User talk:LaughingVulcan

Laugh With Me

Welcome to the main Talk page of LaughingVulcan 12:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC). I'm glad you stopped by. If you're adding new comments, please add them to a new section at the bottom of the page. If you want a reply directly to your user talk page, please say so in your message - when I do I'll duplicate the response I gave on this page. I will reply here regardless, so I have a record of what I said back. Thanks again for dropping by!

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Welcome to Fishing Wikiproject

A part of this project is our Fishing Portal, furthermore, we welcome you to please participate in the nomination and voting procedures at Portal:Fishing/Nominations. Thank you and more power! Bu b0y2007 06:45, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

		The Template Barnstar
		Awsome editing on the template! themcman1 Talk 15:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you! LaughingVulcan ^{Laugh w/ Me or Logical Entries} 23:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Space ice cream

Thanks so much! I was wondering why it wasn't working.--Banana 03:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

And the odds of convincing people we're not connected...

...are what, exactly? :-)

Was The Laughing Vulcan a Romulan or Klingon bar? I can't remember offhand...--SarekOfVulcan 05:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

A Klingon Bar. The Romulan was just a visiting assassin posing as a Vulcan. I had thought about that briefly, but unless you live in the central Illinois area I'm confident Admins will see through any allegation on that measure. Don't know how public you are, but my identity on the web is fairly open. Should anyone question that, I think we could point out that if sockpuppetry was the goal a Vulcan would do something much more logical than come up with such closely connected names. ;) Or maybe we could appeal to the Vulcan consulate; it is good to see a fellow Vulcan on WP. :D LaughingVulcan 12:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. After all, editing Wikipedia is the logical thing to do...--SarekOfVulcan 14:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

And so is Googling. :-) I know I must have read this, but darned if I remember anything about it...--SarekOfVulcan 14:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

And congratulations on your perspicacity. Most people guess that my nom de plume is a reference to Sybok, Spock on Spores, or occasionally the V'tosh ka'tur. You are the first person I've encountered who correctly deduced the name came from Memory Prime on the first try.  ;) LaughingVulcan 00:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

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HHO

Thanks for your comments on the deletion discussion, but I don't understand your rationale. What do you mean by "Omitting an essential part of a reference", for instance? — Omegatron 04:42, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I can claim that something was published in the Wall Street Journal, citing you section and page number. If I fail to mention that it's a paid advertisement, that fundamentally changes the nature of the reference.

I don't understand what you mean. Where is the paid advertisement?

If I claim that something has worldwide attention, yet fail to mention that the attention is centered only in Ajo, Arizona and Henley Harbor, Newfoundland, you have every right to wonder just how worldwide it is.

This has been covered by news organizations in Florida, Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, and California, at least, but I don't know why the geography of the attention is at all relevant.

What meets "extraordinary" documentation to back an "extraordinary" claim?

What extraordinary claims? We're not saying "HHO gas disproves conventional laws of physics" and attributing it to Tampa Tribune. We're saying "Some guy claims to have invented a process that, if true, would defy conventional laws of physics". This is not an extraordinary claim at all, and is covered quite well by the numerous news sources.

I'm not implying that the subject is untrue

Parts of it are perfectly legit, and parts of it are clearly bogus.

that the sources are deliberately misleading

I doubt the news sources are deliberately misleading, especially since they contain both promotion and criticism. The wild claims are just your standard journalists-writing-about-things-they-don't-understand. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

As for HTA themselves, though, I don't see how they could not be deliberately misleading.

just that they (the references) were false to fact and therefore I wonder about the article's veracity

What references were false to what facts? I don't understand what you think is wrong with these references.

And, especially in an article that's been deleted more than once

How is that relevant? When an article is repeatedly recreated by different people you should reconsider whether the original deletions were in fact appropriate.

that still doesn't mean that I think this is something that should be in WP.

By what logic? What do you think WP is for? — Omegatron 06:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Then the article is about the person making the claims, and should be titled as such.

We did that before. We had an article on Denny Klein, but it was rightfully moved to HHO gas because the topic is the gas itself, Denny isn't notable for any other reason, and there's no accessible biographical information about him. This isn't a biography, it's an article about a hoax.

If it's about the subject (the gas,) then the the subject needs to back its extraordinary claims in an extraordinary fashion.

No it doesn't. It needs to explain what extraordinary claims are being made, attribute the extraordinary claims to the people who are making them, and then attribute criticism of those claims to the people who are criticizing them. It can also explain how these extraordinary claims violate known laws of physics.

OK, but the article still reads in format like it's legitimate.

Where?? Why do people keep saying this? You're talking about HHO gas, right?

Dunno, it might be people who simply don't understand what they're proposing flies in the face of what's known about physics and thermodynamics.

I'm sure they're just deliberately misleading the public to sell more welding equipment. We need to explain this and explain why their claims are invalid.

'It's for being an encyclopedia.  :) So, obviously, I've had problems with this being a subject for an encyclopedia and the entry being encyclopedic.

Why would you have problems with this being a subject for an encyclopedia article? Do you think we should also delete Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations, Cloudbuster, The Turk, Dean drive, and Hydrino? Wikipedia is meant to cover everything that is notable, in a neutral, verifiable way. That includes bad science, hoaxes, disputed theories, and cons. See User:Omegatron#Memory holes and Wikipedia:Replies to common_objections#Cranks.

The main features of Brown's gas, in particular, are not even pseudoscience; it just has some dubious claims made about it on the Internet. It's our job to debunk these claims in a neutral, verifiable way. But, as far as I know, Brown himself just made an interesting welding device. He doesn't claim anything in his patents that is dubious, as far as I have encountered so far. You might as well say we should delete the article about the 9/11 attacks because some people on the Internet make conspiracy theory claims about them. — Omegatron 23:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest, then, that the article topic reflect that it's a hoax.

But it does!

• "and that similar dubious claims have been made about Brown's gas and water-fuelled cars in the past, but have proven to be hoaxes."
• "and refer to HTA's demonstration vehicle as a "water-powered car" (a common hoax/urban legend that exploits popular misconceptions about the energy balance involved in electrolysis and combustion). This flaw in reasoning has been explained by Dr. Ali T-Raissi, Hydrogen Research Director of the Florida Solar Energy Center, and Sieglinde Kinne, Energy Efficiency Engineer for the Kentucky Pollution Prevention Center: Creating hydrogen from water requires an energy input, which is always greater than the energy produced by burning it."

What more do you want?

(But I can already see that this won't get past it's proponents

What proponents? No one editing the article believes in this crap. The only proponent that has edited it in a long time is Noah, and he's been silent for months. Nomen's just being disruptive by adding empty criticism and weasel words, which I and everyone else revert. This is a dispute between a bunch of skeptics and a disruptive skeptic. When he can't get his way, he nominates any related articles for deletion. Disruptively. With no justification.

I think I'm expecting that a WP article's title should truthfully reflect the subject (and if the subject is a hoax, the title should say so...)

Ah. I've seen this line of reasoning before. I don't agree with it, but the exact title of the article doesn't really matter to me. But to rename Bigfoot as Allegations of bigfoot sightings or Loch Ness Monster as Loch ness monster controversy is just stupid in my mind. The article title should be a neutral description of the topic. Naming an article Ghost doesn't imply that we believe in them. See List_of_pseudosciences_and_pseudoscientific_concepts. How many of those have "hoax", "controversy", or whatever in their titles?

Am I correct in believing that you're just looking for how to document this accurately (which includes the 'hoax' aspects,)

Basically, yes. This is a little complex of an issue, though. You can't just skim the article and vote delete.

• The claims of usefulness as a welding machine are perfectly sane and legit. Of course you can electrolyze water to make hydrogen, and then burn the hydrogen as a torch to weld and braze and whatever. Although a legitimate concept, this isn't new or unique. It's been done since before the 60s.
• The water-fuelled car thing is an obvious hoax that I've been following for a while (see water fuel cell, etc.) But when you do some research, you realize that HTA doesn't actually claim a water-fuelled car; just the reporters. HTA does make silly claims like "primary fuel source" and "gets energy from water", in their promotional videos, though.
• The claims of magnecules and other special properties are just confusing at this point, and were only made in 2006, so they haven't really been responded to yet by the scientific community. I am still in the process of wading through his paper and trying to figure out what exactly he's even claiming, and where he's getting the evidence for these claims. But it's probably just as bogus as the rest. (But until we have references saying it's bogus, all we can do is say "he claims x. X conflicts with scientific principle y".)

and Nescio is in the 'This is a hoax and nothing more' camp?

I initially thought he was a proponent trying to censor the debunking (Noah also wanted the article deleted for the same reasons), but he appears to just be a pseudoskeptic. He just wants to sprinkle "allegedly" through every sentence and "this is not supported by mainstream science" in every paragraph, without actually reading the article, providing sources, or doing any real work, just because it seems like a hoax at first glance. But, as I said, it's part hoax, part fringe physics, and part legitimate invention. To say that HHO is "allegedly a gas" is just stupid; of course it's a gas. To say that oxyhydrogen is "unproven technology" is stupid and wrong. Oxyhydrogen is legit; it's the bogus "magnecule" claims and "unique new form of water" that are dubious.

the same concerns are raised, standard G4. Which is now obviously untrue to me.

Phew. It's a lot of work to convince people, though! Lots of people just deleting from the hip.

is how long you (and others) will keep fighting on the accuracy side? If it falls off the radar, there's little to keep an editor of the other camp to come in and "factualize doublespeak" the article. But I shouldn't worry about that.

True, but that's the case with any article. There are much much more controversial articles in the project.  :-)

It sounds like you've got your hands full.

Certainly do. Help would be greatly appreciated. Lots of stuff listed to do on the talk pages. — Omegatron 01:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Daimonin

Hi LaughingVulcan. Per your request at DRV, I have userfied the deleted article Daimonin to User:LaughingVulcan/Daimonin. Please do not attempt to move this article back into article space without express approval via DRV. Apologies for this taking so long. Best, Neil ╦ 20:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyright Q

Can I ask you another wikipedia/ technicval question too please? I'd like to cut and paste a map of Melbourne from teh Melbourne page into a thesis - can I do that and refer to the Wikipedia source ? Do I have to do anything else about permission or copyright? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darren Cronshaw (talk • contribs) 04:11 (UTC), 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll reply on your Talk page... LaughingVulcan 13:50, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: Question on AfD for The Promise (Brianna Rieffel song)

Woops thanks for spotting it I completely forgot, I'm gonna remove the tags from the songs, I'll prod them after the AfD. -- lucasbfr ^talk 22:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)