User talk:SteveBaker/archive20

Happy 2011

Steve, I hope that 2011 is rewarding for you in all the important parts of your life. -- Scray (talk) 20:01, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh yes...and in some of the unimportant bits too!  :-) My son and I have been working hard over the holiday to write a computer game that runs in a browser window...I'm entering it into the Mozilla GameOn-2010 competition which has a closing date of Jan 11th - so the pressure to get it finally done and polished is fairly intense!

Happy New Year! SteveBaker (talk) 01:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

A memorable shared project with your son certainly sounds important to me! -- Scray (talk) 01:34, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

We have something of a tradition of doing this over the holidays - you can download & play one we did a couple of years ago at http://www.oliverbaker.org/HamperBall/ -- that was a game we wrote in about 10 days to give to my kid's girlfriend for Xmas! The year before that, we did a version of Samegame for my wife: http://www.tubagames.net/samegame/ (she was addicted to the version of it on her phone - our version is much better!)

This latest game is a longer-term and MUCH more ambitious effort - we have hundreds of animations and images, many thousands of lines of software - and it's using cutting-edge WebGL stuff to do fully interactive 3D graphics in a browser window.

SteveBaker (talk) 01:45, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Ref Desk Statistics

( I thought I'd drop you this note, since you presumably aren't following talk:Reference Desk. ) Cuddlyable3 rigged up some sort of reference counting script and posted some per user statistics for the year of 2010 on RD/M. (Where a "reference" is any link whatsoever to a WP article or elsewhere.)

You might be amused to notice that Somehow even with months of absence you managed to take a spot in the top ten "reference providers"! APL (talk) 19:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes - but everything depends on what you describe as a "reference". SteveBaker (talk) 19:57, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for such a well referenced reply! :-) APL (talk) 06:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Analytical engine

<Moved to Talk:Analytical engine>

I am reminded of a similar argument I engaged in four years ago on the Maria Callas talk page. [1] The regular editors over on that page were insistent it was proper to continue calling her "the great" or "the renowned" on that page, and that it would be fine to refer to certain performances of hers as "her greatest triumph", etc. This is not the way that Wikipedia writes about subjects. Cheers, Robert K S (talk) 02:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

What I see there is you arguing with a lot of other editors - never successfully building any kind of consensus - really not convincing anyone that you were right. But I'm not familiar with that article or it's subject matter. I don't think it proves a thing. IMHO, we should wait for some other editors to chime in on the subject and do what Wikipedia does best...consensus editing. If the vast majority of editors agree with you...then fine. If not, you should find some other battle to fight. SteveBaker (talk) 02:53, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It appears that you have ceased having a polite discussion about this and started edit-warring by restoring your change without obtaining consensus. As such I do not wish this discussion to continue on my talk page - please take any and all debate to the Talk:Analytical engine page where others may more easily join in. SteveBaker (talk) 03:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

April Fools Nom

I have recently reviewed your nomination at Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Did You Know and have found that there are still outstanding issues. Please review the new comment underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for helping this years April Fools be funny!--Found5dollar (talk) 15:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess that's true. Argh! Unfortunately, all three articles are pretty complete - it's hard to imagine expanding any of them significantly enough to fulfill the demands of the DYK rules. Oh well, I guess this one is a bust. SteveBaker (talk) 16:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

oh, sorry, i was also talking about the Sonic (train) nomination. that one still needs alot of expanding as well.--Found5dollar (talk) 20:02, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah - OK. I didn't nominate that one - I just tried to improve the hook...but it's really kinda weak. I'm getting very tired of the kinds of entry that simply rely on two different things having the same name (see my diatribe on the talk page on that topic). It seems that almost all of our entries are like that, and after the first one or two of them, our readers aren't going to be amazed any more. The reason I liked (and nominated) the Ian Fleming one is that it leads people down the wrong path entirely because of their own lack of knowledge. Only a few people remember that Ian Fleming wrote Chitty-Chitty Bang-bang - and almost nobody knows that the car in that story refers to an actual racing car. Rather than feeling cheated, our readership come out of it being better informed. Tricking them into looking at an article about a train when they expected an article about a video game character isn't going to impress many of them. I think we can do better - and I wouldn't put the "Sonic" entry into this years' April Fool DYK even if it did meet the criteria. SteveBaker (talk) 13:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program is looking for new Online Ambassadors

Hi! Since you've been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, I wanted to let you know about the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, and specifically the role of Online Ambassador. We're looking for friendly Wikipedians who are good at reviewing articles and giving feedback to serve as mentors for students who are assigned to write for Wikipedia in their classes.

If that sounds like you and you're interested, I encourage you to take a look at the Online Ambassador guidelines; the "mentorship process" describes roughly what will be expected of mentors during the current term, which started in January and goes through early May. If that's something you want to do, please apply!

You can find instructions for applying at WP:ONLINE. The main things we're looking for in Online Ambassadors are friendliness, regular activity (since mentorship is a commitment that spans several months), and the ability to give detailed, substantive feedback on articles (both short new articles, and longer, more mature ones).

I hope to hear from you soon.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:05, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I responded on my talk page... IRC is not at all a requirement, and most ambassadors don't use it.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Magnets, Force, and Energy

Hi Steve. I know you're on an indefinite "break" but I thought this one might lure you back to the Science Reference Desk... Somebody needs to be properly educated on the difference between force and energy, and I thought you might like to do the honors... Nimur (talk) 17:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm kinda busy today - but it looks like you guys are on top of the problem! SteveBaker (talk) 02:22, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the behavior of the grammar nazi that you used to complain about has been squelched by popular acclaim. Two blocks were involved. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:15, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Moon illusion hoax

Full moon is gone. No chance to do your experiment. I am reading another hoax experient. Turn back, bend and look at moon through legs. Hoax. If I am seeing edges of large moon behind wall or stone, this hoax experiment makes me believe that if I look through legs, size of moon will be reduced and moon will be completely hidden behind wall or stone.

So this article moon illusion is hoax. Lie can't become truth if thousands of people speak it. रामा (talk) 19:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The moon is still close to half full - plenty good enough to do the experiment I described. It is obvious from your post above that you really have no clue what you're talking about, so your opinions are of no interest to me. I happen to be an expert in human perceptual issues - the matter of the moon illusion is solidly known science. Please don't bother me again and do not edit the article until you have solid reliable sources to back up your ridiculous claims. I will be reverting any substantive changes you make to the article unless they are backed by reliable sources or discussed and agreed in advance on the related talk page. SteveBaker (talk) 20:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Midway Games

I see that you recently edited the article's Lead section. There is a new discussion on the talk page about this. Please take a look if you have time. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Barroom Fight Scenes

I've referenced your discussion on barroom fight scenes a few times in the past. I came across it now looking for something else, but if you're still looking for fight scenes, one of the best I've come across I happened to watch two nights ago: Destry Rides Again with Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. The entire fight scene (two women catfighting, and than an explosion of anger from Marlene against Jimmy) can be seen on YouTube here: [2]. Allow yourself about nine or ten minutes to watch the whole thing. Just thought you may be curious! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:19, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions - but we're pretty much done with the online barfight game we were writing. We ended up basing it around the look of an old movie called "Rough Riders Roundup" - a 1950's Roy Rodgers movie. It's been out of copyright for a while now - which is good because we could put clips from it into the help pages of the game. You can see the saloon fight scene here: [3].

If you have Firefox 4 or Chrome 9 or later, you can play our game at http://tubagames.net - it's a multiplayer online game - so get some friends to go online and play with you. SteveBaker (talk) 03:13, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense?

I'm not going to fight you over it, but I feel you did a major disservice to the texture artist entry - that wasn't cleanup, that was a hack and slash. I also resent your implication of "nonsense" and submit that flash is not the end all of game art and MOST of us, in fact, work in 3 dimensions these days. Besieged (talk) 15:40, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I have been working in the 3D graphics business for 35 years. I have actually designed hardware circuitry for rendering texture maps into 3D scenes. I have worked for professional AAA games companies and made many indie games of my own - and I'm currently one of the highest paid 3D graphics engineers in the world. I have done a little flash work - but mostly I work on AAA games titles and military simulation in full-scale 3D. My son is a texture artist. So - I actually do know precisely what I'm talking about. CG textures are almost always 2D images - although they are frequently applied to 3D meshes. The sentence that went on about layers and lighting and who-knows-what was indeed complete and utter nonsense - and I stand by that statement. Actual 3D textures are exceedingly rare in computer graphics - used mostly in medical applications and never, ever (in my long experience) painted by texture artists. I'm not aware of any off-the-shelf paint programs that even support 3D textures...and modern graphics chips such as you find doing 3D rendering in cellphones and the iPad don't even support 3D maps...although they do support applying a 2D texture to a 3D polygon mesh.

Furthermore, the idea of applying texture to a "Wire frame" model is bullshit...that's almost never done because a wire frame model is just a bunch of 'wires'! Textures are applied to filled polygons - "polygon meshes" in fact. Just to be sure that there isn't some kind of confusion of terminology here, I just showed the texture artist article to a couple of actual, experienced professional texture artists here at work before replying to your post. They were as horrified at the article in it's former state as I was - and agreed with it in its present state (although the second paragraph is still a bit weird). So - it needed drastic cleanup - and it was indeed in a horrible mess. I make no apologies for any of that. SteveBaker (talk) 18:04, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Spy Versus Spy for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Spy Versus Spy is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spy Versus Spy until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. EchetusXe 13:28, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

We are all Aspies over email

Purely for the sake of my own curiosity, do you know what has been written about the topic of your comment here regarding text-only communication leveling the playing field? It relates to an idea that has been kicking around in the back of my head for a while, and I would like to read up on the issue if you happen to have any pointers or sources handy. If not, then of course I can just run the searches myself. Thanks, and happy editing, - 2/0 (cont.) 18:25, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not aware of anything that's been written about that. It's a phrase I use quite a bit though! It fits well into the theory of mirror neurons and the lack of (or malfunctioning of) them in Aspergers. Mirror neurons are spread throughout the brains of neurotypicals and they fire in some part of the brain when you perceive an behavior in some other person that would cause your regular neurons to fire if you performed that behavior yourself. When a neurotypical sees someone kick a football, the mirror neurons in the part of their brain that's responsible for kicking footballs fire. In a sense, they feel all of the action involved in doing that.

This mirroring of the other persons brain functions allows people to 'feel' what the other person feels - it's really quite clever! However, humans did not evolve for text-only communication - so neurotypicals don't "mirror" the person at the other end of the comms channel - it's just text on a screen. This is what puts them on a level playing field with aspies who don't have functional mirror neurons in the first place. This inability for neurotypicals to mirror other people's behavior online explains why they so often misconstrue conversations, assume that a remark meant humorously is really a nasty insult, say things to complete strangers that they wouldn't for one moment consider saying to them face-to-face - and so forth. We aspies live our entire lives with that problem - and in a sense, we're adapted to that disconnected emotional sixth sense. In some sense, perhaps we do manage better than neurotypicals do - if only because we have had so much practice at it!

Certainly, for myself, I'm much happier talking to people over email than via phone or face-to-face.

Fascinating stuff.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Stan Meyere's WFC

Regarding Stanley_Meyer's_water_fuel_cell, I'm not trying to stir the pot. I know how WP works. However as a reader, I found the summary of Stanley Meyer's invention was misleading and pernicious. Hopefully you will find that if I erred, it was on the side of neutrality and service the WP readership. I wrote specifics on the article talk page. --Otheus (talk) 23:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC) ( sig added later)

Steve, reverting the changes en mass is really not the right way to go about things here. It purports bad faith. --Otheus (talk) 23:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Please discuss editing changes on the article's talk page. I won't discuss it here. SteveBaker (talk) 00:05, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Where did you get your advanced degrees in physics and chemistry? --Otheus (talk) 07:29, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for your comments on Asperger's Syndrome

(Moved to User talk:ACEOREVIVED)

Further thanks

Thank you for the interesting comments on Asperger's syndrome which you left on my talk page. I agree that there are a lot of worse things one could be - in fact, correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that people were Asperger's syndrome did not have quite as many prolems as people with other disorders on the autism spectrum. Interesting to hear that people say that they would prefer NOT to take a pill for it. I can well believe it is incurable - there are a lot of fad diets in general, so I can well believe none of the fad diets for it work!

Incidentally, it was clinical psychologists who I am seeing about an eating disorder who first told me of a researcher who has linked Asperger's syndrome with eating disorders. These psychologists think I am an atypical case of anorexia nervosa - for a start, I am male! Again, thank you for your comments, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:41, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Right. Imagine a continuous line:

   ===========================================
    |             |          |              |
Neurotypical    Geeky     Aspergers       Autism

There are people at every point along that line - with more symptoms further to the right and less off to the left. People with full-on autism have a very hard time living an ordinary life. People with Aspergers can make a decent way in the world (I married, had a kid, hold down a great job and have a few good friends - but I have to work at all of those things)...and so on down to Neurotypical ("Normal").

There are a lot of these 'comorbid' (happening-at-the-same-time-but-kinda-unrelated) conditions that are seen more often in aspies than in neurotypicals - ADHD being one of them. Evidently, anorexia is another. THOSE conditions are an entirely different matter. Anorexia is very curable - there are chemical treatments that control ADHD symptoms - but the Asperger diagnosis is neither of those things.

For me, personally, there are really two big traits, one good, the other bad. The bad one is "emotion-blindness". I simply cannot tell what emotions someone else is having just by looking at their expression, body-language or hearing their voice inflection. So unless it's REALLY obvious (big grin for 'happy', tears flowing down cheeks for 'sad') I am as unable to tell 'fear' from 'joy' as a color blind person is unable to tell red from green. However, people I know well have learned to just tell me how the are feeling...and there are some tricks I've learned for some other situations in life. The good stuff is that I have intense, childlike curiosity, I can focus on difficult tasks for long periods of time, I get massive joy in researching new subjects. If I didn't have Asperger's, I wouldn't be able to do my job.

So, if faced with the choice between being emotion-blind + intelligent/having-focus, versus being 'normal', I'll take the intelligence every time! Hence, I'm not taking the little blue pill - even if they figure one out.

I have talked with dozens if not hundreds of aspies - and nearly all say that they wouldn't take the cure if it existed.

Now - you might have other issues. Some aspies can't stand particular lighting (like florescent lamps) or can't stand being touched by someone else or has an aversion to particular smells. Others are obsessive about language and speak weirdly. Some people are so terrible at interpersonal relationships that they can only work in near perfect isolation.

I suppose that if you had all or most of those conditions - then you might want the blue pill - but I'm lucky and I like being this way.

Of course if there were a little red pill that would take away the negative symptoms - yet keep the positive ones intack - then I'd probably do it.

SteveBaker (talk) 20:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:OUTING

There is no WP:COI exemption from the WP:OUTING policy. If you post non-disclosed information about other editors again, as you did at WP:ANI#Proposed ban of User:Kaufman1111, you are likely to be blocked without further warning.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:39, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Yikes! My profound apologies - I was unaware of that policy - much less that it applied to WP:COI discussions. (Going to read WP:OUTING ASAP) - thanks for the heads-up. SteveBaker (talk) 17:15, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding. It's an easy line to trip over when you're not thinking of it in those terms. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:28, 20 May 2011 (UTC)