User talk:Guy Macon

If I have left you a message: please answer on your talk page, as I am watching it.
If you leave me a message: I will answer on my talk page, so please add it to your watchlist.

Welcome to Guy Macon's Wikipedia talk page.

Please Click here to start a new topic.
Please post your new comments at the bottom of the comment you are replying to.
Please sign and date your entry by inserting "~~~~" at the end.
Please indent your posts with ":" if replying to an existing topic (or "::" if replying to a reply).
I will generally respond here to comments that are posted here, so you may want to watch this page until you are responded to.
I delete or collapse most messages after I have read them. The history tab will show you a complete list of all past comments.
If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated, and that the user this page belongs to may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/User_talk:Guy_Macon.

"Wikipedia's articles are no place for strong views. Or rather, we feel about strong views the way that a natural history museum feels about tigers. We admire them and want our visitors to see how fierce and clever they are, so we stuff them and mount them for close inspection. We put up all sorts of carefully worded signs to get people to appreciate them as much as we do. But however much we adore tigers, a live tiger loose in the museum is seen as an urgent problem." --WP:TIGER

New discussion

Start a new discussion thread

Only 993118807 articles left until our billionth article!

We are only 993118807 articles away from our 1,000,000,000th article... --Guy Macon

Depiction of Wikimedia Foundation destroying Wikipedia with Visual Editor, Flow, and Mobile App

--Guy Macon

Calvin discovers Wikipedia

"A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction into a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day." -- Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes. --Guy Macon

Another chart

Page views for this talk page over the last year

Detailed traffic statistics

Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet

"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from -- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time." --Neil Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

(talk page stalker) A late friend of mine put it this way: "Arguing with idiots is wasted effort. They have no minds to change; and unlike you, nothing better to do with their time." Jeh (talk) 04:25, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That works very well if turned about. "Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because you are almost always -- or are indistinguishable from -- a self-righteous sixteen-year-old possessing infinite amounts of free time." Edaham (talk) 07:20, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Spell-Checker Song: Owed to a Spell Czech Her (Ode to a spellchecker)

Eye halve a spelling chequer.
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my Rhea view,
Miss steaks aye Ken knot see.

Iran this Poe Em threw it.
Your shore lee glad two no.
It is core wrecked in every weigh,
My chequer tolled me sew.

A Czech her is a bless sing.
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right stiles ewe can reed,
And aides me when aye rime.

Eye strike a key and type a word.
And weight four it two say.
Weather eye am wrong oar write.
It shows me strait aweigh.

Each frays come posed up on my screen,
Is trussed two bee a Joule.
The check Ur pours o'er every word,
To Czech sum spelling rule.

As soon as a mist ache is maid.
It nose bee fore two long.
And eye can put the error rite.
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Bee fore a veiling cheque curs,
hour spelling mite decline.
If wee R. lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid two wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling,
Is checked with such grate flare,
There are know faults with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den,
With words sew fare too here.

2 rite with care is quite a fete,
Of witch won should bee proud;
and wee mussed dew the best week Anne,
Sew flaws argh[1] knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays.
Such soft wear four pea seize.
And why eye brake in 2 averse
With righting sure too please.

^{Attribution: I composed the above as a modification of various versions found on the web labeled "author unknown" or some such. Later I discovered this page, which appears to document the original sources, and my version is clearly a heavily modified derivative version of what is listed on that page. To whatever extent the above is my own work, I release it under the Creative Commons CC0 license. --Guy Macon}
--Guy Macon (talk) 22:21, 28 June 2018 (UTC) [ Citation Need ed ][reply]

Just because you have some money, that doesn't mean that you have to spend it.

Updated essay: see new "2016-2017 update" information near the bottom.

User:Guy Macon/Just because you have some money, that doesn't mean that you have to spend it.

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:57, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The most important^{[Citation Needed]} page on Wikipedia

User:Guy Macon/On the Diameter of the Sewer cover in front of Greg L’s house‎ --Guy Macon (talk) 16:00, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. We are biased.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once said:

"Wikipedia’s policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn’t.[2][3]"

So yes, we are biased towards science and biased against pseudoscience.
We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathic medicine.
We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
We are biased towards cargo planes, and biased against cargo cults.
We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
We are biased towards laundry soap, and biased against laundry balls.
We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
We are biased towards evolution, and biased against creationism.
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
We are biased towards Mendelian inheritance, and biased against Lysenkoism.

And we are not going to change.

--Guy Macon (talk) 09:43, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"...It looks like Wikipedia is really pulling out all the stops in their latest appeal to their users..."

Needed: Wikipedia Has Posted An Appeal Asking For One Night Of Physical Intimacy From Each User --Guy Macon (talk) 16:03, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Puffingbilly

Even though he's pretty clueless about how to be a good editor, I think you're being unnecessarily harsh, essentially cutting off any possibility of moving him toward being a better contributor. He knows stuff and means well, so it's a loss if we can't convert him to being productive here. Dicklyon (talk) 06:15, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For any talk page watchers who might be interested in this, this concerns Talk:Delta-sigma modulation.

Fair enough. I will stop interacting with him and leave the article alone for at least six months. You have my permission to undo any of my edits in that area if you think that will help. I hope that you are right about the potential for being a productive editor and I can see that what I am doing is not helping. I am going to set a reminder to look into this again in six months and again at nine months. One way or the other, the article has to end up being properly sourced instead of big chunks of it being solely based upon puffingbilly's original research. If it isn't properly sourced by, say, December of 2019, I plan on deleting the unsourced material and replacing it with material based upon reliable sources. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:16, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest a much earlier deadline of next Friday. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 11:23, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Are you offering to help, or just want to hasten the driving away of that user? Dicklyon (talk) 22:36, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Roxy, Dicklyon is a veteran editor who I have worked with many times in the past. If he says he want me to back off and let him try to handle the situation, I am glad to do so, just as he would do if I made such a request. Why the rush? It's not like Puffingbilly is trying to get people to drink bleach or not vaccinate their kids. He posted some original research on Delta-sigma modulation that is for the most part technically correct, he thinks he owns the page and that he own anything he adds to Wikipedia articles, he refuses to follow our rules, and he has a bad habit of playing the victim. Yes, this is annoying, but none of it needs to be fixed this week or even this month. Let Dicklyon work the problem. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:46, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Gotta ask

Defeating cameras in Chinese hotel rooms sounds like the kind of skill that people all over the world are likely to need at home soon, so might as well bite... Wnt (talk) 22:24, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For any talk page watchers, we are talking about this post:

"I am in a situation where I occasionally have to go the China and fix a production problem. This is in the toy industry so there is a big concern with industrial espionage as well as government censorship. My connection is through a corporate LAN or through the network at my hotel, and I assume that they eavesdrop on everything. I typically buy a computer with a CD locally, boot Tails (operating system) from a CD-ROM, and make my connection to the outside world through Tor (anonymity network). I have WP:IPBE, which allows me to edit Wikipedia.

I do not believe that it is possible for them to selectively block or eavesdrop on my Internet connection (ask me if you want to learn about defeating cameras in the room). Of course I am in a privileged position, because hundreds of workers are sitting idle waiting for me to fix the production issue. A Chinese national might very well get a visit from the authorities asking about his encrypted connection. And I don't do anything that the authorities would object to, like editing our Falun Gong or 1989 Tiananmen Square protests pages or anything political."[4]

Let's assume that I am in a Chinese hotel room or conference room, and I have a reasonable suspicion that there may be cameras, microphones, or (given the amount of manpower available) even a human looking though a peephole.

The first question is whether it is OK to take visible countermeasures. Chinese nationals can get in trouble for doing things that hinder surveillance, whereas as a toy engineer trying to evade surveillance is pretty much expected of me.

The next question is what to protect. If I am already logged on to Wikipedia and doing the normal sort of edits I do, who cares if a camera is watching? They can access my editing history and get the same information.

When I do have something to protect, like entering a passphrase or reading an email about a toy design, I cover myself and the computer with a sheet or bedspread to defeat cameras, and use the Tails[5] on-screen keyboard[6] to defeat keyloggers. I save everything on a Veracrypt[7] encrypted thumb drive[8].

There are a few other countermeasures that I personally don't bother with.

You can use an Ironkey thumb drive[9] and put your Veracrypt-encrypted data on that. The big advantage here is that if, say, airport security compels you to give up your Ironkey password the Veracrypt-encrypted data cannot be distinguished from an unused thumb drive.

You can scan for cameras. Low-end scanner:[10] High-end scanner:[11] I just pulled those out of an Amazon search -- I don't know if those particular models are any good. I do know that the basic principle of Nonlinear junction detectors really do find pretty much any bug that you are likely to encounter unless you are part of ISIS and are going up against the CIA. But you should still hide under the covers. I hear that it also protects you from monsters.

Finally, make all of your passwords "Swordfish."[12] They will never guess that one.[13] --Guy Macon (talk) 05:49, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget your Rick and Morty modality. Walk around naked all the time. The internet police are notoriously homophobic. Edaham (talk) 06:03, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Everybody does that, don’t they? -Roxy, the dog. wooF 13:48, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/10/harpo-marx-habit-shedding-clothing-random-times/ --Guy Macon (talk) 14:06, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting! But none of it would stop Van Eck phreaking, unless you're completely cocooned in a tinfoil bedsheet. (also Terahertz radiation would penetrate the sheet, but I don't know if it could read the screen; still, it would show them what you typed on the on-screen keyboard) Or, they could just use a camera and look through the sheet -- there was a Nature paper where an image was focused through a piece of chicken; I didn't find that just now but this is the kind of thing. I don't know about ultrasound; you can do six inch resolution with an Arduino [14] but I don't know what you can do with extreme frequencies and superior equipment. But the easiest thing for them is to wait for 5G, when every phone will use terahertz to image its entire surroundings, supposedly to find the best path to the network. [15] If that also means that they can target the user's body with precise frequencies of terahertz to displace specific transcription factors from DNA to cause tailor-made disease conditions, they won't complain. At least, not for long... Wnt (talk) 18:03, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My threat model is someone using standard surveillance equipment in a conference room or hotel room, not someone doing a TEMPEST attack. Nonetheless, the above is an interesting security question.

A Terahertz imager wouldn't show them what you typed on the on-screen keyboard. That would work with a smartphone or other device that uses a touch screen, but a standard laptop running TAILS uses the trackpad to "type" on the onscreen keyboard. It might be worth while moving your fingers about between letter/numbers entered to make it a lot harder to figure out what you are typing.

I think (but have not tested) that the issue of an LCD leaking the image could be dealt with with two countermeasures: [1] A jammer that swamps the signal with noise. [2] A transparent RF shield. I already have a bunch of those in my lab for shipping boards in; I buy them here: [16] I am going to try slipping one over the screen and one over the base/keyboard of a laptop and then take some measurements and see how much it reduces emissions. Like I said before, I am not an ISIS agent with the CIA after me, but I am reasonably likely to end up in a hotel room or conference room that has off-the-shelf hidden cameras and microphones. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:38, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

De-google-ify Internet

I just found out about this site:

https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/

Looks promising, doesn't it? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:49, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your help desk question

You did not get a response to this question. Do you have any other ideas? I'm wondering if WP:VPT would be the place to ask.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:53, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Progress so far: meta:Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Pine/Continuation of educational video and website series#Measures of success discussion, copied from this page on English Wikipedia

You might want to go to the meta page and post a message that you are also interested in the answer. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:15, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not interested. I just want to make sure that if I can help someone get an answer to an unanswered question, I can. Or if the question was answered elsewhere, I can verify that. It is useful, I suppose, to indicate a solution was found so people who happen to see archives don't wonder. Or if they are using the archives to find answers, that is helpful also. And I see you posted the information.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:12, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[ off-topic -- re MC14500 etc ]

hello, Guy Macon. I am curious regarding something unimportant -- NOT a crucial issue such as the Diameter of a Sewer cover. And it's not an official Wikipedia matter, so forgive me for approaching you through this channel.

You and I are both familiar with the MC14500 one-bit processor. And on the Internet I have a certain obscure notoriety for inventing and building a related device, a one-bit processor but one which conspicuously *lacks* an MC14500. It's even possible you've heard of it: http://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/One-bit%20computer/One-bit%20computer.html

Sometimes I do web searches to discover places where my web site, laughtonelectronics.com, has been mentioned, and the results can be interesting, or even weird. One result I've seen repeatedly (from google, for instance) is a link to the WP page on the MC14500 which you helped to write. To be clear, when I google laughtonelectronics.com, one of the results is a link to the WP page on the 4500.

I'm curious to know why. I'm unable to find the string laughtonelectronics.com in the WP article or in the edit and talk pages. It ... just ... isn't ... there! Maybe the link results from some eerie clairvoyance on google's part.

I thought maybe you would know the explanation. If so, will you please very kindly share it with me? Thanks!

Best regards, Jeff 199.48.64.83 (talk) 20:18, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fascinating! Besides my work in the area of microprocessors and microcontrollers, I have also does a fair bit of work reverse engineering the Google algorithms. Keep in mind that the actual algorithms are a closely guarded secret and that if Google's software thinks you are trying to figure out their algorithms they send you and only you wrong results in order to mislead you, so the following is no more than an educated guess.

First, Google analyzed laughtonelectronics.com. Because it is linked to a lot [17][18][19] Google then decided that http://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/One-bit%20computer/One-bit%20computer.html was the page that the most people were searching for.

Next, Google tried to figure out what the term "laughtonelectronics" means. It checked dictionaries, Wikipedia pages, etc. No actual definition found. Not even "A laughtonelectronics is a..." on some random page. Then it looked for words and phrases that are often found close to laughtonelectronics on various pages. One of the most common turned out to be "1-bit / One-bit", but that didn't help Google much because it is used so many places. See [20]

Still trying to figure out what what the term "laughtonelectronics" means, Google found another word that is often found along with it; "MC14500". And it found that http://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/One-bit%20computer/One-bit%20computer.html has a link to the Wikipedia Motorola MC14500B page. And it found that pages that talk about laughtonelectronics often mention "1-bit / One-bit" and that that pages that talk about MC14500 also tend to mention "1-bit / One-bit"

Based upon all of the above, Google's algorithm correctly deduced that people searching for laughtonelectronics would be likely to be interested in the Wikipedia Motorola MC14500B page. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:18, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Barring a simpler explanation, I thought it must be something like that. Interesting subject! Drop me an email if you like -- address is on my site.

(BTW, maybe the Wiki page should link to *me* -- in the One-Bit footnotes, I mean).199.48.64.83 (talk) 01:32, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Woah

I was just dropping by to thank you for your reinforcement of a recent warning I left to a user on their talk page. However, I was instead quite stricken by #Yes. We are biased.

Did you just casually type that up? Is that actually original thought? Or did you copy it from somewhere else? If it's the former, brilliant. Just brilliant. Either way, I would very much like to copy it to my talk page with attribution to whoever wrote it.

Best,

~Swarm~ {talk} 08:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is 100% original thought, not copied from anywhere else. I tweak it from time to time; the latest version is at User talk:Guy Macon#Yes. We are biased.

Regarding copying it, The things I write on Wikipedia are all released under a less restrictive license than Wikipedia uses. Here is my standard licensing notice (which will always be on my user page):

Unless otherwise specified, everything I (Guy Macon) write on Wikipedia or anywhere else on the Internet is released under the Creative Commons CC0 "No Rights Reserved" license. See https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en and Creative Commons license#Zero for details. To the extent possible under law, I waive all copyright and related or neighboring rights to my work. You are free to use them for any purpose, including web pages, newsgroup posts, emails, and letters to the Los Angeles Times. I do NOT require you to give me credit. I would prefer that if somebody asks where you got it, you tell them, but that is up to you. You are even free to pretend you wrote it, just as everyone else is free to mock you when they find out what you did.

Every product I design and every program I write (other than things I do for pay and transfer ownership to the buyer) are released under similar licenses, so that nobody is ever hindered from reusing my work because of copyright, patent, or trademark concerns. I believe that the world is a better place when everything is free to reuse, and I am willing to take a financial hit to make it so.

I always find it amusing when someone simply cuts and pastes something I wrote (which I approve of and support) and then someone else, instead of asking where they got it, blasts them for not including attribution. Some people just can't wrap their minds around the concept that, just as some things are under a more restrictive license than CC BY-SA 3.0, some things are under a less restrictive license. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! That's seriously an impressive piece of eloquence. Good work, man. All the better that it has been created as an essay. And, seriously, nothing but respect for your copyright stance. That's excellent and selfless. Of course, I will absolutely provide attribution as it is simply credit where credit is due. I did happen to see the original thread that you posted this in (via the essay's creation edit summary). Yikes. In my humble opinion, people like you, who put up with and actively fight against the "POV-pushing of lunatic charlatans" are the lifeblood of the project. Keep up the good work. Regards, ~Swarm~ {talk} 06:49, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ANI notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. See WP:ANI#Asking for advice to avoid being accused of edit warring. EllenCT (talk) 19:00, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Yes. We are biased.

I have taken the liberty of immortalizing your wonderful poem as a Wikipedia essay. Nowak Kowalski (talk) 18:10, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. Countless. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 21:58, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome. Also now known as WP:GOODPOV or WP:GOODBIAS. Though, I do wonder if would be better tagged as an information page, or an explanatory supplement to policy, rather than a simple, toothless, expression of individual opinion. Best, ~Swarm~ {talk} 06:50, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That would be fine with me, but I would rather someone else made it happen because I have a COI. For some odd reasons I usually agree with myself...

If you talk to yourself, you aren't crazy. If you talk to yourself and you answer, you aren't crazy. If you talk to yourself, you answer, and then you say "huh? Sorry. I wasn't paying attention", you just might be crazy. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:09, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, for those who like my opinions, please see WP:1AM, which is one of my most popular opinions on Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:09, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]