI projects will have to be funded this way until resumption of mnormal capital markets." s/mnormal/normal/

Knotwork (talk) 16:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

List of first-order theories
Way back in April 2008, you asked a question in Talk:List of first-order theories. Sorry, I haven't come here with an answer - I was just checking through the 'unanswered questions', and it uses that template. I'm not actually sure if you didn't answer your own question in the end. If not, considering the duration elapsed, it seems unlikely you will get a response there; instead, I think you should ask on the refdesk. I'll remove the 'unanswered' template, so that it is no longer in that category; I hope that is OK with you; I'm just trying to go through that category and clear up outstanding issues. Thanks,  Chzz  ►  08:03, 11 October 2009 (UTC)