User talk:TheGreatScott

Yup, this is my talk page. You can post here, but why not use your time in a more productive fashion by donating to the Wikimedia Foundation (just click on the bar above). Corporate 'involvement' can be as threatening to the independence of Wikipedia as influence by government.

After colleagues forwarded an article from The Onion noting "Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence." (they constantly give me a hard time about WP and accuracy), I began to think - will this contribution-dependent encyclopedia develop into something higher or will it degenerate into one of the many blogs/websites 'littering' the information superhighway (see inventions: Al Gore) TgS

Move Levitron article?
(Moved from entry made to User_talk:Keenan_Pepper/Archive_3


 * (Old discussion from May 2006.) Good idea. Moving the article to Magnetic Levitating Top will probably stop some of the odd reverts (and the message from Wikipedia's lawyer BradPatrick threatening to delete anything about the court case.) Hmmmm, "TheGreatScott" is anonymous (no personal info on user page) and has contributions only on the Levitron page but nowhere else, so I wonder if he's from Hones' Levitron company. Me, I have a little personal interest, having followed the Sherlock's "hidden history" page as they added more and more info. I still maintain a piece of their old page on my site. But I've never heard the story from the other opponents (from Hones/Fascinations.) --Wjbeaty 04:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply: Nope - no 'personal' info on my page (and never will be as long as the ex-wife and her lawyers are alive). I have other contributions under Evangelical Christianity, but they are anon as well for obvious reasons (tolerance seems to be one-way these days and 'Christian Scientist' is not an oxymoron!). I haven't been part of the 'corporate world' other than my own company for a long time and ended up visiting the Levitron entry looking for help in getting mine to work (hints/tips appreciated). I've read the article and to be honest, it sounds like a conspiracy theory (then the Art Bell references didn't help); then I read that (in the court case) the article was posted just after the authors' company was sent to a collections lawyer for refusing to pay a $ 10K debt. A very similar thing happened to me by a former client when I sent him to collections. This history article is well-written, but I have doubts as the motivation. As far as a reply from the Levitron Company goes, I would take a pr release from a corporation with a grain of salt - as I imagine most would these days. I also know from experience that your words can be twisted around and used against you. They may be thinking the same thing. Bill Bennett never suggested aborting every black baby in America - but that's exactly how some media outlets portrayed his comments - and these were the 'respected networks'.


 * Just a thought. If anyone wants to email me, it's The.Great.Scott at Hotmail dot com.  If you have ideas on how to get the top to actually work, please let me know.  I have the levitron floating globe, and it's electromagnetic so the setup is easy.  TgS --TheGreatScott 02:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


 * TGS, the above archived comments page says "Do Not Edit This Page," so I moved your response here.


 * I've been doing magnetic levitation stuff for a few years. Look for my email to your hotmail account. --Wjbeaty 11:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the email (and for fixing the above). I didn't know if that was a work email for you or not, so thought I'd check before replying. I'm looking forward to trying this out (mine has a round wooden plug to spin the top on, but everything else appears the same). Just out of curiosity, how long of a floating time is realistic? TgS TheGreatScott 01:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Nope, it's my personal email.  And the floating time depends on how fast you can spin it, since the wind slows it down.  I haven't tried timing it, but I think that half a minute is easy, while two minutes is a challenge. --Wjbeaty 02:05, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Spin stabilized magnetic levitation
Greeting TGS, just thought I'd inform you that I've started this article about this interested physical phenomenon. Hope you can help develop it. Cheers. 07:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks Netscott. I'm glad to see more focus on the cool science, rather than Art Bell and the conspiracy theories. I might contribute, although under a different name.  I sent a message to another user, forgetting to login, so the IP address showed.  According to the emails I received, living in Texas makes me science-handicapped.  TgS TheGreatScott 17:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)