User talk:Chris Day

Notes to self

 * Fix move cluster
 * Write proposal for subgroups

Need to depopulate what links here

See - /Notes to self

Need to figure out the disconnects between the rare earths elemental classes and the template:periodic. Did uranium, but others need fixing too. See Uranium/Elemental Class


 * Category:False Start Move
 * Category:Incomplete Move
 * Category:DeleteMove


 * List of agricultural methods topics
 * List of biology topics
 * List of code generation topics
 * List of compiler optimizations
 * List of famous Canadians
 * List of humanities journals
 * List of important publications in biology
 * List of inorganic compounds
 * List of languages using the .NET Framework
 * List of library associations
 * List of medical schools
 * List of music psychology topics
 * List of notable evolutionary biologists
 * List of notable paleoanthropologists
 * List of notable primatologists
 * List of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance experiments
 * List of operating systems
 * List of organic compounds
 * List of organic reactions
 * List of scholarly journals in international relations
 * List of scientific journals
 * List of seminal concepts in computer science
 * List of snake scales
 * List of social science journals
 * List of space advocacy organizations
 * List of states of matter
 * List of topics related to agriculture
 * List of viperine species and subspecies
 * List of youth orchestras in the United States

Your testimony
Please let us have it! --Larry Sanger 21:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I contribute to citizendium as I got banned from wikipedia for disruptive editing. I still edit at wikipedia, and have tried with various aliases and proxies, but they always hunt me down. I don't understand their problem. Fortunately, citizendium is far more accommodating and allows me to write whatever i wish with no checks and balances.  At least, no one has deleted any of my stuff yet. Chris Day 21:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)  OK, I admit it, thats all lies. :) I'll have to think a bit. Chris Day 21:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thanks for the tip!

That looks very useful.

Cheers! George Swan 01:20, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the advice. Sorry we had that discussion on Greg's page, though. --Russell D. Jones 16:12, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

picture experiment
The credited picture above, from left to right are coded as follows:





The uncredited diagram above, from left to right are coded as follows:





ifexist
Hi Chris. See Template_talk:Credit. Stephen Ewen 16:51, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Years
Hi Chris, I need your help with Years, such that it works properly via for pagenames like 2006 and via  for pagenames like 1984 (year). I think I am close but I do not see how to address the page name itself, and I have to go offline now. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 19:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * See the edit I just made. Does that fix it? Chris Day 19:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was it - thanks. --Daniel Mietchen 20:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Morton National Park, and stuff
Chris, thanks for helping with the metadata pages. As you probably guessed, I was having a bug* of a day and kept getting interrupted.

Re Fitzroy Falls, that sure looks like it. Great photo, thanks!

Aleta Curry 22:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Renaming images
Hi Chris, I noticed the typo in the name of Image:ComparitiveBrainSize.jpg but didn't see how to rename the file. Is there a way to do this without re-uploading it? Thanks, --Daniel Mietchen 20:50, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure you will have to upload the image again. Is that a problem? Chris Day 23:13, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Philosophy strategies
Thanks for your feedback, Chris.

BTW -in passing your fine images above! - can you tell me how I can upload the image (of Plato and Socrates) indicated as needing uploading on the Plato page? I'm not the creator or copyright owner, I undestand it is 'outside copyright' (it is also on WP Commons)? Any advice would be appreciated.

Martin Cohen 17:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Martin, when you go through the upload process there is a pretty good step by step guide. however, i just discovered that it has not been completed with respect to the public domain content (drop down menu does not have correct options.  i will look into improving that option.  Meanwhile just look at the notes I added for the plato socrates picture.  I am unsure if I did it 100% correctly and there are a lot of gaps with respect to the background info on the picture.  It's a start though. Chris Day 03:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * If I may add a commment, Wikimedia Commons images can indeed be uploaded into CZ ... but only if you can find or obtain the real name of the original uploader. The CZ file upload Wizard states that quite clearly. Hope this helps, Milton Beychok 03:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * But does that matter if the original is on the web and public domain? Chris Day 04:07, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * If it is clearly stated as being in the Public Domain (or is on the website of any U.S. government entity), then it doesn't matter whether you have the real name of the original uploader ... in fact, you don't need any name at all. As for being on some website, then I always search for a statement about copyrights in that website to see what it says is needed. Milton Beychok 05:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I did not see anything on the web site about copyright, that was my assumption from the statement on the wikipedia site. i guess this is all a shell game. primary sources are the real issue here. So this one should probably go back where it came from. Chris Day 05:31, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Chris, rather than "go back to where it came from", I would suggest using the "Fair use" option of the Upload Wizard at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Upload-Wizard. That is what I have done for one or two of the images I've uploaded. Milton Beychok 06:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That sounds reasonable. Do you remember which template you used? I note that this is one area that Stephen did not finish on the upload wizard.,  Chris Day 07:04, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Chris, since I was using the drawings in articles I authored, I used the one for fairuse-author. And yes, that is one where the License actually reads as "Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah ......" because it hasn't been finished as yet. Milton Beychok 08:56, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Let there be light, sorta kinda
We have, I believe, infrared light, visible light, and ultraviolet. Ultraviolet is my fault for being inconsistent, but I'm not sure "infrared light" is really the best title. I could live with "radiation" or "energy", and "light" specifically for the visible part of the spectrum.

Obviously, we don't say "radio light" or "RF light", although "RF" is used, with the various subdivisions of ULF to SHF into the millimeter and subnillimeter. Think of analytical techniques -- is the usage "ultraviolet spectroscopy" or "ultraviolet light spectroscopy".

How do I increase the cellpadding in a Wikitable?
Chris, what coding do I use to increase the cellpadding in a wikitable? By wikitable, I mean a table that starts with: {| class="wikitable"  Milton Beychok 09:21, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It used to be possible to override the wikitable settings by following the class-"wikitable" with the desired values, such as "cellpadding="2"". Apparently this is no longer the case. You could just use raw code rather than the wikitable class.  But that seems a little extreme. There should be an easier way, i just don't know what it is, yet.  Chris Day 12:09, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I had read (in one of the WP Help articles) that the wikitable settings could be over-ridden ... but found out that was not so (as you also found out). If you ever find a way, please let me know. Thanks, Milton Beychok 17:20, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't find a way to overide the class so I just went in and changed the class itself. I increased the padding from 0.2 to 0.4.  Does that look better? Chris Day 15:34, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The tables look fine now. Thanks. Milton Beychok 16:51, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Credit
Hi Chris, I'm aware that I can have my name on all my drawings. But I don't like it, I removed my name on purpose. --Paul Wormer 15:50, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Could we also pilot an Environmental Engineering subworkgroup?
Chris, I know that we have not yet gotten official approval for creating subworkgroups, but could we also create a pilot Environmental Engineering subworkgroup just as has been done for Chemical Engineering? There are now at least 20 articles that could be designated as Environmental Engineering articles. Please let me know. Thanks, Milton Beychok 23:04, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for helping tidy those pages, Chris.

Martin Cohen 20:07, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Subgroups
Hi Chris, I think it's high time somebody--and probably you, since you technically implemented it--explained clearly and in adequate detail exactly how the "subgroup" scheme is supposed to work. I'm not comfortable with important new editorial policy being added without being acknowledged and passed by the Editorial Council. If you will write up the policy page(s), and if no one else will sponsor it, I will sponsor it if I agree with it. --Larry Sanger 05:18, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It was always my plan to present this as a proposal to the EC. I needed to see it work in practice before I had an idea of what needed to be tweaked. I'll write something soon.  Chris Day 06:13, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Email system cluster
I've been trying to get this to the way that David and I worked out in email, but I'm not sure I've got all the pages and subpages working. Some seem to work when I go back a second time--cache issue?

There need to be some deletions.

Here's the bottom line:

Email - System Overview should be replaced, in all contexts, with Email system, and then the former needs to be exorcised. I'm not sure if I have managed to get the demon, or some directs keep spinning their heads 180 degrees. Hey, I lived in Georgetown when The Exorcist was being filmed.

Howard C. Berkowitz 19:34, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

When creating a new article ....
Chris:

When creating a new article, three instructional/alert boxes appear:

(1) You may see this box .... (2) For a new cluster use .... (3) For a cluster move ....

On my Internet Explorer browser, those three boxes are vertically separated from each other by about 4-5 inches which means that quite a bit of scrolling is needed to read all 3 boxes. Would it be relatively easy to eliminate all that extra spacing between the boxes?

I know you have a plate full of things to do and there is no urgency to this item. However, I think it would be worthwhile to do this whenever you have time. Thanks, Milton Beychok 22:25, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Props
It was working for months...what happened?--David Yamakuchi 22:41, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * No idea but it seems fixable. The most likely reason for it not working is a mediawiki upgrade about three weeks ago. Chances are some of the template rules changed. Chris Day 22:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That sounds about right. It seems like it's no longer evaluating Properties for whatever reason, but it does still load the "list".  I was actually trying to find the MW version update info when you must have noticed my edits and "chimed in" :-)  Just like old times eh?--David Yamakuchi 22:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * You mean a ton of edit clashes :) I noticed there seems to be an extra bar between the last variable and the material field.  Does that help isolate the problem? Chris Day 22:55, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The extra pipe should not cause an issue for this table. It seems to me that I had to add it to get something or other to work properly.  It didn't seem important at the time...As for edit clashes, um...it's nice to have help? :-)--David Yamakuchi 07:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

It's so strange. If I put into the Expand templates page, it returns text with an _unexpanded_ Properties template, with the arguments that the Iron/Properties/List "template" passed to it.

Stranger still, if I then copy the "output" syntax directly back to the input box, the template then expands 100% perfectly, right down to the formatting on the units (which is a couple of template levels deeper still). It's like: "'Oh you mean THAT template....well sure I can expand THAT one'"...Open the F$#%@n pod bay doors, HAL--David Yamakuchi 07:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Good idea!
Thanks for that! Anytime you come up with cool things like that, let me know!!!! It is greatly appreciated! D. Matt Innis 18:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem, that was my original intent when I designed it. Chris Day 18:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Homeopathy/Trials
Did you mean to have the table of trials on a talk subpage as it is? There seems no place to comment.

I, at least, am totally mystified by this list of trials. There's organization, I suppose, but absolutely to explanation of why they are important to the main table. If there was something approaching meta-analysis, that might raise issues of original research versus synthesis. My best guess is that it is supposed to be in lieu of meta-analysis, defending homeopathy with the existence of trials, but I honestly don't understand what it adds.

Perhaps you can get across to Ramanand that encyclopedic articles aren't overtly argumentative, as this table may suggest, and as a number of his recent short edits seem to be. I certainly can't communicate it. As I commented on the talk page for the main article, some statements, such as Keller's, clearly are opposed to homeopathy, but, as quotes outside journals (Osler is in this category), there's nothing to argue. The thing speaks for itself. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:33, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean. I was thinking it is still in the talk domain rather than being and active subpage.  I'll move it to the Trials subpage so you can comment on the talk page.


 * As far as i can tell Ramanand comes from the quantity vs quality approach to viewing trials. There is something to be said for this when there are so many trials. Its easy to assume there must be some good ones in there if it is said enough. But for me, at least, i tend to prefer looking at individual or small groups of trials using only one remedy (preferably look at the better ones from a methodological perspective as well as from positive perspective for homeopathy).  The best studies i have seen to date are less than convincing.  They are more like the dubious medical trials that the biotech companies use to try and convince us their "new" drugs are the one of choice. I'm not convinced by theirs or the ones from the supporters of homeopathy.  As we all know statistics can be used to show many things.  Chris Day 15:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * My all-time favorite description is "Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital."


 * Seriously, there is a whole area of discussion, which Gareth and I (and maybe you) talked about, a long time ago, on the homeopathy talk page. The conventional RCT is not going to work well with inherently individualized methods, and pharmacogenomics may very well fall into that category, especially if we get away from an approved drug model and, perhaps, produce monoclonal antibodies and other biologics.


 * In both these biomedical areas and things such as homeopathy, I see no reason why the clinician can't define the drug/remedy, send it off to the pharmacy or equivalent, where the preparer selects the trial arm, and then sends back, in blinded form, the experimental or control preparation. The hypothesis being tested moves away from safety and efficacy of specific agents, and more to the safety and efficacy of the diagnostic and prescriptive model.


 * My most charitable, public explanation of why this can't even be discussed in the homeopathy article is an assumption that the "establishment" uses hypothesis testing only as an anti-homeopathy blunt instrument, and will not examine alternatives assuming they are just more subtle attacks. I remain, however, utterly mystified as why it is so impossible for homeopaths to describe their cognitive approach. If there's a medical discipline for which I can't write a basic summary of the cognitive model, I don't know what it is.


 * For that matter, I've had friends trained in traditional Chinese medicine, one also an MD, who seemed to have no trouble discussing their paradigms and exploring complementarities. The MD happened to be an OB/GYN and an authority on gynecological ultrasonography, with no particular TCM component of which I was aware. Of course, our discussions were lubricated by excellent Vietnamese food, and, with the other practitioner, probably hormones -- we sort of dated. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:14, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Hand etc
My hand is getting close to normal so I can type decently enough. Unfortunately, my job is being transferred to Houston in a month, so I have 3-4 hours of commute to look forward to until we can sell/rent three houses in Galveston. That is certainly going to effect CZ time once again. David E. Volk 22:42, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Community, subgroups, etc.
Hi Chris, I'm sure what you're doing is all well-motivated, but is the Editorial Council ever going to get a chance to speak about what could well be important structural changes to our system? I hope so. --Larry Sanger 19:49, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll try and put proposal together incorporating all the discussion to date. I do not view this as an endorsed idea but rather an idea in action; more for testing purposes than anything. Chris Day 19:56, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Two kinds of CAM
No one seriously proposes aromatherapy as a whole system, but, even if it doesn't have much effect, it's pleasant. With regard to the other form, it has the realism of James Bond: "shaken, not stirred." Howard C. Berkowitz 05:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have no idea about aromatherapy so please edit away on my changes. So much of this is about creating a pleasant environment, which of course is very subjective. We have a local breakfast place where the owner is big time into feng shui.  Where she sees positive energy I see nice wall paper, actually, I don't think it looks that nice, which just goes to prove it's all subjective. Maybe adherents of feng shui have different classifications to account for different tastes?


 * I was told recently (but do not have a source) that in a clinical trial they had two different placebo pills. One was expensive and the other cheap. The expensive placebo was far more effective. i guess this demonstrates that the "you get what you pay for" mentality can give a very positive environment. No wonder designer labels make people feel so good.  I believe there is a old fairy story about this, the king that had no clothes, so this is clearly a well known and old phenomena. Chris Day 05:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's put it this way -- I don't depend on aromatherapy. Eucalyptus oil, probably simply as an irritant, clears out my sinuses like nothing else. I'll use some skin rubs or incense principally because they smell good, and also because the might be energizing or relaxing.


 * Back in the late sixties, I was doing some work for the Office of Naval Research. Their psychologists were always looking for ways to improve the morale of submarine crews. (First rule: morale gets very bad if one finds a shipmate likes to sleep with the windows open).


 * Anyway, they decided the most relaxing smell was that of fresh-baked bread. The chemists were turned loose, and synthesized the aroma. They were rather disappointed when the admiral, to whom it was proposed, said "why can't the cooks bake bread more often?" Since I've started baking bread, there is much to it. While I use a machine for the first kneading, the rest is all by hand, and it's very relaxing -- also very demanding of tactile memory.


 * Apropos of the placebo, should that have meant that aurothioglucose and other gold-based disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs should have been the ultimate therapy? (yes, yes, I know that many biologics are far more expensive than pure gold. Laymen don't). Howard C. Berkowitz 06:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sure pure gold is the ultimate medication. Possibly iron pyrites would do though? :) Chris Day 06:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Homeopathy and FDA
While I agree you accurately cited the FDA narrative in the article, I added the actual regulation there as well as to the talk page. This may be the first time in history that anyone referred to the Code of Federal Regulations as "snarky". Howard C. Berkowitz 04:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)