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.
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.
"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.
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From Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Progress.
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,
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).
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?
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.
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.)
I like both kinds of music: Country and Western. My favorite songs:
Saddest moments in movies:
Things I never thought would happen (I wasn't holding my breath on any of these):
Most of everything above is true, but some things may be half-truths.
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.)
Appropriate quotes. I like this one:
Here is another quote I like to remember:
The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.
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)
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
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.
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).
Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters
Born: Waycross, Georgia
I've lived in:
I've been to:
I hope to see:
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.
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
The name of the big satellite that orbits the Earth is the Moon. From Astronomy Magazine, March 2011, p. 51.
From proper nouns:
From Wikipedia:Layout#Standard appendices and descriptions, the ending sections should be:
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."
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.
In tempo (chess), check reference for game
For Modern Chess: