User talk:Woodstone/Archive 1

Meelar

[[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 20:58, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Welcome from me as well. I noticed that you edit mainly in articles about Thailand, so I think the Thailand-related topics notice board should be of interest for you. It's the place where the Wikipedians interested in Thailand or from Thailand can meet for help each other to improve the articles about Thai topics. Hope to see you around more... andy 12:05, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mark Alexander

Hi, and thanks for your contributions on Thai language. Mark¹ 04:02, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Robin Patterson

And another welcome, this time from someone born at the other end of the 1940s who has been a Wikipedian for nearly a year longer than you and scored 100% in School Certificate Mathematics. So we have a bit in common! I can't help you with language aspects of the Thai work, but I wish you the best of luck there. (Incidentally, the place IS vandalised quite a bit; one reason why some of us have "Special:Recentchanges" on our bookmark list so as to have a quick skim, looking mostly at anonymous contributions, before doing real work each day.)

Enjoy!! Robin Patterson 21:52, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nohat

Voiced/voiceless "th" allophones?

Hi NoHat, I happened to see in the consonant article the following remark: "... the "th" sound in "this" is a different sound from the "th" sound in "thing" (in IPA they're [ð] and [θ], respectively) ...". Certainly true, but I wonder if they are considered allophones. As far as I can see there are no minimal pairs distinguishing them. Can you find any? How far do sounds have to be apart (and how is this defined) before linguists do not require at least one minimal pair to split them into different phonemes. In view of the discussion about [i] in Spanish and English a while ago, I thought about this very same example before. --Woodstone 14:25, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)

Either/ether. Also, teeth/teethe. Cheers! Nohat 17:11, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

On the delightful site: minimal pairs I found the list:

 thigh  thy
 loath  loathe
 mouth  mouth
 wreath wreathe
 sheath sheathe
 sooth  soothe
 teeth  teethe
 with   withe

Your version of "either" must different from their's. --Woodstone 20:35, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)

Great site find! It is agreed that the functional load of the [ð]/[θ] distinction is marginal, but it's definitely there. Interestingly, there are no minimal pairs for [h] and engma—they're in completely complementary distribution. But no one would propose that they're allophones of a single phoneme though, just because they have so little in common. Nohat 23:07, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Missing w in IPA?

In all of the many variations of the IPA chart in Wikipedia, I cannot find the "w". It seems to fit in the bilabial approximant box, but that is empty. What's up? −Woodstone 10:02, 2005 Mar 8 (UTC)

[w] is the labial-velar approximant. It's under "other symbols" in the IPA chart. Nohat 17:14, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC). ...thx.

H vs B

Thank you for your changes to Chord symbol. The only beef I have is the inclusion of the German H. I've never seen a chord symbol like Hm7. However, Note (music) should describe this, as well as "Es" for E-flat, "Fis" for F-sharp, and so on. —Wahoofive | Talk 23:02, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Italic flat

Before you go too far with Bb notation, it might be good to start a talk thread on Wikipedia:WikiProject Music to see if you can develop a consensus for a standard. That page now says to use ♯ and ♭, with # and b as alternatives (wonder if we can find out what browsers don't display those Unicode characters properly). I'm not saying I disagree with you, but it would be nice to agree on a standard. —Wahoofive | Talk 20:20, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Greek letters used in mathematics

Thanks for your contributions to this article timestamped 15:46, 26 May 2005, between my edits of 10:04, 26 May 2005 and 16:47, 26 May 2005. For some reason I don't understand, your edits no longer appear in the page history! Bizarre. I think I've seen this happen before. Must be a bug in the WikiMedia software. --Macrakis 21:51, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

On checking just now, I see my edit appearing normally in the history list. So it has mysteriously returned. I have noticed glitches before. One time my edit even appeared under another user's id! −Woodstone 07:29, 2005 May 27 (UTC)

Greek transliteration

I'll answer you remark on reversibility on Talk:Greece. Markussep 13:59, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Seasons

Hi,
I understand your motives in restoring the content that I removed from the introduction to Season, but nonetheless I think it doesn't belong there. The intro is not the place to get into a thorough discussion of the various division and reckoning systems used around the world. (In fact, I think the article as it stands is hardly complete on that account anyway.) I think that my approach of briefly describing the system that is by far the most widespread, and making some mention of the fact that other systems exist without describing them in full, is hardly less balanced and valuably concise. We could have it both ways by moving the ==Reckoning== section to the front, but I think that the ==Causes== section goes first and that we shouldn't put the cart before the horse. I've watchlisted your talk page, so you can reply right here. --Smack (talk) 03:21, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I doubt if the western 4-season division is the most widespread, certainly not "by far". More people live in tropical areas than temperate ones. I agree with you that the account is not complete. It would be possible the move the different systems to a separate section. But then the intro should not give any bias. −Woodstone 10:59, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not convined that the majority of the world's population lives in places where the four-season system is irrelevant, but at any rate, how do you propose to write a brief unbiased intro? --Smack (talk) 04:01, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I thought we had agreed that the present form of the article's introduction is unsatisfactory. You reverted my change again without proposing an alternative. Why did you do this? --Smack (talk) 02:49, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

No information was lost by my edit. The intro was made culturally neutral. The various ways of dividing the year in seasons follows immediately, complementing the definition. This way the natural flow is maintained without introducing cultural bias. It looks to me like a good compromise. −Woodstone 18:49, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see the new heading you inserted. You have indeed made a compromise, but I almost prefer your first version. Have a look at what I've done. I think I've satisfied all of our major goals reasonably well, but I'm still uneasy about having people who follow a link to "wildfire season" read through all of the Causes. --Smack (talk) 03:57, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Please explain the reasoning behind your last change. I can see that each of us believes his considerations significant enough that they cannot be compromised on, and it seems that you're reluctant to discuss the matter until I harass you. I think that if this goes on much longer, we should seek mediation. --Smack (talk) 02:30, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

As far as I can see you did not do anything corresponding to your statement above "Have a look at what I've done". I was waiting for that to appear. My point is that the definition part (before the first header) should not be biased to one culture. Either most of the various systems should be included or none. My previous change was to put them all in the intro. You kept only the "western" style seasons in the definition and moved the "tropical" and other ones somewhere far down the article. I compromised by have a bare definition only, immediately followed by a section detailing the different systems. I would not object to moving "wild fire" season into a less prominent place, because that is a very loose usage of the word. −Woodstone 10:36, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

That's odd. Maybe the database didn't update quickly enough. My version is in plain sight in the page history. See also Season/temp. It's based on my most recent version of the article, but the intro is probably more to your liking. --Smack (talk) 18:06, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

The last change by you I see in the history at 2005-08-03 07:09. Your comment "look at what I've done" has date 2005-08-05 03:57, reacting to mine at 2005-08-04 18:49. So I still do not see what you want me to look at. The current article has my latest change of 2005-08-05 23:59.

I'm very confused. You can disregard the history, but please take a look at the temp version. --Smack (talk) 02:36, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I had not noticed your reference to a "temp" page before. I was looking in the real page. I think your proposal is not better than the current version. Users will be confused by an inconsistent set of seasons in the intro. In my opinion it's better to give only a definition in the intro and follow immediately by a section with the various systems and examples. −Woodstone 18:42:45, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

I can agree to remove the sample list of seasons, but that aggravates the question of what to do with unconventional seasons. I've edited the temp page again. --Smack (talk) 01:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

The law of conservation of angular momentum

Woodstone wrote in the coriolis effect article

A more intuitive reasoning is the following. An air particle moving north towards the depression, also comes closer to the rotation axis. The patch of the Earth under it rotates with a radius becoming smaller, and thus a lower linear velocity. The air particle still has its original speed and seems to move ahead in the rotation direction, thus obtaining an eastward component. A similar reasoning can be followed for other directions of appoach to the depression. Every time, the deviation is a deflection to the right.

Hi Woodstone,

I'd like to know, the reasoning you present above, is that a compromise you opted for to give people at least a hint?

Here is why I think it is better not to present the physics in that way.

The formula for the angular momentum is

$L=I\omega$

And the formula for the moment of inertia is:

$I=mr^{2}$

For example, when the radial distance decreases by a factor ${\sqrt {2}}$ then the moment of inertia decreases with a factor 2, so the angular velocity will become twice as high, otherwise angular momentum would not be conserved.
With the angular velocity twice as high, and the radial distance decreased by a factor of ${\sqrt {2}}$ the linear velocity will have increased by a factor of ${\sqrt {2}}$.

The factor 2 in the formula for the coriolis force $F=2mvw$ comes from the fact that there is rotation;, and the law of angular momentum applies

Linear velocity is not conserved in this situation, the reasoning that is presented violates the Law of conservation of angular momentum.
--Cleon Teunissen | Talk 08:20, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

The intuitive explanation was not meant to be exact. It will just give the less technical reader a way to think, not using formulas. But anyway, the conservation of angular momentum applies to systems as a whole, not to individual particles. So I do not see why my explanation necessarily violates the conservation principle. −Woodstone 21:36, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

I can explain. It is rather long, sorry for that, but I'm staying on the safe side, making sure that all the i's are dotted.

I start by looking at it from a non-rotating point of view, so I'm somewhere in space, and I see the Earth rotating, taking a sidereal day to rotate. To simplify matters, I will go to a no-friction scenario: the Earth perfectly smooth, no air and an ice-hockey puck that can slide frictionless. At the start the puck is at, say, 45 degrees latitude, and it is stationary with respect to the Earth. Looking at it from space, I see the overall motion of the puck, it is co-moving with the Earth, in a big circle, around the Earth's axis. So there must be a force towards the Earth's axis, otherwise the circular motion of the puck would not remain circular. Or, if there is just a little bit to little force, the puck remains on Earht, but it swings wide, sliding off to the Equator. Where does that force come from?

Because it is rotating, the Earth is in the shape of a oblate spheroid. The cross section, looking at the equator, has the shape of an ellipse. If you are at about 45 degrees latitude, then the line perpendicular to the surface does not exactly point towards the center of gravity. So there is a bit of an angle between the two, and you can decompose the force of gravity to a component perpendicular to the surface, and a component parallel to the surface. The component perpendicular to the surface keeps the puck on the planet, and the component parallel to the surface is what keeps the puck at its latitude, it keeps the puck from swinging wide.

One might think that the rotation of the Earth is so slow that friction is enough to prevent sliding to the Equator, but to air there is very little friction, and without that parallel-to-the-surface component of the gravitational force air and water would flow towards the equator.

Because of that angle, slight as it is, the layer of air around the Earth is equally thick everywhere. The same sort of equilibrium is at at play when a parabolic mercury mirror for an astronomcical observatorium is constructed. They build a parabolic dish for a particular rotation rate, and then fill it with mercury. If the shape of the dish perfectly matches the rotation rate, the mercury distributes in an even layer. It is of course no coincidence that the shape of the Earth matches, the shape of the solid earth is the same as what the shape of a completely liquid celestial body would be if it would be rotating in space (Like Jupiter, that is for a very large part hydrogen). The final shape is one of dynamic equilibrium.

If you have a parabolic turntable, and the rotation rate matches the shape, then you can position the puck at any distance to the center, have it co-rotate with the turntable, and it will neither slide down or go wide. Further away from the center a stronger centripetal force is necessary, and this is provided for by the slope, further away from the center it gets steeper.

To get a feel for it I imagine hovercraft rides in the bowl of the Arecibo telescope dish. Then you are (roughly) in circular motion all the time, but unlike in a car taking a corner fast, you are not pushed to the side of your seat. At all times, you feel yourself pressing straight down on your seat.

Sorry I'm taking so much words, but I'm trying to convey that while the motion feels very free (you can accelerate, decelerate, you can power up sideways pushing propellors of the hovercraft), the centripetal force is always there. It is not very obvious that wherever you go there is a tug from the centripetal force, but it is there, otherwise the circular motion would not sustain.

When there are rides in hovercrafts on the dish of the Arecibo radiotelescope, you can actually use that centripetal force, you can cash in on it. You are in a hovercraft, orbiting the dish counterclockwise, and you give a burst of sideways propulsion. Then you are sliding down the incline, and so you pick up a lot of speed. You won't spiral all the way to the center. At first it looks like a spiral, approaching the center, but you pick up so much speed that at some point the hovercraft starts climbing up the slope again. Remarkably, the sideways burst has not changed the circular motion into a spiral that continues to the middle, the burst has changed a circular orbit into a elliptical orbit. All in all, there are surprising analogies with orbital dynamics (With as obvious difference that on the parabolic dish the centripetal force increases proportional to the distance, while in planetary orbits the centripetal force decreases proportional to the square of the distance. But the comparison does help.)

I hope I have been able to convey what I have in mind. It seems strange the the oblateness of the Earth should matter at all. But the air masses that move are thousands of kilometers across, and they move with very little friction, in the end it does matter.

This is what I mean by saying that the laws of linear motion do not directly apply. Air mass that is being pushed/pulled from south to north does not keep its original velocity. It is sliding down an incline, it is giving in to a centripetal force, so it is picking up speed. To keep track of what will happen to that air mass, you need to think about the angular momentum of that volume of air.

I find the dynamics of wind wonderful, there is so much more going on than meets the eye! --Cleon Teunissen | Talk 10:00, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Pro circumcision POV pushers are attempting to censor wikipedia

Thank you for agreeing with proposal to use the term intact rather than uncircumcised in the main circumcision article. Not to sound melodramatic but its become clear that pro circumcision POV pushers are censoring wikipedia uninhibitedly, which can be seen in their attempt to remove the article Aposthia and vandalizing the disambiguation page at uncircumcised to eliminate any other interpretations of the word supported by the dictionary that they feel improves their political agenda. For the sake of intellectual freedom I emplore you to look into these matters and make choice about how you will respond. Thanks again. Sirkumsize 02:36, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

User Jakew acts as if he is the sole owner of the circumcision article. He (or sometimes Robert the Bruce) reverts any attempt to bring more balance in the points of view. This article is one of the worst in singlesided POV bias. At one time I have almost given up contributing to wikipedia because of this. Luckily many other articles are reaching much better balance and mutual cooperation. −Woodstone 21:16:12, 2005-08-17 (UTC)

I totally agree and have been fighting hard to bring balance to this site but with seemingly little support. Please note that this is the basis for a rfc I am bringing against a user at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jayjg. If you would like to join, please hurry. If it is not cosigned soon it will be dropped. Sirkumsize 21:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Thai MoS

Construed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Thailand-related articles)#Cast votes 217.140.193.123 10:32, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Hawaii

As you have done work with some monarchies, please take a look at this too. There's been a huge fuss lately over whether articles on Hawaii's monarchs are in the right location and there are some people who'd like to change the format used in naming the articles (e.g. one user wants to move the article Kamehameha I to Kamehameha I, King of Hawaii. We're having a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hawaii/Manual of Style#Names of monarchs, and your views on the conflict would be appreciated. Arrigo 13:04, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Chinese transcription

How would you romanize 申忠和 in Pinyin if this was a name of a person? --68.251.209.247 00:43, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not read Chinese. −Woodstone 07:10:44, 2005-08-29 (UTC)

Intervals

Your recent edits to Interval (music) are plain contrary to my experience as a professional musician. I have never seen a minus sign used for diminished -- it's always a circle. (In jazz notation a flat is often used, regardless of the actual accidental to be employed.) I have never seen M7 for a major seventh; do you mean a pop-chord symbol such as G^Maj7? These symbols don't technically represent intervals. In figured bass they do represent intervals, but your descriptions certainly don't apply there. We should replace your addition with a reference to Figured bass and Chord symbol, where these notations are treated in greater detail. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:20, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Indeed I am talking about usage in chord symbols. Technically speaking perhaps the notations indicate the chord quality, but at the same time they do indicate intervals that are part of the chord. On double check in some music sheets, I find plenty of +5 and -5, but indeed instead of M7 it is usually Maj7. I will change that. I agree that the small circle does not indicate an interval, but a combination of intervals. I still think it has a place in this article, but a reference to chord symbol should be added. −Woodstone 21:02:35, 2005-09-10 (UTC)

You're opening a big can of worms here. Chord symbols in sheet music vary enormously, even within the pop-music or jazz genres, let alone with classical analysis textbooks, fake books, and so on. I think it would be wiser to just state that sometimes intervals are identified as part of chord symbols and give the cross-reference to chord symbol, since any detailed exposition of the various options will distract from the subject of intervals. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:08, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

TLAs

A proposal has been made at Wikipedia:Requested moves to move TLAs from AAA to DZZ and other related pages to Wikipedia namespace. Please visit Talk:TLAs from AAA to DZZ for the related discussion. -- Francs2000 | Talk 00:40, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Names of numbers in English

uh, Yeah, but there's already an article which covers that sort of thing, as well as an article for each number, and each of those numbers only has one name – googol and googolplex, respectively. —Wiki Wikardo

Yes, but this article is a collection of all names given; there is no reason to exclude some when they occur somewhere else as well; much more detail can be given in the specialised articles. −Woodstone 11:07, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

That may be the case, but the fact remains that neither googol nor googolplex are "specialised" or alternate names. If you can find a place they belong in the article where their inclusion isn't totally jarring + out of context, by all means, go ahead. I couldn't, so I deleted it.

P.S. I noticed there's no link to Names of large numbers under "See also," although it is in the article List of numbers, which is linked there. I think it belongs there.

I'm making it easier for other folks to weigh in.

Null

Mr. Woodstone,

This comment is about your undoing(Undo absurdly fractional split by Sepand) in the Null entry.

How do you undo the disambig page I have created and still candidate the page for "split"? If you have a better suggestion for "split" just tell; Don't destroy with wood and stone!

--Sepand 03:54, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi Sepand. I've been out of internet reach for a while, so therefore a late reaction. In my view the article was just fine before the split. Lots of info about many kinds of null, but deeper down all the same thing. Since it was not particularly big, no reason at all for a split. −Woodstone 07:14, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Please take a look at my points for which I have splited Null page at Null:Talk --Sepand 09:43, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

prettytable bot request

Hi, I am going to perform the bot request you made in september in regard to prettytables, I'll do it by subst'ing the templates. Just thought you might want to know. <font color=darkgreen>'''''Martin'''''</font> 13:48, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this up. I see the changes on my watchlist. You may want to note that an outstanding problem (on Firefox)with template:Prettytable-center2 was just solved. Had you done that one already? −Woodstone 22:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Wiki Birthday!

Award

Wiki birthday to you! Wiki birthday, dear Woodstone! Wiki birthday to you! Congratulations on your first Wikibirthday at Wikipedia (December 3, 2005.). On behalf of the community, we'd like to thank you for your countless edits in the past year! Keep it coming!. This Wiki Birthday Balloon was awarded to you by: SoothingR

-- SoothingR^(pour) 18:57, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

massage cleanup

Hi. A while ago, I tried to clean up the massive mess that the massage article is by moving the lists of massage techniques and list of massage associations to pages of their own, but you reverted that. You left an edit summary implying that I had simply done a "massive delete", which it was not. Could you please argue for the case of keeping everything in the main article if you still believe this is the right way? Thanks. Jules.LT 10:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

See comments on the talk page.−Woodstone 20:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Greetings!

Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for the feedback regarding editing. I know: it's a personal failing I acknowledge and need to rectify. I'm often so eager to put new stuff up (and am a perfectionist of sorts), that I often click 'Save page' instead of 'Show preview, and then re-read and edit to get it right. OCD? :) Anyhow, I will definitely be more diligent with this in the future and have made it a 'minute' new year's resolution of sorts.

I hope this is sufficient. Please let me know if you've any questions. Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 15:53, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Great (Case in point: you will notice that I've edited the above twice!) :) I will be more diligent. Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 16:17, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Dutch grammar

"(a "strong" verb is not "irregular", random numbers should not link, more consistent italics) "

You're right.I was thinking of the English defination of irregular verbs.Which is different from the Dutch one, and since this is the English version... but let's stick with your idea.

Sandertje 16:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Zero

Hey Woodstone, re:0... if my edit is too specialistic for the intro, where would you like to see it? I do think something on this line is needed because currently the definition given for zero is circular.... (see the talk page) Mikkerpikker 17:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I do not think the added definition is any better. A definition that looks like subtracting infinity from infinity is not clarifying. But you might add a separate section "Set theoretical 0" (or something similar), before the history section. −Woodstone 18:15, 8 January 2006 (UTC)