User:AlexG
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I am AlexG. I've been reading Wikipedia for ages, and now I've decided to contribute. My first named edit was on the 20th of June, 2004.
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Editing philosophy
This passage represents my philosophy about choice of articles on which to work. Most of the time, I pick a random page, or just something I came across while reading about a different topic. I feel that this method is good for several reasons: it can focus attention on areas that would otherwise be neglected, it helps me learn about a whole load of interesting subjects, and gives a good overview of the state of Wikipedia as a whole. For what it's worth, I think the project is in pretty good shape; yes, there are lots of stubs, but I was surprised to find so many good articles this way.
"[...] standard, orderly, symmetrical interior maps are the enemy of freely connective thought [...] From day to day, the layout is rearranged." [...]
"But-- the indexers must spend the whole morning just finding their stations."
"Not at all. Any indexer can work from any station."
"Ah. So they just call up the job they were working on the day before."
"No. They merely pick up on the job that is already in progress on the station they happen to choose that day."
"Chaos!" said Leyel.
"Exactly. How do you think a good hyperindex is made? If one person alone indexes a book, then the only connections that book will make are the ones that person knows about. Instead, each indexer is forced to skim through what his predecessor did the day before. Inevitably, he'll add some new connections that the other indexer didn't think of. The environment, the work pattern, everything is designed to break down habits of thought, to make everything surprising, everything new. [...] That's why the indexes of the Imperial Library are the only ones worth having. They startle and challenge as you read."
From The Originist by Orson Scott Card (1989), collected in Foundation's Friends: Stories in honour of Isaac Asimov (Tor, 1989).
Some contributions
These are a selection of articles where I've written a substantial amount of the text, and feel confident in claiming to know quite a lot about the topic.
- Mathematics
- Combinatorial species, Comma category
- Legal topics
- Trial of the Pyx, Court of Piepowders, Courts Act 1971, Elizabeth Odio Benito
- History
- Meeting for Sufferings, George Fox (featured article), Jean-Charles Chapais
Most other contributions (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=AlexG) are copyedits, or minor additions.
Things to do
- Supreme Court Act 1981 and other UK legislation.
- Something on naming conventions for UK laws, covering the various long and short titles, Short Titles Acts, Amendment Acts, etc.
- Expand topics relating to combinatorial species.
- Expand Britain Yearly Meeting.
- Works of John Keats.
- Sort out Vampire watermelon. Well, I can dream.
Mathematical Fruit Jokes
After "extensive research", I have finally located the fourth Mathematical Fruit Joke. For some time, I had been aware that there were four canonical jokes, of which I knew three. I welcome the addition of any others that might exist.
- What is purple and commutative?
- An abelian grape.
- What is yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?
- Zorn's Lemon.
- What is green and determined up to isomorphism by its first Chern class?
- A lime bundle.
- What is yellow, linear, normed, and complete?
- A Bananach space.
Hi, I'm just passing through so I'll let you add links if you decide to keep. I prefer this one for the lime!
- What is green and homeomorphic to the unit open interval?
- The real lime.