User:Slashme

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David Richfield

The boy's got brains, He just don't use 'em that's all

The boy's got brains, He just refuse to use 'em and that's all

He says "The more I get to thinkin', The less I tend to laugh"

The boy's got brains, He just abstains

- Paul Simon - "Oh, Marion"

I am David Richfield, a chemical engineer / biochemist working in candy R&D at Kraft South Africa.

My username comes from IRC: "/me" is a shortcut which inserts your username.

I enjoy proofreading, playing Go and tinkering with Linux systems.

My cub scout patches

en	This user is a native speaker of English.

af-4	Hierdie gebruiker praat Afrikaans op moedertaalvlak.

de-2	Dieser Benutzer hat fortgeschrittene Deutschkenntnisse.

ru-1	Этот участник владеет русским языком на начальном уровне.

fr-1	Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau élémentaire de français.

	This user has been on Wikipedia for 6 years, 5 months and 1 day.

	This editor is a Grand Tutnum and is entitled to display this Book of Knowledge with Coffee Cup Stain.

	This user has autopatrolled rights on the English Wikipedia. (verify)

	This user is a member of the Welcoming Committee.

	This user is a recent changes patroller.

	This user is a new page patroller.

	This user is a Wikigraphist from the Graphic Lab, where you can request image improvement.

	This user contributes using The GIMP.

	This user contributes using Inkscape.

	This user contributes using Linux.

	This user contributes using Debian GNU/Linux.

	This user uses Microsoft Windows under duress.

elinks	This user contributes using ELinks.

	This user contributes using Mozilla

-3	This user is an advanced LaTeX user.

	This user contributes using Vim.

py	This user is a Python programmer.

Perl	This user is just another Perl hacker.

BASIC	This user can program in BASIC.

C	This user can program in C

pas	This user can program in Pascal.

<html>	This user can write HTML.

php	This user can code PHP.

re	This user is a regular expression programmer.

sql	This user can program in SQL.

awk	This user can program in awk.

	This user is a Go player.

gk	This user is a geek.

BE	This user has a Bachelor of Engineering degree in chemical engineering.

MSc	This user has a Master of Science degree in biochemistry.

	This user has published peer-reviewed articles in academic journals.

This user shaves with Occam's razor.

your/ you’re	This user thinks that if your grammar is incorrect, then you’re in need of help.

to¦go	This user chooses to sometimes use split infinitives.

whom	This user insists upon using whom wherever it is called for, and fixes the errors of whomever he sees.

[edit] Tools

[edit] Camera

I bought a Canon PowerShot A630 in April 2007, and have since started contributing photos to Wikipedia. In 2008, due to an insurance payout after a stupid accident involving seawater, it was upgraded to an A650IS, quite a nice camera, and it runs chdk quite nicely, thanks!

[edit] Tablet

I bought a Genius easypen serial graphics tablet for R 200 in December 2007, and found it extremely useful for graphics editing. It works fine with X-windows on my Debian Linux system, thanks to Anders Melchiorsen. It's a tolerably good entry-level tablet, but it has no pressure-sensitivity, and only one button apart from the tip, which makes it less than ideal for X-windows. Also, releasing the pressure on the tablet comes with a clicky feel, so things never end up exactly where you dragged them to, which is a bind in inkscape. So I upgraded to a Genius G-pen 560, which works well with Jan Horak's Wizardpen Driver and the linux kernel aiptek driver. Update: I now have an oldish toshiba laptop, on which I installed Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex. The relevant links to make the tablet work are the Ubuntu community wizardpen setup page and some useful settings on the Penguin's Diary blog. Another update: On Ubuntu Lucid, it needs a udev rule to be added to work correctly, and there are some small tweaks needed for Maverick. More info on the Ubuntu Aiptek page.

[edit] GPS

I tend to use Nokia phones, so I bought myself a Nokia LD-4W GPS unit which I use to log data for the OpenStreetMap project. Its price/performance ratio was so good that when it was lost or stolen (still not sure...) I bought another one. It works nicely with gpsd on my laptop, as long as you pass the -b option to keep it from getting confused when the system tries to probe it. Top tip: to reset it, don't hold in the power button, that just removes all bluetooth bindings. You hold down the off button while plugging in the power.

[edit] Laptop

In a moment of stupidity, I bought a Proline W763S laptop. Quite cheap (just R4000 new), and it can come without a Windows license with Ubuntu linux installed, but unfortunately the graphics card is made by SIS, and it was running in VESA 800×600 mode as supplied. It was easy to get it to run at 1024×768 in VESA by writing an xorg.conf file, but SIS don't supply drivers without NDAs. Fortunately, a reverse-engineered 2D driver is available, written by Thomas Winischhofer, and the patch that Terry Purchase applied to make his Asus X5DC run at 1360×768 works for me. Update: Terry now has a version which works on Ubuntu 10.04 : Lucid Lynx.

[edit] Neotel modem

Neotel provide reasonably-priced wireless internet in South Africa, and supply a wireless modem made by ZTE Corp. to allow one to use the service. The modem acts as a flashdisk when first plugged in, and contains Windows drivers. These drivers then put it into modem-mode. I managed to get it working under Debian Linux using usb-modeswitch - instructions here.

[edit] Activity

[edit] Parliament diagram tool

The boxy version
Arch version
Another arch

I started work a while back on a tool to render svg diagrams for legislatures - I started out with a tool that spits out a rectangular diagram with a title and a legend. It is hosted as this CGI script at my Freeshell account, so feel free to experiment with it. In May 2010, I saw some very nice arch-shaped diagrams drawn with User:Habbit's ADSvote program requested for conversion to SVG on WP:GL/I. Instead of doing manual SVG conversion, I programmed a similar algorithm into another CGI script. You can get the source code of both scripts at User talk:Slashme/parliament.py. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

[edit] Pages I started

~~Don't~~ start what you can't finish.

3Beta Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase	Vital Health Foods	Thearubigin
Hydrophilic-lipophilic balance	Hydroxycitric acid	Patch point
List of steroid abbreviations	Promin	Grindometer
Thiamine pyrophosphokinase	J Willard Hershey	Muira puama^[1]
Template:Enzyme inhibition	Elysia chlorotica	Aspalathin
List of Latinised names	Far-Eastern blot	Trilostane
Brookfield Engineering	Particle density	Theaflavin
The Ultimate Alphabet	Star (1982 film)	Sally Cato
Ian Fleming (chemist)	Riaan Cruywagen	Carr index
Shazam Entertainment	Pill (pharmacy)	Nothofagin
Sixto Diaz Rodriguez	Elysia viridis	bath salts
Jean-Louis Jeanmaire	Feingold Diet	Ed Nather
Robert Pauli Scherer	Hausner ratio	Iron Hand
Trimagnesium citrate	Colloid mill	Clastogen
Mike Wilks (author)	Latinisation	Isibongo
Compagnia dei Bardi	Claude Serre	Quarg^[2]
Reducing equivalent	Prostho Plus	HPTLC
Capsule (pharmacy)	Bardi family	Pain wind-up
Endovenous laser therapy	Vasitis nodosa	Norweto
Lycophidion capense	Duberria lutrix	Lycophidion
List of unofficial observances by date	Temnopteryx	Lycasin
Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment	Chronostasis	Tai tai
Combretum caffrum

[edit] Some pictures and animations I've contributed

The main steroidogenic pathways. I made the first version of the svg from scratch; expanded, coloured and successfully shepherded through the featured pictures process by User:Mikael_Häggström.
3D structure of promin - was used as the illustration on WP:DYK
Operation of a latch clamp
Life cycle of Echinococcus
A diagram of a myofibril
A diagram of the movement of the units of a myofibril
An old Cadmach tablet press
A graffito of Riaan Cruywagen
Round, biconvex white tablets
Two snails investigate each other prior to mating
The Oshima peninsula
Tablet failure modes
An empty pycnometer
A full pycnometer
Chlorophyll a
An SVG icon for manufacturing company stubs
The P450 catalytic cycle
A specimen of Duberria lutrix
It's a really small snake
A sundew in Jonkershoek, Stellenbosch
A cockroach in Jonkershoek, Stellenbosch
Stress vs Strain graph: re-drawn with actual stress line added
Stanley Bridge in Alexandria by night during Ramadan 2009
Moronic Acid diagram
Baseball stub template pic, built from parts
An American football
Football stub template pic