User talk:Eric M Gearhart
Still laughing...
You should have seen my face when I saw the edit summary, "pronounced jitters". Before I read it in context, I was picturing a roomful of generals being told that the Army, as well as the Marines, was being made a component of the Navy. :-)
Howard C. Berkowitz 16:52, 13 May 2008 (CDT)
Random numbers
Hi, could you have a look at what I found in my man pages: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Unix_directory_structure ? I think at least one of random or urandom yields real random numbers as it uses environmental noise. However, the text in my manpage differs to the text of the article in which generator gives real and wich gives pseudo random numbers. Alexander Wiebel 06:25, 6 June 2008 (CDT)
Astronomers, Amateurs, etc...
Hi, glad you liked it. Believe it or not (as I mention in the header), a lot of the dialogue really happened, in History of the Internet. It was that set-to, and the lack of support I got from fellow editors, which was the end for me on Wikipedia. We'll see how CZ turns out - it's small yet, and Wikipedia at this stage was equally nice. It's when it takes off that we'll see if our procedures are, or can be made to be, better. J. Noel Chiappa 12:05, 7 June 2008 (CDT)
Thanks on Iran-Iraq
You've encouraged me to bring over some material specific to third-country involvement with Iran-Iraq, which got so politicized at The Other Place as to be one of my reasons for leaving. Actually, I'm both proud of the Soviet support to both sides, and sad that both the US and USSR played both sides for their own geopolitical reasons.
Anyway, I put comments on the Iran-Iraq related articles page and the Iran-Iraq talk page; we can continue discussion wherever it makes sense. You've presumably see the Gulf War article; I'm not sure I feel brave enough to tackle Iraq War of 2003. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:30, 9 July 2008 (CDT)
- I'm no professional military historian, but I'll help out where I can. Those articles cover a "lot of ground" so to speak. I was in Baghdad when Hussein was hanged, so I at least have an "on the ground" perspective I can add if nothing else Eric M Gearhart 00:11, 10 July 2008 (CDT)
- Sort of a small world -- a friend of mine, an Engineer sergeant, who has just gone back for another tour, was part of a security perimeter 500 meters from where they pulled Saddam out of his hole. Of course, my friend didn't know why his unit had been put there for a few days, and it started out as a good opportunity for grumbling about learning to use engineers as engineers, not infantry.
- It's just been a couple of weeks, so I don't know how much Internet connectivity he'll have. He is the most knowledgeable person I know on the Byzantine Empire, so he certainly could contribute here without jeopardizing OPSEC. Mind you, that sort of came up on a previous tour, when he wanted to name his AVLB bridge launcher "Constantine", and none of his chain of command knew why. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:28, 10 July 2008 (CDT)
- Small world indeed. Well tell him to keep his weapon clean and his head down, and hope he gets back safe. "The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." -MacArthur