User talk:SebastianHelm/archive2011

Boltzmann constant

You made an edit: http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Boltzmann_constant&diff=next&oldid=139267632 which includes "If, instead of talking of room temperature as 300 K (27 °C or 80 °F), it were conventional to speak of the corresponding energy kT of 4.14×10⁻²¹ J, or 0.0259 eV, then Boltzmann's constant would simply be the dimensionless number 1." I don't agree that the number would dimensionless, it would be eV/K, eV/^oF etc. which would still be representative of energy concentration which is the whole point of the Boltzmann constant. I have made a remark about this in the current 'Boltzmann constant' talk page. --Damorbel (talk) 07:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your message. That text was actually not introduced by me, but by this edit several years earlier. Rigth now, I don't have the time to think through your dimensional argument, but if you like I can look at it this weekend. — Sebastian 18:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your consideration, I am looking forward to your comments. I realised your edit was a while ago, but the general idea is still around and it seems to me to be part of a general misunderstanding about the difference between heat, measured by temperature, and thermal energy measured in Joules. Regards --Damorbel (talk) 20:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I did a little bit of research, and found your conversation here. I'm unpleasantly surprised that you did not inform me of that, since it is very pertinent. If, as one of the participants claims, you have been "belaboring this topic for months", then the chances for yet another discussion about the same topic here on this talk page to lead to a conclusion quickly appear to be slim. However, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. I don't know what others said in those months; for all I know, the fact that they didn't get their point across may just as well reflect on their explanation skills. So, the following sentence seems to point at the root of the misunderstanding:

If as you say "Isn't that clear enough that temperature is just another expression of energy, of a certain kind of energy?" then it should be possible to express temperature in terms of energy Joules or ergs.

In an abstract sense, this may be possible, if you agree to do so. However, this is not always practical for a number of reasons, including precise definition of standards.

Let me explain this with an easier to understand analogy: Expressing distances in units of time. As you are probably aware, this is being done by using lightyears. In this case, there is no precision problem because we now already define the meter on the base of the second. It is, however, still not practical in everyday life. In everyday life, we get much more benefits out of keeping the two separated than we could gain by getting rid of the meter. Please see our article on natural units for an in-depth discussion of this. — Sebastian 07:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I am at rather a loss with your lightyears/time /distance analogy; does it mean that distance (m) in International System of Units is not to be accepted a SI base unit? With definitions there is always a tendency to run around in circles, hence the International System of Units provides for SI derived units? I think not. K is a base unit defined as "The kelvin, unit of thermodynamic temperature, is the fraction 1/273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water" because these two points, 0K and the triple point of water 273.16K are repeatable measurement points. Even these are due for revision, see New SI definitions where you will read that the Botltzmann constant is proposed as a base unit, the speed of light will be exact (c = 299,792,458 m/s),the Kelvin is no longer a base unit but the definition of the second will remain inexactly determined i.e. it is discovered through experiment. Since the Boltzmann constant, a measure of energy density, an intensive measure, will become a fundamental unit, the definition of temperature becomes derived unit and thus is not to be determined from another derived unit, the Joule. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Damorbel (talk • contribs) 11:48, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No, my example has nothing to do with SI. I was merely trying to give you a simple example for natural units. The main problem here seems to be a misunderstanding of the concept of natural units, and I really recommend getting more familiar with them, if you want to understand the meaning of the paragraph you cite above. They are an entirely different concept; you can't understand them if you try to express everything in SI units. Natural units are just a tool; you don't have to use them, but if you don't use them the right way you can't understand them. Here's a simple analogy: If you insist on using a screwdriver as a hammer, then you won't gain any real appreciation of its value. — Sebastian 06:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC), edited 23:13, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for making your position clear. --Damorbel (talk) 21:35, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Castellated

Hello.

I don't think this was a good idea, so I've changed the page back into a redirect to battlement, and added a hatnote at the top of that article saying "Castellated redirects here. For the hardware item, see castellated nut."

The problem is:

• Castellation redirected to battlement even though castellated didn't. That doesn't make sense.
• Many articles link to castellated and all of them appear to intend the architectural meaning rather than the hardware item.
• The architectural sense of the word can be considered the principal meaning. In fact, the item of hardware is called by that name only because the notches on the nut are reminiscent of the architectual meaning.

Michael Hardy (talk) 18:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the great explanation! You're making excellent points, and I agree with your edit. The only thing I disagree with is that the disambig wasn't a good idea; I still think it was better than having no link to the hardware item. That's the way Wikipedia works; everybody makes small improvememts, and it all adds up to a great encyclopedia. — Sebastian 00:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

About Languages Written in Arabic Script

As far as I remember, you have replaced all the languages from the lead but there were some which aren't mentioned in the article, i.e. Crimean Tatar, Avar and so on. It will be a good idea to collect the information about another languages which used or use Arabic writing system and add them. 62.220.33.64 (talk) 20:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your message. Since this concerns the article, I will reply there. — Sebastian 05:04, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

My RFA

Hi,

You asked me last year to drop you a note when I was running RFA again. Just following through :)

Regards, MacMed^talk_stalk 02:12, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

ج in Arabic

The palatalized [gʲ] is a feature of Sudanese Arabic and some dialects of the Arabian peninsula as well as the ancient form of this phoneme. I think there are no difficulties in adding this variant. 62.220.33.64 (talk) 07:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your message. I only noticed just now that you are a regular, and that we even had a conversation above already. I'd really prefer if you could log in with a user name; it would feel more like I'm dealing with a person. Anyway, I'm realizing now that there is a more basic question underlying; I'm going to post it on talk:Arabic alphabet. See you there! — Sebastian 20:30, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Sonorants in Japanese

I don't understand your comment here. How exactly does Japanese provide a counterexample to the assertion in the article (and how do you understand it in the first place)? I know of no (phonemically, at least) voiceless sonorants in Japanese at all, nor does Japanese phonology mention any. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:32, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your question. That was my interpretation of this:

Whispered Syllables

The Tokyo dialect of Japanese is characterized by the frequent occurrence of whispered (that is, voiceless - footnote: A voiceless sound is one which is not accompanied by vibration of the vocal chords) syllables. Whenever an i or u vowel (footnote: other vowels are occasionally affected) occurs between any two voiceless consonants (k, s, t, or h), the vowel automatically becomes voiceless, or, in some cases, is lost. This happens whether the two consonants come in the same word or in consecutive words.

— Eleanor Harz Jordan, Beginning Japanese, part 1, p. xxxii

But I'm only an armchair linguist, did I misunderstand this? — Sebastian 20:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The key word is "automatically". The devoicing is not phonemic. There is no contrast between voiced and voiceless vowels in Japanese. I'm sure the unsourced statement in question refers to phonology, not phonetics, as phonetic (allophonic) devoicing even of resonants (next to [h] or after aspirated consonants, for example, or when the speaker runs out of breath, or as a rhetorical effect, or simply when whispering) is common even in English (see Allophone). Therefore, it seems to be correct or at least not contradicted by the example of Japanese, or indeed any other language I can think of. In fact, in The Sound Pattern of English, Chomsky and Halle define sonorants as sounds for which voicing is the default. Perhaps this is the source of the claim, but I don't have the book (I just found out about Chomsky/Halle's definition through Googling), so I cannot confirm this.

Also, I just notice you've used Template:Verify source, which is about a doubtful claim with a given source (which you believe needs checking if the claim really originates from there), not about a doubtful claim without a source in the first place. Therefore, I'll remove your comment ("I" doesn't make sense in the context of the article, anyway - does Wikipedia speak for itself?) and change the template to Template:Citation needed. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:59, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, even if the voiceless vowels in Japanese had phonemic status, they would contrast with the voiced vowels, so the unsourced statement would still be correct. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:13, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

You're right about the template, that was my mistake. But about the contrast, you lost me. Your statement "There is no [phonemic] contrast between voiced and voiceless vowels in Japanese" is exactly what I meant. I also understood the unsourced statement as referring to phonology. But you lost me after "Therefore". I draw the opposite conclusion. So let's start from the unsourced statement. "There is a contrasting voiced sonorant" seems to imply that "There is a [phonemic] contrast". Do you agree with me so far? Now that directly contradicts "There is no contrast", doesn't it? I'm at a loss at how this can be understood the other way round. — Sebastian 16:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed myself that the assertion is confusingly phrased while writing the reply. What the assertion tries to say is that if a language has a phoneme /n̥/, there is always a corresponding voiced phoneme /n/ contrasting with it. There are apparently no languages which have something like /n̥/ but no /n/ in their phonological system. As stated under Vowel#Phonation, there are languages which have contrasting pairs of voiced and voiceless vowels, which is in accordance with the assertion, and Japanese has voiced vowels but no unvoiced vowels phonemically, either: the unvoiced vowels occur predictably and are explainable as regular allophones of the voiced vowels in voiceless environments. What would be a counterexample would be a language with a voiceless vowel for which it could be shown that it is always voiceless, or by default, while it is voiced only under specific circumstances which are conducive to voicing phonetically, say, in a voiced environment. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:53, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I see your addition. That mitigates the problem, but the main statement is still grossly misleading. As I pointed out above, "There is a contrasting voiced sonorant" seems to imply that "There is a [phonemic] contrast", which is simply wrong. It speaks for you that you're trying to understand what the original writer might have meant, but you don't need to have so much respect for such an unsourced sentence which nobody cared about in over four years. Moreover, even if we assume this statement is true as you understand it, I don't really see the practical use for that. "It is notable ..." - says who? Why is it notable? If it was just me, I would simply delete that sentence. But since you asked so nicely, and since to took the effort of trying to patch the sentence's misleading inherent problem by adding a parenthetical remark I feel it would be impolite if I now deleted it. Still, it would be nice if you could consider just deleting the sentence. — Sebastian 04:08, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Island Nation

Hi Sebastian, as you are part of WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation we need your help in a discussion here. Thanks--Blackknight12 (talk) 10:33, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Poll on ArbCom resolution - Ireland article names

There is a poll taking place here on whether or not to extend the ArbCom binding resolution, which says there may be no page move discussions for Ireland,Republic of Ireland or Ireland (disambiguation), for a further two years. Fmph (talk) 21:28, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

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South-pointing chariot

Hi Sebastian:

I guess you watch this page!

Sorry for the delay. I wrote you a long reply, but my internet connection went out and it was lost. Also, I'm fighting a cold...

Yes. I missed the bit where you told me that you are not the "IP editor". Too much Christmas revelry, I guess.

Don't worry. This little disagreement isn't going to put me off Wikipedia. I'm a former teacher. Like all teachers, I have learned to respect diversity of opinion, and also to have a very thick skin. Besides, I have a lot more serious reasons to criticize Wikipedia. I sometimes compare it to classical Communism - a noble enterprise, but incompatible with reality. Is it really possible to have a reliable encyclopedia in which many of the articles are written by people who know little about the subject, edited by people who know even less, all based on citations which nobody knows how to evaluate critically? I am sceptical.

Recently, I have seen appeals for money by people who have each written thousands of Wikipedia articles. Are they experts in all the fields?

There are many articles which have clearly been written by people who are really knowledgeable, who have put in few or no citations. There are others which must have been written by monkeys with typewriters, who have sprinkled them with citations of dubious worth. By Wikipedia's standards, the latter articles are the more reliable. I think not.

There's an article about the neighbourhood in which I live. I have edited it extensively to make it agree with the reality that I can see by looking out of my window. Of course, doing that was against the rules. "Original research" is not permitted.

As somebody (maybe Voltaire) said: Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

And, of course, there are vandals. Most of the edits I have seen by people who are identified only by IP numbers have turned out to be vandalism. The toilet humour quickly gets reverted by bots, but more subtle vandalism remains unnoticed for long periods, confusing anyone who relies on the articles for information. Sad.

If you haven't already done so, take a look at my User page (the main page as well as the Talk one).

Oh well....

Happy New Year.

David.

DOwenWilliams (talk) 21:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Happy New Year to you, too. I now regret my "unwatched" note; I didn't mean to move the conversation here. I sometimes use that to relieve the other editor from any pressure to reply. There might be a better way to word that. If you like, please feel free to move any part or all of this conversation to your talk page. (You may also want to change the heading for that section to "South-pointing chariot".)

I did not perceive a delay; besides, Wikipedia is not compulsory, and there is no rush.

I agree with your criticism; these are all things that chagrined me at one time or another. (Some of these, and many more, are listed at User:SebastianHelm/wishlist.) However I disagree with the conclusion that Wikipedia is incompatible with reality. It is still the most used encyclopedic resource world wide. Your Citation Stories are really interesting and should serve us all as a warning. But these are problems in the real world out there; your stories seem to indicate that such problems may have existed ever since humankind learned to read and write. — Sebastian 18:18, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

t:Plenty of things that are incompatible with reality have been accepted by huge numbers of people. Religious dogma, for example, or Communism, or Capitalism. Such things carry the seeds of their own destruction, but the seeds do not germinate immediately.

I'm sure you are right in saying that Wikipedia is the most widely used encyclopedia worldwide. If it were not widely used, frankly I would have nothing to do with it. I know plenty of intelligent, educated people who refuse to have anything to do with it now. When I tell them that I sometimes edit Wikipedia pages, they look at me like I am mad. They could be right. But, with so many people reading the articles, I feel some obligation to try to make sure they are correct. I guess I'm still a teacher at heart.

Yes. The mindless acceptance of things on the basis that "it is written" must go back to the earliest occurrences of writing, when most people were illiterate and regarded written words as some kind of magic. But the fact that this problem has existed for millennia should not prevent us from trying to avoid it now. Citing other people's writings is a weak way of establishing truth, compared with direct observation and reasoned argument. But how can anything like Wikipedia obtain strong evidence for everything that is written in it? I wish I knew the answer to that one.

Something popped up on my screen this morning, inviting me to try to persuade professors in universities in this area to make use of Wikipedia as a teaching resource. Hmmmm..... I don't think I could honestly do that. And, if I did, I don't think any of them would follow my urgings. Wikipedia is regarded with scepticism in academic circles, justifiably so,

Oh well....

DOwenWilliams (talk) 22:12, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary headline

Now, we're getting into ontology. What is reality? And what do you mean by "incompatible"? I would say that the -isms are an important part of reality, and as such they can not be completely incompatible. Granted, some of their central dogmata may logically clash with reality, but they have been useful for millions of people, giving them meaning and purpose in life. The same is true for Wikipedia: It may not be the best tool for finding out the ultimate truth, but it is a very useful tool for millions.

Unfortunately, the attitude you describe from the people you talk with is very common in academia, and it is in my view the main culprit for the disconnect between academia and the man on the street. I understand that it is often frustrating for a learned person if he has to contend with people who just think they understand a subject better and revert his edits with a mouseclick. They should be grateful for those of us who venture in this madhouse, instead of mocking us!

While I see the limitations of citations, I feel they are already a huge step forward; bringing {{cn}} to millions that had never thought of questioning the written word is an achievement Wikipedia can be proud of. When this percolates to real life, the world will be a much better place, albeit not perfect, which it will never be. — Sebastian 01:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I suppose we could get into the merits and demerits of solipsism. I could discuss the inferential logic that leads from patterns in squadges to a model in which the squadges are thoughts in the brain of an entity called "myself", who is just one of billions of similar beings inhabiting a universe which is conveniently called "reality". This kind of stuff is great fun, but is only obliquely related to the value, or otherwise, of Wikipedia.

Why did classical Communism - the system that existed in the Soviet Union and much of eastern Europe - fail? I travelled to several east-European countries while they were Communist, and I still quite frequently go to Cuba. Life there was and is nowhere near as unpleasant as Capitalist propagandists would have us believe. "Ostalgie" - nostalgia for the calm security of the old East Germany - is still a significant political influence in Germany. In Russia, the Communist party is the second-largest, getting the support of something like 20 percent of the population. In Cuba, there are some Russians who have gone to live there because they want to continue to live in a Communist state. So many people who have actually experienced Communism have found it more agreeable than Capitalism. And yet, in Europe, it collapsed. Why? As far as I can see, the main reason was that it was too idealistic. It assumed that the common man really wanted to put the interests of society as a whole ahead of his own self-interest. In reality, most people are not like that. Given the opportunity, they do not eagerly strive for the common good; they sit back and sponge whatever they can get from the system, which suffers as a result. That's what I mean by saying that Communism was incompatible with reality.

Wikipedia is also idealistic. It assumes that people who really know stuff will voluntarily share their knowledge, and that people who enjoy messing things up, or who have strange axes to grind, will somehow not cause serious damage. Is this idealism compatible with reality? We both have experiences that suggest otherwise.

This is clearly a topic that I could write about for hours, but I don't have hours to spare right now. I'll come back to it...

DOwenWilliams (talk) 16:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I didn't mean to get into discussing solipsism; I've never seen any merit in that, other than occasionally as a thought experiment. (BTW, I have no idea what you meant by "squadges".)

Of course I know Ostalgie; I lived in (West) Germany during that time. Even before the reunification, it was a common pattern between my parents and me to tell each other "If you don't like it here, why don't you go nach drüben (over there)". When the wall came down, it was unbelievable; there was such an overwhelming general sincere sense of relief in everyone I met in the East that can not be expressed in words.

Of course there were many problems with real communism, but idealism was only so indirectly, insofar as it may have facilitated muting criticism. It most blatant problem was its obvious injustice that shamelessly only served the self-declared most equal comrades. This demoralized whole countries. (That demoralization per se is not limited to socialist systems, it often happens in an entirely capitalist companies. The difference is that such companies may go bankrupt by a form of Darwinian selection. Capitalist ideologists like to claim that selection as an advantage of their system; but "too big to fail", and the fact that the people who are responsible for the failure still "earned" more for their "severance" than I can expect to earn in 1000 life times, reveals that they, too, are no more principled than the pig Napoleon and his cronies. Betraying people's aspirations, be they idealistic or egoistic, has always been a hallmark of the powerful, regardless of which ideology they choose to cloak themselves in.) At least in the GDR, where most people had access to western broadcast, they knew all along that their government only lied to them. In fact, they were so acutely aware of that, that, by a fallacious argumentum e contrario, people often were uncritical towards western news or even advertisement. Of course that had to lead to bitter disappointment; even more so when people were systematically ripped off by hordes of profiteers, invading the East like locusts. People who get squeezed out of their homes by someone who suddenly comes from the West, claiming that her grandparents owned that house before the war, naturally will conclude that everything was better before. Likewise, in Russia, the rise of the Communist Party is a natural reaction to the rampant rise of organized crime in an unbridled capitalism.

I agree with you that it is foolish to negate people's self-interest; just as it is foolish to assume that merely by relying on everyone's self-interest one will reach a perfect society.

But I can't follow your conclusion that Wikipedia is doomed because of that. There are plenty of people who come here in their spare time because they enjoy helping others. You are one of them. And I am certain the IP editor you reverted is one of them, too, albeit maybe on a lower level. That's what makes Wikipedia strong.

Yes, we both have some experience with people who only look after their self-interest here, but that doesn't make this place incompatible with reality, anymore than spending one's vacation in Barcelona is incompatible with reality, just because there are some pickpockets there. Just like any vacation spot, participating in Wikipedia is not for everyone. It is for those who enjoy sharing their knowledge, and those are the ones I care about. I'm not too worried about the baddies. Of course, when I catch one, I will put a stop to their game. I know that I will never eradicate wrongdoing here, anymore than all the police in the world will ever eradicate pickpockets. But that doesn't mean we should throw in the towel and allow our friends to ridicule our efforts, does it? — Sebastian 20:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Giant pots which come in twos and sit outside restaurants making soup

Hello, my friend. Thank you so much for the good advice on those other things. I'm having trouble posting at Project China, so I thought you may be able to help. Do you know what this is:

• 
• 
• 
• 

They are all over the country, and I think they are sort of called 缸, but I forget. Many thanks for any help you can offer. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:52, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment. Unfortunately, I'm not that knowledgeable about China. I don't quite understand why you can't post them at WP:China; that seems the best place for them to me. Or, better yet, why don't you ask the people in the restaurant? I've always found Chinese people happy to help a curious foreigner. — Sebastian 18:23, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. I forgot to explain. The Great Firewall of China is blocking my access to the project page. Perhaps there's something there it doesn't like at the moment. I can actually view, create and edit individual threads in edit mode. I'd forgotten that I can actually create threads, even though I just did it a day ago. (I'm a little dense sometimes.) I will repost this there. Many thanks. :) :) :)

To answer your other questions: I am in Hainan where Hainanese is the native language. So, they have trouble with the Mandarin, and I can't understand a lot of what they say anyhow. They have really strong accents, and we are both communicating in a second language. Plus, they don't really know. Even my Chinese friends don't know. But, these things are everywhere, so notable and sourceable. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:20, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't know it worked on such a granular level. Interesting that they would put the effort to implement that; that they don't simply block the whole page means that they must value the rest of the discussions going on at WP:China. Yes, there are a couple of headlines mentioning another island similar in size to Hainan, which may or may not be a province or an independent country. Too bad that you can't participate; having outed yourself as a stickler for consistency, your input would be useful, since the biggest of these is about standardization of names.

As for the names, I presume they wouldn't be able to write the names on paper, either? I realize Hainanese is a very peculiar language, even "mutually unintelligible with other Min Nan dialects"{{cn}}. That must be quite a challenge for someone who lives there and is very interested in the culture. — Sebastian 00:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)