User talk:SteveBaker/archive23

I have another question for you

Please see my recent reference desk question regarding the application of an optical coating to incandescent Edison bulbs and the associated thermodynamics involved. It is difficult to get an intuitive understanding of why this is or is not possible.

P.S. What is the reason for lack of response to my WT:ITN posts? ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 19:15, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry - I don't work on the Ref Desks anymore...and I have no idea which of your posts on WP:ITN is being ignored - or why. SteveBaker (talk) 04:37, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I seem to remember you said the reference desks were no longer fun. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 03:24, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you mind me asking why they were no longer fun? ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 19:56, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, there were a bunch of really annoying people there, I just got sick of the whole thing. Things may (or may not) have improved since then - but when I stopped contributing there, I found a bunch of other meaningful things to fill in my spare time - so I guess I'm done with it. Overall, my Wikipedia contributions have been slowing way down of late anyway. SteveBaker (talk) 22:25, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Deletion Review

Steve - You may be interested commenting on this. Best Centpacrr (talk) 05:52, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Steve. In view of the wide community support I have gotten for my userpage self image and the other issues of concern I am rethinking my decision to abandon Wikipedia. I do not want to allow myself to be driven away from contributing to the project by the actions of a few others with their own personal agendas and so am staying on ... at least not for now. Thanks for your encouragement. Centpacrr (talk) 14:36, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Greetings from a fellow Aspie!

Hi SteveBaker,

While looking through my old files, I discovered that years ago I had a diagnosis made of Asperger's Syndrome. This came as a partial surprise to me, but it wasn't all that surprising really, considering all my other symptoms. So, how are you this time of year? As for myself, it appears that at least two of my categories fall in the upper 98+th percentile. Intense interests in various topic areas are abundant. In terms of social ability, I had to rely on some of my personal insights and intuition to get along socially, but even then there are such disruptive behaviours as commenting on a faraway conversation, or going on and on about a certain "facinating" topic. Apparently for most, doing so is not a problem. However, it would seem that I am actually quite popular in most places, for reasons that are far beyond my logical grasp.

Another thing that came to mind is this: have you ever thought of how difficult it would be to represent social interactions in terms of mathematical functions or computer models and algorithma?! For the umpteenth time, it would certainly be a googolplex more complex than cliodynamics! I recall that xkcd comic of descending order of purity in fields: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, anthropology and finally sociology. Each one however would get more mathematically complex, but less mathematically comprehensive. For one thing, most people seem phased by logical non-sequiturs, causing a reversal of the interest modulation. Also, it has been snowing in Texas but not Southern Ontario, which is quite indeed morally reprehensible. Furthermore, most people seem not to understand the concept of sinusoidal oscillation-superimposed-upon linear to near-exponential trend, as in the case of global warming, instead opting that it must be one of the other. Illogical.

Years ago I remember you posting insightful responses on Wikipedia refdesk questions. Another thing I seem to recall is a new user introducing "crackpot" theories, before being banned from the community as a suspected troll. You were quite popular there, although the atmosphere directly above the surface of the reference desk became exponentially chaotic. As I recall, many people who have this diagnosis undergo a social orientation in order to pick up social cues more easily. In the early days this was one of my recommendations also, yet I learned the most from my peers and acquaintances. Learning the times table at age three and inventing my own simplified version of trigonometry at age 11 was far more simple than dealing with social pressures and stress. This abundance of knowledge drove me to Wikipedia, where indeed both you and I have been contributing over five years. Now that the project is slowing down somewhat, there potentially needs to be an expanse in interconnection (a subject on which an article only exists disambiguatingly) between various areas of the project and a focus on both expert/editor retension and easier sharing of ideas for articles and in fact 'shells' for articles which outline the basic format that the article will be in. Procrastination is often a great barrier to creating new articles, and the Gaussian function assumes that we will peak at 4.4 million articles. However, the number of potential topics Wikipedia has yet to cover even in English potentially numbers far more than that. Happy Holidays!

Thanks. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 01:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC).

Asperger Syndrome problem with user

Please be aware that I feel personally attacked by IP 96.49.3.223 and have warned IP on IP's talk page. I will not stand for this type of stupid personal attack because it is aimed at all of us. Why did you engage the IP as if the IP had an important point? It's just a schoolyard bully.--Djathinkimacowboy ^BUCKSHOT 11:01, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

This troublesome issue compelled me to post messages to the other editors involved: The discussion I started [1] is out of control. I feel IP 96.49.3.223 has crossed the line. I'm making a call to action to stop this IP from personal attacks against people with AS. That is what IP is doing and it is insulting as hell. Please address this at the talk page or feel free to visit my talk.--Djathinkimacowboy ^BUCKSHOT 12:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Categories

Please have a read of WP:CAT anf please observe what is convention out there in category land. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom enforcement

Hey, I noticed I added too few == to my comment, I added some to yours as well as you may have used my format too: [2]. You can change it if you like. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

NLT

Hi Steve,

to give you some background on my stance of NLT in the ongoing Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Gregory_Goble Arbcom case.

Recently I was "accused" of smearing "a respected scientist" on Talk:Energy Catalyzer, [[3]].

It is a similar situation to the current Arbcom case, but in my case the editor who was "accused of smearing" (=me) ended up on an AN/I instead of the editor "accusing" (=Gregory) ending up on ArbCom.

I think in both cases there was 1) no libel, slander, smearing 2) no reason to start an Arbcom or AN/I over it.

Just imagine the other way around: Me dragging the accusing editor to Arbcom over the Ugo Bardi issue or Gregory starting a AN/I against the editor he feels are smearing CF-researchers.

That would be silly, I think you agree.

I do not see a clear legal threat in any of it. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:35, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Mini Vote

Hey, I have proposed a vote for something to be agreed on once and for all regarding the Mini issues; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mini_%28marque%29#Vote Yellowxander (talk) 12:02, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Your Kickstarter project

Have you and your partner ever thought of trying to license the toys through one of the toy companies? Hasbro or someone like them might be too big to go for but there are smaller companies, I'm thinking of a local manufacturer called Wow Toyz, that might be easier for a small start-up to work with. Just a thought... Dismas|^(talk) 03:09, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, licensing the designs is unlikely to work because at the scales and profit margins that businesses like Hasbro operate, they can't afford to use laser cutting - and they are not simple machines to operate - it's a skilled job. Die-cutting plywood is the only approach they could really afford - and that can't produce the precision and super-square edges that our construction techniques require (a laser cutter is accurate to at least 1/1000th of an inch and imposes zero stresses on the material as it's cut - which is what makes it possible to design "snap-together" kits). Also we first paint, then laser-etch designs for stonework, door and window arches and such into the paint layer - which really isn't possible with other techniques. That's why almost all modern toys are produced out of plastic...which is kinda sad.

We could probably sell through distributors like WowToyz - but they generally require a gigantic markup (we sell to them for $x per unit, they need a 100% profit - so they sell to the stores for $2x and the stores also want a 100% profit - so they sell at $4x. If the market will stand $200 for our top-of-the-range toy castle - we would have to sell them to a distributor for $50. But we can sell direct to the customer for $200. We really can't make the castle for $50 - it takes almost 8 hours of laser cutter time alone (not counting packaging, shipping, paint and plywood). Of course doing it this way we have to handle our own returns, shipping, etc - but for a low volume item like this, that's no great hardship.

We could probably sell to retailers - but it is increasingly the case that retailers don't want the hassle of dealing with hundreds of little suppliers - the just want to go to a distributor and do one-stop-shopping for their stock. But in any case, they tend to demand a free returns policy - meaning that if the product doesn't sell, they can just return it to you for a 100% refund. That would mean that we'd potentially have to make a bunch of kits - then sit on the money for months until we're sure that we're not going to have to give it back. That's not a viable way for a startup to work either.

The biggest problem for us right now is getting started. We need some capital to buy the first laser cutter (not a cheap toy!) along with other tools - and we need to rent space to put it in. Kickstarter (when it works) is great for that because you know that you've definitely sold some amount of 'stuff' and have all of that money up-front before you have to make any capital investment.

So the big problem is getting the market to find us - but that's difficult without a gigantic advertizing budget - which we don't have.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:56, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I used to program CNC machinery, including a plasma table that works much like the laser cutter in the video. So I'm aware of what's involved. And I'm aware of the markups along the way. But I didn't know that it takes 8 hours for the large kits. That seems far too long even for the speed that I saw the laser going in the video. Though, thinking about it a bit more, I guess it's the etching that takes the most time. Cutting the pieces should be fairly quick but the etching...

Maybe you can find some smaller retailers or even go to a trade show with what you have.

Anyway, I'm sure you know what you're getting into better than I do. Good luck with the Kickstarter effort! Dismas|^(talk) 06:31, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no, it's the cutting that takes by far the longest. The video was speeded up quite a bit to make it less boring to watch. Cutting plywood is laser-power limited - but etching is motor-speed limited. I'm currently using a 60 watt laser - and to cut 1/4" plywood, it has to go at a painful 2% speed and 100% power - maybe one inch per second. For etching through paint, it can zip along at 100% speed and 20% power - about 50 inches per second! The large castle model is quite bit - about 2' long and 16" tall - and it has around 150 parts requiring about 32 square feet of material! I actually cut 18 parts at a time out of a 24"x32" sheet of plywood (which is the largest this machine can take) - and the time varies between 20 and 40 minutes per sheet depending mostly on how twiddly the outlines are (eg panels with windows in them take longer to cut than similarly sized floor and ceiling panels). About 90% of the total time is spent cutting and just 10% etching. Crunch the numbers and it averages out to about 7 hours of laser time - plus 'dead time' while you remove finished parts and reload the machine...about 8 hours. So at $200 per castle (less electricity, materials and shipping), the laser cutter is 'earning' around $20 an hour...fortunately, one person can look after many laser cutters at once - so the hourly earnings for that person depends mostly on how many laser cutters they can look after and how much capital we can invest in buying them.

Part of the Kickstarter was to buy a 100 watt laser - which will be considerably more than twice as fast at cutting - but about the same speed (motor-limited) at etching. It also takes a much larger plywood sheet - which reduces the number of times per day you have to go to the machine and do things to it - which in turn makes it possible for one person to look after more laser cutters. The result is that you can earn good money doing this work if the market is big enough and you can afford the capital investment in laser cutters.

What makes it attractive to my friend Renee, is that she only needs to spend about 10 minutes every 2 hours picking out parts and stuffing more plywood into the machines - boxing and shipping the kits. The rest of the time, she can do something else. For Renee (who looks after her granddaughter during the day) - it's the perfect job - and (if we can get the business), the pay is pretty good.

The design effort for the castle and siege engine kits is considerable - but I did that 'pro-bono' - so it's a freebie.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:02, 5 June 2012 (UTC)