User:Lou Sander
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[edit] About Me
I'm retired from a career in several medically-related high-tech industries. Along the way, I worked for Microsoft and for the pioneering hardware company DEC. In retirement I teach logic, critical thinking, management, mathematics, and practical computer subjects at the college level. Otherwise, I do pretty much as I please, subject to financial limitations.
My basic Wikipedia activity is posting new articles, on subjects I either know about or can quickly research. I also add information where it's needed and where I can help, and I fix errors wherever I encounter them. I closely watch a handful of controversial articles, mostly to help make them better, but also to see how well/poorly the editors deal with them.
I've posted many new articles about U.S. Navy ships. Ship articles are fairly easy, even if you've never seen a rowboat, and doing them is a good way to build your article total. If you'd like to do some ship articles yourself, I'll be glad to show you how. There are hundreds of ships still to be posted, and the basic information for their articles is readily available online. Once you've done a ship or two, you can do an article like USS Ottawa in less than an hour. It's pretty rewarding, but you know that if you've already posted new articles (it's also kind of cool to watch other people improve your articles). If you want to know more, send email.
WARNING: The paragraphs below plainly state the qualifications and background of an experienced person. If you consider such material immodest, you probably shouldn't read further. In any event, remember: If it's true, it isn't bragging.
[edit] I think I'm a pretty good editor because...
- I've done a lot of reading, especially in encyclopedias. I've been reading since I was three years old, reading encyclopedias since I was six or seven, and reading them extensively since the 1970's. I've spent countless hours reading the World Book and various editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I own a copy of the 1911 Eleventh Edition, and have spent many hours perusing it. IMHO, the guys who wrote it really knew how to write an encyclopedia. Very little of what they wrote was later shown to be wrong.
- I've learned at the feet of high masters. I got straight A's in high school (back when that was harder to do), and I earned degrees in rigorous subjects from Duke University and the University of Chicago (far less than straight A's at either place, but I got my share of them, plus a few D's, in a time when A's were much harder to get, and D's much easier). More recently, I've spent quality learning time at the feet of Tony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki.
- Many have seen fit to publish my writings. That includes about 500 articles, columns, programs and reviews for dozens of publications, including local newspapers and computer magazines with worldwide circulation. During my "computer period" in the 1980's I was a prolific and well-known writer on Commodore subjects. I wrote dozens of articles, two books (one of them translated into Italian) and several very popular columns, most notably the Magic column in RUN magazine. My work was reprinted in six other books that I know of. Though my computer writing spanned all the computers of the day, it stopped when Commodore faded from the scene. Since then, most of my writing has been for newsletters, web sites, corporate research reports, etc., though I occasionally do an article for a magazine. When writing for publication, I am always known as Louis F. Sander. In the not-formally-published-by-others category, I've written or compiled almost 300 online obituaries, about a hundred poems, and over 125 new articles in Wikipedia. I maintain two large web sites, HERE and HERE.
- Et cetera. I spent ten years as chairman of the board of a regionally important public library. In connection with that work, I spent thousands of hours in dozens of different libraries, where I learned a lot about information and how it's created, processed, and disseminated. Also, as stated up above, I teach logic and critical thinking.
The bottom line is that I've spent over half a century cultivating the art of being right. The most important part of that art is that when you aren't right, you admit it and learn from your mistake. Whatever my abilities in the lesser parts, I claim absolute mastery of that one.
I think I'm a pretty good editor, Q.E.D..
[edit] You might also like to know (but probably not)...
- I played basketball at Duke University, but I did not play lacrosse. The basketball was in gym class. After college, I spent time as a commissioned officer aboard a warship and in a then-secret Navy Special Forces unit. (I learned to kill there, but I never was called on to do it. Really.) Nobody I know died in Vietnam, but my neighbor Jorge Arteaga and his friend were the first two Americans to die in Desert Storm. I've drunk pisco with Jorge's father, and Moutai with my friends. (Pisco is OK, but the other stuff tastes like Drano mixed with Quaker State motor oil.) I am an expert rifle and pistol shot, and I carry. One day a long time ago, I was shot at by people who didn't like the names I was calling them. The (expletive deleted) missed. I've had a root canal treatment without anesthesia, and I've watched a total stranger die. I can swear like a sailor, and from time to time I do it. Some of my friends and students are criminals or victims of crime: my friend and coauthor Joe Charnetski spent ten years in prison for killing his wife with a hammer; my student Angelique Enty was killed by a no-good boyfriend, who then committed suicide; another student's son was shot to death by one of his gangsta friends. Others of my friends and former students work in law enforcement, some of them in sophisticated cybercrime units. They can and do find people who vandalize pages on the Internet.
- I've been both plaintiff and defendant in lawsuits for meaningful amounts of money, and I've been a plaintiff's witness in Federal District Court (my guy won). I've run for public office, and I've attended a session of a state supreme court. I've had regionally powerful political enemies. I have personally (and honestly) affected the outcome of local elections, and not just by casting my vote. I know a lot about voting machines and voter fraud. (Republicans are newcomers, and amateurs; the other guys are, or at least they were in their rapidly-receding heyday, highly trained professionals.)
- I know a lot of geography, and I've been to 38 states and 18 foreign countries/U.S. possessions. I can name the capitals of all the 50 states, and I've known 48 of them since I was two or three years old. I've lived in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and aboard at least five ships, including destroyers and an aircraft carrier. I've visited over 30 of one author's 501 Must-Visit Destinations. I've been to a bullfight in Spain; it differs a LOT from fantasy role playing games. I've experienced an earthquake strong enough to knock things off shelves in my house. A hurricane once blew over two big trees in my yard. I haven't yet been to India, but I'm fond of all things Indian. Elsewhere in the Commonwealth, I've never seen Mrs. Slocombe's pussy, but I've fantasized about her doing silly walks for me. (Hillary, too!) Here at home, I deeply, deeply, deeply distrust the New York Times, especially since Jayson Blair came out. CBS, too, especially since Dan. I greatly admire Fred on Everything, for both his thinking and his writing. In another realm, I'm starting to think of biology as the "Dan Rather of sciences," since I've seen the questionable nature of some of its most respected achievements: the Galapagos finches, the peppered moth, Piltdown man, Archaeoraptor, Haeckel's drawings, the Miller-Urey experiment, and the meticulously peer-reviewed work of superstar biologist Hwang Woo-suk. (And speaking of Famous Men of Science, I have something in common with Euler: my Erdős number is unknown but probably infinite.)
- I've founded or left an enduring creative mark as the leader of eight different organizations: a university's hobby club, two units of the U.S. Navy, two manufacturing businesses, a public library, and two membership organizations for adults.
- I've worked in the marketing and product management end of some reasonably exciting areas of medicine, most of them in their early days of commercialization: hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, heart-lung machines for open heart surgery, artificial heart valves, organ preservation systems, laboratory information systems, computerized radiation therapy planning, nuclear medicine, computerized interpretation of electrocardiograms, CAT scanning, medical ultrasound, patient monitoring systems, and TENS, to mention the most prominent ones. In all cases, my knowledge is that of a marketing person, rather than that of a scientist or clinical practitioner, though I have worked closely with many of those professionals, particularly in radiology, radiation physics, cardiology, cardiac surgery, and pathology.
- The first car I remember riding in was my father's 1941 Chevrolet. The first one I owned was a 1953 Chevrolet. Since then, I've ridden in or on my share of cars, trucks, ships, boats, airplanes, etc., including some slightly unusual ones: hot air balloon, sailplane, Piper Cub, seaplane, flying boat*, military and civilian helicopters, ship-to-ship highline, motorcycle*, 30' motor home*, 8' sailboat*, 47' sailboat, London taxi, passenger train, cable car, ski lift, aerial tramway, funicular railway, lots of Navy ships including destroyers*, an aircraft carrier, and an attack cargo ship*, various landing craft and amphibious vehicles, and even, once, a donkey*, (an asterisk means I drove it).
- I was heard on local radio before I was in high school; I've spent time on local TV. I've seen fallopian tubes through a laparoscope, and five planets through a telescope. I've designed electronic circuits, college-level computer programming courses, and a 400 square foot outdoor deck, all of which I later built or taught. I was a decent club-level tennis player (3.0-3.5) into my 40s, and I once was a decent recreational volleyball player. I've seen Roscoe Tanner play tennis and Roberto Clemente play baseball. I've been to many Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Spirit games, plus a few Steelers games and two World Series games. I've attended several professional wrestling matches, and I live fairly close to Bruno Sammartino (if you like living, don't try to tell him it's fake). But none of that was as exciting as seeing Ricky and Danny Seemiller play world-class table tennis in a shopping mall. I love little children, and I can make any baby smile. I generally like the Jews I've met, and I'm friends with quite a few Negroes. Six of the latter are my informally adopted sons or nephews.
- I have expert knowledge of Jung's theory of psychological types, including its popular manifestation in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. (I'm ENTP, the rational Inventor. They do things like making this crazy User page.) I'm an exceptionally creative amateur programmer, and I know morse code. (W3BOA, DXCC, QCWA.) I've met and talked with Bill Gates, Steve Case, George Shultz, and Nobel laureates Herbert Simon and Godfrey Hounsfield. (Of all those big-time guys, only Steve Case might remember me.) I never met Timothy McVeigh, but I edited his writing and got it published for him. It was his very first national exposure. (I'm pretty sure he had big-time help with the bombing, and I'm absolutely sure he'd remember me.) I fly the American flag, 24 hours a day, and illuminated at night, but I'm not some kind of a nut about it. As a teacher, I practice the soft bigotry of low expectations, and my students definitely appreciate it. Like The Daily Show and Rush Limbaugh, I know how to mix humor with truth, and I can pack lots of both into one paragraph. All facts but one in this and the prior paragraphs are absolutely, and usually verifiably, true. (The humor's in there, too, but it's also in the eye of the beholder. Some of it is also in the links.)
- Except for the identity-theft jokes, this stuff is also true: My ancestors were German and Swiss—I think some were Pennsylvania Dutch. My father graduated from Clemson, my maternal grandfather from Penn State, where he was a varsity football player. The girl who was to become his wife attended Keuka College. My mother attended Beaver College, but left before graduation. My wife is German and Hungarian. Both of us are orphans, but we don't think it gives us absolute moral authority. (You can think so if you'd like, and both of us will appreciate it.) We've bought and sold seven houses. Our current property is modest in size, and on a somewhat undesirable hillside, but it includes a forest and a garden. I like to go walking in both—they are home to an abundance of birds and wildlife. I have three grown children: a wayward son whose life has been totally ruined by alcohol (but I love him anyway), a daughter who married a rock star, and a son who runs a Manhattan real estate company. My grandchildren call me "Hubby." My Social Security Number is 671-555-1212. My ZIP code is unlisted, and my password is * * * * *. I do not answer emails from Nigeria, but that doesn't make me a racist. I adhere to (esp. nos. 11-13) their Articles of Faith, but that doesn't make me a Mormon. I have never been divorced or arrested, or smoked a cigarette, and neither has my wife. (My wayward son has been or done all three, and has also spent time in jail.) If you care to know more, just Google my name and you'll find it, though its gotten buried pretty deep for some reason. I'm not the baby doctor, and I'm definitely not the orchid or the tragically murdered cop.
SECOND WARNING: The following paragraph is directed specifically at fools. Others can read it, of course, but shouldn't (and won't) take it personally.
- Life has taught me to suffer fools, but not to suffer them gladly or for a protracted period of time. It has also taught me of their relatives the pissants. When someone seems to be one or the other, I give them the benefit of the doubt. Then I give them a second chance, and usually a third. After that, I put them on ignore. And in spite of constant temptations, I try hard not to give them voice lessons. (Heinlein was right—you spend your time and effort, and they just snout their keyboards and grunt.)
"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes." – Proverbs 12:15
[edit] Original Articles
I like to do articles that relate to my short career as a Naval officer, which was spent aboard USS Rankin and as a Beach Jumper. That has led to doing an article for every Navy ship built where the Rankin was. (Other people did one or two of them, but I did the rest.) Recently I created or significantly edited articles for all the Navy's 117 attack cargo ships. This wasn't as hard as it might seem, since the basic facts are available at DANFS. But there was a lot of copy editing, heavy-duty Wikification, fact checking and research. I've also created or meddled with other articles that interest me, or were red links somewhere, etc., and of course I expand, fix errors, etc. in articles that I come across that need it.
Click here to see 100+ articles on U.S. Navy ships
5"/38 caliber gun
Abigail Thernstrom
Ammunition ship
Andromeda class attack cargo ship
Arcturus class attack cargo ship
Artemis class attack cargo ship
Average and over
Battle Efficiency Award
Beach Jumpers
Center for Individual Rights
Combat loading
Crown Publishing Group
Cruise book
Davisville, Rhode Island
Electronics for Medicine
Giant Raccoon's Flatulence theory (deleted, alas, and redirected to its source)
Libertarian Party of Connecticut
Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award
Moore Dry Dock Company
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives
National Sheriffs' Association
Naval Supply Depot, Oakland
North Carolina Shipbuilding Company
Oro Bay (a bay in New Guinea)
Onslow Beach
Pasco Bowman II (a federal judge for whom Ann Coulter clerked)
Pissant
Police Executive Research Forum
Quarter Century Wireless Association
Sparrows Point
Teluk Yos Sudarso (another bay in New Guinea—I said I know a lot of geography!)
Tolland class amphibious cargo ship
Type C2 ship
Type C3 ship
United States Federal Maritime Board
United States Navy Regulations
Walsh-Kaiser Co., Inc.
Water Tupelo
[edit] Other Articles of Interest
Amish (I've read a few books about them.)
Amphibious cargo ship
Ann Coulter and related articles (I don't necessarily love her, but I respect her brilliance.)
Caterpillar Club (A cool subject that needed work.)
The Wirral (My son and I were there once, and the locals couldn't explain what it was.)
[edit] Edit counter
Create an entire article = one edit
Delete a comma = one edit
