User talk:La comadreja/Archive '08-'09

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 Woof! My name is Jack(Russell). I am a dog and a Wikiversity mascot. I am pretty new around Wikiversity. Perhaps we can learn together! Tail wag...

Your upload
This file is under Copyright, so it can be upload in thise wiki whitout the author's authorization. Crochet.david 17:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Online Learning Communities
Greetings. I have been following the discussion about what Wikiversity is (or is not).

I have spent the last 20 years developing online learning communities (including projects funded in part by the National Science Foundation, in collaboration with a half-dozen universities).

It's important to appreciate what it takes for an online learning community to become a high-functioning center of excellence that attracts an eager community of learners who are able to collaborate creatively and productively for the benefit of all.

Barry Kort 00:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

research guidelines development
If you have the time, please help develop the Wikiversity research guidelines. --JWSchmidt 15:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * "What is Beta Wikiversity used for nowadays" <-- The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees asked us to develop research policy at betawikiversity, so that process continues there. cell biology, neuroscience <-- I teach cell physiology and neurophysiology to medical students, so, yes, I am interested in editing in those areas. I have the bad habit of editing pages on topics that I want to learn about rather than pages that I already know about. --JWSchmidt 03:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks and awesome. Which medical school do you teach at?  By the way, I also work at a medical school.  --AFriedman 15:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments

 * Well done, Nice page, nice career. Cheers,--24.69.201.228 17:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I haven't seen you since I started working on GreySmith Institute and now I find you dropping my name on Juandev's nomination page. Am I being shunned?--Graeme E. Smith 00:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Graeme, How are you? Awesome job with the GreySmith Institute.  You're working so hard!  I guess you haven't seen that I've been making some edits to its main page.  Among other things, I've also been taking a course on WikiEducator.  That's another site with a similar purpose to Wikiversity.  Over there, you can actually take online courses on how to use the wiki markup language and there are several levels of wiki certification.  I'm about to finish the 19th certification workshop, which was really well done, and the 20th is on Feb. 23-27.  Are you interested?  The site is http://www.wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Registration  --AFriedman 22:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I guess I can forgive you, I saw your edits, but that was DAYS ago, and I have no idea if you have seen how deep I have gotten yet. (Unlike most portals my portal is not only skin deep!

and you haven't dropped by my Courseware Forum to second the idea of a course on non-genetic Darwinism, which I won't be able to deal with until I get a little more depth to the Institute site.

Glad to hear that there are certification courses, do they cost money?--Graeme E. Smith 02:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, just wanted to drop by and suggest you look at my Artificial Consciousness course again, I just updated some links on the Neural Correlates/Synaptic Models page, and would like your feedback if you have the time.--Graeme E. Smith 20:04, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

This I'm about to do. --AFriedman 19:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I am working on some of the Cell Biology you set up and fleshing them out a bit. If you want to check them out sometime and let me know what you think, that would be great...I am a little new to this.--Fapril 19:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm about to do this. --AFriedman 02:59, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Question
Ok, Now I have a problem, I thought I could just use subst: to copy the file, and edit out the parts I don't want, but it doesn't seem to recognize the filename. Since you have actually taken a course on Wiki-Language, perhaps there is a better way of copying content from one file to another? My browser won't cut and paste between screens, which was what I was originally going to try.--Graeme E. Smith 22:55, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What file do you want to copy? I don't understand what you are asking.  --AFriedman 01:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Religion pages
Shalom Dchmelik! I see you're interested in Wikimedia's Religion projects and you have a link to pages about Judaism. I am as well. I'm curious about what your thoughts are for developing the Religion pages here on Wikiversity, especially the pages about Judaism. Lehitraot, AFriedman 16:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Shalom aleichem, Anne. My latest thought on developing the pages is  here.  As for Judaism--perhaps we should invite the other wikiProject Judaism members.  Wikimedia (at the meta wiki) is considering combining wikiprjects across wikis.  That should help, but for now one might have to do notices by hand.  I have read 'The Book' most of my life but may not be Jewish myself (and I am interfaith,) so it would be important for some more knowledgeable people to write most of the pages (if quite much will be written.)--Dchmelik 07:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I like your suggestions. Nonkilling studies, although a section I don't happen to be participating in, looks very interesting. I think it's good when Wikiversity develops learning resources that look unconventional but are of obvious value. I agree that we should invite people on Wikipedia to come join Wikiversity. I've already been putting links to Wikiversity pages in Wikipedia articles, and made Wikiversity pages part of w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Neuroscience. I think it would be great if you did that with religion as well. By the way, the link to Wikipedia that you sent needed fixing to point to the right page. --AFriedman 16:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Comparative Neuroscience Division at GSI
I just created a link for a Comparative Neuroscience Division, under the Neuropsychology School at GreySmith Institute. Even if you don't decide to build a lab there, I would like your feedback on what the best Subdivisions, subdivisions, Departments, and Projects would look like. For instance we might want to break it up into comparative NeuroAnatomy, Tree of Evolutionary Changes in the Brain, Comparisons between Phylums, You get the general drift.--Graeme E. Smith 05:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Take a look at the first lesson of Fundamentals of Neuroscience for suggestions about subdivisions. Also look at the "Major Branches" section of Neuroscience.  --AFriedman 21:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes of course, I suppose I will eventually get around to it, but that would not customize the branch so that it fit your particular interests, would it?--Graeme E. Smith 00:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * A section about "evolutionary neuroscience" would. --AFriedman 00:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, there is infrastructure laid in for a section for Evolutionary Neuroscience under the Comparative Neuroscience Division. Take a look at the related topics in the companion sections of Neuro-Anatomy and Brain Evolution to see how I have organized related topics. Does this type of break-down make sense to you for your section, or have I made an error somewhere?--Graeme E. Smith 20:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Just an update, I went with the 4 tab format, and fleshed out the infrastructure in GreySmith Institute/Evolutionary Neuroscience of Invertebrates Take a look when you get a chance.--Graeme E. Smith 05:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Cool! Why don't you add a little information about how this is an open-access laboratory that exists only online (as described in my User main page)?  Also, I'm changing the section about "Research mentoring" on my Userpage to list the projects that are going on, and your tab about "areas of study" could link over there.  --AFriedman 17:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good, what is the Address of that page?--OK I updated the link description to include the open lab, and online statement--Graeme E. Smith 17:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The address is User:AFriedman/Research. --AFriedman 17:59, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Got it!--Graeme E. Smith 18:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * well thank you. --AFriedman 18:17, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem that page is locked in now--Let me know when you have a link I can use for the other files for resources and techniques, and Results--Graeme E. Smith 20:31, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure. --AFriedman 01:50, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I see you have updated your research page like you suggested you might, any idea when you will get around to doing a research tools and techniques page? Or a Research Results page? No pressure, I just want to eventually flesh out the structure a bit more.--Graeme E. Smith 21:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Octopuses
I don't have access to university libraries. I'm interested in evolution in general and not only cephalopods. Studying cephalopod intelligence may be interesting for exobioligists as well as for those who want to study life on Earth. Cephalopods evolved independently from vertebrates. If we ever contact Intelligent aliens they also evolved intelligence independently from vertebrates. Proxima Centauri 21:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow! I think we have not such dissimilar interests.  On WV I perform research on my Userpage about the evolution of invertebrate nervous systems (although my primary interest is at a somewhat earlier stage, the transition from radial to bilateral symmetry, which comes with another very interesting set of questions).  Where do you live, physically?  Because if you can get access to a university library or a very good local library, you can probably find information that is many times better than you can find just through the Internet.  You don't need to be enrolled in a university to have access to its library--many alumni and community members can get library privileges for a fee.  Many of the references I use come from the university library's collection of online journals, which can only be accessed with an account and password.  Re: semelparity in octopi, I think that in practice semelparity is a very different question from intelligence.  Which is okay if you like octopi, but I just wanted to mention it.  Also, have you seen the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) page?  --AFriedman 23:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I live in one of the larger cities in the UK and might be able to get to a Russel Group University library there. Octopuses are a small part of my interest though. Proxima Centauri 14:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you think you are going to try to get access? Most libraries like that also have great collections of sci-fi, speculative work about life on other planets, etc.  --AFriedman 14:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

mentors
wow.... keep up the good work. This is a busy time of year for me in the real world. I hope to have more wiki time in the Summer. --JWSchmidt 21:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I was just looking at your Research Activities page, and I note that you have moved away from weekly delivery of papers. I think this might be a good thing. I know myself, that I often have a number of papers in process, and that most of them never see the light of day, because I don't know when I start one whether or not I will be able to finish it. I haven't published any of them yet, because I don't have the faintest idea where to publish most of them, but I like to complete them before I let anyone else look at them, and a weekly deliverable schedule doesn't fit my lifestyle.--Graeme E. Smith 21:35, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * These are not my papers, but papers I'm reading. I'm still deciding what is the most practical setup, re: lab meetings.  Do you think there should be lab meetings and would you participate if there were?  --AFriedman 02:38, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that you were right to have some sort of Laboratory Log, or Blog, to demonstrate activity in the lab, but, I think that the "meetings" should be more project oriented rather than date oriented. Or Deliverable Oriented. I was trying to achieve the same idea, with my Forums, and it seemed to be working until you quit using them altogether. As for papers, well it wasn't clear from the way you had worded it previously where the papers were coming from. It might be a good idea to have a sort of bibliography of papers you can cite from. This might be a role for a "Library" function, Especially for projects like "Introduction to Non-Genetic Darwinism" where the citations are currently very sparse, but in moving from a dedicated lab with only one purpose to a lab with multiple projects going on, it doesn't make sense to drag all the project members through each projects articles, so you need some sort of classification within the meeting so that people know which project an article is for and can concentrate on the projects they feel are important. Certainly your Computer Science Geeks are not going to be all interested in particular genes in a Radiant that are also part of another species that is bi-whatever, and so on, yet where there is enough cross over, having a common laboratory meeting would be productive, say, where the Simulation geeks in my Institute, are talking to the Cognitive Architecture Geeks. Does this monologue help at all?--Graeme E. Smith 14:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

GSI Campus Map
Ok, well, I was trying to make it easier to navigate in my portal, because you claimed you were getting lost, so I tried to map it. so I decided to make a collection of filenames for major files. Just listing them is a major effort, as you can clearly see if you look at the map link on the first page of the portal, near the bottom. I have already reached the maximum allowable depth in the TOC tree, and I still had at least one more layer of files to describe to get to the project level where I have already fleshed it out. Come to think of it, if I take off the header, and crop off one equals sign off every entry except the project level, I might be able to fit it more closely into the existing TOC structure... Hmmm.... By the way is there any way to just list the TOC and suppress the Text until someone uses a link in the TOC?--Graeme E. Smith 14:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I saw your map of the GSI. Those are an incredible number of pages!  Are you really going to write them all?  My suggestion is to combine them into fewer categories and focus on quality rather than quantity.  I don't know if you can suppress the text for the TOC, but you certainly can make the items of the TOC into subpages and provide links to each subpage.  Maybe you should ask Juan this question, because he seems to know more about the markup language than I do.  You could also provide links to the subpages you already have on the campus map, so the map can actually be used to navigate.  I also suggest you rename "campus map" "site map" so it is clearer.  --AFriedman 00:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, you thought the idea was for ME to write them all.... NO No No!

I am just laying out a research template to cover the topic, The idea is that each project will have its own team working on it. People can move between the teams as they like, but each teams role will be spelled out. At some point when we have the institute projects beginning to bear fruit, we will put together a set of introductory courseware, that will link all this detail together into a massive multi-threaded courseware packet, that can be used to teach the state of the art in Artificial Consciousness. Maybe I am taking too fine-grained an approach to the topic, but each project is a valid specialization as far as I can tell. We need a sampling of projects well enough developed that we can do a survey course. For instance we might want to survey, all the Cognitive Architectures So each Cognitive Architecture will have to be fleshed out. If I did it myself, I would miss a lot, and it would take an extensive amount of time. However if I can recruit enough advanced studies students, groups of them could specialize on each Cognitive Architecture, and flesh it out to the point where someone could go in, and put together the survey course. Does that make more sense?--Graeme E. Smith 21:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

One thing I am worried about, is whether WV can absorb a project of this size, or if there are enough people who know this stuff, to be able to build the groups. I can probably, once the project is fully fleshed out and it's requirements mapped, apply for funding for it, which can be used to upgrade WV servers etc. But if there just aren't enough people, my own project, the GreySmith Virtual Architecture might get lost in the shuffle.--Graeme E. Smith 21:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Fundamentals of Neuroscience
I was looking at your course, and I noticed you had stalled on Basics of Electrical Currents, so I Laid out a potential set of aims for the course, then I looked around, and found a book basic enough to cite for the lesson, so take a look and tell me what you think--Graeme E. Smith 16:05, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I like what you've written, even though it is as you said just an outline. Feel free to add more.  I'm surprised there aren't more materials in Neuroscience that were there before I came along.  Thanks for your tips on the lab meetings.  I didn't quite realize that that was what your Forums were for, and now that you've explained their purpose, perhaps we could use them that way.  Or even call them "transcripts of ongoing lab meetings."  It's certainly given me thoughts about how to restructure my page.  --AFriedman 02:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Take another look at it, I just fleshed out the electrical theory for you.--Graeme E. Smith 05:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, because I am building an institute, they are more like discussions between labs, that keep the different departments more or less on the same page, Think of it as you being the bio-lab, and me being the Non-Genetic Lab, coordinating the course together, rather than Lab meetings, but you can certainly borrow the format for your lab meetings as it is more or less just a normal page, formatted as a forum Once we get down to the project level, lab meetings might be useful, but at the heavy infrastructure level, they are just extra entries, that don't add much to the organization. Of course there is no reason why we couldn't use the Forums as lab meetings, such as when we were building the introduction to non-genetic darwinism project, But we weren't using a meeting format for that, and so you might want to consider a different page format, perhaps, keyed to the week the discussion goes on, or something. You know use a one equals header for the project, and a two equals header for the week of work done, or something. That way you can use the TOC to pick out the project, and week, to read.

When you get the speed limit sign, you can archive by the week, and leave a link in the log, to the archive page. That way the archive list, covers the history of the project when you have condensed all the weeks into files, and still get the speed limit, you can simply the file by archiving by the month or year. It takes a little maintenance but that way you have an archive record of your lab work.--Graeme E. Smith 03:23, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I like what you've written. IMO the real challenge is to provide a way for people to get actual feedback, automated or otherwise, on the course materials.  For example, the lesson you wrote could come with a problem set because that seems to be the only way to make sure people understand those materials.  If we figure out a way to have WV give feedback for lessons, WV might really be able to take off.  People have already started doing this, if you look at resources that have been designated with the "quiz" template.  It's difficult and I haven't really figured out what to do, but I think you have some very good ideas about WV already.  You could also look at User:AdaptiveCampus, who tried to work through Wikiversity's computer science curriculum and wrote a blog about what he encountered.  --AFriedman 14:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I have been meaning to look at the quiz template the main problem as I understand it, is that the quiz has to survive, the loss of the original author. That means it has to be automated, and to survive the slings of outrageous fortune, or someone who doesn't understand the course material has to maintain it. I'll take a look at it and get back to you--Graeme E. Smith 16:29, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, take a look at the Basic electrical current module, I added a quiz using the quiz extension, It's all multiple guess right now, but I can add text response questions if you want--Graeme E. Smith 18:46, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Cool! I would go over the subject more carefully, because I'm not sure you're right about the answers to all the questions you've written.  --AFriedman 20:15, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh! caught you on a couple of misleading questions did I? That is ok, I think I made the test too difficult, blame it on me trying to build a test while I was trying to learn the quiz interface at the same time. I can add links to explain why these answers are more correct than the other answers if you want ;) I am used to this stuff, so some of the questions are deliberately misleading and a novice would get caught up in the distinctions. For instance the vacuum and drill answers are nearly correct, and have been used in advertising campaigns, but nearly doesn't cut it at exam time.--Graeme E. Smith 20:41, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, please explain. For example, your answer to the electron question is that the electron has no charge but its charge is negative according to the text of the course.  --AFriedman 21:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Braaaack! that is not my answer at all, I just checked, and unless the quiz extension has a bug in it, that answer (no charge) is WRONG! try again. I'll try it as an answer and see how the extension reacts to it, but I have not seen any previous indication of errors in the quiz extension except in its interface parameters. You probably got fooled by the fact that I gave you too many similar options.--Graeme E. Smith 21:53, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the problems I have with the Quiz extension is that if you give it the wrong answer, it marks the right answer that is unticked as wrong as well as the wrong answer you chose, but that is just a quirk (feature) of the system, not an error I made.--Graeme E. Smith 21:59, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. --AFriedman 01:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Try it now, I put some feedback hints into it, so that it is easier to interpret--Graeme E. Smith 02:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * ok, much better. --AFriedman 06:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

reference library
I had a whack at creating a reference library at GreySmith Institute/Reference Library without automation it's pretty labor intensive to enter a new entry, and it's nowhere near as pretty as the category listings, but, hey, then, I have only been here for a month or two.
 * Have you added the books and articles you've written before you came here? Books, you could just put on the other side of a link to Wikibooks.  --AFriedman 00:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I haven't published any of my articles on the network, and I am hoping to actually have physical books if I can ever afford to publish them. So the quick answer is no.... I was waiting for the money to actually print and bind them. The only book I did publish on the internet was off topic, and I lost access to the website it was published on. Which is why I am interested in creating a repository for papers. If I don't have to pay for their storage and they stay available, after I have shifted my e-mail then so much the better. No this reference library is only for off-site resources. In other words, a link to wiki-books would be verbotten. The idea is that you can keep links to the articles that you read that are stored on someone elses websites.--Graeme E. Smith 01:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * ok. where will you put your own articles?  --AFriedman 02:00, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

In the repository when I get it built. I don't know if you noticed but I fixed the link to the reference library so you can actually get to it.--Graeme E. Smith 02:09, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Good luck. I won't be doing as much WV for a couple of weeks, and have posted this on my page, but will get back to things later.  --AFriedman 13:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I thought you had already left. I put together a rough repository and uploaded a couple of papers, it turns out that I can only upload pdf files at this point.--Graeme E. Smith 16:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC) I put in some powerpoint presentations to see if I could make the site more accessible but the longest one is over 225 pages long. so it's a bit unweildy yet.--Graeme E. Smith 05:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Where is the link to your stuff? --AFriedman 18:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It's all linked to the first page of my Portal, check out Campus Map, and the two top links on the bottom set of buttons that are common on all the pages in the Portal. It's still a bit rough, and I am the only one using the repository and library so far, so the authors list is a little heavy in the S range but you can get the idea.--Graeme E. Smith 20:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I have started a book on WikiBooks called Datamining Your Intuition but the guys on Wikibooks seemed to think that it might be misplaced.--Graeme E. Smith 20:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks good. --AFriedman 12:37, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Paper
I am playing with a sandbox implementation on my user page User: Graeme E. Smith Take a look at my article sandbox Where I am playing with font sizes etc. on a paper based on the Introduction to non-genetic Darwinism course. The article is called Darwinism and Complexity in Self-Organization The article is by no means finished, but the font sizes look good;)--Graeme E. Smith 20:50, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I looked at your paper and I like the title, I think. It seems far from finished and I'm not sure how you are going to write it.  Are you thinking about submitting it to a journal, or just keeping it on the site?  By the way, I think text formatting is not nearly as important as content.  And if it does get submitted to a journal with some success, the prospect for funding the center might be better.  I'm not sure how many other people are coming to the AC center, given that we're some of the few people doing research of any kind on Wikiversity (and myself not full time).  But I like your idea of creating space for collaborative groups if they ever decide to come.  Perhaps your center would get more attention if it were a "featured project" or had some other type of mention on the main page?  --AFriedman 03:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

When I get the paper done, If I think it merits publication, I will shop it around, but for now, I don't know if I am at all sure it would merit publication. The reason I am experimenting with text formatting on my paper, is simply I haven't done it myself before, and I wanted to play with it enough to get a good looking paper. I now know how to translate font sizes for instance. It seems the standard font is somewhere around 10 points, so I can easily translate from point sizes to Wiki percentages. This is a good thing. I still haven't managed to successfully create my own columns, like I have on the Portal, they came with the template so I know how to take advantage of them, but have never achieved the same effect on my own.

By the way, my book bombed at Wikibooks, it seems the words original and research, in the same sentence are all that is needed to ban a book. They suggested I trans-wiki it back here and publish from here. How to do that, is another kettle of fish, as they say.

On the portal, well, I think it is too early to feature the project, we might want to pretty it up a bit first, and flesh out the file structure a bit more before we open it up to the public, on The Institute Contact Page I have it listed as being closed for renovations. We might want to paint the walls before we open it to the public.
 * Fair enough. If you really want a good overview of the finer points of wiki formatting, I strongly recommend the WikiEducator course (which I have plugged several times on this site).  I'm sure you can publish your book over here and I wonder if they would let you put links to a WV book on Wikibooks.  They've deleted some of the things I was writing as well.  You just have to learn and understand the rules and that takes time, but I'm glad they don't disturb people TOO much.  Do you especially care if your book ends up on Wikibooks, or would you be happy to publish it here?  --AFriedman 03:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

No really, I am helping out with a couple of books that they have going, that needed some bulk to them, and they seem much more accepting of that role for me, than they were for the starting of my book there. I am currently seeing if transferring the book back here is practical or whether I will have to do it via cut and paste. I did look at wikieducator by the way, but they were updating the courseware when I looked and a lot of links were down. Plus, I find that my quicktime implementation doesn't seem to accept the OGG support codex, so I keep getting broken links when I try their movies. If what I saw was any indication, their courseware is quite light for someone with programming experience--Graeme E. Smith 05:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Links being down can be a problem. Which movies were you looking for at WikiEducator?  Also, what books are you helping out with on Wikibooks?  By the way, we miss you being active at GSI over here.  --AFriedman 02:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I haven't gone anywhere, I've been working away quietly waiting for someone to leave a message for me. I just had to cut down a little on the time I was spending because my father is in the hospital and my mother is blind so she needs someone to escort her on the LRT. My siblings have all stepped up to the plate, but there are only three of us, and mom goes down every day so I get tapped 2 or 3 times a week, it kills an afternoon I can tell you.

Anyway the book I am helping the most with is Evolution of Operating Systems, it was a skeleton, and there was some question about why a page was placed into it. It hadn't been written on for 3 or 4 years, and it's something I am more or less familiar with at the basic concepts level, so I have been fleshing it out, trying to make it more complete. It's about 2/3 ready for the next level of status, I also put a chapter on initialization into Operating System Design, and I am looking at fleshing out some information on Nerual Networks in an Artificial Intelligence Book. So far I have written two lines in that book.

On the home front, here at wikiversity, I have tacit approval from Juan to repatriate my book here on WV, But there is some question about whether or not it is a good idea to send the whole book via the server connection. I have darkLama looking at it on Wikibooks but he hasn't got back to me, except to clarify what I was asking him to do. I am stalled on the paper I was writing, and I started a new paper today called Modularity Revisited and have completed the first draft. It's in the Article Sandbox on my User Page. I am having trouble getting consistent results from formatting, there is obviously something I am doing wrong. For instance I didn't ask that the page make the Affiliation lines bold, but nothing I try to do, will reduce it back to a normal font. --Graeme E. Smith 05:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, hope your father is all right! I've been busy these past couple of weeks too because my grandmother was just in the hospital.  She's all right, fortunately, and just went back home yesterday.  She is over 90 years old and still doesn't need a nursing home, and my grandfather is in pretty good shape too.  They may need full time/part time aid now because neither of them can drive, but at least my grandmother still will be able to walk (her leg had been partly paralyzed from a stroke).  I'm glad you've got the approval to write your book.  IMO there should be some way to put out the things you have, without too much red tape.  IMO it's also a shame that so many pages over here are skeletons.  People go through them improving them and subsequently move on, so it's possible the site will slowly get better over time.  But do you have any thoughts about how to get WV more widely used than it is?  --AFriedman 16:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Well just one, Advertise. I have noticed that a couple of pages I have done have ended up being google retrieved when I do general searches in my interest area. But otherwise, I don't know how people would even know it exists unless they trip over it. One of the reasons that Wikiversity isn't more searchable via google is that google suppresses pages that have no content, so all the stubs don't help. I think there is a sort of critical mass of activity you need to reach before people learn about a site without advertising it. We haven't reached that point yet. As for strokes, my dad seems of the opinion that you get three strokes, and since this is his second major stroke, he is prepared to live for a while longer. The main problem is that his throat is affected, and one of the leading causes of death, from stroke, is pneumonia caused by failure to swallow in such a way as to keep the food out of your lungs. Sometime late this week they are going to send him back to the swallow lab, to see if they have to put a shunt into his stomach or whether he is going to be able to swallow again with a little coaching. I promoted the article I was working on out to my user page and brought out two of the past articles. I had in my repository. One of them had to be reloaded because it got erased on Commons according to scope requirements, suggesting that the way I was referencing it was not suitable for the way the Commons decides which articles to keep. This means that the idea of a repository, needs to be thought about. If only Wikiversity will accept articles without erasing them, and if it will only accept them in odd formats or PDF, then I see a problem with attempting to use the repository for a site for editing papers. There are tools for editing PDF's for free but they are not troublefree. That is why I am experimenting with an Article sandbox. I write the article in the sandbox, and then when I am sure it is semi-presentable I move it to my user page, where it can be edited. Then if it doesn't get edited, I can send it to the repository for storage. I haven't got the bugs out yet, but it is coming. Anyway what I am trying to do is build up a body of work on my memory model, in order to support my book How Memory Might Work Please take a look at the articles advertised on my user page and comment on them or edit them if you feel they need work. You will see how hard it is to edit a PDF file. By the way, ever hear of a short-stage template?--Graeme E. Smith 15:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I have never heard of a short-stage template. What is it?  I will have more time, by the way, after this Thursday.  Also, regarding outreach, I've been putting links to Wikiversity on Wikipedia, which is part of the job of a good Wikipedian anyway.  Most WikiProjects don't include improving Wikiversity as part of their mission even though cross-wiki collaborations are becoming more and more of the norm.  Which articles and sections do you think are the most important for me to look at?  --AFriedman 05:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a group of them just above my book section, that are part of an attempt to build a body of work that will support my memory book. I finally had a nibble from my own advertising, Dr. LaBerge commented on the data from my Artificial Consciousness/neural correlates/neural group/ section about his own work, he wanted it to be adjusted to remove a statement that was unnecessarily slighting, and to add a reference to his co-worker Ray Kasevich and change the title. I was happy to oblige, and sent him the multi-phase attention paper for his comments. As far as I can see, the Short stage template somehow creates an indent for a single line in Wikilanguage. I want to see if I can incorporate something like that to make my articles better formatted. I have however, although I have heard of it before, not tested to see if it is available here on wikiversity, I think I saw it on Wikibooks though, so I might be able to copy it if it isn't. Well, time is going to be an issue for me for the next while until my father gets out of the hospital or my mother cuts back on her visits. Currently, she reports a recent improvement, he can finally feel his hand again, which might bode good for his swallowing. Plus he has suddenly perked up a bit, and is spending less time sleeping. However, despite the time issue, I still manage to get onto the site at least once a day. I am resisting an attempt by my boss to increase my hours and frankly the effort is wearing me down, but I got an extra day off today, and slept most of the day so I think I am going to be less tired tomorrow, and might actually get something done as a result.--Graeme E. Smith 07:13, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Who are LaBerge and Kasevich? And do they have webpages I can see?  --AFriedman 05:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

David LaBerge is a professor emeritus at UC Davis who has a psychology lab at Simon's Rock College of Bard in Great Barrier MA. I don't have any information on Ray Kasevich yet except that he is probably employed at Simon's Rock and at the Stanley Laboratory for Electrical Physics in Great Barrier MA. He first showed up as co-author of LaBerges 2007 article Apical Dendrites and Consciousness in Neural Networks according to an international Author tracking database. LaBerge seems to want him to publish another article soon. There doesn't seem to be too much information on him in Google that isn't linked to his appearance as a co-author or his address in Massechusetts. I thought I should mention that Dr. LaBerge is the author of another theory, the Triangular Circuit Theory of attention. This theory notes the role of three areas of the brain in attention, The Cerebral Cortex, the Thalamus, and the Prefrontal Cortex. It has been noted for not including a significant group of other attention mechanisms, which suggests that his interest is rather focused on consciousness research, and blind to other Attention researchers claims. Even Kasevich's author page has a blank where his picture should be.--Graeme E. Smith 15:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC)