User talk:MjolnirPants

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Godotskimp (talk | contribs) at 16:48, 7 September 2018 (→‎Hello: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Note to self: Don't trust Notepad++'s spellchecker.

If you came here to ask me to weigh in on some discussion on an overtly political page that does not overlap with fringe or conspiracy theories, allow me to save you some time: My answer is "No".
I may return to editing certain political articles when the topic has returned to a normal level of civility and professionalism. I will not be jumping back into the swamp of butthurt and stupidity that it now consists of, no matter how much you may want my opinion.



Archives
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If you are seeking info on my alt account:
MPants at work
you can find my contributions from that account here
Yodaism

"Mock the consensus you must not."

— ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants, 2 September 2018, [1]


Trouting

Petting my ego

If you want to rub my ego instead, feel free.

Nightwish

I'm going to assume you're familiar with the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish. Do you like them? -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, can't stand em! But I'm just tickled pink to know that at least you know who they are. I'm really more of an Arch Enemy circa Gossow type. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Full disclosure: I am an actual and old-school metal fan, so unless I explicitly state otherwise, it is safe to assume that anything I say about any metal band, good or bad, is insanely hyperbolic and should not be taken at face value. In this case "can't stand them" means "I wouldn't complain one bit if you put them on at high volume in a car in which we were both travelling, but after the first album ended I would insist on listening to a different band." ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:48, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Love it! I can't say I've ever been a die hard heavy metal fan, just a sixties rock'n roll guy. Led Zeppelin, Pretty Maids, Metallica, etc. Lars Ulrich is Danish, so he's okay with me. He was young when I first moved there. BTW, what's the story behind the two usernames, MjolnirPants and MPants at work? -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 05:41, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Replied via email re usernames. As for music, I'm not exclusively a fan of metal. I've been a musician (piano, guitar, violin, viola, bass guitar, contra bass, sax and a few others) for several decades, so my tastes run wide. But metal was something I discovered entirely on my own, and introduced to my friends when I was younger, so it will always hold a special place in my heart. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:53, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome, I'm also a multi-instrumentist. In the last decade I mostly specialized on guitar though (although I was playing guitar less virtuosely when younger). But then again I collected a number of guitar styles so variety is present... As for metal, I can appreciate very well produced albums such as Cathedral's Forest of Equilibrium, Alice in Chain's Dirt, etc. I tend to rarely play my own metal compositions these days. As for Led Zeppelin, that's classic rock to me. I like select music from every genre. —PaleoNeonate – 06:33, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Damn good stuff there, though AiC isn't metal, but Grunge. Which I also love because I was a teen when it first appeared. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:17, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nightwish is no longer Nightwish without Tarja. O3000 (talk) 10:13, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Amen! -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 15:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the below list is dark. I won't add this to your list, but I get a kick when hard bands switch genre. Here’s a cut where early metal guitarist Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck AKA Yngwie J. Malmsteen starts with an acoustic version of Air on the G-string based on Bach (missing notes here and there), and then switches guitars 4.5 minutes in and lets loose. I just enjoy the contrast.[2]. O3000 (talk) 01:36, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I’m going off track here. But, saw your mention of folk in your edit summary. Most Simon and Garfunkel fans (of which I’m one) would be appalled by metal band Disturbed’s version of The Sound of Silence. But, they may have never thought about the darkness hidden under the harmony in so many of their songs: suicide, isolation, purposelessness, war. (Even the sweet sounding Scarborough Fair has the anti-war song Canticle in the background.) Disturbed simply exposed some of the darkness. [3] O3000 (talk) 14:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(This is a user talk page, Off track is fine.)
Well, I was referring to traditional folk (sometimes called ethnic or world music), which is generally defined as music that arose within a particular culture in isolation from other cultures, in a pre-modern setting. Meanwhile, S&G is contemporary folk music, which is generally definable as folk music (itself defined by contrast to formal or classical music) from a contemporary time period, or as music that arose from the Folk revival in the 1960's US. It's a much looser definition, even though it has an easily identifiable sound in the modern Western world (John Denver, S&G, etc.). Even with ethnic flair (Israel Kamakawiwoʻole anyone?), it's still part of a single genre. Compare that to traditional folk music, which ranges from Tuvan throat singing to Scottish jigs to Meso-American ballads, and that's just the form of traditional folk that incorporates modern instrumentation and song structure! It could, quite rightly, be divided into a different genre for each ethnicity it draws from, and then additional genres.
So how does any of that relate to metal? Well, I'm glad I asked. Metal is and always has been about defiance. Politically, defiance is often associated with ethnic traditions and even nationalism. As a result, just like with political groups defined by defiance, it frequently looks to the past for inspiration and ways to define itself. Hence you get genres like African Metal, Brazilian Metal, Japanese (Folk) Metal* and perhaps most famously, Viking Metal. These groups are all not only influenced by the same traditions and cultures as the traditional folk musician, but share the same categorical structure; they're all part of an identifiable genre that could rightfully be split upon ethnic lines.
But then, with things like the cover you provided (which was cool; I'd never heard it before), what we have is a reflection of modern society. The influence of western culture is all over it, from the structure and melodies (part of the original song) to the neoclassical/symphonic instrumentation. It's certainly folk (even the neoclassical instrumentation is done in a way that's clearly a folk appropriation of classical instrumentation), and it's by a metal band. But I don't think it's actually metal. It's reflective of modern society, modern musical norms and -like any cover song- it's a sort of virtue signal that Disturbed is a S&G fan. It's a rock song. While Rock and metal are certainly related, they're related in the same way that a Satanist and his Catholic father are; neither one really wants to admit it, though the elder will sometimes try to appropriate some aspects of the younger's style, and the younger will unconsciously embody many traits of the elder.
Still a cool cover though. I never much liked Disturbed, but I have to admit that their cover game is strong. (Compare their version of Land of Confusion to the version by In Flames, normally a far better band. Disturbed wins that one by a fair bit. Contrast that by comparing the cringe-worthy weakness and pretension of Disturbed's big hit single to the similarly-melodic Clouds Connected by In Flames, which is so much better that it almost hurts to compare them.) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:43, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
*

I added the designation of folk to this because Japan is one of the places generally associated with non-folk metal, along with the US and Scandinavia.

O3000, I really appreciate your observations about Disturbed's cover. My thoughts exactly. My wife is very conservative, musically speaking: soft rock, classical, etc. When I first presented Disturbed's version for her appraisal, and described how the original is actually a rather dark and dystopian song, she then listened to it and was blown away. She said "It's different, but really better." Bingo! Both versions are good, but Disturbed gets to the soul of the song. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I guess you need to know how to view the video. With Simon and Gar, the volume is low. With Disturbed, turn up the volume. With Arianna Grande, mute the volume and just watch. O3000 (talk) 19:31, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That was Anna Kendrick, not Ariana Grande. And since this is the video for it, I'm going to suggest also closing your eyes before watching it. That being said, I could watch Ariana Grande with the sound off all day. Just don't tell my wife. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:16, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Music

For anyone watching this thread (or commenting in it), I'm going to occasionally post a great or interesting metal song, or a song related to metal in an obvious or interesting way. Feel free to add your own.

Metal

Metal Related

Other cool music

Further discussion

Both of these were beautiful, and I'd heard neither. Turrentine was one of my favourites, thanks to Taxi (TV series) Roxy, the dog. barcus 08:07, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm adding the festival compilation from which the sleepers were taken, with other memorable performances... —PaleoNeonate – 11:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not a Jazz fan myself (most people who know me IRL are shocked by this, given my love of progressive and experimental genres), but I can certainly appreciate it. And once in a while, I feel the need to put on something different and just soak in it for a while... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:58, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If you’re going to add MoTown, try this for rock blues. This was Beth Hart’s heroin period, which she is over. Guitarist borrows from Hendrix. Mr. Hyde peeks out at 1:20 and she switches back and forth between Jekyl and Hyde. Hyde wins in the end. As I said, I like contrasts. [4] O3000 (talk) 19:52, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You know, I had no idea who Beth Hart was when I read your comment. I liked the song a lot, so I looked her up, and found her big hit which I remember my DI in bootcamp really liked (I liked it to). Dude used to listen to it like every night after lights out. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:10, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
She cleaned up her drug problems and performed for Obama at the Kennedy Center Honors, same year Zep was honored. Since Joe Cocker was added, I had to mention an interesting video. This is a live performance at the Apollo of "You are so beautiful" with Cocker singing and the author, Billy Preston, at the piano. The interesting part is when Patti LaBelle appears from stage right and shakes the timbers. I wouldn’t add it. I just like the contrast between Cocker’s bronchitis voice and LaBelle’s soaring vocals. [5] Now, if you want to hear a serious gravelly voice, there’s Tom Waits doing "Tom Traubert's Blues", with apologies to any Aussies watching.[6] O3000 (talk) 01:03, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've added Roger Waters' The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking to the list. It's a whole album (42 minutes), and an absolute classic. Kind of a concept album with a story running through it, and if you've never heard it before you're in for a treat. Enjoy! nagualdesign 22:47, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) @Nagualdesign: one of my shifts on the railway started at 05:01...guess the solo whistled  :) —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 23:12, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ha! I haven't heard this in years. I listened to it for the first time when I was 15 or 16, and the cover caught my eye. Damn good stuff. Damn good. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:59, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, the album art's quite an eye-popper, especially when you're that age, which is exactly the same age I was when I first heard it too - a quarter of a century ago! Good times. nagualdesign 00:05, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh, Roger Waters. Thanks for the link as I'm not familiar with it. I took someone I’d just met in NYC to the wall concert in Berlin after the wall fell. We got there early, hung around and enjoyed the camaraderie. But, we left before it started, took the subway to what was East Berlin, walked down the main Straße (which was papered with porn shop posters – even the opera house), took a taxi to the Moscow Café and watched Waters on TV. O3000 (talk) 00:23, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My favorite Waters/Pink Floyd material is Dogs (Pigs song especially)Animals (Dogs song especially), then Dark Side of The Moon, I think (although all is good, of course). —PaleoNeonate – 01:17, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's a lot of music that I absolutely love that I doubt would go down well among metal fans. Frank Zappa's my favourite recording artist of all time. Radiohead are my favourite living band (I expect everyone likes at least a handful of their stuff). I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest something by John Grant... nagualdesign 22:08, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
...That link (above) is to Pale Green Ghosts, the first JG track I ever heard, and it's also the title track to his second album. The link is the first of a full playlist of the whole album. If you don't want to listen to the whole thing then just try track 3, "GMF" - another one of my favourites. Warning: explicit lyrics. nagualdesign 22:18, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Listening to the link above now. You can really hear the retro influence that's so pervasive today. There's a lot to unpack in it, though, so I can't say much beyond that until I hear more. Good stuff, though. Fun to listen to. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:44, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it's kind of '80s style, but with arguably better production values, mixed with '90s dance music and other stuff. It's the Icelandic electro-pop influence, apparently. There's a remix of PGG called "Pale Green Ghosts (NO CEREMONY /// Remix)" that you might like if you've got a kick-ass sound system. nagualdesign 22:55, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That was a tour de force. I love a track of epic proportions. Okay, I wasn't going to post any Zappa but as long tracks go, this is one of the best: Yo' Mama. nagualdesign 00:44, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that takes me back to high school. Not that I was in high school in '79, people just used to sing that song to me a lot... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:22, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you should never smoke in pyjamas.[FBDB] nagualdesign 03:38, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was in primary school in '79, at that point I recall being more interested in The Goodies. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:48, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I turned 2 in '79, so you're both old gits from where I'm standing! nagualdesign 10:57, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Geezer!"
I was born in '79, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it, geezer! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:09, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Touché. nagualdesign 13:11, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good Lord. In ’79, I had already been working as a programmer for 12 years. My GF about that time was taught to drive a shift by Jerry Garcia (before he became an ice cream). O3000 (talk) 13:21, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That... Actually makes me feel much better, thanks! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:30, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My sole purpose in life is to age to allow others to feel better about their age relative to mine. Thus far, I’ve been highly successful at ageing. O3000 (talk) 16:21, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of ageing, and music, it’s interesting to see how some artists change over time. Here’s Mark Knopfler, rather mellow compared to days in Dire Straits. Your DI might like it if he ever indulged in mellowocity. Nice fingerstyle. [7] O3000 (talk) 18:12, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
About "Papillon" above, with edit summary "try to guess what the letters mean :)" (not sure if anyone noticed) I'll answer: the sequence of letters is a frequency-sorted list of letters in French. —PaleoNeonate – 16:02, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Those damned French with their stupid baguettes and their silly accent... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:49, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Now I want baguette with cheese and red wine (I know French but am not French, BTW, poutine is more stereotypical). —PaleoNeonate – 17:53, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Came across this thread, saw a few tracks/bands I very much like, and decided to take the invitation above to add a few. Fear Factory in metal, Melt Banana for metal related, and some various loud electronic tracks (when I'm in the mood for something loud over the past decade or so, it's been decreasingly analog). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:56, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That Tactical-Sekt song gave me a flashback to drinking scotch in a goth club in Raleigh, SC at age 21, feeling completely out of place with my shaved head, gub'mint issued mustache and BDUs while hoping like all hell that goth girls like a man in uniform, too. (Looking back, I can say with assurance that they do indeed.) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:19, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Did not know there is (was?) a goth club in Raleigh. When I lived there the only place [that I knew of] playing anything unusual was Kings (unless you venture to the other parts of the Triangle). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure it was more of a "goth night" than a dedicated goth club. I seem to recall there being a line-dancing thing there one night. If I'm not mistaken, the club was called The Church. Don't ask me where in the city it was though, I never drove to it, just caught rides (which we spent bragging about how many girls we'd take home). If you need any evidence of this, note how I put it in SC instead of NC because yeah, apparently, my sense of geography (and memory) really is that bad. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, I see you’ve added The Chain. Carried it on my iPod for years. Not as dramatic, but I always liked Landslide. Doesn’t say so in the WP article, but I’ve heard it was written with her father in mind. For some reason, the song seems particularly important to her. Many artists get attached to particular pieces. Like Ainsi soit je to Mylene Farmer. I liked Buckingham’s guitar work a lot. But, there exist better. O3000 (talk) 00:35, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to say that all you kids have ruined this Jazz related thread. Humph. Also, I appear to be at least twenty years older than the oldest of you. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 09:06, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If you’re talking about physical age, I’d say that’s highly unlikely. I just need to listen to recent music to stay young at heart. But since I’m here, another piece (definitely not jazz) with a strident woman. The woman stalking the stage is Alison Mosshart. Jack White lays down his guitar and returns to his first love.[8]. O3000 (talk) 11:38, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm standing with O3k on this one. Listening to music from a metal duo young enough to still think pretending to hump each other is the height of physical humor makes me feel like I'm not as old as my joints keep telling me I am. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:21, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Age is thing. You have to work on a thing. Or, it controls you instead of vice-versa. I posted this on my own forum on the death of Chester Bennington. [9] O3000 (talk) 00:09, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Really? Psychosocial is your "best" of Slipknot? Their self titled album was my workout music for like two whole years. It got to the point where I could take a PT test and play the record back in my head by memory as I ran. GMGtalk 02:05, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@GreenMeansGo: I love Psychosocial too, but I think MjolnirPants linked the wrong video. Alexis Jazz (talk) 07:54, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well GMG, Alexis is right in that the Nyan cat version is the far superior one, but I meant what I said. There was a bit of a rivalry between Slipknot and Mudvayne back in the day, and I was best friends and bandmates for a while with the guy who used to sell Mudvayne their pot back even further in the day. So I just never really got into Slipknot. By the time they released Psychosocial I'd gotten to the point of apathy with respect to that sort of thing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:38, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FTN Closure

This is a subtle hint that I'm not having a drawn out discussion about this. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:43, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hi. I must admit, you're the last person I expected to revert, but I think that your edit summary and the closure reason was somewhat over-dramatic. I'm all for fun and games, especially when it comes to silly fringe/conspiracy theories, but I only meant that I don't think the FTN was created so that we can chat about whatever loony theory this week brings upon us; it's about discussing which articles might be in danger, and having editors be on the look-out, at the very least. I don't think that's reason enough to close an entire discussion. You're more experienced there, so I won't edit that topic any further.

Edit: In your revert, you mentioned that I asked for the discussion to be closed. I never wrote anything like that. And, ignoring the big red warning, I have to mention: somebody got butthurt? Really? Who? byteflush Talk 03:48, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Byteflush: The whole point of closing it was to not have an argument over whether it should be closed. If you take exception to what I said as I closed it that's your prerogative, but I both stand by what I said, and would direct you to User:MjolnirPants/clarify. The next time you think I'm being overly dramatic, just save me the trouble of linking you again and go there yourself, thanks. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:43, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Ok, I know you closed this one, but I just wanted to apologize. I was in a bad mood and, errrm... I shouldn't drink and edit... But from now on, an image of you smiling and handing over a beer is permanently stuck in my head. Just don't hand over too many beers. =) byteflush Talk 00:39, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I used to fear that people could figure out which of my edits were made while drinking. After much thought, my solution was to never edit sober. O3000 (talk) 01:43, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Aaaand, just like that, you gave away my secret, too. =D Cheers! =) byteflush Talk 02:07, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm perfectly fine with continuing this conversation. Possibly over a beer or two. :D Well, remotely, anyways. I can't afford a globe-trotting pub crawl. Although now that I think of it, the WMF International Pub Crawl would be an Wiki-Event I could get behind. And under... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:16, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a question of moderation ([[11]]). —PaleoNeonate – 07:51, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I can personally attest to the truth of the Ballmer peak (which we really need an article on): I once spent two weeks at work trying to get working some geometric code with hooks into system processes that were exposed in the winAPI, but not documented. Then, over the weekend, I had a few drinks and hopped into TFS to work on a personal project a bit, had an epiphany ("how would I expose them?"), followed by another epiphany ("It's easier to do it in two dimensions twice than to do it in three, once.") and banged out a solution in 20 minutes. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:03, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I can confirm about WinME's failure, so, something to dose carefully... —PaleoNeonate – 14:26, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I once had to fix a WinME system that would bluescreen every time I opened the cd-rom tray. Turns out, ME couldn't handle the system reporting the tray open; which is what it's supposed to do, though the vast majority of the time the boards don't bother, they just report the drive unavailable (which windows started interpreting as "open" after manufacturers kept doing it that way). So it turns out WinME worked with the common lazy hack, but not the way it was supposed to work.
Oh, and you know how the board reported the tray open? With a WinAPI call. I ended up having to replace the motherboard, though it was a cheap system, so no big loss. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:31, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I’d forgotten xkcd existed, possibly due to my brain processing an SQL injection exploit. [12]. O3000 (talk) 16:26, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
10+ years ago already! Little Bobby Tables must be in college by now. — JFG talk 18:29, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And may soon be old enough to edit Wikipedia... —PaleoNeonate – 18:34, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Probably a few years too old to edit commons, I think... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:54, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well played! 👏👏👏 — JFG talk 19:26, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Entropic craziness

I never thanked you for this [13], but I can assure you my username's origins are about as banal as they come.

I've been following the insane discussion over at the Commons, and I'm glad to see some editors, including you, still weighing in. It's kind of Orwellian, the way in which a mistreated editor has been turned into the aggressor and an admin who behaved horribly is now the aggrieved party, owed an apology. Add to that the backwards accusations of racism, the xenophobic response to any input from here, and the overall tone of "this was no big deal," and it's readily apparent to me why people are driven away from contributing. In any case, your last post drives to the heart of the matter (a complete lack of recognition from Yann about why what he did, and has done, is so problematic) while eschewing the temptation to get distracted by all the side drama. It's just really an ugly discussion, so I appreciate seeing some voices of reason continuing to weigh in. Grandpallama (talk) 18:10, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Grandpallama: Thanks! I appreciate the vote of confidence. :) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:16, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I second that emotion. Crazy days indeed. nagualdesign 18:20, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You've got mail

Hello, MjolnirPants. 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 remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.Doug Weller talk 19:43, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Time delay

User_talk:EEng#X-day/week_"embargo"_on_articles_on_breaking-news_topics. I should say that I've primarily thought of this as applying to sources used in notability discussions only, not general content in articles. EEng 15:22, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@EEng: (I love pinging you because I always pronounce your handle as rhyming with "ping" so that I'm "pinginging".) See here for where I'm discussing it with Masem. Please weigh in: your opinions on drama and what to do with it tend to be rather useful, in my experience. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:31, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Follow my link above to find a list of people who wanted to be pinged on this. EEng 15:36, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think a huge debate is a good idea right now, and the more editors involved, the more opinions, the less that gets done. I think bringing you and Masem into the discussion could help, but (and this should not be taken as saying anything about the editing or character of anyone else who's opined on the matter) too many more voices would just muddy the waters. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:04, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: There has been no proposal yet: I want to make one. When there's a solid proposal, I think it would then be time to invite a wider community discussion. Clearly, there's some community support for it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:10, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I remember that, but per a recent AFD, I only support if it contains a clause frowning heavily on nominating for deletion before a week is up, and those noms better not cotains NOTNEWS as a rationale. Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 21:06, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
L3X1, I don't know that we'll be able to work such a clause in there, but I'd be happy to gaddeh up da boyz and "pay a visit" to anyone nommin' an article jus' a cuppel days afta makin' it per WP:NOTNEWS, if yannowhaddeyemeen. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:12, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Infowars being labelled far-right by RSes is factually inaccurate

Its hard to put into precise words, more a gut feeling. But as I take it to mean far right means (in essence) fascist nationalism with an emphasis on ethno/reactionaryisn. Now whilst infowars may well represent some of this (they are mildly nationalist) I am not sure that just being anti-immigration or a ranting loon (and here is another reason, I do not believe that Jones actually means or believes half the things he says, it is a scam) Makes you a nationalist (or white supremacist). Nor am I sure that he has displayed any real fascist tendencies. In fact I think Jones (and info wars) pretty much bends over backwards to whistle without saying "Fido". Is he a conservative, yes, with a big C. But I see nothing in his (and lets face it infowars is Jones) in his rhetoric that implies extreme racist or fascist views. Thus whilst he may well (well is) playing up to white supremacists and neo-nazis I do not think he himself is one.Slatersteven (talk) 12:56, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Slatersteven: Thank you for your response. I'm going to think about it for a bit. If you're interested (let me know) I'll post a response to this later, otherwise I'll keep it to myself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:17, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Your talk page.Slatersteven (talk) 13:17, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Unnecessary TBANs?

Is it just me, or does TBANning SPAs seem like unnecessary bureaucracy? On ANI today I !voted against such a proposal on an editor who was apparently trolling Talk:God; then I scroll up and find another account was recently TBANned from "Christianity". But that account will almost certainly either never edit again, or immediately violate the ban and be blocked. WP:RESTRICT is too clogged up already (TreCoolGuy (Sanction originally imposed on sock Zzaxx1) -- seriously!? The editor was already blocked 11 months before the TBAN was applied!) without stuff like this. (Might as well courtesy-ping User:Ritchie333 even though obviously I'm not blaming him. It's just a general tendency I've noticed.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:36, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Hijiri88: Is the issue you see one of TBans being used where indefs are more appropriate, or of TBans being given out too liberally? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:40, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind, I found your comment at ANI and I can see it is the latter.
I'm not familiar with that case (for some reason, God is not on my watchlist... weird) so I'll not comment on it yet. As for the Ctmv case, it was initially me who reported them at ANI. This was an editor who consistently spammed walls of text to the talk page, attempted to dictate by fiat what the consensus was to more experienced editors, was arguing and editing from a distinct and non-neutral POV, engaged in edit warring, insulted and belittled other editors, misrepresented sources, relied upon decidedly unreliable sources and generally couldn't even put together a coherent argument.
Let me tell you about my friend, Jay (not his real name). Open the collapse to read it all.
Extended content

Jay is 41 years old and still lives with his parents. Jay has had several girlfriends, but none for more than a year or two. Jay is an amazingly talented multi-instrument musician with a ton of knowledge of recent music history, technique, theory and equipment. Jay has never held a job for more than 6 months, and has never held a job appropriate to his degree (a BFA in Music). Jay has never been in the military, nor left the state of Florida. Jay has (I am convinced) one of the highest IQs in the state, and is wickedly smart. Jay is a talented chess player, as well; I have yet to beat him in the 30 years or so I've known him.

Jay believes that he know more than I (an 8-year Army vet with combat experience and too many training tabs to fit properly on my class A's) about small-unit tactics, because he he's read books on the subject and played several wargames (tabletop and digital). Jay also believes he knows more about martial arts than I, because he's been studying (i.e. reading books about and practicing by himself) them since he was a child, and he doesn't think that the black belt I earned in Kempo Karate many years ago, nor the 3rd Dan I earned in Taijutsu not-quite-so-many-years-ago really proves anything. Jay believes he knows more than our mutual friend, Carl (again, not his real name) about business finances because Jay has ideas and thoughts about the subject that differ from the mainstream views, despite Carl successfully establishing a small business that has grown to employ over 100 people in the past 20 years.
Jay is not particularly arrogant. He's fond of pointing out that he's not an "expert" in anything except music theory, even when he disagrees with people who almost certainly possess more expertise than him. He doesn't get angry when proven wrong, he simply accepts the correction and moves on. Jay is quite likable and a friendly guy, despite his failings.
If Jay ever registered an account on WP I would request a CIR block or a a series of topic bans on his favorite subjects (martial arts, military, money) before he ever made his first edit. Jay is phenomenally unsuited to this project.
Ctmv reminds me heavily of Jay, to the point that if Ctmv's subject of choice were one of Jay's favorites, I'd have ensured that it wasn't Jay.
I understand that the way sanctions are imposed is not fair, and I'm one of those who insists that they should not be fair. Their purpose is not to reduce disruption, as is often claimed, but to benefit productivity. WP is a cold hard bitch who cares only about increasing data. We are the soulless cubicle-dwellings automatons and cutthroat CEOs who make money (read: content) for our shareholders (read:readers), at the cost of ethics, morality and our own souls. And that is how it should be, because being that way allows WP to do a ton of good in the world (by increasing education, helping to combat fake news and inspiring new generations of scientists, writers and -indeed- every other profession). So at the end, it shouldn't much matter if sanctions are being handed out unfairly. The only thing that should matter is content creation, and those who can't create content (or who can't create the right kind of content) don't belong here. They may deserve our sympathy and understanding, but they don't deserve the privilege of editing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:13, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
After reading the collapsed portion of your comment, I can honestly say Jay sounds like a more constructive member of the project than a lot of the people I've seen survive numerous ban attempts. he simply accepts the correction and moves on is something I wish with all my heart I could say about a certain SPA who was TBANned and left the site (we'll call him "Noah"), but because Noah also doesn't get angry when proven wrong and is quite likable and a friendly guy, despite his failings, proving to the community that he needed a TBAN was almost impossible. Once he finally got the TBAN, he just left the project, meaning his entry on WP:RESTRICT is just taking up space at this point. I don't know: maybe having a separate page listing editors who were placed under editing restrictions and consequently left the project and haven't edited for more than, say, two years, would solve the problem? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:01, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ehh. I just can't bring myself to get worked up over entries on a list just taking up space. And yes, I've seen editors worse than Jay, as well. But the thing is, even though he accepts correction and moves on, he doesn't internalize any of that. That was my point (and I completely failed to be explicit about it, which is my fault). I can't remember how many times I've told him that a Sergeant First Class outranks a Staff Sergeant and he's responded with something like "Okay, yeah, gotcha." only to assume that a SSG outranks an SFC the next time the subject comes up. He's just like so many of the WP:CIR WP:SPA's I've seen on this site that it's actually a little strange thinking that the world must be full of Jays. Ctmv, if you check Talk:Trinity, had their suggestion shot down a week ago, and seemed to take it in stride. They (apparently) accepted the correction and moved on. But then, a few days later... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:17, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • What a lot of people seem to forget is that the point of dispute resolution is to resolve the dispute. This does not mean "everyone is satisfied". The quickest and most efficient way to resolve a dispute where one party is being disruptive is to ban the disruptive party from the topic. If anything, ENWP gives too many chances and opportunities to editors who had they been banned from particular topics very early on in their editing career, would have saved significant time later on. The approach of 'oh give them another chance, they wont do it this time they promise' is because the basic stance/demeanour of most wikipedia editors is one of good-natured reasonableness. And when confronted by someone who is being unreasonable, tries to bend over backwards to accomodate them. Ultimately this results in tbans for SPA's because people have the slim hope they might move on to something constructive elsewhere. For non-SPA's there is usually already evidence they are constructive elsewhere, which is why blocks are not handed out like candy. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:29, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That would be my take on it.Slatersteven (talk) 16:00, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I wholly endorse Only's comments, as well. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:04, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Only in death: I agree with everything you said, but the bit at the end about "For non-SPA's" is really the only part that's relevant to what I was talking about: when there's a disruptive SPA, not clogging up the logs at WP:RESTRICT should really be a higher priority than "mercy" for a party that may in theory make non-disruptive edits elsewhere but has not given us any solid reason to believe so. In the other (three-year-old) example I listed above, a TBAN was rushed through and logged appropriately, only for the account to be found a couple of days later to have been a sockpuppet of an already-site-banned user; instead of simply removing the TBAN, which is redundant with the SBAN and was rushed through so clumsily that the account was not even recognized as a sock until immediately after the AN thread closed, someone just modified the TBAN as applying the SBANned main account. Had the disruptive SPA in question simply been blocked, we wouldn't need to worry about community consensus to overrule community bans, even in cases where the community consensus had been clumsy/short-sighted in the first place. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:53, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So your concern here is ironing out the system, then? I took your concern to be about justice, but I'm happy to be wrong. FWIW, I agree with you in this comment, but I just can't build up any passion for it. So there's obsolete entries in the sanction list. Doesn't bother me. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:17, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) TBC, I didn't mean to imply anything about "justice" whatsoever, since there's no difference justice-wise between placing a narrow TBAN on someone so they leave the project voluntarily and simply blocking them. My only concern is the red tape, and possibly some other stuff resulting from said red tape -- looking into it it seems TreCoolGuy was a serial sock-abuser, and I'm pretty sure I've been confused for a sock of TreCoolGuy, or unfairly associated with him just because he may have shared my policy-based views on a certain type of article, by certain editors who may have been seeing him everywhere they looked; simply blocking disruptive editors rather than implying via TBAN that their disruption was disruptive solely because it took place on a certain "special" class of article would keep that from happening. But I've probably said too much already, so I'll get out of your hair at this point. :P Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:29, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well functionally that actually has a point, if the original site-banned user isnt under a topic ban, as topic bans apply to the user, if their master account should be unbanned at any point, the topic ban would still be in place until it was appealed to the community. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:21, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Only in death: Well, it may have a point functionally, but the TBAN discussion (which was very short -- I've honestly never seen a TBAN enforced with such low participation) assumed that the sockpuppet under discussion was not a sock, and was not already subject to a site-ban; surely assuming the CU-confirmed sockpuppetry and the pre-existing redundant ban invalidate the TBAN discussion would be better, no? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:29, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Personally? Probably not. I tend towards shutting down loopholes and avoiding future problems. An editor while sockimg who picks up a tban, should probably have the tban regardless of any ban/block situation just as a precaution. You don't need to ping me on Mpants talk page for future ref. It's on my watch list. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:38, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mariska Hargitay

I love your user page! I know how you feel. Really, I do! I "need to go play with my pussy because I'm a bitch who needs some release" (archived page).

You did a great job on the Trump baby balloon and I wanted to ask if you could look at c:File:Mariska Hargitay @ Make Believe On Broadway.jpg. (cropped version is used on her article) Maybe I already got it right (see first revision and current revision) but it looks like her skin is maybe a bit too red. But maybe her skin just was a little reddish that day. I tried to correct it, but without much success. Maybe it's already fine, I could use a fresh pair of eyes to make sure. Alexis Jazz (talk) 16:51, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Alexis Jazz:Ha! I love the tears of angry trolls. They're like ambrosia. "The conweb is right next to the covfefe, right?"
I gotta tell you, I can't think of anything else to do with that photo. There's a few "glamour shot" type corrections I would make if that photo was brought to me off-wiki (smoothing her skin and softening her tan a bit), but that stuff is decidedly not encyclopedic, and the lightening you did looks pretty darn good. Her teeth look a little blown out, but I wouldn't sweat that, as it doesn't look bad and the precise shape of the glossy highlights on her teeth is unlikely to ever be important to anyone. Besides, I don't think it's possible to correct it in a way that doesn't look bad and obvious. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:19, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You may have seen this: [14] O3000 (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And this: [15] -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 18:56, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Neither is the posting editor's excuse that it was said to him rather than by him, therefore, it's no big deal and doesn't need to be deleted. How ironic that you would decide to use male pronouns for an editor with a female name in a situation in which others are referring to them as female, all in the service of your attempt to whine about sexism. Hypocrite much? Winkelvi: you are now officially banned from my talk page. Every interaction I've had with you has been defined by your childishness and immaturity, and I'd really prefer not to have to deal with that crap again. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:01, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'd almost forget with all this, but thanks for looking at the image. Alexis Jazz (talk) 21:08, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I... I want to argue but I really can't. I feel like a Kindergarten teacher half the time I'm here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:36, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"It's like a little boys' nursery school I've come upon here." 😂 Alexis Jazz (talk) 21:08, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The "Gone In 60 Seconds edit" title reminds me of an apparent "gone in 2 minutes edit" (someone I know once pointed me to this rant). —PaleoNeonate – 22:53, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ha! Those lunatic charlatans couldn't even do enough research to realize that "MPants at work" is just my alt account. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:45, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well I doubt its a Brenda Blethyn reference.. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:50, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:57, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ha, that was too obvious. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:01, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Probably not to millennials, who would probably find the actual reference a little too obvious. Well, at least those with good tastes. Should be some gen-Xers recognizing that, too. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:04, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Although I probably would have got it if I was a member of a gun-obsessed nation like the US ;) Rather than being in Wales.... I thought the REC7 and LWRC were *cars*. (SVU - SUV geddit?) Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:05, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And by a weird coincidence I used to live until recently in Canton, Cardiff. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:07, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I knew I had some fans on here... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:09, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ha! That's my usual tact, as well. Se the section "blah blah" below for my response to a vandal who occasionally goes on sprees of registering accounts and posting death threats to my talk page (and to the TPs of several other editors they identify as liberal). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:45, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Kombucha

As a semi-resident of fringe noticeboard, this video may amuse you. Sadly there is no way to insert it into the above article. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:47, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm convinced that that video is 100% factually accurate. "That actually does sound quite fascinating." "Not the way an old person tells it, it doesn't." Pure truth, right there. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:32, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That was great. Let's put it under External links. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:59, 25 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DYKs

Pinging @Ritchie333, EEng, and Tryptofish: as you guys have all done DYK's in the past. What's the process? I have an article in mind that is absolutely begging for a DYK and I want to do it, to learn how. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:53, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It has some potential, though I'm not sure I'm going to find a hook in there that will give our readers a chuckle like I like to. But you've got a problem. Right now I'm seeing 1749 characters of qualifying content (outside blockquotes, refs, etc.). By DYK rules you'll need to expand that 5X i.e. to 8750. That might be a challenge. And by another stupid DYK rule, that has to happen in 7 days from start to finish (or maybe it's 5). Good news, though -- it's perfectly legal to expand the article in your sandbox over any length of time you want, than copy the expanded version to the live article all at once, and that counts as "7 days from start to finish" since from the point of view of the live article it happened instantly. Welcome to the wacky world of DYK. EEng 23:11, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
^ What EEng said. And the full "rules" are written out at WP:DYKRULES. For an example of mine that went smoothly: Template:Did you know nominations/Jack Sumner. And for one where I felt like strangling the reviewer, although I have to admit that it worked out for the better: Template:Did you know nominations/Phase precession. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:37, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh wait, I just remembered something. The other path to DYk, besides 5X expansion, is to get it promoted to GA. I think that's gonna be your best bet. EEng 01:12, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would imagine making that a GA would require expansion by at least 3X. I'm perfectly happy to gfo to 5X, provided I can find the sources. I just don't think I could live with myself if I didn't expand this article and get a DYK out of it. Dude was so badass my voiced dropped an octave just reading that stub (pun intended, thank you) out loud.
Thanks for the help, guys. I'm going to get to work on it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:23, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think that your page subject, Jack Sumner, and Ann Boleyn should get together sometime. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

blah blah

Somebody needs a lesson in how to make effective death threats. I mean, I'm not even nervous, let alone skerd. Well, maybe a little (I have to do some public speaking tomorrow). But just like I'm doing to you, I'll picture them naked and it'll be fine. ;) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:03, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Let me know if you'd like a couple days of semiprotection. I deleted most of those revisions / edit summaries. SQLQuery me! 23:20, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Might as well. It doesn't bother me, but I know it freaks some other people out. Thanks for looking out! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:45, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:MPants at work

Hi MjolnirPants! I was making my normal patrolling rounds and I realized that your user talk redirect page for your alt account didn't have any protection on it at all. I went ahead and applied indefinite extended confirmed edit and move protection for you. It'll put an end to the disruption going on there, plus it'll just make it so you don't have to worry about it at all ;-). Just figured I'd let you know. Cheers - ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 02:26, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that, Osh. I appreciate it! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:14, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You got it ;-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 03:25, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on Talk:Quantico (season 3)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Quantico (season 3). Legobot (talk) 04:31, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Two-step clone painting

Thank you for your message. I read the description of the procedure with great interest. Despite my 77 years (I am one of the older Polish wikipedians - there are a few older than me, and the oldest administrator on pl.wiki) I am happy to learn new things, like the ones you wrote about. The described method is new to me and I will probably use it in the future. The tutorial on colorizing black and white photos also interested me. In my graphics editions I use GIMP and Inkscape. Thank you again and best regards. PawełMM (talk) 15:55, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@PawełMM: My pleasure, and thank you for all your hard work at the graphics lab! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:57, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

John2o2o2o is unwilling to use talk pages in the way they're intended

The user in question on Infowars has a long history of this behaviour - making unsourced claims on talk, generally trolling people and then claiming he's being harassed when people lash back. Here's some difs for reference:

With regard to the Scotts language

[16] [17]

With regard to the word "villein"

[18]

With regard to the marriage date of Dorothy Vernon

[19]

With regard to Campaign to Protect Rural England

[20]

On an Administrators' noticeboard discussion of the block of the user Clockback

[21]

Just thought you'd want to kmnow what we're dealing with here. Simonm223 (talk) 18:02, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Simonm223: I think the diffs you presented here make a very strong case for a WP:NOTHERE/WP:CIR block of indefinite length. I would advise you to take this to WP:ANI. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:22, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I wasn't fishing for advice when I contacted you about it, but I think you could be right. I've posted a case and notified him.Simonm223 (talk) 19:40, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I know, but I just couldn't not offer you that advice after reading those diffs. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:48, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

love your header, favor

Man, I don't think I've been to your talkpage since you put up the big red sign. Love it, want one, always get told I'm the "only one who has house rules", which clearly is not the case. If you have a momentt, could you look at Wikipedia:Graphics_Lab/Illustration_workshop#Barbados_Boy_Scouts_Association? Thanks!--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 02:11, 16 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think you came by once when I had the previous one (an admin got a bee up his shorts and deleted it while "ordering" me not to recreate it. Fuck that noise.), but I'm not sure. I find having some house rules helps a lot, as anyone who's here for a legit reason either ignores the banner or gets a chuckle out of it, and anyone who gets pissed off by it is generally here to bitch and moan, anyways. Anywho, I've responded at the graphics lab. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:16, 16 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ben Swann

I appreciate your struggle at the Ben Swann article. I've contributed once or twice at the tp, but I will not edit the article. I worked in a television network news division for years, when we had a vice president for ethics, and I really don't want to drain my AGF reservoir on one article (AGF for the subject). For some news workers, their name and journalist shouldn't appear in the same sentence without not.

I intend to do some research on the subject, but I'll just add it to the article tp, without argumentation (as I did with a post about the difference between a local (or regional) Edward R. Murrow award and the Edward R. Murrow award).

I admire the patience and civility you show on the Swann tp. Thank you. — Neonorange (Phil) 00:21, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I could probably stand to be more civil, but I appreciate the sentiment. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:04, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm...

Am I the only one who has misgivings about an editor with ~100 mainspace contributions taking on a GA review for Pizzagate? I'm not sure that's an article I would put on a list of low hanging fruit for new GA reviewers. GMGtalk 14:48, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GMG, I hadn't looked into their contribs, but seeing one of the edits to the article is making me question their suitability. I'm not 100% convinced they can't pull it off yet, though. I gotta dig a little deeper into what specifically they're changing before I can form a useful opinion. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:51, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
GMG, I had been scrutinizing the wrong editor (Money Emoji), though I started to write this comment to tell you that my concerns were satisfied and that you had mistated their contribs by almost a factor of 10. But I see it was the reviewer you were referring to. Yes, I think that while they seem to have done alright on this one, they are probably not experienced enough to continue to do GA reviews. You might want to have a gentle word with them (something I think you would be better suited for than my crotchety self). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:57, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
They do seem to be punching above their weight. May be a clean start. I don't look for 100 mainspace edits to get you to the point where you're throwing out references to MOS:FNNR. May be block evasion. Would have to be a prolific sock master to have accounts lying around from 2014. Although their first edit was to unredlink their talk page, so they pass the Ritchie test. GMGtalk 19:09, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A clean sock doesn't bother me one bit, it's only when they start to stink that they need bleach. So I'm disinclined to go to SPI on the grounds of "this good new editor seems a little too competent, ifyaknowwhatimean". I think a nice word with them might not be a bad idea, but then, I can see the potential downside to that, as well. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:22, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

The Civility Barnstar
For reliably making sure to AGF and comment on content and not contributors, for encouraging others to do the same, and for treating new users fairly at ANI, I award you the Civility Barnstar! Tornado chaser (talk) 17:30, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Cheers, —PaleoNeonate – 22:29, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You won't be getting a response from GDP Growth

They've been indeffed with an account creation block. Simonm223 (talk) 02:15, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful

Always be very careful when dealing with this individual. The only way to get anywhere is to be very deferential and massage his ego. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:18, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Boris, if that's true, then said individual needs to find a new hobby. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:29, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
He has WP:INVOLVED himself at that page, so tools are out of the question there, but I endorse Boris' comment. Look at my block log. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 14:35, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'll be able to work up some righteous indignation if needed to fill out an unblock request. But the comments at the talk page are highly immature and not at all reflective of how an admin should comport themselves. It's more what I would expect from some newer editor with ~500 edits and no history of conflict. I just don't have it in me to not say something to that sort of noise. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:42, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker) Troublemaker. PackMecEng (talk) 14:53, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hey! I resemble that remark... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:03, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"world's first bodybuilding porn star astronaut rockstar!" So hows the bodybuilding rockstar part going? I figured you had the other two down already. PackMecEng (talk) 15:11, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm too lazy to pursue those or the astronaut one. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:39, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well let me know when your next video is out, it's been a while. PackMecEng (talk) 15:47, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Goth

"To be fair, my goth days back in the 90's" - Really? I had you down as Don Johnson.... Wouldnt goth be a bit hot in your locale? Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:56, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah. Quite hot. Hence many of the problems with tight pants (and our love of fishnet)... Don't even think about wearing tight leather pants: they'll have to bury you in them.
And yeah; I had a Crockett phase, too. To be honest, my "style" throughout most of my young years depending highly on the preferred style of whatever hot girl I was currently pursuing. Most of them were goth, tho. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:03, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I just don't get it

I have read though the first ani thread, the Jimbo thread, and now the new ani thread. Perhaps its some history that predates me but damn man. I get that the first consensus said no to the delete, but it was not exactly open that long. Is there something that is going over my head? I am rather short... PackMecEng (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@PackMecEng: Here's the cliffnotes version: A while back, MH almost got desysopped when he flipped his lip at me and went forum shopping to get me blocked. He couldn't, even when he started lying about what I said and did, so he just got more and more childish about it.
Eventually, he convinced a few admins to drag him to ArbCom for a desypopping. He would have been desysopped if the ArbCom at the time weren't (quite obviously to almost everyone involved) trying to blame literally everyone but MH for his outburst. Seriously: one guy was asked by an Arb to give evidence, then that Arb later voted to put that editor on probation for "contributing to the drama" by presenting said evidence. It was a total shitshow that pissed off a number of people and made half of Wikipediocracy cream their pants.
Quite a few editors whom MH had previously pissed off crawled out of the woodwork during those proceedings, and quite a few "questionable" (read: batshit stupid) judgements of his from the past came to light. So he built himself a camp of "enemies" by the time it was all said and done.
Then, he popped back onto the radar to make hysterical WP:CRYBLP complaints about some comments on a 2-year-old AfD a few days ago. He got shut down hard at ANI, and responded by hurling abuse at everyone disagreeing with him (some of the disagreement was somewhat rude, but the rudeness itself was inspired by MH's own prior interactions with those people and others) and whining about it on a few admins' talk pages. When nobody was willing to sanction a half dozen editors for rightfully pointing out that MH keeps digging his own ditches to trip into, he just kept attacking them until the lovely Bish came along and stuffed a gag into his mouth with a short block.
So the long and the short of it is, IMHO: A bunch of people really strongly dislike MH and want to deny him any courtesy for that reason. The fact that they all have really good reasons to dislike him means that nobody's willing to come down too hard on them for their own behavior (which hasn't been anywhere near as bad as MH's, but is still not ideal). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:49, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh my goodness, I think I will just step out of that mess then. Thanks for the summary, I think I have a good idea of what is about to happen then. On a related note, I have been spending a lot more time patrolling pending changes and random articles. It is a lot more fun and less stressful than most of the areas I would work in. The pay isn't nearly as good though. PackMecEng (talk) 21:48, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I resemble that remark. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 21:49, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I know, right? There's nothing quite so much fun as approving an edit from some random IP with no editing history that correctly uses complex wikimarkup syntax, cites sources and makes a significant improvement to an article. And there's something schadenfreude-ishly (if markedly less) satisfying about reverting some obvious vandalism with an edit summary of "No." ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:54, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah some of them are quite odd... Like huh you are pretty good at editing and adding to complex tables and infoboxes for someone that has never edited... I try not to think about that though, I get enough drama and hunting down who done it at work. Ever try to herd a group of really smart engineers that do not like being told they are wrong? 60 hours a week is enough for me on that front these days. PackMecEng (talk) 22:03, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I worked as a draftsman for about ten years. A draftsman's job description is "teaching engineers how to do engineering." But at least they were civil engineers. If they were software engineers, I'd skip all the foreplay and just bring a club to work.
"YOU." <smack> "WILL." <smack> "NEVER." <smack> "INSIST." <smack> "ON." <smack> "USING." <smack> "REGULAR." <smack> "EXPRESSIONS." <smack> "AGAIN." <smack> "Are we clear?" <tapping club against my free hand, ready to dish out a few more>
Three guesses what I do, these day. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:15, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Therapy. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 22:16, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm too stubborn for therapy. Besides, I'm sure I could just sort myself out with the judicious use of some regular expressions... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:21, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds not to different than myself then. I spent about 6 years as a draftsman while getting my degree. I miss it sometimes, whenever I get the chance to draw myself it is just zen for me. At least when it is clean sheet that is, I get filled with dread looking at the way some of my guys format sketches. No foresight. PackMecEng (talk) 22:26, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My very first job out of high school was in a print shop, using an old pen plotter to plot drawings out of AutoCAD. Being an artist, I got really into technical drawing, and quickly landed a job doing old-fashioned hand drafting, with the flexible curves, templates and rapidograph set. Being a computer geek, I also learned AutoCAD and got into doing freelance drafting while I was going through the process of enlisting. (Dealing with the recruiter and MEPS can take several months.) When I got back out, it just seemed natural to go back to what I'd been doing before.
I will say that the field is not what it used to be. Even in the late 90's, when I started, a draftsman was expected to know AutoCAD inside and out, know all the industry standard symbology and terminology, and know how to do it all by hand, just in case. By the time I ended my last real drafting gig, everything was just button-pushing and typing, with nobody other than me knowing how to draft anything but the assembly-line drawings we cranked out.
It's one of the reasons I changed careers. Well, that and the pay. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:39, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's the same with my chums in the civil engineering trade. Road signs are supposed to conform to the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions to the letter (because if you don't, somebody can have a really stupid accident and get let off by claiming the sign wasn't legal), and only about 1-2 old hands actually know how to design things to spec in their head. PS: I quite like regular expressions in moderation Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 23:51, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, I use them quite frequently, especially lately as I've been doing a lot of work with strings. But years after my first use, I still need a cheat sheet because I'm constantly confusing them with SQL wildcards, CMD wildcards and Scheme wildcards, and because there's still 3-4 different regex implementations that are just different enough that you can never use one in a system meant for the others. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:39, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I started with board drafting and then moved to AutoCAD V10 when it was new. The place I was at still had (I think) the original Catia huge terminals for the aerospace, they didn't let me play with those. They started going away from the terminals in the mid 80's. I got out of the defense stuff early 90's and these days I am on Autodesk Inventor. Back then the engineers never really drew stuffs on their own, needed people like you and me . Some would argue they still cannot draw, the group I have now are all engineers that never had that drafting part of their career. These days they are expected to do both, and rarely do either well! Perhaps I am become an old curmudgeon. PackMecEng (talk) 00:46, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The company I work for recently hired two engineers: a manufacturing engineer and a mining engineer (we do fiber optic WANs) and set them both to work drafting. I asked the boss about it at one point and he told me "they gotta know what the hell to do before I ever let them do it." So basically, he's training them on engineering by making them draft. lol It works, though. That's kind of how it goes. We have a sort-of drafting department (it's really a GIS/Asset Management/Surveying/Engineering department that also does IT work), but the way it usually works at our office, there's no distinction between an engineer and a draftsman. They both do design work and they both draw construction documents. (the latter do both better, naturally).
I still like to take a job from time to time and crank it out in 1/10th the time they would do it, all while loudly bitching that using Microstation is sooooo slow compared to AutoCAD (to be fair; it really is). Keeps 'em humble. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:39, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Never had a chance to really look at MicroStation, what is it like? Whenever we are doing layouts to put our machines in a customer's plant we still use AutoCAD since they all send files in DWG format. I always find it funny when a company like Tyson or Pilgrim's is still using R14. Then again chicken plants are so ass-backwards, you should see inside of one sometime... It's safe and all that, but it does not look it if you are in one. Also my goodness the number of chickens that go though those places a day. A small plant with just two lines can go though almost 60k birds per day running two shifts productions and one for cleanup and they run 6 days a week. PackMecEng (talk) 02:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Never had a chance to really look at MicroStation, what is it like? Now you've done it. You've opened a can of worms, and do you know why? Because I'm going to answer you with my review of MS that I'd been thinking about writing for some time now. MUAH HA HA HA !!!! (See the subsection below). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:53, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thunder Britches' review of Microstation

I've been using it, developing for it, and integrating it into larger digital systems for just over two years now, with a little bit of drafting experience with it here and there before that. Meanwhile, I have 20+ years of experience using AutoCAD. So that imbalance of experience my influence my views somewhat, but the deep dive I took into MS the last two years has left me with almost as deep a knowledge of it as of Acad, I believe.

The Pros
  • Some of the drawing tools are quite useful. Like, when drawing complex chains (the MS version of polylines), when you draw an arc, it shows you a circle whose size is based on the distance between your mouse and the last vertex. This is incredibly useful when vectorizing a raster background, as you can line your arc up almost perfectly just by eye without having to leave the command. You jsut click to set the center of the circle, then move your mouse to describe the arc along that circle you want to draw.
  • Their version of paperspace is done using the built-in "models" system, allowing you to designate each model as either design or paper. This is great when you need to make multiple drawing sets from one design file.
  • The DGN file format is extremely capable when it comes to storing diverse data. You can fit everything you need into a single file, if you are so inclined. It's also quite versatile in the coordinate system, making reprojections quite simple, and giving you plenty of "canvass" even when you're working with very large units (you can set your primary units to be parsecs or light years, if you like). It also allows for custom master and sub units, so you can, for example, work in cubits if you want to draw a really authentic pyramid plan set.
  • It separates attachments from raster attachments and gives you a complete dialog with each.
  • It allows you to open two application windows (the second one is just for docking dialogs), which is very useful for multi-monitor set ups.
  • It supports virtually every data type you could ever use.
  • It has excellent interoperability with the other Bentley products, such as Comms (a setup that lets you store your data in an Oracle database, instead of a DGN file).
  • The modules for Comms are very focused on each of the three fields it's designed to work in (ethernet networks, coaxial networks and fiber optic networks).
The Cons
  • The tools are almost entirely button based, meaning you have to drag your mouse out of the drawing pane to access any tool you haven't mapped to a function key. There are keyboard shortcuts, but they're hierarchical (meaning you have to hit the top-level key, then the next-level key, allowing time for the program to respond in between) and very counter-intuitive. The W key, for example, opens a handful of line and line-string related tools, then you have to choose one with the number keys.
  • Key-ins (their version of the command line) needs to be given focus (by clicking on it) before a key-in can be entered. The vast majority of commands have no keyin.
  • The right-click function is locked to a couple of options, the most useful one being the escape key. There's no option to set the right-click to be a zero zero point, or the Enter key, or anything really useful, like a context menu.
  • The tools usually lock you into one single way of drawing geometry. For example, when drawing complex chains, you can only use the center-of-a-circle method to draw arcs. You can't enter the radius, length, chord or anything.
  • Coordinate-based drawing (by punching in the exact coordinates of each vertex) takes fucking forever because you can't key it in, you have to use the X and Y dialogs (assuming you haven't accidentally closed them and forgot where in the labyrinthine menus they are), which are individual boxes to enter the coordinates, and even then, you have to be sure you're in absolute mode, which you will never be when you first click on them because they default to relative mode and you can't change that behavior.
  • The programability is shit. Just complete shit. You have VBA, to which about 2/3 of the internal architecture is exposed (meaning there are some things you just can't do), and if you want to do anything more complex, you need to purchase an SDK from them, ride herd on them for six months until they finally get around to giving you access to their developer site, then proceed to write .DLLs using C++, with virtually no documentation whatsoever because fuck your business needs, pay us.
  • The Comms backend (the Oracle database) ISN'T EVEN FUCKING FIRST NORMAL FORM AND THEIR OWN DEVELOPERS DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously. I'm not being hyperbolic. I mean that literally. For comparison (in case you're not a software guy), the industry minimum standard for enterprise databases is third normal form.
  • There are too many ways to do everything, with each way impacting the end result, and being unalterable through the other methods. For example, to set the text height of dimension text, you can alter it through the dimension style, through the text style that dimension style references, in the dimension itself (through annotation scaling or regular scaling), though the text styles of your seed file, through the dimension styles of your seed file or through the internal text editor used when you create the dimension. If you leave the style blank in all of those, you can change it in any one. But if you've set the text height through more than one of those methods, you will not be able to predict which height it will choose (and it will choose different heights for different individual objects).
  • The object system (they call them "elements") is far too hierarchical and obscure. For example, a note with a leader is actually a cell (their version of a block) with certain special properties (that you can't access through VBA) that allows the text to be moved and the leader's tail to follow it. That cell contains a text object, a line object (the leader's tail) and a dimension object (the leader). A dimension object is, itself, a cell containing lines, shapes and possibly text with some special properties you can't access. There is no way to edit any of those component objects without destroying the overall note object. There is, furthermore, no exposed interface for editing anything but the text of the note. So if you need to change arrowheads, scales or even which level (read: layer) it's on, you must erase it and start again.
  • A lot of tools are way too specific. For example, you use different "drop" commands (their version of "explode") to drop cells, line strings, complex chains and association links. Choosing the wrong one does nothing.
  • Most inputs are confirmed with a data point. You have to actually click in the drawing to confirm changes or tool input, which freaks out everyone and has them double checking everything before committing, because if you haven't done it right and you click in the wrong spot, you may find yourself having to go through the entire command again from scratch.
  • The licensing requires validation every time you start by connecting to a Bentley server. Bentley has shit servers that are frequently down.
  • Even though they have a remote license verification system, you also need DRM software on your machine because they're apparently terrified of people stealing or buying old licenses and re-using them. Meanwhile, while Autodesk is known to be litigious, they also don't give a shit about much older versions. Their tech support once gave me a "master" CD key for R14 just because I asked them how to get another license for that version. Free, unlimited licenses because the company paid for one ten years earlier and their sales staff smelled an opportunity to smell a big upgrade sale in the not-too-distant future. Though to be fair, I'm quite sure that company still uses R14.
  • There are 6 different ways to control the scale of objects of a fixed size, and you must set up all 6 of them properly to import objects (including placing cells) properly. You can only access 3 of them through VBA, and an additional 2 through the SDK.
  • Some user preferences are still saved in the application settings, including button assignment, rather than the user workspaces.
  • Their VBA documentation is of questionable accuracy, at best.
  • You're stuck using VBA6.
  • Creating a complex linetype (such as one containing shapes or letters) is a 40-50-step process that still requires you to manually scale said linetype for each object you place (there is a default you can set).
  • The software is less stable than AutoCAD or IntelliCAD.
  • The software is buggier, with plenty of unpredictable side effects occurring even when not CTDing.
  • It uses an autosave feature that triggers on certain actions while you're working. It will not trigger after being idle for a while, so if you tweaked a thousand minor things and then walk away, your changes may be lost if it crashes before you return.
  • The save button doesn't seem to do anything. I've hit save after making changes I knew would not trigger the autosave and closed the software. When I opened that design file again, those changes were gone.
  • There is an addition "save settings" feature that must be triggered else you will lose much of your prep work. It also takes over the Ctrl+F shortcut, so you must use the mouse menus to access the "Find Text" dialog.

There's probably more to say, both pro and con, but it's late and that's all I could think of without the software right in front of me. The best summary I can give is one I stole from an old-school draftsman/programmer on the Bentley forums. "AutoCAD is a drafting tool, whereas Microstation is a design platform." I absolutely do not recommend microstation for anything except large, simple GIS mapping and as the graphical base of a Building management system. The powerful features of the dgn filetype lend themselves to use for those purposes. To be fair, the DGN filetype would be great for a number of other uses, but the failings of Microstation as a drafting tool make it impractical for anything that's not limited to very simple graphical features with complex data structures attached to them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:53, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dang lol tell me how you really feel! But some of those seem like major issues that I do not understand why they would not be solved. Especially stuff like the save issue you mention, saving is kind of important. That licensing would sketch me out to, I never liked having to validate to outside servers. We have an internal license server here that renews every few days with the mothership. I have never been much of a programming chick either, I can work my way through VBA and easy stuff like that but never got into C or C++ or any of the fancy stuff. Though I have someone gotten myself into being head of IT here. I do not know how or when that happened but now I take care of all the servers here, backups, and updates. Also a lot of those seem like pretty basic quality of life issues that given the age of the software is kind of unacceptable. Though it could be something like AutoCAD where there is so much legacy they cannot change it. Or as is becoming more standard for Autodesk, buy modules others have made for their program and slap them on, while not really understanding what that module did. That's what they did with Vault (sounds like their Comms but uses SQL), their gear/spline tools, and half of AutoCAD electrical. Which leads to an inconsistent user experience since the user layouts for those tools are pretty different than Autodesk's set. AutoCAD used to always be my go to, and for plant layout and schematics it still is, but more and more Autodesk Inventor is slowly taking over. Even for cable layouts in large machines. I find it is easier for the shop to look at 3D models and figure out how stuff should be routed verses just the schematics. PackMecEng (talk) 14:19, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of the problems are legacy issues, as you say: they can't change it because it would break everything else. Some are legacy issues with the user base: they don't dare change it or those users who've been using it for 20 years will be up in arms. Other stuff is like Comms: they initially purchased that software from an independent developer and adapted it to their own use. Then they added a couple features, fixed a little problem, tweaked a little something. Then they added something else. Then they tweaked something else. Then they fixed something else. Ad nauseum. By the time my company is using it today, it's a hot mess that no single person really groks, even at Bentley. Their reps keep telling us that they're working on recreating the database from scratch, and redesigning comms to integrate better (right now, all the comms tools are in drop-down menus).
As for inventor: It's soo much easier to do 3D in inventor than in older versions of AutoCAD (the newer versions have "stolen" much of Inventor's toolset, from what I hear; I'm still using 2015 myself). I've done 3D dwgs before and it can be a pain, though it's really not all that bad. In some ways, it's better than dedicated 3D modelling software. But Inventor was, IMHO a masterpiece when it comes to 3D technical drawing. Not that it was all that groundbreaking: just taking the usual 3D drawing tools and adding the AutoCAD command line functions and syntax. But that was an amazing step forward. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:39, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I started using it back in 2003 with v5.3, their first "stable" release. It has gotten a lot better since then, we don't even worry about upgrades anymore we just install them. But these days Solidworks has pretty much caught up, and the new licensing plan from Autodesk is unpleasant. They are going to a rent model vs you own the license, from what I remember you can still just buy Solidworks. We got grandfathered in up until now and we are going to have to look at if we want to keep upgrading to new versions or just keep our current 2019 and drop service. From what I read a substantial number of businesses are dropping it because of that. They claim it helps businesses that hire a bunch of people for a project then fire them when they are done and since you can grow and shrink the number of licenses easily with renting it and it makes sense for them. Well we do not do that, we are always developing and have pretty consistent engineering staff levels. But I still think for industrial machinery Inventor is still a solid choice. But that could be my years of bias. PackMecEng (talk) 15:09, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Autodesk's move to a subscription service is exactly why I still use 2015. It was the last version I could buy outright (or at least buy an upgrade to from 2013 outright). Same reason I still use Photoshop CS6, although I think Adobe handles the pricing much better. $21/month vs $195/month. Even with AutoCAD being the more expensive software by far, that's too much money for me as an independent contractor. I could save up money for a $5k license every ten years or so. I can't shell out that same amount every 2 years. Plus with things like the push to the ribbon, I'm leery of being forced into an upgrade every time one comes out. I don't want to fire it up one day just to find out my 20 year old workflow can't be used anymore because they thought they'd make some UI improvements and they couldn't preserve the old UI as an option. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah not a fan. Especially when I have to do a write up on okay why are we spending all this money again? Like I said we have been grandfathered in since we had maintenance and all that, but this is the last year for that. Also our machine shop uses FeatureCAM, that was recently bought by Autodesk. The nice part is it works better with the native inventor files now but they are going to the same model soon. I really do not want to have to go though the trouble of switching to Solidworks, and with my luck they will start that same model soon as well. Though I suspect they will wait a little bit since they are picking up old Autodesk business from people that have jumped ship. I hear DaveCAD is good though. PackMecEng (talk) 16:41, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have been developing some CAD software on my own time in C#, using Visual Studio. The solution name for it is FuckYourCAD.sln because I started writing it to compete directly with Bentley Comms. I still haven't though up a serious name for it, and I'm not 100% sure I ever will.
Of course, this is in my "copious" free time, between taking care of my kids, watching the small number of tv shows I enjoy, playing video games on my computer and working on my programming languages (YALL: Yet Another LISP Language and Y'ALL: the same thing but which uses southern-slang-inspired keywords). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
See that kind of fancy Pants kind of stuff is beyond me. I made some stuff on my graphing calculator and that is about the end of it. PackMecEng (talk) 18:49, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, I'll probably never finish any of those (except taking care of my kids, but even then, prolly not till they're 30). I have a habit of not finishing my larger projects. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:00, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I had an old Mazda that can attest to that. PackMecEng (talk) 19:31, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, lord. Rotary engines? No thanks. I'm too scared I'd break something while trying to change the oil. I'll stick with my 1992 Camaro with the L03 turned into a 334 Stroker, a Borg-Warner T-56 transmission and a 315" positraction rear pumpkin. She's a frankenstein to be sure, but she's my bolt-necked chariot. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:54, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The thing was a treat. Even did the 3-rotor 20B conversion. But never really finished the project the way I wanted. Then me and the man decided to get a house together and it was one of the things to go. Recently got my first motorcycle though, one of those things I always wanted since I was a little one.
I always liked the boxy camaro's, glad you got rid of the 6 banger! Those make me cry on the inside. PackMecEng (talk) 20:07, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like a fun setup to tool around in. I didn't get rid of a V6; the L03 was available in all the third-gen Camaros. But a lot of people say that there were no V8s available, because the V6s were so common. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:33, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake, I thought 334 stroker and my head went right to V8 because of the 305. PackMecEng (talk) 20:39, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is a V8: The L03 motor is a 305cu, TBFI V8 engine. The 334 stroker is a common modification of 305cu engines. So common you can even buy kits, though most guys do it by parting out the pieces individually. Basically, you put a couple thousandths bore on the cylinders (and replace the pistons) and swap out the crank from a 454 big block (and the pushrods, of course). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:39, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay I was confused but I got ya now. I'm a Ford person though I cannot deny the greatness that is LS. PackMecEng (talk) 21:49, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm an atheist who was a baptist as a kid, and yet I still cross myself whenever someone mentions the LS or LT. ;) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:02, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ohhh I have not had a chance to play with the new LT yet. Plenty with the LS1 and LS3 though, helped a friend put one in a NA Miata back in the day. But I hear they are sexy. PackMecEng (talk) 00:52, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No good deed goes unpunished, you are right of course. I stopped myself several times from getting involved over there. Sorry to see what happened. PackMecEng (talk) 14:52, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Drama is bad for everyone. Every once in a while, it takes a little bit of drama to get rid of a lot of drama. The problem is that too many people think that's a far more common occurrence than it really is. I'm just gonna wait for a bit. If it's gonna continue, it's gonna continue. But I'm not gonna be the one to breathe life back into it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:06, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like they someone nipped it in the butt and closed it. It's disappointing to see generally smart people do stupid stuff. PackMecEng (talk) 15:59, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, there's another drama thread going on where demonstrably smart people are doing incredibly stupid things. Every time I edit this site I ask myself "Am I being an unjustified ass?" and "Am I being an unjustified idiot?" and if the answer to either is "yes", I change or abandon my edit. (It can be a little depressingly enlightening to reflect upon how many times I do answer "yes", though. It's hard to escape the conclusion that I'm a dumbass of the highest caliber.) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:07, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Eh everyone is a dumbass, just some more than others. As the saying goes, half of being smart is knowing what you are dumb about. PackMecEng (talk) 18:07, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with (this is possibly apocryphal) Einstein: "Only two things are infinite. The universe, and human stupidy. And I'm not sure about the former." ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:37, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:Doug Weller

Awww, somebody got butthurt. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:24, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

You know that your closure of my discussion at a page that isn't your own probably isn't within policy, right? And you know that just saying "Don't!" about contesting it is pretty high-handed, right? And if your threat is that TRM and I be taken to ANI, I say "Whatever". Maybe that'll result in TRM being interaction-banned with me and I won't have to deal with him horning in on me. pbp 00:08, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Purple I know that there is no explicit policy basis that justified me archiving a discussion on another editor's talk page. But it was a textbook case for applying WP:IAR, one of the five pillars. I am also aware that "Don't." was high handed; I intended it to be. I don't intent to start an ANI thread (I'm involved in too much ANI drama as it is). You might want to also be aware that Doug thanked me for the edit that archived that thread.
For what it's worth, I think you might have a case for ANI. TRM has a history of civility problems, and came across worse than you in what I saw of the argument. But think about what the participants in an ANI thread would have thought of you re-opening that thread. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:22, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to finish the portion of the conversation I'm having with Doug about what to do next at VA5, but I have elected to do that at my own talk page. I fear a boomerang if I take TRM to ANI, though I may participate in future ANIs or other noticeboard threads about him should they arise. My end goal IS a formal interaction ban with him, rather than the current situation where TRM claims I can't criticize him on his talk page, but he can criticize me ANYWHERE else. pbp 01:28, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My advice would be for you to do nothing to encourage TRM to back off, and simply allow yourself to be harassed for a week or two. Then go to ANI with a giant wall of diffs and enjoy the schadenfreude. My advice to TRM -whom I expect is reading this- is "knock it off before you get sanctioned again. You know that at some point, that sanction will be an indef. Don't tempt fate, just let Purple be a dick until he gets himself in trouble." ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:34, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This has already started. For what it’s worth, I did nothing here, other than be a victim of harassment and false accusations, yet again. It’s okay to lie about me and victimise me, I’m fair game. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:25, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
TRM; please trust that I don't have any agenda here when I tell you that, from an outsider's perspective, you came across worse than Purple in that discussion. Hence my advice to you; If you would just let Purple be a dick, they will get himself in trouble with it soon enough. But stop trying to "fight them off", because that's reflecting really poorly on you. I don't know if you're actually following them around (though your comments here and at Doug's talk suggest that you may be), but you should definitely try to avoid the appearance of doing so. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:51, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
. I, I’m afraid some of that is bollocks. I couldn’t care less, literally, about PBP, and anyone who thinks I’m following him should really take a look at the 200k+ edits I’ve made and draw their own conclusions. If you think I looked worse then that’s a shame, because it lumps you in the same group of people who re happy to perpetuate talk page harassment and personal attacks. Perhaps you didn’t mean that. Take some more time to think it over next time before making rash judgement. I’m done with yet another waste of time. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:04, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Seriously, TRM, how is slamming Pants going to get you what you want? From what I can ascertain, you've completely lost credibility with a large chuck of Wikipedia regulars. Why? Because you're far more confrontational than you need be. You're always showing up places to criticize people in the most vitriolic of terms, and, from what I can see, it's completely hurt your credibility. pbp 23:40, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If anybody is interested in why I think TRM is following me, shoot me a message on my talk page or e-mail and I'll e-mail you my rationale. pbp 23:40, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I do confess that when I speculated if the Rambling Man had nice legs, I did not have a reliable source to back me up. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:02, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think, perhaps, that they go all the way up? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:51, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Thx for "Syllogisms denote, statistical syllogisms connote"

Do you have a source for that? Humanengr (talk) 01:11, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Humanengr (are you an engineer, by chance?) I'm afraid that was all me. I even started to type it backwards before I realized what I was saying. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:22, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Engineer by training, working on the human part. Your aphorism prompts some further exploration, still mulling. Humanengr (talk) 01:41, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It was just something I thought up at the moment to succinctly describe the difference between the two. I don't think it merits much deep thought.
I think we're all still working on the human part. From what I've seen, it seems to take exactly 1 lifetime to achieve for the majority of us. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:47, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on Talk:Poodle

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Poodle. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I redid my last edit to focus better and …

sent apologies to JzG for inclusion in the prior version. Apologies to you as well for that distraction. Humanengr (talk) 07:37, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Eww

Firehosing...I don't want this to exist...but maybe this should exist. I mean, this is a thing. GMGtalk 22:33, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It'd probably need a different name, or need to be a subsection at Propaganda. I'm not finding sources defining the term that way, although it's clear that the Vox video does. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:49, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, this isn't new. See the Gish gallup. I've found that the best response to being Gish galluped is to ignore the individual lies and turn the tables: force them to try to defend their own credibility and do not let up until the end of it all.
Or shoot them in the face. More and more, I wonder if I'm going to end up back in battle rattle again before I retire, fighting in another civil war. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:52, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Request from March 2017

Hi. I was just wondering whether you have finished working on this image of the Princess of Wales or not. Since then, somebody has created a JPEG version of the file but I still don't find it suitable for infobox use, and other users will probably reject it too. You did a great job on the image of the Duchess of Cambridge though, that is why I'm personally asking you to do this favor and work on this image as well. I'll be glad if you notify me when you're done with colorizing it. Thanks a lot. Keivan.fTalk 00:12, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Keivan.f: I remember that. I actually did some of the work on it at my job, then lost the file during a backup at work. I understand what you mean about the colorized jpeg version: I had actually tried to fix it today, but I wasn't able to improve it very much at all. I'll see what I can do. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:01, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Great. Thank you so much. To be honest, the current infobox image is not good at all, and this new JPEG looks terrible. Keivan.fTalk 01:15, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Keivan.f: Take a look at this one. I'm not completely happy with it, but I need another set of eyes. Tell me what looks off to you. It's difficult as the original photo was subject to significant post-processing and some digital editing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yikes, those eyes look creepy as fuck - the first thing I thought was, "if I looked away from that for about 3 seconds I'd come back and find Pennywise the Dancing Clown staring at me shouting kiss me, fat boy!" (To which my response would be, "Operation Yewtree is thataway, mate". Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:14, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
100% agreement here. But check out the original. I'm able to lighten the shadows around the eyes a bit. I was initially hesitant to do so because that's changing the nature of the original image, whereas colorizing is just "restoring" the color that was there in the original scene, but the more I look at it, the more I think that the eyes in the black and white have been editing to darken them and that me restoring them to their normal color wouldn't be original. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:22, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I went ahead and slightly lightened the eyes. I can't entirely fix is, because part of it is her expression. That is definitely an "I'm so fucking sick of smiling, for fuck's sake just take the fucking photo already." smile. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:30, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • It looks fine to me. I'm actually glad that you lightened the eyes because it looks more normal right now. And to be honest, I also think that she is giving the photographers a fake smile here, that's why something is off about her face. But it's still better than the one that is currently being used on the article as she looks terribly sad in that one. Keivan.fTalk 20:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still not happy with it. It looks almost cartoonish in how bright the colors are, but when I lower the saturation, it then looks "obviously colorized". I'm probably going to continue to fiddle with it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:44, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

The Photographer's Barnstar
Thank you for your help! Much appreciated. Tom (LT) (talk) 10:47, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

I am reporting you at arbitration enforcement. --Godotskimp (talk) 16:48, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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