User: Mulad
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I'm Mike Hicks.
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Myself
I have been contributing to Wikipedia since May 27, 2003, although I did a lot of stuff for a few days at first, then went silent for a few months. Before creating this account, I created/modified some entries from 24.26.179.194, and some other entries show up from that address when Wikipedia forgets my cookie. As of October 10, 2004, I have made more than 4426 edits, and rank #208 on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. In the past, I've reached at least #187, but site slowness over the last few months and the fact that I had a job again for a few months meant that it went down a bit.
I probably shouldn't do this, but since I've lost another job as of November 2004 (due to funding issues, not my ability), I'll link to my resume. If you're looking for a new employee, particularly in the Minnesota area, drop me a line.
I'm a filthy American consumer who usually watches too much TV. I've been using the Linux operating system since 1996 though I've been generally interested in computers for most of my life. My parents both worked at IBM when I was a kid. These days, I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and many of my contributions relate to the history of Minnesota and the Twin Cities region. Trains have always been something I've liked. We have a new light rail line here now, the Hiawatha Line, and the region used to have a very good streetcar system, operated for more than 60 years under the name Twin City Rapid Transit. Some of the old powerhouses still sit next to Saint Anthony Falls along the Mississippi River, just a few blocks from where I live.
Editing behavior
I have an interest in all sorts of things and also happen to be quite a neutral person most of the time. It tends to help when trying to think about things in a neutral point of view manner.
When editing, I occasionally try to apply the tweaks that make typeset text (like what you get from TeX) look so nice. I'm a big fan of “open/close quotes” (“/”) and em-/en-dashes between words—like that (—)—and dates like 1990–91 (–). Sometimes, it seems more appropriate to use an en-dash instead of an em-dash – to make text stand off, or in some lists. I also think there's a place for the ‘single quote’ (‘/’), but I don't really think it's necessary when just doing apostrophes. I'm curious if anyone knows if there's a proper way to do a possessive quote. My Mom’s job had her learn about it, so maybe I should just ask her what she's figured out.
I'm a big fan of making See also a heading rather than just another line in an article. I don't understand why so many articles in Wikipedia have heading after heading, but don't include a See also heading. That makes no sense, especially when articles have References and External links sections. That's so weird…
It would appear that my brother has an account as User:Ckape.
Customizing Wikipedia
I'm slowly fiddling with the user-mangleable Cascading Style Sheets and JavaScript stuff on Wikipedia. You can see my files through the links below:
- Monobook style, with bits lifted from various places:
Featuring: rounded corners on tabs, bottom tabs (and emboldened “edit this page” links), changing border color on moused-over tabs, personal toolbox on the side and in the right colors, language links up top and in teal, category box top right (about the same height as the title), normally non-underlined links, underline on hover (except in top/bottom tabs), “new” page links using the “classic” #CC2200 color. - Standard style:
Nothing fancy, just underlined links on mouse hover
Quick Reference
TeX markup - Multimedia - Wikipedia:Image markup - Image use policy - All MediaWiki messages - MediaWiki custom messages - Wikipedia:How to edit a page - Wikipedia:Cite your sources - Using tables - Wikimedia servers - Wikimedia hardware status - Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox Usage - Category:Stub categories - Wikipedia Status on OpenFacts
Other Places
Other places I have contributed to, or plan to contribute to: OpenFacts - Wikisource - Memory Alpha - Twin Cities IMC
Current Contributions
A few pages I'm thinking about writing/expanding right now:
- progressive shifting
- transmission/transmission (automobile)/automatic transmission/gearbox
- Zippo
- Hiawatha Line
- Twin City Rapid Transit
- Grand Excursion (mostly focusing on the first one)
- Minnesota state highway system/List of Minnesota state highways
- History of Minnesota (should get back to this at some point)
Images I've made/found (mostly found)
Moved to User:Mulad/images...
Blah
Hmm. Testing 123: Wikiquote:Main Page, Wikisource:Main Page, Wikibooks:Main Page, Wiktionary:Main Page, Nupedia:Main Page, MemoryAlpha:Main Page, OpenFacts:Main Page
Other Interests
Some pages I'm interested in because of my location and family connections
- The Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul and the surrounding Metropolitan Area
- The University of Minnesota, where I spent nearly 6 years of my life
- I went to the Twin Cities campus
- I was in the University of Minnesota Marching Band for 4 years
- Because of my proximity to the Mall of America and Southdale, the first enclosed shopping mall, I'm interested in their history
- The Metrodome (and, I suppose)
- Minnesota Twins
- Minnesota Vikings
- others?
- Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport
- IDS Center
- Foshay Tower
- Apparently, I lived in a house once owned by a founder of
- Some NOAA stations in the area: MSP and MPX
- Twin Cities Linux Users Group and it's sponsor Real-Time Enterprises (probably too insignificant to really be in an encyclopedia, but we'll see)
- Fort Snelling, at the confluence of
- the general history of the Twin Cities, including railroads and rail barons
- The University of Minnesota, where I spent nearly 6 years of my life
- Byron, Minnesota, where I grew up
- Rochester, Minnesota, a nearby city
- The Mayo Clinic and the Drs. Mayo
- IBM, where my dad works (my mom used to work there, too)
- Tysnes, the island/region near Bergen, Norway that my grandmother is from
- Fargo, North Dakota, where my grandmother is now
- Some railroads that have caused me to stop at rail crossings
- Chicago and Northwestern used to run near my hometown
- Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern was built up out of former CNW property
- Soo Line would run through town every so often
- Burlington Northern was the big company up north near Fargo
- Milwaukee Road is long gone as far as I know, but there's a historic building in Minneapolis.
Some movies, TV shows, etc
- Fake news and, “Oh my god, I can't believe that's real” news
- The Daily Show, along with Jon Stewart and friends
- The Onion, a satirical newspaper
- Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, an NPR show that includes Daily Show correspondent Mo Rocca
- Also, Car Talk (not a news show, but a funny one on NPR)
- Weekend Update, the Saturday Night Live skit
- Frontline, a damn good real-news show
- Movies by Joel and Ethan Coen
- Mallrats was partly filmed in the Cities
- TV/Radio stations in my area
- WCCO (definitely worthy of an article)
- KSTP (dunno.. Hubbard Broadcasting Corporation, though..)
- KARE (has some history, though I'm too young to know much, has had many names, though is noted for having first pictures of a tornado from a helicopter)
- Paul Magers worked there for 20 years from 1983 to 2003
- Channel 23 (many different owners), original source of MST3K
- more (though probably not very noteworthy) WFTC (We're (not) Fox Twin Cities), KMSP, KAAL, KIMT, KSMQ, KTTC (hmm, they were pretty early with HDTV in Rochester, as I remember)
- Twin Cities Public Television – KTCA and KTCI
- See List of television stations in Minnesota
- Radio stations are messy, but some might be noteworthy
- Minnesota Public Radio
- Rev 105 (there should still be an article in the MN Daily, and City Pages)
- tons of other stuff I just can't remember right now
I'm also interested in the history of computing and a lot of pieces of hardware and software
no:Bruker:Mulad
