User:JohnOwens

JohnOwens

— Wikipedian ♂ —
Name	J. Randall Owens
Born	December 31, 1969
Current location	Manchester, UK
Hobbies, favourites and beliefs
Aliases	Randy, KarMann, DeadMeat
Contact info
Website	GhiaPet
Blog	Yes
Userboxes
Round holes I almost fit This user is a Citizen of the Galaxy‡ and nothing else matters. This user is from Earth. This user is a citizen of the United States of America. 11This user has visited 11 of the 208 countries in the world. This user participates in WikiProject Cheshire. This user is a participant in WikiProject Merseyside Language enThis user is a native speaker of the English language. de-3Dieser Benutzer hat sehr gute Deutschkenntnisse. la-2Hic usor media latinitate contribuere potest. ru-1Этот участник владеет русским языком на начальном уровне. fr-1Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau élémentaire de français. it-1Questo utente può contribuire con un livello semplice di italiano. ipa-1 əThis user has a basic understanding of the International Phonetic Alphabet. blz-2This user is an intermediate speaker of blazon. ...This user would like to know all existing languages. they he or sheThis user considers the singular they to be substandard English usage. man- kindRegarding gender, this user prefers the vernacular, not what is politically correct. to too twoThis user thinks that too many people have no idea how to use words that they should have learned in grade two. whomThis user insists upon using whom wherever it is called for, and fixes the errors of whomever he sees. their there they'reThis user thinks that there are too many people who don’t know that they're worse than their own children at spelling! your you'reThis 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. . TheThis user does not put two spaces after a full stop. A, B, and A and BThis user uses the serial comma unless its inclusion is confusing. its it'sIt's really not that hard to use each word in its proper manner. ’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 favours typewriter style quotation marks over typographic ones. _This_user_dislikes_seeing underscores_in_Wikilinks. ANAL 5This user is incredibly stringent with professional grammar. MixThis user has been influenced by too many dialects of English to use one orthography, vocabulary and grammar consistently. Computer This user contributes using Linux. This user contributes with Fedora Linux. This user contributes using FreeBSD. This user has a dual boot configuration. This user contributes with KDE desktop environment. This user hacks happily with Emacs. Perl-3This user is an advanced Perl programmer. C-1This user is a beginning C programmer. mysql-2This user is an intermediate MySQL programmer. HTML-3This user is an advanced HTML user. xhtml-3This user is an advanced XHTML user. css-2This user is an intermediate Cascading Style Sheets user. js-2This user is an intermediate JavaScript programmer. XML-1This user is a beginning XML coder. OSrcThis user contributes to Open Source projects. This user contributes using a PC. This user uses an AMD processor IPThis person's IP is 127.0.0.1 IPThis user's IP is ::1. This user contributes using Free Software. This user contributes using GIMP. This user contributes using Inkscape. This user enjoys using Celestia to look at the virtual skies. This user BOINCs. This user couldn't live without the keyboard shortcut Alt Tab. Communicating This user uses Wikipedia as a primary point of reference. 7,000+This user has made more than 7,000 contributions to Wikipedia. Web This user has a website. WikiThis user has http://skybar.GhiaPet.net/ wikis. @This user can be reached by email. @This user can be reached by email at jowens.wiki@GhiaPet.net. OWNThis user uses an email account with his own domain name. This user uses Pidgin to chat on multiple instant messaging networks. *This user can be found on most, if not all, IM networks! BThis user keeps a weblog at Blogger. This user uses WordPress. This user prefers Mozilla Firefox. This user thinks an explorer can't be better than a fox! This user contributes using Firefox. This user uses Mozilla Thunderbird. BBThis user contributes using a broadband connection. Interests This user loves knowledge. This user prefers the metric system. ?met?This user prefers metric units and cannot figure out why Americans and Brits have such a hard time with them. This user has a keen interest in physics. This user is interested in astronomy. This user enjoys skygazing and astronomy. This user is interested in space sciences. This user doesn't care whether Pluto is a planet or not – but IAU's 2006 redefinition of planet was a linguistic-philosophical embarrassment. This user is an advanced mathematician. This user knows by heart the first 15 digits in the decimal representation of pi. This user is a Bayesian. $\sum _{k=1}^{\infty }{x^{k} \over k!}$This user loves problem solving. This user knows how to travel 1 mile due south, due east, then due north and end up where he started.† 6×9=42This user jokes in base 13. This user is interested in linguistics. laHic usor latine loquitur atque contribuere potest. This user is interested in Ancient Rome. This user is interested in the Middle Ages. This user is interested in the Crusades. This user is interested in politics. This user accepts evolution as a biological fact. This user is interested in aviation. /.This user has a Slashdot account. This user enjoys reading science fiction. This user is skeptical of the Zodiac. This user is a fan of Monty Python! LynchThis user is a fan of David Lynch's films. This user enjoys photography. This user loves calculators. This user plays games on a graphing calculator. This user is a fencer. This user is an archer. vla-1This user is a novice viola player. vln-1This user is a novice violinist. Other GMTThis user's time zone is GMT. This user dislikes the new DST time.New DST Time 00:00This user uses 24-hour time. This user supports sustainable living. This user supports renewable energy. This user supports the use of nuclear energy. This user supports public transit. Personal This user is male. This user is straight but not narrow. This male user supports feminism. ♂♀This user supports gender equality. HRCThis user supports the Human Rights Campaign. Choice This user is pro-life and pro-abortion. XThis user is a member of Generation X. 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 is not a biological parent. This user is right-handed. IQ This user's Intelligence Quotient is ≥154. This user sleeps, but not for predictable amounts of time. This user is near sighted. This user is a telecommunications engineer. This user is interested in humanism. This user believes in materialism, the belief that everything that exists is made of matter. EACThis user is a member of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy. Booga booga! Until proven wrong, this user does not believe in the supernatural. This user realizes that the Earth isn't an oblate spheroid, but rather a close approximation of one. This user believes that the Universe began with a bang. newsThe only reality show this user watches is the news. This user thinks Keith Olbermann is superior to Bill Orly in every way possible.YA RLY According to the political compass this user is Economic Left (-7.13) and Social Libertarian (-7.33). ? This user follows his/her own political ideals. This user believes in the separation of church and state. This user supports instant-runoff voting. This user does not trust electronic voting machines. C2H5OH-2This user drinks occasionally. This user is a Goth. NGThis user's alignment is Neutral Good: the "Benefactor." This user is of multiple ancestries. This user is of Welsh descent. This user is of English ancestry. This user is of Norwegian ancestry. This user is of German ancestry. Food & Drink This user believes that caffeine is necessary in large doses daily. This user takes his/her coffee with 2 creams and 6 sugars. This user drinks nothing but Dr Pepper. H2OThis user is H2O intolerant. Achoo! This user eats cheese. This user loves to eat pineapples. This user likes a 'proper' Pasty. This user has eaten MREs and lived to tell the tale. Userboxen -xenThis user believes that userbox should always be pluralised userboxen, and thinks that this is one of the most important and exciting issues of our time. ubx-cThis user thinks that userboxes have gotten out of control.

Pedia pages

Mine

Talk | Pet Projects | Gallery | Bookmarks | My Main Page | Variables | Boilerplate

Handy links

Vandalism | Editing | All style | Style | Layout | Tables | Characters | TeX (math) new | Newpages | Templates | Stubs | Boilerplate | Upload | Utilities | Public | DB

Other Wikipediæ

Meta | Commons | News | Species | Deutsch/German | Русский/Russian | Latina/Latin

John Owens

John Owens lives in Manchester, UK since 2016, after moving from Tucson, Arizona, and was until recently a student at the Pima Community College. He is (yet another) computer system and network administrator, with some knowledge of server administration and a good grasp of Perl. And he has been voted Number 1 on the "list of bigots to avoid" on User:Olga Bityerkokoff's page! He came in at number 32 on this month's Top 200 Countdown, and he'd like to extend his special gratitude to Michael, who made it all possible.

If you have a Un*x computer and check its native-format time, you've got a pretty good idea how old he is, in seconds.

Currently

As a recovering non-Wikipedoholic, I'm starting to edit again, but in moderation, so far. I recently upgraded to a mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera, so I'm starting to accumulate some pictures for the Wikipediæ. See some of what I've got so far: /Pet Projects#New pictures from trip. I'm currently focusing on my astrophotography technique (pun intended).

In things tangentially related to Wikipedia, I've started a project to create an electronic markup format for corrections to all those things that aren't Wiki. With my vast imagination, I've decided to call it the ProofReading Markup Language, or PRML for short. (SourceForge project site)

What he does

Weed whacker extraordinaire, great at spotting typos, too.

Oh yeah, and I know lots of stuff, too. ;)

And I refuse to ever take the Wikipedia:Are You a Wikipediholic Test. There are some things both you and I are better off not knowing. See also: Wikipedia:Wikipediholics in denial.

Foreign languages and contributions

I'm now contributing to the German and Russian Wikipædiæ in my own small way, too. (And in case you can't tell by my abuse of 'æ's, I just wish there was a Latin Wikipædia for me to contribute to, too.)

I'll be demmed, there is a Latin Vicipædia!!! :) I always wondered if there was a language code for Latin; never could find one in a list. Now I'm going to have to find out if 'la' is really official, or just what they use because it makes sense.

Since then, I've discovered Wikipedia:Multilingual coordination and ISO 639. Yup, it's a real, genyooine, official code.

Contributions

A few of my best, most pride-inspiring contributions:

• Aerial refueling
• Atlatl
• Aztalan State Park
  • Increase Allen Lapham
• Continental divide (OK, I'm setting the bar pretty low here, but somebody had to write it...)
• Hodag
• List of caves (The bar comes down another notch....)
• Various subpages of orders of magnitude
  • especially orders of magnitude (power)
• Wikipedia:Wikipediholics in denial

Mostly though, I'm more of an editor than a writer. And yeah, I know what all those authors say about editors....

Licensing

All contributions of my own work (i.e., excluding only a few photographs snarfed from web sites) excluding items in the User:JohnOwens "userspace" (or whatever the proper term might be) are available under any or all of the following licenses unless stated otherwise:

GNU Free Documentation License:{{GFDL-en}} Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License:{{MultiLicenseWithCC-BySA-Any}} BSD License:{{BSD|owner=J. Randall Owens}} Lesser General Public License:{{LGPL}}