View source for User:Aladdin Sane

{{Reviewer topicon}}
{{For|the [[David Bowie]] album|Aladdin Sane}}
{{User page}}
<!--This contract ended in June, 2017...  Declared COI:  Per [[WP:COI]], as of 2016, I am a paid [[IT]] consultant for [[Aurcana Corporation]].  I will edit the article objectively. &nbsp;&nbsp;&mdash;[[User:Aladdin Sane|Aladdin Sane]] ([[User talk:Aladdin Sane|talk]]) 23:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC) -->
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{{center|"I came for some information; I stayed to do a few edits."&nbsp;&nbsp;&mdash;me, 2015-02-28}}
{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="margin: 1em auto;"
| Current UTC time as of last page refresh
| '''{{ISO date}}''', '''{{Utc}}'''  [{{Purge|Refresh}}]
|}<!-- Compares World population to US population. -->
{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="margin: 1em auto;"
| align="right"| World population (2015-02-25)<ref name="uscen1">{{cite web
| url = https://www.census.gov/popclock/?intcmp=home_pop
| title = Population Clock
| work = U.S. and World Population Clock
| publisher = [[United States Census Bureau]]
| date = 2015-02-25
| accessdate = 2015-02-25}}</ref>
| align="right"|  7,226,810,000
|-
| align="right"| US population (2015-02-25)<ref name="uscen1" />
| align="right"| 320,411,000
|-
| align="right"| Percentage of world population that is American
| align="center"| [[E pluribus unum|4.43%]]
|}<!--
Compares Internet users to registered Wikipedia users, for the fun of it. -->
{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="margin: 1em auto;"
| align="right"| Potential Wikipedia readership (and editorship) (estimated Internet users) (2014-06-30)<ref name="iws1">{{cite web
| url = http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
| title = World Internet Users and Population Stats
| work = Internet World Stats June 30, 2014 - Mid-Year Update
| publisher = Miniwatts Marketing Group
| date = 2014-06-30
| access-date = 2015-02-25}}</ref><ref name="wp-inh1">{{cite web
| url        = http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internet&oldid=648805723
| title      = Internet § History
| last       = Contributors
| first      = Wikipedia
| date       = 2015-02-25
| website    = en.wikipedia.org
| publisher  = English Wikipedia
| access-date= 2015-02-25
}}</ref>
| align="right"| 3,035,749,340
|-
| align="right"| Number of registered Wikipedia editors (as of today, {{#formatdate:{{Date||iso}}|ISO 8601}} (UTC))<ref name="wp-hmw1">{{cite web
| url        = https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Magic_words&oldid=647744112
| title      = Help:Magic words § 3 Variables (WP:VAR)
| last       = Contributors
| first      = Wikipedia
| date       = 2015-02-18
| website    = en.wikipedia.org
| publisher  = English Wikipedia (Help)
| access-date= 2015-02-25
}}</ref>
| align="right"| {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} <!-- Change to this and re-calculate?  {{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}} -->
|-
| align="right"| Percentage of Internet users that are registered Wikipedia editors
| align="center"| 0.797%
|}<!--
Ratio of Internet users to all Americans. -->
{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="margin: 1em auto;"
| align="right"|If every American uses Internet, then max % of Internet population that is American
|10.55%
|}
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<br />

==About==
I've been using [[personal computers]] [[TRS-80|since 1977]].  I've been online since the [[Bulletin board system|BBS]] days in the 80s.

I served in the [[US Army Signal Corps]] as a radio mechanic with the [[504th Infantry Regiment (United States)|504th Parachute Infantry]], [[82d Airborne Division]] from 1986 to 1989, and [[143rd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)#Lineage|Co G]] ([[Long Range Surveillance]]) 143d Infantry, [[Texas Army National Guard|TXARNG]] from 1989 to 1992.

My job is to get the message through.

I use the [[Linux|GNU/Linux]] [[operating system]].  I have been doing so [[The Cathedral and the Bazaar#Legacy|since 1998]].  I work professionally in [[electronics]] areas ranging from [[SATCOM]] to [[Network Architecture]] to general [[Information and communications technology|ICT]].

I currently (2015) live in the [[Chihuahuan Desert]].

===A test===
I realized that some have looked at the above and reached inappropriate conclusions.  I can only wish I lived in your fantasies of life, as it is, and not as it should be.

Having lived a large part of my life in [[Austin, Texas]], we believe the following tells much about you.  And so there some have asked my five favorite movies, and I find this a challenge, as I may change my mind on this, as the daytime does its length each day.  Here are my five favorite movies:

#''[[Educating Rita (film)|Educating Rita]]'' (1983)
#''[[A Man for All Seasons (1966 film)|A Man for All Seasons]]'' (1966)
#''[[The Harder They Come]]'' (1972)
#''[[Come Back, Little Sheba (1952 film)|Come Back, Little Sheba]]'' (1952)
#''[[Eraserhead]]'' (1977)

Yes, each movie has a point to make and may challenge you...  about the underdog... or just... the dog... hopeless... will you get your head chopped off to make this point?  Some have... some, indeed, have...<!-- Yes, in each movie, the underdog loses in the end. --><!-- Well, that's highly debatable. -->

==Current==
[[Wikipedia:WikiSloth|WikiSloth]] (''B. wikitridactylus'')  —10:42, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

==History==
I'm re-watching all the [[Babylon 5|B5]] episodes and movies on DVD.  I hope I can make the B5 stuff a bit nicer and more relevant and informative. —20:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

{| <!-- Template:Collapse top --> class="collapsible collapsed" style="width:100%;font-size:88%;text-align: left; border: 1px solid silver; margin-top: 0.2em;"
|-
! style="background-color: #F0F2F5;" | Some personal history notes on editing from 2006-09 – 2009-10
|-
| style="border: solid 1px silver; padding: 8px; background-color: white; " |<!--

-->Well, sometime in late September 2009 I got sucked in to [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Babylon 5|WikiProject ''Babylon 5'']].  Now it's mid–October, I was looking at my whole contribution history, and I remembered the reason why I got sucked in to editing in the first place:  It was the synopsis to "[[And the Sky Full of Stars]]".  Some previous editor had gotten ''all'' the references to Knight Two and Knight One reversed, and I just had to go in and fix it.  I was innocently reading the original several hundred [http://ftp.midwinter.com/lurk/ftp/GEnie/index.html JMS posts at midwinter]<ref name="jms1">JMS is [[J. Michael Straczynski]], the "[[showrunner]]" of ''[[Babylon 5]]''.</ref> (''The Lurker's Guide'') from 1991 to 1996, and I thought I'd check Wikipedia on the subject of that episode.

Maybe I shouldn't have.

But I was looking at my contribution history to find my first logged in edit (I'd made minor contributions all along as an IP address), because I couldn't remember why I had signed up for an account in the first place, three years ago.  So here it is, my original logged-in edit, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Criticism_of_Microsoft&diff=prev&oldid=76164698 Criticism of Microsoft Revision as of 22:29, 16 September 2006].  I made a major change to a paragraph from:
<blockquote>
More to the point, in 1996 a class action lawsuit was brought against Microsoft representing thousands of current and former employees that had been classified as "temporary" and "freelance", known as "Vizcaino". The case was decided on the basis that such "permatemps" had their jobs defined by Microsoft, worked alongside regular employees doing the same work, and worked for long terms. After a series of court setbacks, Microsoft settled the suit for $100 million.
</blockquote>
To:
<blockquote>
More to the point, in 1992 a (US) state lawsuit was brought against Microsoft representing 8,558 current and former employees that had been classified as "temporary" and "freelance", and became known as [http://www.example.com/ "Vizcaino v. Microsoft"]. In 1993, the suit became a US Federal Class Action in UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE as No. C93-178C. The Final Settlement<ref>{{cite web
| title=Vizcaino Final Settlement
| url=http://www.bs-s.com/msoft.html
}}</ref> came in 2005. The case was decided on the (IRS-defined) basis that such "permatemps" had their jobs defined by Microsoft, worked alongside regular employees doing the same work, and worked for long terms. After a series of court setbacks including 3 reversals on appeal, Microsoft settled the suit for about US $92.730 million and 44¢.
</blockquote>
I had done a ''ton'' of research on that case for another web site, I had some clarity to add to the paragraph, and I wanted my "ordinary online persona" associated with it.  The paragraph really hasn't changed much in three years, though one web site has gone down, another needed fixing, (now at <ref name="viz1">{{cite web
<!-- looking at page metadata for a "pubdate" -->
| author     = Bendich, Stobaugh and Strong P.C.
| title      = Vizcaino Final Settlement
| date       = 2005-08-08
| url        = http://www.bs-s.com/CM/PreviousCases/Microsoft-Case.asp
| accessdate = 2009-10-14
}}{{dl}}</ref>) and somebody edited out my dramatic irony at the end of the paragraph (as they properly should have).  The article, [[Criticism of Microsoft]], has expanded much over the years, including at least four daughter articles.  Pretty good for an article that just barely keeps its head above the NPOV water by being ''exceedingly'' well referenced, relying heavily on secondary sources.  —05:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
|}
Reference update to the ''Vizcaino'' edits, 2015-02-25.  The law firm that has publicly recorded the settlement in ''Vizcaino'' (Bendich, Stobaugh and Strong P.C.) has changed the address yet ''again''.  It can now be found at http://www.bs-s.com/cases/c-microsoft-vizcaino.html or if you use their web site to find the page, you will be sent to http://204.200.167.203/cases/c-microsoft-vizcaino.html (now there's a law firm who knows how to hire some competent web designers).<ref name="viz2">{{cite web
<!-- looking at page metadata for a "pubdate" -->
| author     = Bendich, Stobaugh and Strong P.C.
| title      = Vizcaino Final Settlement
| date       = 2005-08-08
| url        = http://www.bs-s.com/cases/c-microsoft-vizcaino.html
<!-- also at http://204.200.167.203/cases/c-microsoft-vizcaino.html -->
| accessdate = 2015-02-25
}}</ref>  —10:42, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

==Stuff I'm always forgetting and can't find again when I want/need it==
*[[Help:Wiki markup|I can't believe]]
*[[Help:Cheatsheet|they pulled these links from the edit page]]

*[[American and British English differences]]
**[[American and British English spelling differences]]
**[[Briticism|Briticism (words)]]
**[[List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom|Americism (words)]]<!--
comment: There is no one [[Americanism]] article in the encyclopedia like the Briticism page, just a disambiguation page, but in this case, I fear the lack of a single article increases ambiguity.  (There is Wiktionary's [[wikt:Americanism]] definition, which points back at the WP article, but again, no article, just a disam page.  How ambiguous is that? -->
*[[Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style#Webpages (plain, permalinked, and archived)|Vague authors are allowed in cites]]
::"For webpages, the author is often unknown; you can either omit the author altogether, or substitute something vague like 'Open Source Initiative Contributor'."
*[[Indefinite and fictitious numbers|Vague numbers and quantities exist]], including those that don't

*[[Wikipedia:Namespace|Intra-wiki namespaces]]
*[[Help:Interwikimedia links|Inter-wiki sister links]]
*[[meta:List of Wikipedias|Inter-wiki language links]]

===External tools===
<!-- *[[tools:~thebainer/contribs-by-article/index.php|Per-article (page) contributions by contributor (User)]] at Toolserver
*[[tools:~dispenser/view/Checklinks|Checklinks]]—find dead external links (incl. in the references) in an article -->
*[http://en.wikichecker.com/user/?t=Aladdin+Sane&l=1000 WikiChecker] —Scary charts about my last 1000 edits
*[https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-ec/?user=Aladdin+Sane&project=en.wikipedia.org X! Edit Counter] —Analysis of user contributions at Tool Labs
<!-- *[https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-ec/?user=Aladdin+Sane&project=en.wikipedia.org X! Edit Counter] —Analysis of user contributions at Tool Labs -->
*[http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/view/Checklinks Checklinks] —Dead link checker at dispenser.homenet.org

==Userboxes==
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! style="background-color: #F0F2F5;" |30 [[Wikipedia:Userboxes|Userboxes]]
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-->{{Boxboxtop|[[Wikipedia]]|left}}
{{User Wikipedian For|year=2006|month=09|day=16}}
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{{User en}}
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{{User USA}}
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{{Template:User Kate}}
{{User:Ptkfgs/User Iceweasel}}
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{{User:Disavian/Userboxes/Screw}}
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{{User:Scapler/USBX Disambig.}}
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{{User time zone|CT||Central Time Zone}}
{{User:Disavian/Userboxes/EFF Censorship}}
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{{Template:User gnulin2}}
{{User debian}}
{{User fedora}}
{{User:Quistisffviii/Userboxes/BBS}}
{{User:Quistisffviii/Userboxes/Sysop}}
{{User:Ginkgo100/Userboxes/User ambidextrous}}
{{User:Ginkgo100/Userboxes/User smoker}}
{{User:Hzoi/Userboxes/Airborne}}
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{{User:Ahunt/K3B}} -->
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-->{{Boxboxtop|Interests|left}}
{{User:Disavian/Userboxes/Civilization}}
{{User:Sir Link/Userboxes/Free software if possible}}
{{User:Scepia/Stallman}}
{{Template:User dst 3}}<!--
{{User:UBX/B5Fan}} -->
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{{Clear}}
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==Ramble==
[Last update: 00:27, 27 April 2015 (UTC)]
{| <!-- Template:Collapse top --> class="collapsible collapsed" style="width:100%;font-size:88%;text-align: left; border: 1px solid silver; margin-top: 0.2em;"
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! style="background-color: #F0F2F5;" | On disambiguation
|-
| style="border: solid 1px silver; padding: 8px; background-color: white; " |<!--

-->Man, I wish there was a Wikipedia pro-disambiguation Userbox but I couldn't find one...
:Woo hoo.  Thanks to [[User:Scapler|Scapler]] for the Userbox.  It brings up a subject I find interesting:  I thought the disambiguation pages were a wonderful idea when I first ran across them; now I realize it's ''all'' about disambiguation; the whole WP project, all the little edits I make, and really everywhere one expresses oneself online.  Never have we be been more misunderstood then by our online expressions.  This phenomenon (disambiguation) encourages clarity of thought and of expression not previously found frequently in other media.
|}
Some things I don't need Userboxes for:
*This user uses [[ISO date]]s (ISO 8601)  unless informed otherwise.
*This user understands the difference between ''to'', ''too'', and ''two'', but may fall off a [[WP:DGAF|DGAF]] cliff.
*This user understands the difference between ''cite'', ''site'', and ''sight'', but sometimes has a brain melt.
*This user has failed to come down on either side of the [[serial comma]] issue since at least 1989.
*<del>This user thinks the terminating double quote goes outside the period.  [[Wikipedia:Mos#Quotation marks|Except when it doesn't]].</del>
*<ins>This user thinks [[MOS:LQ]] ([[Quotation_marks_in_English#Order_of_punctuation|logical quotation style]]) is correct, but was taught wrong in school.  This has resulted in severe bain dramage.</ins>
*This user understands the [[WP:HYPHEN|difference between]] a ''hyphen'', ''en dash'', and ''em dash'', but couldn't find the latter two on [[Command-line interface|the keyboard]].
*This user might understand the difference between ''affect'' and ''effect'' but might mess up somewhere [http://xkcd.com/326/ when you weren't looking].
*[[Pedant]] or [http://www.westegg.com/nash/purist.html Purist]?  Hmm.
*Bleah.  This editor is a Yeoman Editor, and is entitled to display this [[Wikipedia:Service_awards#Yeoman_Editor_.28or_Grognard_Extraordinaire.29|Service Badge]] but won't because this editor thinks that any argument that starts by asserting or assuming quantity over quality is an inherently [[fallacy|flawed argument]].

Too funny to pass up:
:From the [[BSD]] [[fortune (Unix)|fortune]] program on my system this evening:
::"Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon."
:::<small>—[[Alan J. Perlis]], "[[Epigrams on Programming]]", [[Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]], [[SIGPLAN]], ''SIGPLAN Notices'', 1982-09</small>

==Sandbox==
*[[/sandbox|Sandbox]]
*[[/B5-AS-notes|B5 Project notes to self]]
:Note to self:  Per [[Wikipedia:Sandbox|WP:SANDBOX]] and [[Wikipedia:User_page#How_to_create_a_user_subpage|WP:USERSUBPAGE]].

==References and notes (bogus and otherwise)==
{{Reflist}}
{{Hr}}
<br />
[[File:CC_some_rights_reserved.svg|thumb|center|middle|upright=0.83|alt=Creative Commons|[http://creativecommons.org/ Creative Commons]]]
[[File:CC-BY-SA icon.svg|thumb|center|middle|upright=0.83]]
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Future}}
{{LicenseGPL}}
<!--{{MultiLicenseWithCC-By-All}}
{{WikimediaAllLicensing}}
Might be some good licenses to declare; check related templates.  No, the default per the ToU is CC-BY-SA+GFDL, which is right for me as a base.  Checking [[Wikipedia:Userboxes/Large/Licensing]].  The GPL is here.  -->
[[Category:Wikipedians who like Babylon 5|{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Wikipedians who use Mozilla Firefox]]
[[Category:Wikipedians who use Konqueror]]