User talk:Douglas Coldwell

Random Smile[edit]

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NRHP database[edit]

I seen you put in a NRHP info box on a new article I recently wrote of Southern Railway's Spencer Shops. Great improvement that I would like to use on future articles. I am researching for a new article on the Ramsdell Theatre in Manistee, Michigan. On the building there is a Historical Marker that says Thomas Jefferson Ramsdell—pioneer lawyer, state legislator and civic leader—built this theatre between 1902 and 1903. At the end of the Marker it says The Ramsdell Theatre was listed on the National Register of Historic places in 1972. Erected 1980. Marker Number L0124. However I can not find it on the NRHP database to use as a reference. Do you have an answer for this. Perhaps all places are not listed. The Chicago architect and builder was Solon Spencer Beman. If you have an idea, you can put it here as I will temporarly watch your Talk Page. --Doug ^talk 11:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just jumping in here. I can find it there. The NRHP refnum is 72000640. Try this link, enter "MI" for the state code, and "Ramsdell" in the name section. It's true, though, that sometimes the database can be squirrelly. Hope this helps. :) --Ebyabe (talk) 16:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, found it! Now I can continue with writting up my new article on the Ramsdell Theatre. I plan on taking a picture of it sometime this week so I can add to the article. James Earl Jones started his career there, so will be using this as a hook for DYK. --Doug ^talk 16:37, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Ebyabe. I haven't had a chance to answer since last night since I was busy today, enjoying one of the few warm and sunny days we've had in Minnesota this spring.

In addition to the link that Ebyabe gave, I thought I'd mention that I downloaded the National Register database onto my machine and wrote some PHP queries that create {{Infobox nrhp}} infoboxes. I also have queries on there that will tell you what buildings were designed by a certain architect (although you need to use a wildcard, like "Beman%Solon"). You can find the query tools at http://www2.elkman.net/nrhp/. I think you'll find them useful. Also, if you're interested, check out Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places where you can find out more about the project. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 01:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sandboxes[edit]

Do you want all 200 of your sandboxes deleted? It's not a problem, but if you do let me know, and it'll save you the trouble of having to tag them individually. — Tivedshambo _(t/c) 17:15, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

YES! -- thank you. Plus the page "User:Douglas Coldwell/Sandboxes" that lists all the sandboxes by names. --Douglas Coldwell (talk) 17:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done - phew! — Tivedshambo _(t/c) 18:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! --Douglas Coldwell (talk) 18:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Collapsible boxes[edit]

There's several ways, but one of the simplest is to use "collapsible collapsed" in the heading of a table.

Example #1
THIS IS HIDDEN TEXT

Another Method is this:

Example #3: Using divs

This method uses divs instead of table syntax. You can display some text here, and then have the user Click Show to display additional text.

Hidden Text goes in here.

I like this method best.

And there is the template {{hidden}}.

DYK table[edit]

example below:

Source article	Fact	Views^A
New England Quarter	Did you know that a planning application for a 42-storey building in the recent New England Quarter development in Brighton, England, was rejected on twenty separate counts, including the negative effect it would have on the local microclimate?

Hubert or Herbert?[edit]

[1] But the image file name and description say "Herbert". Art LaPella (talk) 17:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where do great "Ideas" come from?[edit]

Why is it that some people are very inspired (i.e. Da Vince, Einstein, Edison), while most of the world seems mostly uninspired? A formal education does not seem a basis to get these "inspirations". Many very famous successful people did not have a formal education. Likewise many with Degrees now-a-days have trouble with what I call the "basics" (i.e. using common sense to solve simple problems). Having a 4 year College Degree today doesn't mean all that much. Those with a High School education and those with a College Degree both basically start many jobs at "entry level". The one that can use common sense to come up with great "ideas" then seems to get ahead faster (which could just as easily be the High School "Grad"). So is there some sort of "Universal Source" out there someplace that has a stock pile of Ideas. How does one "connect" to this "Universal Source" of Ideas?
It's certainly not via cyberspace (however maybe it helps). Would I need some sort of super Cable Modem or can I just "dial up" Ideas? --Doug 11:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Creativity involves being able to combine different areas of expertise into a solution. The typical start of an invention is noticing something that doesn't work well. Next you need to come up with a solution, which may involve various technical fields of expertise, but not always. One of the simplest recent inventions was a paint filter, used to separate out clumps from paint powder. The old system used a horizontal filter, which would clogs with clumps of paint powder in short order. The invention was to put the filter at an angle so the clumps would roll off and the rest would continue to go through the filter. This didn't require much technical expertise. The final step is to figure out how to market an idea. In some cases it's best to patent it then sell it to a company, in others you may try to produce and sell the product yourself. Here is an observation I've made, which you're welcome to use to improve the product:

The window shade mechanism doesn't work very well. They often go flying up when you try to pull them down. A version with a switch that only allows it to come down in one position and only go up in the other position might sell well. See if you can design a mechanism to do that. StuRat 12:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The idea of common sense and informal education being better than all the university degrees in the world is one with great tradition. In reality common-sense has failing just like formalised education, not least because definining what is common-sense is particularly difficult. What makes someone an inventor or entrepreneur? Based on the rapid advancements made in the past 150 years...access to technology, education (though what level i'm not entirely sure), access to financial backing, a culture that promotes innovation would be a few. For all the great ideas in the world without access to the requirements to make it happen (or access to people who can) your creation is worthless. I would be weary of expecting too much of common-sense and too little of formal education. The innovators of history worked remarkably harder on inventions than many think: The light-bulb, the tv, the steam engine, the electronic chip. These things weren't developed at random they came about through use of formal (and i'm sure informal) knowledge. The Eureka moment, as they say, is really quite rare. ny156uk 17:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

An excellently put point — much of the idea of "genius" is mythmaking, often perpetuated by the people who are themselves called the geniuses (Edison, it can be said, was a genius at self-promotion). The common stereotype of Edison as a lone worker who would hit upon brilliant ideas through sheer thought and elbow-grease alone is nonsense; he established a major research laboratory staffed with excellent scientists, devoted a huge amount of his time to maintaining a library of technical inventions which he might improve upon or combine in unique ways, and spent a lot of his time building upon ideas of others that seemed promising but not quite implemented yet. His genius with the light bulb was not the bulb itself but the creation of an electrification infrastructure — a social-governmental-economic innovation more than a technical one. One of the very difficult things in studying "creativity" and "genius" is that we wrap these terms up in a lot of mythmaking and moralizing; it is very hard to get at the base of it in practical terms, and why so many studies of it are shallow.

Einstein, by the way, fits into the above as well. He did not work in a totally isolated world, he was working on problems which were important in physics in his day, he drew heavily on the work of others. Many of the key theoretical "thought problems" he is so famous for (such as how to coordinate clocks using electrical signals) were actually important technical issues at the time he worked in the Swiss patent office (clock coordination was a major early 20th century technical difficulty). This is not to disparage Einstein's intelligence, for he was truly intelligent, but helps to re-frame the question a bit away from "how do these ideas come out of nowhere?", which is in almost all cases the product of a myth. The relation between an innovator, their context, and their work is a very complicated one. --140.247.242.85 18:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would call Einstein a genius, in that he was able to think about the world in completely novel ways (but only when young, in his later years he couldn't accept new concepts like quantum mechanics). Edison, on the other hand, was not a genius (he couldn't even grasp A/C electricity), but rather a "plugger". Everyone knew you could make a filament glow for a while by passing electricity through it, but he improved the design through trial and error until eventually it became a usable light bulb. StuRat 20:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Einstein's ways of thinking about the world were not "completely novel." If you get outside of the hagiography you will have a better idea of appreciating in what ways he was novel and in what ways he was not. Edison also utilized much more theoretical understanding and research than the mythical version of him holds. I hate to say it StuRat but I think you're caught within the myths here! In any case whether one calls someone a "genius" or not again depends on your definition of "genius" — it is a term which needs to be unpacked before it is useful. --24.147.86.187 01:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If we take the example of his choice of a light bulb filament, a theoretical physicist might have looked at the periodic table and decided that tungsten was likely to be the best choice, while Edison just tried every material he could think of until he found one that worked well. StuRat 23:45, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You should definately read Creativity In Science by D K Simonton - it answers all your questions and mentions the individuals above. One point for example is that it has been found that the chance of any scientific paper being a 'hit' is equal for any scientist, but the people regarded as geniuses were actually extremely prolific and hence had more 'hits' than other people.

That sounds extremely dubious to me. Robert K. Merton's work on the Matthew effect would seem to go against that sort of explanation. --24.147.86.187 01:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Eistien worked at a patent office, thats where he got his ideas from. --Delma1 07:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No. Chickenflicker---♣ 23:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many years ago, I was privaleged to study the 'history and philosophy of science' at university. It's a worthy question, regarding inspiration. However, a few observations: We live in the information age. Many people are trained academically than ever before. You might think that with more people better equipped to make discoveries that more people would. They do.

In the US, in 1970, some 1000 (different, distinct) books were published each day. 1970's space technology has been superceded. In 1980, my wife wore the net in her hair.

Worth noting, someone who is inspired may be wrong, too. Also worth noting that many discoveries are made simultaneously and independantly, suggesting a role modern technique has with inspiration, and tradition has in obfuscating and confounding discovery. DDB 10:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Non-free files in your user space[edit]

Hey there Douglas Coldwell, thank you for your contributions. I am a bot, alerting you that non-free files are not allowed in user or talk space. I removed some files I found on User:Douglas Coldwell/Sandboxes/Sandbox 25. In the future, please refrain from adding fair-use files to your user-space drafts or your talk page.

See a log of files removed today here.

Shut off the bot here.

Report errors here.

Thank you, -- DASHBot (talk) 05:49, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Mining equipment pioneers[edit]

Category:Mining equipment pioneers, which you created, has been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 19:40, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Smile![edit]

A smile for you

You’ve just received a random act of kindness! 66.87.7.209 (talk) 14:06, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ping[edit]

Doug Coldwell User:Doug Coldwell

October 2022[edit]

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for persistently making disruptive edits.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. Star Mississippi 23:51, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Blocking comment, I have amended this to match the block on his primary account, and because this is a more accurate assessment of the underlying issue. Star Mississippi 23:52, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]