User:Mendel

I'm Rich, a geek from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I look remarkably like the handsome gentleman illustrated at right.

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Contents

1 Genesis 2 Toolbox 3 Areas of Interest 3.1 Computing 3.2 Sociology and Economics 3.3 Music 3.4 Aviation 3.5 Physics 3.6 Canadiana 4 Articles for which I take some blame 4.1 Full or nearly-full blame 4.2 Partial blame 4.3 Photos 5 To-do list

Genesis

Timwi and I were talking on LiveJournal's IRC channel about wikipedia, and next thing I know I've spent a couple hours reading policies and style guides, and a whole weekend writing a couple of articles and fixing up more and enjoying RC patrol, and it seems like I might stick around.

You can glean more info about me from my LiveJournal (http://mendel.livejournal.com/) and its userinfo page (http://mendel.livejournal.com/info), and my website (http://www.lafferty.ca/).

For two days I was known as RichL, but ten years of being "mendel" on IRC won out.

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Toolbox

All of the following make using and contributing to Wikipedia easier for me:

• My Wikipedia bookmarklet (http://www.lafferty.ca/stuff/misc/wpbk.html)
• The Mozex (http://mozex.mozdev.org/) plugin for Mozilla, which lets me edit the contents of a textbox in the text editor of my choice
• The Vim text editor with Wikipedia syntax mode
• The Wikipedia link script in XChat on #wikipedia and #enrc.wikipedia

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Areas of Interest

In which I describe in a barely-organized manner the sorts of things I expect I might be contributing to based on my interests and history.

Computing

I'm a Unix system administrator and Perl programmer by trade, and while I only briefly studied formal computer science I expect I'll touch on that area here and there.

I'm currently employed by Mitel and thus might be able to lend some help in telecommunications, particularly voice over IP.

Sociology and Economics

I have an undergraduate degree in sociology which at times started looking like I might end up studying Economics instead. My areas of concentration at the time included deviance, labor theory, queer theory, and medical sociology.

Music

I studied jazz performance and computer music at the undergrad level for three years before switching into sociology. I play rock and jazz bass guitar, jazz and a bit of classic double bass, Irish traditional music on the flute and tinwhistle, and a bit of bodhrán and guitar.

Much of my listening time is filled with indie rock. The first article I wrote from scratch was on Canadian indie rock band Hot Hot Heat.

Aviation

I possess (but have not used for nearly a year, but that should change next spring) a student pilot permit, and am predictably a bit of an aviation nut, although I'm certainly not an aviation historian. Nonetheless I expect I will be dabbling in some general aviation articles.

Physics

I have no formal training in physics whatsoever, but I might have enough understanding thereof to tweak articles toward the layman level.

Canadiana

I'm a twenty-minute drive from the National Archives of Canada, Parliament Hill, and similar institutions, and am looking forward to opportunities to do research based on original sources.

The geographic areas of Canada which interest me most are:

• Belleville, Ontario and surrounding Hastings County, Ontario, where I grew up;
• Montreal, Quebec and region, where I lived for seven years while attending McGill University and working at Concordia University;
• Ottawa, Ontario and Hull, Quebec, where I live now.

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Articles for which I take some blame

Full or nearly-full blame

• Exploding sheep
• Hot Hot Heat
• Chieftains
• Emily Stowe
• Loyalist College
• Banana bread (and the recipe that Nyxie uses)

Partial blame

• Bodhrán
• Mitel
• Gentlemen's Quarterly
• Tin whistle
• Bagel (Montreal vs New York)
• Folk etymology versus fake etymology, especially on pages that link to folk etymology

Photos

• Bodhrán (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bodhran.jpg) in Bodhrán
• Betta splendens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Betta_splendens.jpg) in Siamese fighting fish
• Tugboats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:North-shore-tugboats.jpg) in Tugboat
• Freshwater angelfish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Freshwater_angelfish_biodome.jpg) in Freshwater angelfish
• Tin whistles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tinwhistles.jpg) in Tin whistle

To-do list

• Fantastic Plastic Machine — Japanese lounge-pop "band" of dj Tomoyuki Tanaka
• Private Copying — Peculiarities of Canadian music media tariffs
• Marcel Breuer — Bauhaus architect and designer
• Village Vanguard — seminal New York jazz club
• Expand DLT — mechanics of drive and cartridge, stripes, DECtape history
• Clamato — start with http://www.cincypost.com/2004/05/19/clam051904.html
• Check performance numbers at Cessna 150 (>100 kt cruise?) and format like Cessna 152