User talk:Pizza Puzzle/Archive 4

Hey Pizza, it's Kevin.

I'm sorry about being somewhat hostile before. Often times I put a lot of effort forth to try to make something "beautiful", and often times it gets disrespected, or at least I feel it does, though I'm sure often times the intention wasn't there. It happens too often. I'm just trying to protect it. In a way, I guess, it becomes like property. They say that property is 90% of law. I don't mean to attack anyone who's just trying to learn and contribute. Perhaps part of it is that our stupid President seems to be shitting his stupid ass left and right on all the progress that many great spirits have worked at for most of their lives. I want tomorrow to be beautiful and when I see stuff like that I take it personally. Perhaps that was a little pent up frustration getting out. I'm sorry you had to be the victim.

I agree with much of what you just wrote on your user page. I'm on your side; I hate all the "pure mathematicians". I think they're dogmatists and they belong in the crusades. I think that the main purpose of this encylopedia should be education. I don't see any real purpose to some super-fancy technical masterpiece. It won't come to life, it won't do anything except be esoteric and supersillious. (And my enemies can't argue my incompetence because I happen to have spatial reasoning skills that were officially measured in the 99.9th percentile. And I happen to be very well-read.)

So yeah, keep on 'rockin in the free world. Just be a little more respectful and self-restrained.

BTW, I removed the note on e^x in "inverse..." because the exponential and logarithmic functions are defined over all complex numbers. (See Euler's formula) I also wrote to hawthorne about the technical stuff he put in being unneccessary and distracting. (in the talk page of the page)

Peace.

-User:Kevin_baas 2003.06.24

(copy from Village Pump)

Agree, completely agree. The problem is that mathematicians are trained to do things rigorously, and they have to do it that way in order to protect the "correctness" of mathematics. Some may become intolerant to "misconceptions" from non-mathematicians, but I believe most of them are still friendly. Professional mathematicians (not just wikipedian mathematicians) need intakes from non-mathematians (like you, PP) to improve their way of introducing mathematics to general publics. -- Wshun

Well, Im obviously not getting along with the mathematicians here; but, I think the "professional" mathematicians are so intent on outdoing each other with their rigorous mathematics that they fail to understand that the non-mathematician is the one who most needs this site, and nearly ALL of the math pages (even on some of the most "simple" and elementary of topics) are nigh-impossible for anyone without the proper training to understand.

I agree that in the Math sections, Wikipedia contains mostly formal definitions, some identities and basic examples. I'm currently studying undergraduate Math and I find it relatively hard to comperhend and learn new things about Mathematics from this site (in contrast to other subjects like, say, history), but still it gives some good interesting overview descriptions on some pages. However, I think that's the nature of mathematics, which is rigorously built definitions over definitions, to be written this way.

There's a wiki textbook project that is currently in planning. I think math tutorials, as you suggest, are more suitable there, such tutorials would be written with the non-methamatician in mind. -- Rotem Dan 12:29 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Planetesimal deletions

Hi, This is one of the blocks of text I deleted:

Planetesimals are relatively large asteroids (with diameters of ~10km);

Asteroids are a type of planetesimal, which still orbits around the sun. Saying that planetesimals are large asteroids is like saying dogs are large chihuahuas.

The other major chunk I removed:

It is estimated that a typical early solar nebula may have billions of such objects.

I can't explain why I don't like this, but it's one of these things where an external source would be nice. An external source for your Terran System addition would be nice as well.

I changed Terran to Sol simply because I've never heard of Terran being used to describe our solar system. Sol makes more sense anyway since our planetary system revolves around the sun, not earth.

Tell me if you feel I haven't explained enough. I didn't do the edit straight away because it seemed you were really quite annoyed with other edits elsewhere.

Erzengel 23:07 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Regarding whether planetesimals are asteroids or vice versa, I've found a link. It doesn't provide much detail but I think it's good enough:

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/glossary.html#asteroid

I have texts which state that planetesimals are asteroids, you apparently have texts which state that asteroids are planetesimals. I strongly suspect that its better to refer to planetesimals as large asteroids since it doesnt seem too correct to refer to a small space rock (your typical asteroid) as a "tiny planetesimal". If you can provide a source for your view, we could rewrite the article to state that X states this, but Y states that.
It would seem that you are implying that there is a type of planetesimal which is not an asteroid, clarification on that would be useful. In any case, the author I have been reading was quite clear that he considered space rocks to be asteroids which eventually "grew" into planetesimals and then protoplanets and then planets.

The most general definition of planetesimals I've heard is that they are any solid body which formed from accretion in solar nebulae, with sizes that can range from a few to hundreds of kilometres. By that definition, comets and asteroids are both count as leftover planetesimals; comets don't count as asteroids because they're not rocky or metallic.

I think the major problem we have is semantics. I've heard Pluto being referred to as a planetesimal. -- Erzengel 11:25 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the information on uploading photos. However, User:Jtdirl says you are a banned user, a banned unbanned user, a user who was banned then unbanned and banned so therefore you must proceed immediately to Wikipedia:Bans and blocks. Make sure you take your photo with you (certify copyright when you smile and hold up the sign) and give your work address, telephone number. Please also ensure you check this Wikipedia:Bans and blocks page every few minutes because these rules can change in the blink of an eye and you are required to obey all rules anybody who is a Wikipedia:Administrators wishes to think up. Too, if User:Jtdirl wishes to call you any of the following, it is okay and accepted policy of Mr. Jimbo Wales the ultimate authority at this site.

A prize asshole of the highest order
horse manure
crackpots
fuckwit
monumental asshole

amongst other good language. Too, be very careful with spelling because User:Jtdirl will be forced to fix your mistakes and he will say: "moved to correct spelling after some idiot screwed it up." And, if you are harassed or discriminated against you may complain if you like but either nothing will be done of, if Mr. Wales decides, you will be banned. Good luck, glad to have you aboard our friendly community. ChuckM

The above text is from a multiple hard-banned user and should be considered in light of that user's continued agenda of vandalism, harassment, and maliciousness. See User:ChuckM/ban for more details. --Dante Alighieri 02:53 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The banned user makes an excellent point that User:Jtdirl is allowed to get away with extremely rude behaviour. Pizza Puzzle

Thanks for the support Pizza Puzzle, but I don't think many people are in favour of using F alone. Most people around here seem to understand that America is alone in the world in clinging to an obsolete set of units. BTW, have you given up on the "secondary bigtop" idea? -- Tim Starling 03:18 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You're right of course - I should have credited the view. It's better now, I hope (thanks for pointing it out). --Camembert

List of Chess tactics? Evercat 02:45 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Well, can you at least distinguish between tactics that occur in real play and concepts only found in problems? Evercat 02:48 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I doubt they would, to be honest - chess problems have a whole different terminology to chess as a game (that's why I made chess problem terminology rather than just sticking all that stuff into chess terminology - they're different worlds), and most of that terminology just doesn't get used in chess games, even though it might conveivably have an application there (I've certainly never seen references to Novotnys or Grimshaws or Plachuttas or whatever in game annotations). To be honest, I suspect that quite a lot of grandmasters wouldn't know what a Novotny is (there's no reason why they should know--it's just a name, and the thing itself almost never happens in a game). --Camembert

Hi, I would have done something to the New Imperialism article if I actually knew anything about the subject. -- Erzengel 11:55 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It's a long time since I played on Yahoo - all that Java makes my computer ill. The only place I play (badly) online now is FICS ( http://www.freechess.org ) if that's any use to you. --Camembert

I'm camembert on FICS too (and embarassed of my rating there...). --Camembert

We'll have to play each other one day so we can be embarrassed in unison. --Camembert