User talk:Hike395/Archive 2

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Archive 5

Minor planet nomenclature

Thanks for fixing the SI thousands in the Kuiper belt table. Re codes, does a name like '1999 CD158' mean there were 999 As and Bs in codes given in the 3rd fortnight of 1999? If so, does 2003 AZ84 mean they'll need go to four digits soon? - Jeandré, 2004-02-25t12:38z

Desert Bighorn Sheep

I just created Desert Bighorn Sheep based on PD text. I thought you might want to take a look at it. :) --mav 01:50, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

2004 DW

Thanks for the correction of Sedna's status at 2004 DW. I had overlooked the KBO/TPO matter. — Jor (Darkelf) 12:33, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Northern extent of Sierra Nevada

My 1960 Encyclopaedia Britannica says, the Sierra Nevada are, "officially defined by the U.S. Geographic Board as being 'limited on the north by the gap south of Lassen Peak, and on the south by Tehachapi Pass'". I haven't found that definition on any current USGS sites, but I'd like to get the northern extent correct for Wikipedia. The lowest pass between the Pacific drainage and the Great Basin appears to be Beckwouth Pass, near the eastern end of route 70. Any comments? Mackerm 16:35, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I'm gonna copy this whole conversation over to the Sierra Nevada discussion page for the benefit of future generations, and put my follow-up there too Mackerm 22:00, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Page 2 of this PDF [1] says, "The Northern Sierra boundary is marked where bedrock disappears under the Cenezoic volcanic cover of the Cascade range." Its one of the links on the left side of this page. I could have provided a better link at the Fredonyer Pass page. Here's another good PDF from that page: [2] Mackerm 00:47, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It looks pretty good. The term Cenozoic isn't much help, since it's pretty broad. I think I read somewhere that the volcanic rocks in the central and southern parts of the Sierra Nevada are older than the rocks in the Lassen area. Never mind Mammoth Mountain. Mackerm 09:34, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Random links

Template:Saturn Latent semantic indexing

Centaurs

I listed them in reverse numerical order because that's how the external link (Minor Planet Center official list) lists them, so comparison is easier that way.

Thanks for fixing up Greater Los Angeles

That Greater Los Angeles area page was seriously messed up. It's still not what It should be, but this is Wikipedia... What're ya gonna do? Also, I'm still interested in the Sierra Nevada, though I haven't come up with anything worth adding. I want to write some stuff about the Tehachapi area, and it turns out that some definitions of the Sierra Nevada include the Tehachapi mountains, and some don't. Mackerm 00:50, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the best thing would be to move the contents of List of towns in the Greater Los Angeles Area to the bottom of Los Angeles--Riverside--Orange County, CA CMSA an otherwise pointless page I created solely to eliminate confusion. Mackerm 01:45, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

on another topic entirely

Could you please weigh in at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Capitalization of species common names again? (long topic). User:MPF has been on a tear moving common plant name pages to all capitals, i.e. Gray Pine. I consider it vandalism. Mackerm 07:44, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Hike - thanks for the attempt at peacemaking on this one! If I'm interpreting your suggestions right, it is pretty close to Uther's and my preferences, but could you clarify for me please, how it would affect pages that are capitalised (e.g. Giant Sequoia) and those that aren't (e.g. red oak)? Unless I've completely misunderstood what you suggest, I for one would be happy with your proposals - MPF 15:07, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

My proposal: Any place that the common name of a species is used to refer to the species as a whole (e.g., in the title of an article), all words in the common name should be capitalized. If individuals or groups of individuals or groups of species are referred to, it should be lower cased. (Unless the individual has a name, like "El Palo Alto".) It seems that "red oak" refers to a group of species, so it should be lower cased. Does that make sense? -- hike395 17:05, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Hike - thanks; that sounds reasonable to me. Guess I chose an ambiguous example with 'red oak', I should've specified e.g. northern red oak or pin oak; there is also a group page red oaks I did, using lower case in discussing red oaks as a group. - MPF 21:35, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like my proposal is dead, but under it "Northern Red Oak" would be the species name. --- hike395 21:52, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Just checked to see if you'd written anything lately. I rewrote my last comment at the Wikiprojet page, basically saying there's apparantly no consensus except that the birders are following the convention in certain bird books. I can't stop people from writing pages the way they want, but MPF really went on a tear re-capitalizing other people's work.

This is rather disingenuous - I wrote a lot of those pages, or at least upgraded them from pretty bald stubs! - MPF 21:35, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Now, I have to figure out how to run the public-domain map creation program. Mackerm 17:29, May 23, 2004 (UTC)

Here is what I've been working on lately: List of rivers of the Americas by coastline. I want to create a map of North and South America with the capes clearly indicated, so people know where to put the rivers. Mackerm 19:22, May 23, 2004 (UTC)

Chamomile in Yosemite Valley

Added a note to the talk page on a beautifully scented herb which grows in the valley; I reverted the species name because people apply the name "Chamomile" to 2 separate species with the fact that they have a good scent in common. Ancheta Wis 21:50, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Category talk:Solar system

Just dropping a note here to make sure you see where I've gone to ponder the implications of categories. Category talk:Solar system :)

SI units

SI Style guide

The ISO connection International Standard ISO 31 (Quantities and units) is the most widely respected style guide internationally when it comes to the use of units and mathematical notation, especially in scientific and educational texts. In most countries, school textbooks follow the ISO 31 style religiously, as do many editors of scientific journals. ISO 31 describes mostly SI units, but it has appendices that summarize the most commonly used U.S. customary units as well. The U.S. length units listed by ISO 31-1 in Annex A along with their abbreviations are: inch (in), foot (ft), yard (yd), mile. Note that the mile does not have any abbreviation specified by ISO 31. The only commonly used abbreviation for mile (m) is already used far more widely by the meter. Therefore ISO/TC 12 decided in favour of not abbreviating the mile at all, as opposed to inventing a new abbreviation for a unit that is deprecated anyway. -- Markus Kuhn (maintainer of misc.metric-system FAQ), 2004-02-17 10:21Z

The SI form of numeration is an ISO standard. If the Wikipedia style is contrary to this style, then the Wikipedia style should be changed. Either to permit the SI style with SI units only or at all times.

2004-06-12 -- from User:Euric

Mountain categories

I have added /Categories to the project and added my comments on the initial categorization. RedWolf 21:48, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

Bryce Canyon

If you have time and are interested, could you take a look at Bryce Canyon National Park to see if it is good enough for Featured article status and then indicate your opinion (either way since what I really want is a great article) at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates#Bryce_Canyon_National_Park? Disregard if you do not have time or interest in this subject. :) --mav 03:35, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll work on some of the points you raised and tell you when I'm done so that you can give a thumbs up or down on the article. --mav 05:33, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think its ready. The only thing I didn't do was take out the regional stuff from the geology section since I think that the geologic setting and context is very important. --mav 10:20, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Backbone Mountain

You'll find that a lot in the east. There's a different way of using words here in regards to mountains. I'm a westerner (Colorado) now living in New York. I was quite confused at first with how the words for "mountains" were applied in in New Jersey, etc. until realizing they generally mean a single long ridge, gently sloping with single summit: a very long stretched out mountain. Thinking of them as a "range" is a bit pedantic however, since this applies several summits. I realize the USGS calls them that, which perhaps reflects a paucity of vocabulary more than anything else. In the case of the Watchungs it is basically a pair of ridges, each with a single summit, with a gap between them. Something in between a range and a mountain perhaps, for which there is no generally word other than "ridge". Most everything in the east south of the Mohawk River fits this description of "mountain" (i.e. really a ridge). Up in New England, you start getting glaciated monadnocks and such like Mt. Washington that are nice isolated "mountains" again. Anyway have fun with the classification. :) -- Decumanus 07:38, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Root-finding algorithms

Could you perhaps have a look at my question on Category talk:Root-finding algorithms?

Radnath Sikdar

Exact copy at Talk:Radhanath Sikdar.