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Dan100

Joined 11 December 2004
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dan100 (talk | contribs) at 18:06, 26 January 2005 (→Fusion). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
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Hello.

(NB, I regulary clear out this page. You can always view the page history if you want to read old stuff! NBB(?) If you post here, I'll reply here, so check back!)

Policy

Do not go around declaring pages "official policy". -- Netoholic @ 07:40, 2005 Jan 13 (UTC)

lol why not?! Who put you in charge? Policy is consensus. I widely advertised that I would be making such changes and no-one objected. Dan100 16:45, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Every time you change a policy page, it has been reverted. Do not engage in revert wars over something that has not been shown to have even majority support. Also, please use Edit summaries - it looks to me like you are hiding your edits by not using them. -- Netoholic @ 19:13, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)


Requests per second

Dan, thanks for providing the information about why Wikipedia slowed down. Can I ask you to explain something? I sort of know what requests per second means, but I'm still not certain. Can you translate it into other terms? For example, do you know how many pages on average are requested each day, or week? Or are pages and requests the same thing? SlimVirgin 04:23, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

It's the number of request made to the servers, eg when you click a wikilink. That results in a page being returned, but as Wikipedia is a database that actually means a lot of work for the servers to put the page together and send it. The blue line on the graph is the requests handled by the Squids, which already have saved copies of pages in their memory - when they handle a request they don't load the other servers, as all the database querying has already been done to make the saved copy. Because when you're logged in you have your personal links across the top, your page requests have to go to the main servers and they make a new (personalised) page for you. Anon users tend to get Squid pages, so if there's something wrong with the main servers anon users often get better performance as they're only reaching the Squids. Dan100 08:01, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm . . . I'm sort of understanding this. Are the Squids the slaves? I don't understand why logged in users couldn't look at cached pages the same as anon users. And an anon who wants to edit a page: that request would have to go to the main servers, is that right? Because otherwise they might not be editing the most recent version? Thanks for educating me, by the way. Or trying to. If I don't get something, I can assure you it's not your fault. :-) SlimVirgin 00:47, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

Tsunami warning systems

Dan, You and I seem to be moving this article title back and forth between the singular and the plural.

In nearly all cases, an encyclopedia article title should be in the singular form, unless no suitable singular exists ("scissors") or whatever. See the talk page. -- Curps 22:53, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for putting me straight on this one! Dan100 18:08, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews

Hi Dan! I have checked out Wikinews quite frequently in the past weeks. Indeed, it has improved quite significantly recently. The only problem is that it remains fairly disorganised (but much better organised than before) and I find it hard to find news. I think they should be using the sort-by-continent feature more, like the BBC News does. Anyway, it's still at its beginnings, and I think it's doing much, much better than Wiktionary, Wikibooks or even Wikipedia did in its first few months. It's great to see the new logo selection also - hopefully that will kickstart a new development in it and also make way for the new language versions of Wikinews. Cheers, Ronline 03:49, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, there are big problems with the category system. The main problem seems to be the fact that there's no way to make automatically updating latest-news by category (eg by continent), and no-one is really willing to do it manually. Your best bet is just to keep an eye on the Latest news on the Main page, and use the search function to find older stuff. Not ideal, I admit. Dan100 22:27, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

LIDO reply

Thanks for note re: LIDO reactor, found it on some obscure source when I was trying to expand listings for UK in List of nuclear reactors. BTW, take a look at North Sea Flood of 1953. --mervyn 09:22, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fusion

Rgarding your edits to fusion power....[1]. Care to comment?--Deglr6328 19:29, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to re-add some of the things you removed here if you don't mind....--Deglr6328 05:33, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sorry not had much time recently. I'll take a look. Dan100 07:33, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

no prob. My replies are there. I do still have that one last question I was wondering if you could clarify:

"Anyway, perhaps you can clear something up for me. Just what is a "vertical displacement event"? I have heard of these happening in the early days of JET and stories that they are events where for some reason the plasma magnetic field "bucks" against the field of the external coils and has lifted the whole lot up in the air a couple inches!! On the other hand, from what I've read myself, all I can tell it may be is a displacement of the high density plasma in the vessel with no real notable movement events at all really."--Deglr6328 17:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Certainly. The vacuum vessel really does move (I've forgotten the amount, it's over a year since I read the original engineering report, but an inch or two sounds about right) when the field destabilises. There's an enormous amount of energy contained within the magnetic fields and when they collapse that energy has to go somewhere, and a large amount goes into kinetic energy, lifting the vessel. However the vessel is held in place by dampers which safely absorb that energy. The torus hall is outfitted with microphones (often the first sign of equipment failure is a funny noise), and it makes an appreciable 'bang'. (The effect was unexpected, and delayed experiments in the early 1980s while an assesment and modifications were made). At the same time, the thermal energy of the plasma needs to go somewhere too when containment fails. The portion of the inner wall of the vacuum vessel the plasma contacts can be subject to intense heating and parts often melt. These days, carbon fibre composite tiles (similar to the ones used on the Space Shuttle) are used in particulary vulnerable areas. Dan100 18:06, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

The General Electric Company

Hi Dan. Just a quick note to advise that your edits to The General Electric Company page were not correct.

GEC spun off Marconi Electronic Systems (MES) in 1999 and merged that with BAe to form BAE Systems. This ended its participation in the defence industry; it is now a radio, telecommunication, and internet equipment equipment/services company.

It then renamed itself Marconi plc but didn't become part of Matra BAe Dynamics nor MBDA. The British participation in Matra BAe Dynamics was entirely through BAe and then BAE. (i.e. never GEC/Marconi plc). The link with MBDA doesn't come from Matra BAe Dynamics but from Alenia Marconi Systems (AMS). GEC's MES set up AMS with Finmeccanica in 1998 shortly prior to its merger with BAe, thus ending GEC/Marconi plc's link with that company too.

Just letting you know in case you think someone has vandalised your contribution. Mark 01:43, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No that's fine. I had a feeling I was wrong. I was just getting confused over the name 'Marconi'! Dan100 17:55, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I left a comment for you on your Wikinews user talk page. — DV 08:50, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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