User:Bubba73

Wikipedia editor since 2005 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm a freelance software developer in Brunswick, Georgia. Actually I live several miles outside of Brunswick, on the mainland in Glynn County, not on any of the Golden Isles, but part of the Colonial Coast. I live off U.S. Route 17, near FLETC of the Glynco area, not too far from Interstate 95, not too far from the Altamaha River, and not quite close enough to the Atlantic Ocean (our yard is 13 feet above sea level) - but pretty close to a saltmarsh, with all of the live oak trees, deer flies, mosquitos, sand gnats, and a few alligators. I live in a half-way house on a one-way street. I was born on the outskirts of the Okefenokee Swamp. My great great grandfather lived in nearby Darien, Georgia and died here in Brunswick, when he (as a doctor) went to help a ship quarantined with Yellow fever. Both of my grandfathers worked in the shipyards here for a while.

I live about 9 miles from the Boone Docks (about 6 miles as the crow flies)
In this area, ships can sail on grass
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My interests are mainly in math, computer science, chess, bridge, music, the history of computing, physical science, and scientific skepticism. I have BS degrees in math and physics (emphasis in astronomy), a master's degree in applied math, and a MS in computer science. I program in Pascal and Delphi. I am a US Chess Federation local-level director, working at scholastic chess tournaments. I've been contributing to chess articles (primarily articles about endgames, chess theory, and articles about the rules of chess), early computers, some math topics, scientific skepticism & related topics, articles on nearby places & local history, and a few other things. Lately I've been more interested in photographing things, mainly of a historical nature, especially thing on the National Registry of Historic Places. My first edit was March 15, 2005, as an IP user.

Network neutrality

"I never met a shrimp I didn't like." [1]

Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can vandalize.

People wanting a Plutocracy should go live on Pluto.

Actual message I got one time: Due to high database server lag, changes newer than 8468 seconds might not be shown in this list.

Actual message Feb 27, 2009: Due to high database server lag, changes newer than 12628 seconds may not appear in this list.

Actual message on 3/30/2009: Due to high database server lag, changes newer than 2528362 seconds may not appear in this list.

Actual message on 3/11/2010: Due to high database server lag, changes newer than 3,124 seconds may not appear in this list

Historic places

  • Georgia counties and NRHP photo progress (red is better)
  • Georgia when I jointed the NRHP project, Dec 2014
    Georgia when I jointed the NRHP project, Dec 2014
  • The red menace is spreading through southeast Georgia and a little of S.C. and Florida, August 2018
    The red menace is spreading through southeast Georgia and a little of S.C. and Florida, August 2018
  • Georgia counties
    Georgia counties
  • NRHP sites as of 2016
    NRHP sites as of 2016

From Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Progress.

Historic places I've photographed (NRHP)

Quick links

Userboxes

Userboxes


Wikipedia

I got interested in Wikipedia when it kept turning up in my Google searches. As soon as I realized how comprehensive Wikipedia is, I was hooked.

In the Fall of 2005 I started using Harvard referencing on practically everything. Harvard referencing "is one of three citation styles recommended by Wikipedia" (see Wikipedia:Harvard referencing and Wikipedia:Citing sources). The system has some pros and cons, see Harvard referencing#Pros & cons. The only real "con" is that it takes up more space, but "Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia", so space matters little. In addition to the pros listed there,

  1. it is better for readers since he can see who said this and when, without having to go to the footnotes.
  2. it is better for editors since the bulk of the information is down in the reference section rather than embedded in the text.

I use reliable sources. I try to adhere to "One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by a reputable publisher.", from Wikipedia:Verifiability. (I violated that slightly in stalemate, Chess endgame, and king and pawn versus king endgame, now at least partially rectified.) In accordance with WP:NPOVUW, I am against giving undue weight to the opinions of crackpots.

I am in favor of the Chicago Manual of Style guideline for spelling out exact numbers (things you count rather than things you measure) up to one hundred and all round numbers that can be expressed in two words. At least spell out any number no larger than one hundred that doesn't require a hyphen. (Turabian 1973:20). I like Harvard Referencing.

For the first six months of 2006, I've spent more of my free time improving Wikipedia than anything else. I'm having to cut down.

My spelling is terrible. I make typing errors and my grammar isn't up to par.

I make a lot of typos. For fifteen years I typed with my keyboard in my lap, but that seemed to be bringing on Carpal tunnel syndrome. Since somewhere around 2000 I started typing normally, and my CTS symptoms went away, but for some reason I started making a lot of typos (usually off by one key).

  • There is only one problem with the "anyone can edit" policy, and that is that anyone can edit.
  • Reality is not a "point of view".

Wikipedia as a reference

At my daughter's school, when they do reports they can use two types of references: encyclopedias and internet sources. So which does Wikipedia count as? Or does it count as both? Actually, it counts as neither. What does that tell you?

Why I like Parenthetical referencing (also known as the author-date system and Harvard Referencing)

Parenthetical referencing uses the author and year. The next number is an optional page number. In the references, items are listed in order by author's last name, and then by date if there are more than one by the same author. The author-date system is part of APA style and is the one recommended by the British Standards Institution and the Modern Language Association. It is one of the systems recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style and the Council of Science Editors. It is also one of the methods recommended for Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style, Wikipedia:Harvard referencing, Wikipedia:Citing sources, and Wikipedia:Inline citation which says "Harvard reference, i.e. (author, date), is the simplest way to cite sources not in the World Wide Web, by quoting these after the sentence."

This is the best method for the reader because it tells you - right there - who said it and when, which is often important. Also, if there are several references, the reader can immediately tell if this is from the same source as previous references. Also, this immediately shows that it is a citation rather than an informative note. (With a footnote, you can't tell if the footnote is a citation or contains other information without going to the footnote. This is irritating for the reader.) And if the reader is familiar with the literature, you often know what it is without looking. For instance, if you are a chess player and see (de Firmian 1999) you automatically know what that is.

This method is better for the editors too. It cuts down on redundancy if the same work is referenced often. It is easier for an editor to edit the references if they are in the reference section rather than scattered throughout the text of the article. It is easier for editors to edit the text of articles because you don't have the full text of the reference interrupting the flow of the article. It is better than the footnote method for a dynamic text such as these articles because if you use an Ibid footnote, and then insert another reference, that invalidates the Ibid, and that either makes more work for the editor or makes the reference wrong.

* Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style
* Templates: Template:Harvard citation
* Template:Ref#Examples

Forever

  • Knowledge forever
  • Ad-free forever
  • Wikipedia forever
  • Vandalism forever

Admin?

They want me to be an admin User:Scottywong/Admin scoring tool results? Oh, I hope not. (With apologies to dialog from The Right Stuff.)

The end

Miscellaneous

  • Favorite car I ever had: 1973 Pontiac LeMans Sport Coupe (the original Bubba '73). It has a 400 in³ V8 with a two-barrel carburetor and dual exhausts. The color is ascot silver and maroon; it has the slots on the small rear window, and has extremely rare body stripes.
  • Favorite ball-point pen: Papermate Powerpoint. I don't like to use anything else. Unfortunately these are no longer made.
  • Favorite pencil: Futura Try-rex Richard Best.[2]
  • Favorite stapler: Ace Cadet #302 by Ace Fastener. A close second: Ace Liner # 502.
  • Favorite lip balm: Vaseline Constant Care, no longer made, but Avon is very close.
  • Favorite calculators: Texas Instruments SR-50 and HP 20S. I think this is the only HP scientific calculator that doesn't use RPN (which I can't stand).
  • Favorite morning DJs: Boomer and the Nudge.
  • Favorite singing group: Boys Who Cry
  • Favorite meal:
    • sea bass (sautéed)
    • potatoes au gratin
    • asparagus
    • Barry and Ira's Rum Raisin ice cream

I like both kinds of music: Country and Western. My favorite songs:

  1. Westbound and Down, by Jerry Reed
  2. Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses, by Kathy Mattea
  3. Eastbound and Down, by Jerry Reed

Saddest moments in movies:

  1. when Goose dies in Top Gun
  2. when Mickey dies in Rocky III

Things I never thought would happen (I wasn't holding my breath on any of these):

  1. A revised edition of Reuben Fine's 1941 classic Basic Chess Endings. Well it happened in 2003!
  2. A reunion of The Beatles. Of course, it wasn't the same.
  3. Return of Bobby Fischer to chess. Of course, it was a disappointment.
  4. Non Phil Spector produced Let It Be. Let It Be... Naked came out.
  5. Volume four of The Art of Computer Programming. Volumes 1 through 3 of the planned seven-volume set came out in 1968, 1969, and 1973 (resp). In 1980 Donald Knuth said that volume 4 would be out in a year or two. Volume 4A came out in January 2011.
  • I am vice president of the Brunswick Solipists.


Most of everything above is true, but some things may be half-truths.

Erdős Number and Morphy Number

My Erdős Number is 3.

My Morphy Number is 4. That means that I played chess with someone (Norman T. Whitaker) who played with someone (Jackson Showalter) who played with someone (Henry Bird) who played with Paul Morphy.[3]

My Fischer Number is 2. I played Norman Whitaker, who played Bobby Fischer.(Frank Brady, Endgame, p. 47)

(My Bacon Number is infinite.)

Quotations

Appropriate quotes. I like this one:

  • Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death?
    No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
    One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
    "Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be." (Asimov 1997:43)

Here is another quote I like to remember:

The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.

– David Hume


And

An argument is a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition. - The Argument Sketch


And

Spongebob, make sure you wrap up that patty – I'm not finished with it yet.

- Eugene H. Krabs (after eating part of a tainted Crabby Patty and having to go to the hospital)

My Wikipedia story

After I had been editing Wikipedia for several months, I was wearing my Wikipedia t-shirt at the grocery store. The teenage kid bagging groceries noticed my shirt and we started chatting about Wikipedia. He said that he used it, but he hasn't edited yet, but he was going to. After we left, my wife said "He's allowed to edit - just as you are?" I grudgingly had to admit that yes, he is.

The encyclopedia where you can be an authority, even if you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

— Stephen Colbert, Jan. 29, 2007

Bubba as my user name

The original '73 "Bubba"

I've been asked about my user name. Above I mentioned my 1973 car named Bubba. I loved the car so much that I couldn't part with it when I got a new car. Then when my sister had no car, I let her use it. It had some age on it by this time. Her roommate said that it was the type of car that someone named "Bubba" would drive. The name stuck to the car.

Secondly, we live in what used to be the shrimp capital of the world. I think we should take advantage of that and have them for dinner frequently, but my family isn't so positive about it. I'll ask them what they want to have for dinner: boiled shrimp, broiled shrimp, deep fried shrimp, pan fried shrimp, stir fried shrimp, shrimp et tu fe, Cajun shrimp, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, shrimp jambalaya, shrimp scampi, shrimp with lobster sauce, ... And that's about it. There is a resemblance between me and the character of "Bubba" in the movie Forrest Gump:

Shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried, there's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. Th-that's about it.

A white guy with a camera

Shortly after I got my first digital camera, I went to take a photo of a historic African-American church in a nearby small city. This was one of the first photos I uploaded to Wikipedia. I didn't know exactly where it was, so I stopped in city hall, since it was within a block of two of where the church is. I asked the white person there where it was. They said that they didn't know but they would call someone. They carried on a conversation with someone who was probably black. One of the things the person in city hall said was "a white guy with a camera". Then they told me where it was. So I'm a "white guy with a camera" (well mostly).

My cameras

Film SLRs
  • Yashica FR (1977 - broke it when I fell into a ditch at night with it on a tripod)
  • Yashica FRI (1978 - used for 24 years, damaged when I fell off the Johnson rocks on St. Simons Island)
  • Nikon FM3A (ca. 2002 - used for 5 years - a film camera engineering masterpiece, hand-made in Japan)
  • Pentax K1000 (my wife gave me her old camera)
Digital SLRs

Barnstars, etc.



More information Barnstars ...
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Access panels

Edit count

Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters

Article traffic

Places I've been

Born: Waycross, Georgia

I've lived in:

I've been to:

  • United States United States
    • Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia
    • Florida Florida
    • South Carolina South Carolina
    • North Carolina North Carolina
    • Virginia Virginia
    • West Virginia West Virginia
    • Washington, D.C. D.C.
    • Maryland Maryland
    • Delaware Delaware
    • New Jersey New Jersey
    • New York (state) New York
    • Pennsylvania Pennsylvania
    • Ohio Ohio
    • Indiana Indiana
    • Illinois Illinois
    • Kentucky Kentucky
    • Missouri Missouri
    • Arkansas Arkansas
    • Texas Texas
    • Louisiana Louisiana
    • Mississippi Mississippi
    • Alabama Alabama
    • Tennessee Tennessee
    • New Mexico New Mexico
    • Arizona Arizona
    • Utah Utah
    • Colorado Colorado
    • Massachusetts Massachusetts
    • New Hampshire New Hampshire
    • Connecticut Connecticut
    • Maine Maine
    • Kansas Kansas
    • Nebraska Nebraska
    • Wyoming Wyoming
    • South Dakota South Dakota
    • Iowa Iowa
  • Canada Canada
    • Ontario Ontario
  • Mexico Mexico
    • Yucatán Yucatán

Eclipses

I hope to see:

Some computers I used in the old days

Acts I've seen in concert

Concerts

Chess books

Given that information, I'd recommend the "Winning Chess" series by Yasser Seirawan, a seven-book series. Start with "Play Winning Chess" (you can probably skip or skim the first chapter). If that goes OK then both "Winning Chess Tactics" and "Winning Chess Strategies". To go beyond that "Winning Chess Openings" and "Winning Chess Endings". I haven't seen "Winning Chess Combinations", but maybe it could be the sixth one. "Winning Chess Briliancies" would be optional at the end. See Yasser Seirawan#Books. I think that is appropriate for a teenager on up. For a bit younger, probably A World Champion's Guide to Chess, by Susan Polgar. Also, there is a lot of chess information on Wikipedia.

Things to remember

Requested photos in Georgia

Number style

Some style issues, where I usually follow Turabian (A Manual for Writers''):

2:23 All measurements are expressed in figures. The general rule is to spell out all [exact] numbers through one hundred (e.g. thirty-five) and all round numbers that can be expressed as two words (e. g. five thousand). Exact numbers over one hundred are written as figures.

2:24 When numbers of the same thing which are above and below one hundred appear in a group, write as figures.

2:25 A sentence should never begin with a figure.

2:26 Several round numbers occurring together are usually expressed in figures.

2:27 Very large round numbers are usually expressed in figures and in units of millions or billions.

2:28 Figures should be used to express decimals and percentages. The word percent should be written out, except in scientific writing, where the symbol % may be used.

2:52 continued numbers

More information First number, Second number ...
First numberSecond numberExamples
Less than 100use all digits3-10; 71-72
100 or multipleuse all digits100-104; 600-613
more than 100 but less than 110 (in multiples of 100)use changed part only, omit leading zero107-8; 1002-3
more than 109 (in multiples of 100)use last two digits (or all of more than two change)121-25; 415-532; 1536-38; 1890-1954
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  • From Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Numbers as figures or words: As a general rule, in the body of an article, single-digit whole numbers from zero to nine are spelled out in words; numbers greater than nine are commonly rendered in numerals, or may be rendered in words if they are expressed in one or two words (16 or sixteen, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred, but 3.75, 544, 21 million). This applies to ordinal numbers as well as cardinal numbers. However there are frequent exceptions to these rules.

Astronomical proper nouns

The name of the big satellite that orbits the Earth is the Moon. From Astronomy Magazine, March 2011, p. 51.

From proper nouns:

  • The common noun moon denotes any natural planet-like satellite of a planet, whereas the proper noun Moon references a specific moon, that is, the Earth's moon. Dictionaries descriptively reflect that the latter sense is "often" capitalized (by which they imply "often [or usually] capitalized in educated writers' published writing".
  • The same status described above for moon/Moon also describes sun/Sun.

Order of ending sections

From Wikipedia:Layout#Standard appendices and descriptions, the ending sections should be:

  • See also
  • Notes
  • References (or combined with Notes into Notes and references)
  • Further Reading (or Bibliography)
  • External Links

Footnote columns

From WP:FN: "Three-column lists (and larger) are inaccessible to users with smaller/laptop monitors and should be avoided unless they are supporting shortened footnotes."

Glossaries

Default sort

See also section

Wikipedia:Guide to layout#See also section - use editorial judgment and common sense as to whether or not links are duplicated in the "see also" section.

Equals in template caption

  • Use {{=}} when writing = in templates.

Note to self

In tempo (chess), check reference for game

For Modern Chess:

Commons Helper

Articles

Essay

Reference columns

Resource request

Notes

References

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