my photo: "The Peace Bridge over the Niagara River between Buffalo, NY, and Fort Erie, ON, in winter"

Welcome to my Wikipedia user page. It has a little information about my background and the projects I'm working on or might be available to help with. Then there's a whole bunch of useless userboxes.

Some explanation about using my real name. Many Wikipedians prefer anonymity and making their contributions with no recognition by name. That would be my preference too, but I've chosen to obey a different imperative: namely transparency in order to avoid conflict of interest. So, I'm here under my own name. I respect those who've made the other choice and in many ways agree; I hope they'll respect my choice and my reasons.

Please do not edit my user page.

HRCThis user supports the Human Rights Campaign.
This user is proudly out of the closet and gay.
 This Wikipedian is LGBT.Q


Wikipedia Accomplishments

edit
 A fact from the article Nausea (novel), which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.

Background

edit

Day job

edit
 This user is a statistician.
 This user is a mathematician.
 This user has published peer-reviewed articles in academic journals.

In my day job, I'm a professional biostatistician -- interested in in applications of statistics, mathematics, and artificial intelligence to clinical trials, outcomes, and medical decision making, as well as to healthy communities and sustainability. For some years, I have not been university-affiliated, but have a small consulting business that is independent, one-man and intended to stay that way. I have taught philosophy, mathematics, and statistics at the university and postgraduate level, been an investigator or coinvestigator on several academic research projects, and a consultant to numerous industrial firms. I've held a peer-reviewed grant from NASA to develop telemetric medical decision support for the space station. I was a designer of the largest multi-center clinical trial ever held in spinal cord injury, and am a member of an NIH clinical study section. My CV can be downloaded as a pdf.

Arts

edit
 This user enjoys writing.
 This user is interested in
art history.

Otherwise, I've written several screenplays, a stage play, some short stories and a novella. I have a novel about half finished. I also like to write essays about the visual arts. I take photographs.

Philosophy, Ancient Greece

edit
 This user is a philosopher.
 This user is interested in Ancient Greece.

Before turning to getting a PhD in computers and statistics as a way of making a living, I studied classics in high school and philosophy as an undergraduate and graduate in college. I'm deeply interested in ancient Greek philosophy and literature.

Ancient China

edit

I study Tai Chi (both Yang Style and Chen Style), and I work on translating the Tao Te Ching and classical Chinese poetry. Lately, I'm especially fond of the poems of Su Tung P'o.

Music

edit
 This user enjoys Classical music.
 This user plays the piano.

Blog

edit

Almost all of the above-mentioned, varied topics are also represented in my blog, which is intended as a non-profit source, reusable under a Creative Commons "by-nc-nd" license. My basic plan is to contribute factual reporting to Wikipedia -- and original research and opinion to the blog.

Contact

edit

wpc at wpcmath dot com

Projects

edit
 This user is one in 48,425,946.
Please be nice and patient with this New Wikipedian.
 This user reserves the right to completely screw up their own edits.
wiki-1This user is a beginning Wikipedia editor.

Yes, I realize I've joined a lot of projects. But, that reflects the reality. I'm actually interested in all these things, and active in them in various ways. I hope to make at least some contribution to each project and to be available to other users who might want my advice or help in these areas. If you need me, please leave a message on my talk page.

In all these projects, of course, my basic plan is to keep checking with the project talk page and finding grunt work to do. In some, though, I have specific ideas about contributions I'd like to work on.

Arts

edit

I'm currently very active on Nausea (novel), which was the Novels WikiProject Collaboration of the Month in January.

Robotics

edit
 

Classical Greece

edit

Classical China

edit
 This user is a participant in the
WikiProject Taoism.

Clinical Trials and Medical Decisions

edit

LGBT

edit
 

Logic

edit

Consider joining

  • Philosophy
    • Logic
      • Philosophy of Language
      • Theoretical Linguistics
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics
  • Biostatistics

NY State

edit

Consider joining New York State routes

Prejudices

edit
78 This user listens to 78 RPM records.
 This user loves vinyl records.
TKAM
This user knows it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.
SI-0This user thinks the metric system is bureaucratic and inhuman.
 This user loves the Autumn.
 This user loves rainy days.
 This user likes foggy days.
 This user loves the poetry of Constantine P. Cavafy.
 This user enjoys heavy reading, such as Shakespeare and other dead guys.
  Quoth this user, "Nevermore."
  This user is a fan of the Iliad.
  This user is a fan of the Odyssey.
This user survived Catholic school!
PhDThis user has a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
 This user is old enough to remember what a typewriter is, and that's all you need to know.
 This user remembers using
a rotary dial telephone.
 This user remembers when television programming was only in black-and-white.
  This user can remember yellow stop signs.
  This user is of Irish ancestry.
 This user is a member of Wikipedians against censorship.
1, 2, 3...This userbox is a test. Please tell this user if you don't see it.

Grammar

edit
snkThis user says either sneaked or snuck.
to¦goThis user chooses to sometimes use split infinitives.
byThe passive voice may be used by this user.
…in.Ending a sentence with a preposition is something that this user is okay with.
who(m)This user uses either who or whom in the object case.
which & thatThis user knows how to use which and that correctly.
your
you're
This user thinks that if your grammar is incorrect, then you're in need of help.
Subj This user prefers that the subjunctive mood be used. Were this user you, he would use it.
Majority ≠ right This user recognizes that even if 300,000,000 people make the same mistake, it's still a mistake.
“,;:’This user is a punctuation stickler.
,This user fixes comma-splices; they are annoying.
A, B, and
A and B
This user uses the serial comma unless its inclusion is confusing.
its & it'sThis user understands the difference between its and it's. So should you.
’sThi's user know's that not every word that end's with s need's an apostrophe and will remove misused apostrophe's from Wikipedia with extreme prejudice.
 This user terminates unquoted ellipses on sight. This is not your blog. We end sentences properly.
"…"This user favours typewriter style quotation marks over typographic ones.
;This user is addicted to semicolons; they use them frequently.
ANAL 4This user advocates good grammar usage.
"...,"For quotation marks, this user would rather use "American punctuation."
USThis user uses American English.

Wikipedia

edit
ZTThis user supports a strict zero tolerance policy on vandalism.
 This user reports vandals to administrators so they can be blocked.
no adsThis user is against commercials in Wikipedia.
1RRThis user prefers discussing changes on the talk page rather than engaging in an edit war.
 This user is bold, but not reckless, in updating pages.
 This user maintains a strict policy advising against all personal attacks.
 Wikipedia is not censored.
  This user finds copyright paranoia disruptive.
 This user finds edit/revert wars disruptive.
 This user believes that process is important on Wikipedia and is opposed to its circumvention.
 This user does not understand mean people. Please be nice.
<sum>:1This user believes that every edit should have a summary.
NPOVThis user gets quite annoyed when they see POV in the mainspace.
<ref>This user would like to see everyone using inline citations. Please...
 This user believes that adding relevant links is never a bad thing.
evenThis editor is an eventualist.
inclThis user is an inclusionist.
exoThis editor is an exopedian.
FlexibleThis user deals with edits, deletion, and creation of pages individually instead of unilaterally and encourages others to do so.