Misplaced Pages

September 2009

I am glad to see you are interested in discussing a topic. However, as a general rule, talk pages such as Talk:United States/Frequently asked questions are for discussion related to improving the article, not general discussion about the topic. If you have specific questions about certain topics, consider visiting our reference desk and asking them there instead of on article talk pages. Thank you.

This talk page is not meant to be edited with comments as such, nor signed (see the rules at the top of the page). Furthermore, even talk pages which are for the purpose of discussing improving the article (of which this one wasn't) discourage general "commenting" / "discussion" of the subject, especially in highly POV ways (nearly trolling), as it appeared as you did. Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 23:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, looking at this it seems ruder and harsher than it should. Take what I said lightly :) ... you know what I mean!

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 03:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Ahhhh, thanks for your reminder to me about the rule. I know the rule. But it is often hard I find, in practice, to distinguish discussion about the topic itself, from discussion about how to improve the article. They're often intertwined. Thanks for your reminder.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

That's fine; normally I wouldn't have said anything, but I noticed that that talk specific talk subpage had different rules listed at the top—more than a talk page, the subpage is almost an article on the talk page (talk about abstraction). I've never seen one like that anywhere else; nor a talk page which says "Do not sign your posts." Just a bit of IAR goodness!

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 21:54, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Kind of like a "No right turn on red" sign -- people are so used to turning right at the light, like signing their name, that the exception is unexpected. But you caught it; thanks for letting me know. Misplaced Pages is FULL of RULES, isn't it? Wonderful place for lawyer types.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

List-defined refs

You seem a reasonable enough egg on the United States Congress stuff. Sorry if I came off too strong. I just saw that a large chunk of a paragraph was removed and reverting it completely was the easiest way to restore it at the time. I also used to work for the Senate, and tend to be overly sensitive on the topic. For example, did you know that Senators and their staff are covered by the same federal employee health plan (and pay the same monthly premiums) and the same federal employee pension plan? Staff also have the same access to the Capitol physician for routine care, like colds, sprains, etc. So, it's not entirely accurate when some people say senators get a sweetheart deal on "free" health care or "huge" pensions. Congressional staff, by law, cannot be paid more than a congressman or senator, so the member's pensions will often be larger on that account alone. But I know some staff who have been there longer than most senators, so they could see bigger pensions than some senators bosses simply because they worked there longer.

As far as list-defined refs, this is a new feature added very recently. Check out WP:FOOTNOTES for how it works. Works with a <references/> or {{reflist}} tag. Very useful to reduce clutter, particularly if cites are extremely long. You just make the name the reference in the reference section, and then use the name shortcut in the body. It makes separating the prose from the cites when editing a lot easier. As far as combining the cites, I borrowed that particular nugget from Barack Obama, where another editor made similar tweaks to multiple refs that applied to one sentence.DCmacnut<> 18:08, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey perfectly understandable. Perhaps I came off too strong too, sorry about that. But I really admire this reference de-cluttering tool! I'm having a problem with David Sirota since the LEDE para is cluttered to the max with references; so your timing is perfect and I'm going to try to see if I can declutter the references on Sirota. But there was considerable edit warring on Sirota so the references are needed; your brilliant fix solves all this -- thank you again. I'm working offline on Sirota. And I'll try to get around to researching United States Congress and I'll be seeking your advice about how to do stuff so you're happy with it while striving for WP:NPOV. And, every time I hear the word "bicameral", I can't help thinking about camels.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Good luck on David Sirota. You've got your work cut out for you. Seems more like a case of overlinking that maybe the fix won't entirely, well, fix. Most of those references need to go away (why would someone need cites that he's from Montana) or go to the end of the sentence/paragraph.DCmacnut<> 19:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

Thanks. I don't think I deserve it, but I'll take it. I just used a newly created wiki tool (been available for less than a week), and copied a technique I saw another editor use. Thanks again.DCmacnut<> 02:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you deserve it. I'm not sure I'm qualified to give them out since I'm a nooB, but it's my way of saying thanks. Check out the David Sirota LEDE para now, how organized it is, compared to how bad it looked before clumping the references, and your organizing tool worked brilliantly.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Plaudits

P.S. I went to school with Jonatha and Jennifer. What made me think of this?—DCGeist (talk) 23:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Congress criticism

I moved the discussion to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress#Criticism section.—Markles 14:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the barnstar; my second! That said: the article in question does not claim to include all nominees: the table clearly states "Below is a selection of nominees and the approximate time each was questioned." Also missing from the table: Charles Whittaker, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Warren Burger, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, and Rehnquist when elevated. I think that, on balance, that table needs to go. Magidin (talk) 17:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh. Maybe I was cruising along a little too fast regarding the NY Times? I assume with a table in the NY Times that it would be thorough. But it isn't, and the omissions undermine its point. I agree; nix the wikitable.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:03, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the bouncing ball. :) --Golbez (talk) 21:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome!--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Will's Word Balloon

Hilarious. Cheers, mate, and thanks.—DCGeist (talk) 01:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

quoting in references (Supreme Court)

I think you are messing up the citation templates by trying to put "quotes" in the "Title" field. Rather, type the quote directly after the <ref> tag, then put the {{cite xxx}} template, then close with the </ref> tag. That should produce a footnote that begins with the quote, and then ends with the attribution, the latter created by the citation template. Alternatively, but the citation template first, and the quote outside the template but inside the {{cite}}. Magidin (talk) 02:38, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll try doing like you said. But I don't think anything is being messed up; it's just that the quote turns blue, and clicking on it leads to the reference. But the whole thing works as it should, that is, people can check the reference.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:12, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

"The whole quote turns blue" means you are turning it into a wikilink. A wikilink that is supposed to be a link to the title of the book. That happens at the template level. If someone later changes the template (to, say, link to a Google Books of the book, or to go find the ISBN for the title, or to write it in italics, etc.), then your coding may mess that functionality up. Simply put: when you use a template, you should not mis-use it, because if the template changes later, it will mess up what you are doing. The people who are programming the template assume, rightly so, that in the "title" field you will put nothing except the title of the book. So, in the "title" field you should have the title, and just the title. Magidin (talk) 04:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, fair enough, I'll explore this, and change habits. But what I'd like is a field, within the {{}} brackets, which gives a reference checker notice about what exactly I'm quoting, but which doesn't show up blue. I'll experiment with your suggestion, thanks.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

You'll have to bring that up with the maintainers of the template. Right now, there isn't one. See for example Template:Cite book. The templates are meant to provide a uniform bibliographic and reference formats, which automatically links where appropriate, not a uniform footmark with sundry content. Magidin (talk) 17:03, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected; you found a field. Good! Magidin (talk) 18:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pushing me to look for this. There are vandals putting cell phone numbers on the Supreme Court page; I don't know how to revert multiple entries. Are you an administrator? I'm a nooB.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:20, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm not an administrator. The way I revert multiple edits is to go to the history page, find the most recent edit before the vandalism, and click to look at it. Then edit this previous version, and save without making changes (be sure to put that you are reverting vandalism in the edit summary). There probably are easier ways, but that's one way. Magidin (talk) 19:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Overlook Hospital

Happy WikiBirthday (a day late)!

I saw from here that it's been exactly one year since you joined the project. Happy WikiBirthday! Keep up the good work, rʨanaɢ /_contribs 12:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Tim Zagat

Thanks for the tip on the in-line referencing and NNDB. I had a feeling about the latter. And I knew you were going to be coming after me about the editing down of "Close Call", but I didn't expect it so soon! :) What was edited out was to improve flow: getting Zagat's EXACT position in the theater sticks out in the paragraph. Is it a way to try to establish veracity? Because you don't need to. The fact that you risked your life is more newsworthy and the fact that you weren't thanked more interesting. What do you think? --Aichikawa (talk) 17:06, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by this?

YOu wrote that Hullabaloo Wolfowitz deserves an award for being a "great watchdog" on wikipedia. Yet, several people have written major complaints about his destructive changes to pages that he has no connection to? Please explain why you are the only one who thinks he is doing good work.

He himself wrote in his bio page that many people hounded him about his erratic changes to pages. Why is he apparently targeting my work? I have worked on two pages in the past 2 weeks- and he continually undoes my work without giving any explanation and without discussing though I specifically ask people to discuss before changing the content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougmac7 (talk • contribs) 07:05, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Physical attractiveness article

I am not sure if you mind or not, but I moved one addition by you further down. As I stated in my edit summary, the lead (intro) is merely to summarize the article (not to go too in-depth about things). This addition by you seems to fit better in the Social effects of attractiveness section, which is where I put it. Flyer22 (talk) 00:13, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Good choice you made, thanks.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Bold

You sure are!! If you really mean to pursue this, my suggestion would be to draft a policy, and I think on the templates page you will find a template for proposed policies or this is not a policy - something that indicates it is not a real policy - and then spread the word that you are proposing this as a policy and inviting debate. I did this once (my proposal was voted down, but so what? There was a lively debate for a couple of weeks and people thought about it).

However, personally, I have to say I disagree. We have barnstars for this kind of thing. I know your objective is different. But I am old-fashioned and believe in the idea of articles not having authors, being collective projects etc. I personaly have to ask you, not to put my name anywhere - I am doing this on your talk page because I do not want to disagree with such a well-intentioned and generous gesture "in public." Let people continue to discuss it and see if it gets traction. But i think you should let "the community"" discuss it and consider it as a general policy, rather than ask individual people's permission to go ahead and list them ... that may be just a little too bold for Misplaced Pages.

Good luck with everything! Slrubenstein | Talk 18:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Okey-dokey. Thanks for the encouragement. I'll pursue perhaps both methods -- the wikiprotest (as a way to stimulate thinking) and template for proposed policies, wherever that may reside. And, I disagree with your disagreement; a "barnstar" is like getting a good-night peck from a ravishing cheerleader, while a "thank you" from real readers is like real sex. Comparatively speaking. And it's consistent with my underlying idea that anonymity hampers Misplaced Pages, and identification will help it flourish.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 19:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: Spinoza

hey thanks for contacting me, i like receiving messages hehe unfortunatelly, i wouldn't be able to ocntribute to an article because i am extremelly inarticulate and well.. yes, ignorant of the subject but i appreciate the effort, thx and good luck! --KpoT (talk) 18:15, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record, being "ignorant of the subject" never stopped me from writing Misplaced Pages articles :) --Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Javascript

You can copy my page User:Rich Farmbrough/monobook.js to your page User:Tomwsulcer/monobook.js. Once it is refreshed you wil se a whole bunch of new tabs when you edit the ones labelled "/" and "m/" do what you want (more or less). You can then tinker to your hearts content getting rid of, modifying or otherwise playing with the rest of the functions. Rich Farmbrough, 17:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC).

Thanks; I'm somewhat confused about whether to copy the main page or the source code page, but when I get time, I'll pursue this further.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 19:41, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Citizenship in the United States

Removal of PROD from User talk:United States

Hello Tomwsulcer, this is an automated message from SDPatrolBot to inform you the PROD template you added to User talk:United States has been removed. It was removed by Jclemens with the following edit summary 'Decline PROD, not for user pages. Please MfD instead'. Please consider discussing your concerns with Jclemens before pursuing deletion further yourself. If you still think the article should be deleted after communicating with the 'dePRODer,' you may want to send the article to AfD for community discussion. Thank you, SDPatrolBot (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2009 (UTC) (Learn how to opt out of these messages) 19:47, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Yeah, thanks. I think I've got it figured out- your instruction helped alot. Still, I have to have been an editor for at least four days to post anything, so that will have to wait. Also, the sourcing stuff is immensely helpful.

Again, thanks. In.Lumine.Tuo.Videbimus.Lumen 21:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inluminetuovidebimuslumen (talk • contribs)

Yeah, I think I'm slowly beginning to understand this. Again, thanks for the help. I haven't really done anything with my page beyond signing it. In Lumine Tuo Videbimus lumen is latin for "in your light we will see light." but the real reason I choose it was because when I made the account I was drinking from a Columbia University mug, I wanted something in latin, and that's their motto. It's not my alma mater, but I'm hoping that in nine years from now it will be. We'll see what happens. Part of the reason I started editing in an official capacity, beyond a sense of civic duty and the need for a more constructive thing to do than facebook (i'm sure you know what these things are, i'm just proud of my ability to create hyperlinks) when on the computer, is that I think I'm going to through this down on the app for community service. Still, money is tight and grades aren't ideal, and so I'm also looking at some state schools. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inluminetuovidebimuslumen (talk • contribs) 03:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

ah, i forgot to sign. i've got to stop doing this. In.Lumine.Tuo.Videbimus.Lumen 03:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC) there we go —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inluminetuovidebimuslumen (talk • contribs)

deletions

Remember, the criteria for inclusion is notability. And all biographies of living people must ocmply scrupulously with WP:BLP. You know, it is always possible that someone coming to Misplaced Pages claiming to be the subject of an article is a seat-puppet. You have no idea who I am, I have no idea who you are, so it is always best to stick to policy. But I can speedly delete an article at the author's request and it looked like you were the sole provider of content, so was glad to delete. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I don't know what a seat-puppet is, but I appreciate your fast action and hopefully we're all done with this matter. And, while I don't know much about you, I can tell by your actions that you are smart and good (in this instance). I still think the key to Misplaced Pages's continued success is identified editorship. Like, my real name is Thomas Wright Sulcer, and I'm quite googlable on the web, with my address and email and stuff out there, and I think Misplaced Pages will become a better place to the extent that we all emerge from the shadows.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Atari 8-bit family

Hi Tom,

I did some work on Atari 8-bit family, and more on e.g. Atari BASIC and disambiguating Page 6 and Page Six. (I'd like also to split what are really the OS description at Atari BASIC to a separate article, but not sure there is really enough content to make it worth doing so.)

Personally I appreciate the thanks, and I agree that grumbling at a computer who is trying to say a constructive thanks is, er, not very constructive. So, at least one editor appreciated it. Si Trew (talk) 14:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Well it's a great article! I enjoyed reading it. I was surprised to find such good, accurate information in Misplaced Pages, so you people have done excellent work researching all this stuff. I miss my old Atari 800! I wrote lengthy BASIC programs in it to process whole market research surveys, but those days are long gone, with the advent of object-oriented programming, and MS-DOS, and Windows, and now Linux.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I did quite a lot with them, more in machine code than in BASIC. Some of my stuff got into magazines and is around for emulators, but none of the really good stuff, it seems. mostly little demos which were not intended to be good of themselves, but to just show off some aspect of the computer or system. Si Trew (talk) 23:43, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Super cool, Simon Trew! You got to a level of programming which I never quite got to, like you REALLY got into the guts of the machine and learned how to make it tick! Impressive! I think I did a few PEEKs and POKEs but nothing much more than this! And I never did any assembler or fancy stuff. Still, what a cool machine. I remember saving some programs to a tape recorder! Those were the days! --Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:46, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Response.

I rescind my earlier arguments. Do what you may, I will no longer interfere. Andy120290 (talk) 23:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. You're what makes the United States great, not presidents, not Congresses, not the Supreme court, not business, but citizens, people like us, us Wikipedians, who have a small chance to tell all sides, to tell the truth. You're better than all presidents squished together. Please realize, however, that if we're citizens, but citizens in a land in which "citizenship" is practically nonexistent, since nobody really participates in self-government any more, the deck is stacked against us Wikipedians. I have no doubt that sooner or later, the forces of paid lobbyists will overwhelm our little Misplaced Pages project here and whitewash what is said, but it's kind of cool that at least we have a moment to tell the truth.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

You didn't have to wait long. A "columnist on the London Times" (as far as I can tell he had a letter published once) had a five minute rant on a very respected consumer programme on BBC Radio 4 (a bit like PBS in the US) at lunchtime today, "You and Yours", saying WP is useless cos the editors all know nothing and it is all consensus, implying pretty much, you get the lowest common denominator. Since at the time I had spent three hours helping translate a detailed article about a battle of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (I am not telling you which as we are not finished yet, but you can easily enough find out which) after spending probably twenty hours editing another translation request and about eight hours doing a reasonably accurate four colour SVG map of somewhere I am not telling you as I haven't finished, but is rather nice, having translated in Latin and French and the odd bit of Arabic and Spanish, having researched and added on subjects as wide ranging as atari 8bits, pancakes, disused railway lines of the 1850s, Palestinian battles and French geography and basically anything that comes my way, always improving and knowing it will never be perfect, for this iconoclast to use my licence fee money to tell me why he is right and I am wrong... well... some people will never learn. It's those you have to worry about.

He just doesn't get it. I think he is simply not used to the process of peer review, whereas for me as a scientist and engineer it is very natural and expected. That does NOT mean you can write whatever you like. It means you EXPECT others to criticize it, constructively, and improve it. And if they spot a real cock-up, well, phew, I am glad they spotted it.

For example, one of my hats is translation. I'm not a professional, but I don't charge like a professional. On the other hand, I might be translating articles I can't just pick up the phone and ask "do you mean in this sense and that sense". I have to research or make a best guess. AND then I have to put all the scaffolding, the "wikifying", into the article too. It is BLOODY HARD WORK. And, I accept, that is just a starting point. Having got a translation, others with better knowledge of the subject can clean it up and correct things and change terminology etc. BUT WITHOUT ONE, THEY CAN'T. So, we ALL HELP EACH OTHER.

I think he is just peed as he doesn't have an entry on WP, and doesn't know how to use it, and is worried. Si Trew (talk) 23:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow Simon! You're amazing that you are this skilled with so many DIFFERENT kinds of articles with so MANY DIFFERENT LANGUAGES under your belt. I'm impressed. You're right it's bloody hard work, like you say. My thanks to you. I really appreciate the excellence of the Atari articles, thank you again. When I get a chance I'll check out the Hungarian stuff you listed. I'm working on a section to improve the article Citizenship in the United States which is practically a joke these days. I think Misplaced Pages needs reform, still; I have some ideas on my user page, plus I used to write on the WP:Areas for Reform page. I see a dwindling supply of editors, and that has good and bad; I'd like to see more honoring-of-editors (bylines perhaps on articles?) and less anonymity, but it might be that things are fixed and can't be improved? I don't know. But I honor your contributions.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Well I really only got into it because I am off long term sick (I have a meeting on Tuesday and hopefully, the wheels of industry grind exceeding slow, someone said, Dickens?, but back in the New Year) and well I am an omnivore really. My Hungarian is not very good but I am learning it a bit. I lived in Cairo, Egypt for a couple of years and so picked up a little arabic there. My French is quite good, I am not so good at the others, but I pick up and forget languages pretty quickly. Really I don't know very much, but I can kinda learn anything very quickly and am just FASCINATED by everything, which makes me somewhat a bore also. I can be as genuinely interested in the history of the letter W to the mating habits of peregrine falcons or whatever it may be, and my brain usually links them up in an extraordinary way which I don't understand myself but is kinda perfect for Misplaced Pages with a network as opposed to hierarchical structure, because I automatically think of relevant, useful links branching out of subjects that others would not connect in that way. I only have a basic degree, I am not that bright, I just have picked up a lot of stuff along the way. No money, though!

I kinda agree with you about bylines. I am not entirely sure about it as such, because of the "ownership" thing which I have seen badly enough in organisations when one goes and changes another's code or suggests improvements. (This may be why all my templates are documented.) I do think though that there should be a trust level for users beyond IP/registered. I don't think this should be confined to "he is OK on Ataris but useless on soccer" since you're not likely to want to edit articles on soccer if your big deal is Ataris, but to kind give a little weight that an editor may have some experience and half a clue what he or she is talking about in general, regardless of the subject. I don't weigh much on edit counts or anything, I firmly believe in what gets measured gets managed, sometimes I do maybe 100 edits in a day which are mostly just little typos etc, sometimes two or three edits after working hours on a section. I've never got a barnstar and don't want one, but a "thankyou" is incredibly important to me, which is the point where we started. I've never asked for admin and don't want it, though I respect that most of the admins do good works, and it is that paradox that it is the ones who ask for it should be automatically prevented from getting it. (This actually happens in real life. When I was a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, I didn't ask for it, they asked me. Kinda a thankyou for doing a lot of work on the newsgroups. I don't any more and I asked them not to consider me for renewal after being renewed twice, as I didn't want to block someone else's chances of getting it when I had too much other work to do. But really I did feel it quite an accolade to be one of only 150 in the UK and Ireland, and only one of four in my specialism of C++. But as I say, I can kinda specialise in anything very quickly.)

Specifically the Atari articles, I probably did or revised about half the Atari BASIC article, and unfortunately from memory as I don't have any sources, I hoped others would add them in. There is one big big flaw in it right now, well two: Needing to split the OS from the BASIC proper, and also it jumps between the past and present tense all the time, not making its mind up if it was or is a language. (I would go for the latter, considering the presence of emulators etc. and that language specifications etc are generally always written in the present tense.) There's some inconsistency in the keywords where I retabulated it and added a brief summary of what each command does. I should revisit that at some time.

But I've hardly touched the other Atari articles. I want to put in some stuff about how the joystick ports and analogue to digital pins work (through the POKEY if I remember correctly, on PIN 5 of the 9-pin joystick DIN, grounded to PIN 0, I forget the clock frequency usual primitive A/D). The touch tablet used only one port though, so I can't remember how it got two A/D lines on there. One of the bizarre things, now I think of it, you get a genuine random number generator on an atari as it takes it from the signal noise from the POKEY chip, i.e. white noise, which is truly random and not pseudorandom.

I had a couple of bits published in Page 6 and in other UK magazines. In a sense Misplaced Pages was not new in the idea of Free, nor even GNU or Open Software or whatever, it was pretty much all PD then, and I was amazed when I got my latest copy and my software was on the front of it, something I had submitted some months before, and even more amazed when I got a cheque (check) for 50 pounds (about 100 dollars then) a few weeks later, which I was not expecting. This was in 1988 or so I guess, and that was a LOT of money to me, nearly a week's wages as an apprentice, but more than that was the "thanks", that was worth more.

Which is why I totally agree with you about citizenship, the same is here, nobody helps each other out very much any more. I am not Christian in a believe in god sense, but I could be a human being without helping others when I can.

To be honest, your brief comment restored my faith in human nature. The "rescind" from Andy above confirmed it. I've not read the interim of that though I intend to, but I am glad you are both making it a bit better.

Sorry to make this so long. As Blaise Pascal wrote to his cousin, "I have only made this longer as I have not had time to make it shorter." Si Trew (talk) 00:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Yes, I agree about it takes more time to write something shorter. I remember using the RANDOM command on the Atari in some of my computer programs (but I don't remember the actual command -- RND? or RAND?). Didn't know that it was truly random. What I liked about programming the Atari was being able to control the code. I once wrote a software program in Atari BASIC called "The One Minute Letter", put an ad in Antic Magazine, and sold about 10 or 12 copies for $29 each. And the ad was about $400 so basically I somewhat recovered my cost of advertising. So I discontinued it. I also bought an Atari from a store in London (by mail) and had it shipped to the US, to give to a relative who was going to India; it used the same power supply (in London, and in India) so that's why I bought it in London. What a great machine. Cool you know all about the pins and stuff.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 04:04, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism removal

No prob!--Thatguyflint 21:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: Randy Disher as Summit, New Jersey fictional character, chief of police

Re: your message: If it is re-included, it should be in a "in popular culture" section instead of in the notable residents section. Notable residents are usually for real people. The popular culture section is for fictional works like TV appearances or references. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 19:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)