User:Aladdin Sane

For the David Bowie album, see Aladdin Sane.

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"I came for some information; I stayed to do a few edits."  —me, 2015-02-28

Current UTC time as of last page refresh

2024-12-22, 10:11 []

World population (2015-02-25)	7,226,810,000
US population (2015-02-25)	320,411,000
Percentage of world population that is American	4.43%

Potential Wikipedia readership (and editorship) (estimated Internet users) (2014-06-30)	3,035,749,340
Number of registered Wikipedia editors (as of today, December 22 (UTC))	48,444,275
Percentage of Internet users that are registered Wikipedia editors	0.797%

If every American uses Internet, then max % of Internet population that is American

10.55%

Aladdin Sane (talk · contribs · count · logs)

Unified login: Aladdin Sane is the unique login of this user for all public Wikimedia projects.

About

I've been using personal computers since 1977. I've been online since the BBS days in the 80s.

I served in the US Army Signal Corps as a radio mechanic with the 504th Parachute Infantry, 82d Airborne Division from 1986 to 1989, and Co G (Long Range Surveillance) 143d Infantry, TXARNG from 1989 to 1992.

My job is to get the message through.

I use the GNU/Linux operating system. I have been doing so since 1998. I work professionally in electronics areas ranging from SATCOM to Network Architecture to general ICT.

I currently (2015) live in the Chihuahuan Desert.

A test

I realized that some have looked at the above and reached inappropriate conclusions. I can only wish I lived in your fantasies of life, as it is, and not as it should be.

Having lived a large part of my life in Austin, Texas, we believe the following tells much about you. And so there some have asked my five favorite movies, and I find this a challenge, as I may change my mind on this, as the daytime does its length each day. Here are my five favorite movies:

1. Educating Rita (1983)
2. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
3. The Harder They Come (1972)
4. Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)
5. Eraserhead (1977)

Yes, each movie has a point to make and may challenge you... about the underdog... or just... the dog... hopeless... will you get your head chopped off to make this point? Some have... some, indeed, have...

Current

WikiSloth (B. wikitridactylus) —10:42, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

History

I'm re-watching all the B5 episodes and movies on DVD. I hope I can make the B5 stuff a bit nicer and more relevant and informative. —20:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Some personal history notes on editing from 2006-09 – 2009-10

Well, sometime in late September 2009 I got sucked in to WikiProject Babylon 5. Now it's mid–October, I was looking at my whole contribution history, and I remembered the reason why I got sucked in to editing in the first place: It was the synopsis to "And the Sky Full of Stars". Some previous editor had gotten all the references to Knight Two and Knight One reversed, and I just had to go in and fix it. I was innocently reading the original several hundred JMS posts at midwinter (The Lurker's Guide) from 1991 to 1996, and I thought I'd check Wikipedia on the subject of that episode. Maybe I shouldn't have. But I was looking at my contribution history to find my first logged in edit (I'd made minor contributions all along as an IP address), because I couldn't remember why I had signed up for an account in the first place, three years ago. So here it is, my original logged-in edit, Criticism of Microsoft Revision as of 22:29, 16 September 2006. I made a major change to a paragraph from: More to the point, in 1996 a class action lawsuit was brought against Microsoft representing thousands of current and former employees that had been classified as "temporary" and "freelance", known as "Vizcaino". The case was decided on the basis that such "permatemps" had their jobs defined by Microsoft, worked alongside regular employees doing the same work, and worked for long terms. After a series of court setbacks, Microsoft settled the suit for $100 million. To: More to the point, in 1992 a (US) state lawsuit was brought against Microsoft representing 8,558 current and former employees that had been classified as "temporary" and "freelance", and became known as "Vizcaino v. Microsoft". In 1993, the suit became a US Federal Class Action in UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE as No. C93-178C. The Final Settlement came in 2005. The case was decided on the (IRS-defined) basis that such "permatemps" had their jobs defined by Microsoft, worked alongside regular employees doing the same work, and worked for long terms. After a series of court setbacks including 3 reversals on appeal, Microsoft settled the suit for about US $92.730 million and 44¢. I had done a ton of research on that case for another web site, I had some clarity to add to the paragraph, and I wanted my "ordinary online persona" associated with it. The paragraph really hasn't changed much in three years, though one web site has gone down, another needed fixing, (now at ) and somebody edited out my dramatic irony at the end of the paragraph (as they properly should have). The article, Criticism of Microsoft, has expanded much over the years, including at least four daughter articles. Pretty good for an article that just barely keeps its head above the NPOV water by being exceedingly well referenced, relying heavily on secondary sources. —05:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Reference update to the Vizcaino edits, 2015-02-25. The law firm that has publicly recorded the settlement in Vizcaino (Bendich, Stobaugh and Strong P.C.) has changed the address yet again. It can now be found at http://www.bs-s.com/cases/c-microsoft-vizcaino.html or if you use their web site to find the page, you will be sent to http://204.200.167.203/cases/c-microsoft-vizcaino.html (now there's a law firm who knows how to hire some competent web designers). —10:42, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Stuff I'm always forgetting and can't find again when I want/need it

• I can't believe
• they pulled these links from the edit page

• American and British English differences
  • American and British English spelling differences
  • Briticism (words)
  • Americism (words)
• Vague authors are allowed in cites

"For webpages, the author is often unknown; you can either omit the author altogether, or substitute something vague like 'Open Source Initiative Contributor'."

• Vague numbers and quantities exist, including those that don't

• Intra-wiki namespaces
• Inter-wiki sister links
• Inter-wiki language links

External tools

• WikiChecker —Scary charts about my last 1000 edits
• X! Edit Counter —Analysis of user contributions at Tool Labs
• Checklinks —Dead link checker at dispenser.homenet.org

Ramble

[Last update: 00:27, 27 April 2015 (UTC)]

On disambiguation

Man, I wish there was a Wikipedia pro-disambiguation Userbox but I couldn't find one... Woo hoo. Thanks to Scapler for the Userbox. It brings up a subject I find interesting: I thought the disambiguation pages were a wonderful idea when I first ran across them; now I realize it's all about disambiguation; the whole WP project, all the little edits I make, and really everywhere one expresses oneself online. Never have we be been more misunderstood then by our online expressions. This phenomenon (disambiguation) encourages clarity of thought and of expression not previously found frequently in other media.

Some things I don't need Userboxes for:

• This user uses ISO dates (ISO 8601) unless informed otherwise.
• This user understands the difference between to, too, and two, but may fall off a DGAF cliff.
• This user understands the difference between cite, site, and sight, but sometimes has a brain melt.
• This user has failed to come down on either side of the serial comma issue since at least 1989.
• This user thinks the terminating double quote goes outside the period. Except when it doesn't.
• This user thinks MOS:LQ (logical quotation style) is correct, but was taught wrong in school. This has resulted in severe bain dramage.
• This user understands the difference between a hyphen, en dash, and em dash, but couldn't find the latter two on the keyboard.
• This user might understand the difference between affect and effect but might mess up somewhere when you weren't looking.
• Pedant or Purist? Hmm.
• Bleah. This editor is a Yeoman Editor, and is entitled to display this Service Badge but won't because this editor thinks that any argument that starts by asserting or assuming quantity over quality is an inherently flawed argument.

Too funny to pass up:

From the BSD fortune program on my system this evening:

"Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon."

—Alan J. Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", ACM, SIGPLAN, SIGPLAN Notices, 1982-09

Sandbox

• Sandbox
• B5 Project notes to self

Note to self: Per WP:SANDBOX and WP:USERSUBPAGE.

References and notes (bogus and otherwise)

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Creative Commons

Dual licensed with the GNU General Public License

I agree to additionally license any of my contributions (for which I hold the copyright) under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions under the GPL terms, please check the Multi-licensing guides.