User talk:BenKovitz/Archive 1

Summary

The criticizers of the Finno-Ugric and Uralic language groups say, that the languages of these "groups" are related. They are clearly related by agglutination and the features, that are common among the turanian (Sumerian) agglutinating languages. What the criticizers maintain is, however, that these artificial mini groups have very few words common, and no common grammar except of the Sumerian type of agglutination, and therefore it is unlogical and counterproductive to classify them into this artificial, in reality by nothing justified mini groups.

Thanks for your corrections. The summary must explain, what criticizers criticize, and what not. If you can correct it so, that this remains understandable, thanks in advance. Antifinnugor 11:51, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also: criticizers criticize both finno-ugrian and uralic groups, since they are in fact the same thing. Antifinnugor 11:57, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tiny role?

Ben, didn't you introduce Sanger to wiki technology? That's not quite a tiny role. Adraeus 01:57, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ha! Thanks, Adraeus. I still haven't even made 100 edits, though... Ben Kovitz 20:37, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ben Kovitz

Hello Ben. I have listed Ben Kovitz on Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion because it is a redirect from the main article space to the user space. I thought it would be courteous of me to let you know. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 16:37, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know, Taco Deposit. I didn't find Ben Kovitz listed on Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion, but I think it's fine to delete it. Ben Kovitz 20:36, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pete stops by

Yo Ben. Was looking you up to see if you had a doctorate yet so I can call you Dr Kovitz in applying to become director of development at health department - long not very sensible story. Since you owe me email and I owe you presents I thought I'd go snoop you out in wikidom but was surprised to find greenlight giving errors instead of pages so thought you might be dead. Now finding recent edits here I see you are either not dead or being imitated by someone remarkably adept at imitating you. Anyway fwiw how's it all? --Pete.

Liminality

Hi there, Evilphoenix. Thanks for fixing up the Liminality article! That was my first attempt at starting a Wikipedia page. How did you find it so fast?

Ben

NewPages. I do New page patrol. EvilPhoenix talk 02:55, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Definition of math

The definition you are trying to push is not NPOV. It is also not a definition. It is just a list of things mathematician are interested in. The definition coming from a suggestion by Rick Norwood is much better. It is not too highly philosophical and it is not exclusive since your definition is there too. In the head you need a definition which can be understood by any educated reader. Not a list of things nobody can understand. The study of quantity! What the hell is this? The quantity of what? Such a definition make flee any goodwilling reader. Oh shit a math thing again! Vb 131.220.68.177 14:47, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

We might actually be in very deep agreement here, Vb. See my comments on the talk page. —Ben Kovitz 15:45, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Deductive reasoning

Thanks for the feedback. Considering how many people had been editing it, getting several kinds of deductive processing all mixed up, I was very concerned about how some of them would react, so your remarks are greatly appreciated. Wryspy 21:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Heuristic

I'm glad you liked it. I often get worried about trodding on the toes of folks who've gone before. It's gratifying if I hear that I haven't messed it up. Thanks. I just happened to have always had an interest the subject, with most of the references in my library, from Polya to Gigerenzer. DCDuring 01:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Snack-liking

I like snacks. Snacky (talk) 05:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Explanation-based learning

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Explanation-based learning, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process because of the following concern:

original research

All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because, even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached.

You have been around here long enough - you ought to know what happens to articles with absolutely no references. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 19:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Dissembled

Thanks. "Dissembled" was what I thought I meant, but it turns out that word doesn't mean what I thought! I thought it meant something like "disassembled", but with a bit different connotation, i.e., "picked apart". "Discussed", I think, is just fine.--ragesoss (talk) 01:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Ha! Yeah, I think hardly anyone knows what "dissembled" means. I had to get corrected on it myself. Thanks for letting me know I got the meaning right, Sage. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 03:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

For civil discussion of differences in the Orphanage project. It is much appreciated. --JaGa^talk 01:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Richard Bromfield

A tag has been placed on Richard Bromfield requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person or group of people, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for biographies.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. DFS454 (talk) 17:52, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, BenKovitz. You have new messages at DFS454's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

DFS454 (talk) 18:26, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Sudbury "model"

Ben-

Thanks for the suggestion! However, there is still a long, on-going discussion on the Sudbury school page because this issue cannot be settled so easily. Let me explain where I'm coming from. I have been updating and filling in the democratic education and democratic school pages for a few months. Democratic education is a very well-cited page on the a big body of literature dealing with all schools/institutions that stress two qualities: 1) freedom of learning (i.e. no compulsory courses), and 2) democratic governance structure.

Before I even arrived at it, the Sudbury page was rife with self-references and literally no third-party references. I'm sure you know Wikipedia necessitates neutral, third-party references so that content is verifiable. This is, I presume, to prevent individuals from coming onto Wikipedia and using it to self-promote their philosophies on whatever-it-may-be.

Anyways, after consulting with those on the discussion forum, including seasoned Wikipedians who had serious concerns about the neutrality and notability of the Sudbury school page (the Sudbury model page had already been redirected to the Sudbury school page before I arrived), I migrated Sudbury's non-redundant info to the democratic education page and merged it with the List of Sudbury schools.

The reason is this: until a substantive philosophical difference can be explained between Sudbury schools and democratic schools generally (I doubt it; I've been studying these philosophies for years and have yet to find a third-party source outlining a differentiated philosophy), the Sudbury page's explanation of itself is redundant with the democratic education page.

Now, users looking for info about the philosophy of Sudbury schools can find that on the democratic education page which is the exact same as all democratic schools. Left on the List of Sudbury schools page is, of course, the plain fact that there are a number of schools that have been inspired by the Sudbury Valley School and thus included the Sudbury name in their own.

If you can find any neutral, third-party references from non-Sudbury schools or writers outlining a distinct philosophy from democratic education, please add them. I would be curious to know! Thanks! Maguire09 (talk) 08:09, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Much better

The article looks much better. Thank you for the improvement.

For improving Barlow's law, I give you this barnstar. MBisanz ^talk 17:28, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Hello BenKovitz! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. if you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 944 article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the article:

1. Ed Colligan - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Larry's comment on your user page

Re: "This is disappointing, Ben, because there is apparently a few things about me that you do not understand, even though we have talked so much.". I think it's rather disappointing that Larry said that, because the sentence he is commenting on said only positive things about him, so I'm at a complete loss as to which part of the sentence he considered disappointing! --Rebroad (talk) 15:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Same here. I meant it as extraordinarily high praise and appreciation! Maybe Larry will have a different opinion on another reading. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 05:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Please help explain Pair programming

I am a wikipedian and contribute to zh.wp, I am translating the article Pair programming to Chinese, but I cannot understand the "The benefit is strongest on tasks that are not yet understood by the programmers, calling for more creativity, challenge, and sophistication", I am not sure which meaning of sophistication should use. Thanks in advance. --Yongxinge(talk) 13:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Yongxinge. I will try to rewrite that part of the article to be clearer. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 00:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I just made an attempt at rewording that sentence. Is it clearer? To make the best Chinese translation, you might also look at the source. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 04:21, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Slide rule

Ben, I can show you in a minute how to work a slide rule. I'd be surprised to see a source that says they're hard to learn how to use. Dicklyon (talk) 01:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Dick. I'm not proficient with a slide rule, though I do know the basics. I've shown several people how to use it, and while some have loved it and others have hated it, none have found it anywhere near as easy to learn as a calculator. After being shown, they could not get quick results even at multiplying or taking a reciprocal until they had practiced keeping track of the exponent. I think to get good at using a slide rule, so I could use it even half as effectively as I use a calculator, would take some practice. For example, I recently needed to know (roughly) 2⁴⁸. On a calculator, this is equally as hard as any other calculation: just type it in and there's the answer. Doing it on my slide rule right now (admittedly, it lacks the LL scales), here's how I do it:

2 is 10 to the 0.301 (I could do that with the L scale, but I happen to know it by heart), so 4.8 on the D scale, line up the 1 on the C scale, oops, other way, 3.01 lines up with…call it 1.44. Now is that 14.4? So it's 10^14.4? Then I do a quick check in my head, yeah, 15 is 1/3 of 45, so that's probably right. OK, now, get the first two digits in scientific notation. L scale, .4 lines up with about 2.5 on the D scale. So, 2⁴⁸ ≈ 2.5 × 10¹⁴. Double-check on calculator: close, it's actually 2.8 × 10¹⁴.

Probably someone with more skill could do it more simply or more accurately; certainly someone with more practice could do it more quickly. Even my clumsy calculation required some understanding of logarithms that most people don't have. I think the slide rule is one of the most marvelous and beautiful inventions in all of human history, but the Wikipedia page should be forthright about why it went extinct in 1973–1974. If you can find some sources about training time for slide rule vs. calculator, that would be great.

Hmm, a quick Google search yielded this interesting page, which contains conflicting opinions.

I can only see the abstract for this ergonomics article from 1972, but it's a study that found that schoolchildren had difficulty with the C and D scales because they're non-linear and because there is variation in the meaning of the marks. (Maybe they mean the fact that the 4 means 40 or 0.0004, etc., depending on the calculation, took some getting used-to. That's what I've observed first-hand.)

Well, I look forward to seeing what you find. If the slide rule is just as easy to learn as a calculator, that would be some wonderful news.

—Ben Kovitz (talk) 04:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Usually, per WP:BRD, if you boldly add something, and I revert it because I object, your next move should be to talk about it before putting it back. But thanks for finding a source that semi supports it; I adjusted it to match better. Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to violate the usual protocol. It doesn't seem plausible to me that slide rules aren't significantly harder to learn than calculators, so I think the burden of proof should be on you. IOW, I thought you were pushing a WP:FRINGE theory. That one source doesn't talk about calculators (of course), but I think we all know how easy it is to use a calculator. Anyway, if I am wrong, I look forward to being enlightened. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 04:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The main problem is that you went too far with the "special expertise" instead of sticking to what the sources say. It's like saying that a disadvantage of a car is that it requires special expertise to work it; kind of overstates the difficulty involved in a bit of training and practice. Best to just say what's in sources; when unsourced stuff is reverted, the burden is on you to fix it. The bit about addition and subtraction is pretty bogus, too. That's not a disadvantage of slide rules, because it's outside their scope, really. Dicklyon (talk) 05:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Dick, thanks for putting the advantages and disadvantages under an explicit comparison to calculators. That definitely improves the clarity, and removes the "out of scope" objection. You had me worried for a minute there that you were going to appeal legalistically to "rules" to justify maintaining a false impression about the problems with slide rules; I'm glad to see I was wrong. Anyway, to clarify, in the article, I was not trying to state only what one source said. I was trying to summarize the main disadvantage of slide rules. I think it's a glaring omission from the Slide rules page that it says that calculators made slide rules obsolete, but doesn't explain why. I suspect slide-rule advocacy. I made a quick search for a source, and I would love it if you'd find more sources. You could probably do a much better job than me, since you have more expertise. (Seriously, the source I added is poor. It's clumsy slide-rule advocacy, and it should be replaced with something better as soon as possible.) The difficulty that ordinary people have with slide rules is an interesting topic, and the article really needs more information about it.

Here is my understanding of the situation with slide rules. They were mostly used by engineers and scientists, and they took a lot of practice to get good at—an amount of practice and thought roughly comparable to getting good at solving a Rubik's Cube (if someone shows you a solution method). Most people did not reach that level of skill, not even mathematicians (because mathematicians didn't do those sorts of calculations very often). The slide rule became a recognizable symbol of the engineer because of this specialization. High schools used to have slide-rule clubs where users (brainy boys, mostly) would share and refine their technique. The vast majority of people found the slide rule confusing and difficult to learn, and did not have good results with it. Most people do not understand logarithms in the slightest, not even people who've passed high-school algebra. Using a slide rule often involved doing some algebra first, to reduce the number of slide-rule steps. Most people viewed skill with a slide rule as evidence of special mathematical talent. Once calculators became affordable, it was no contest. Any idiot could use a calculator successfully, without anything like the time and frustration involved in learning and operating a slide rule, and without using or even knowing much algebra. Most people could get correct results much faster with a calculator than could slide-rule users with an ordinary level of skill.

I believe the above is well known to everyone with an interest in slide rules, and not a matter of controversy ( "fringe" elements notwithstanding). Slide-rule advocates appeal to it when they lament the way people can use calculators without cultivating a feeling for scale and mathematical relationships, sometimes leading to boneheaded mistakes like being wrong by several orders of magnitude where a slide rule might be wrong by one part in a thousand.

Do you think the above summary is correct or mistaken? (I hope it's mistaken, actually, but I don't have much optimism about that.) Also, any comments on how I calculated 2⁴⁸? Am I doing it wrong? —Ben Kovitz (talk) 17:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I just thought of a better way to calculate 2⁴⁸! Here it is: 2⁴⁸ is the cube of 2¹⁶, and I happen to know by heart that 2¹⁶ = 65,536. So, cursor on 6.55 on the C scale, read 2.8 on the 3rd decade of the K scale. 65,536 has exponent 4, times 3 for the K scale is 12, plus 2 for the 3rd decade is 14. So, 2⁴⁸ ≈ 2.8 × 10¹⁴, which is accurate to two digits, unlike my first attempt. OK, now I'm really curious. How would you do this calculation? Would this same trick come to mind first for you, or would yet another approach be the first that comes to mind? —Ben Kovitz (talk) 06:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

BRD

Ben, just procedurally -- that's not the way it works. You can't make a substantive change and say "don't revert without discussing". If you want the change, you're supposed to discuss it. See WP:BRD. --Trovatore (talk) 17:33, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! —Ben Kovitz (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Mail

Hello, BenKovitz. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Quisquiliae (talk) 18:28, 11 May 2012 (UTC)