Users/PhilipNeustrom

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woodstocks_photo.jpgBeer, friends, and computers.

I'm a recent graduate of UC Davis with a BS in Mathematics. I love photography, programming and learning.

I have a LiveJournal which is at [WWW]http://livejournal.com/~codetoad. I don't seem to update it as much as I should, though. I've also got a [WWW]flickr (photo-sharing site) account at [WWW]http://flickr.com/photos/philipn. My personal website is at [WWW]mathburritos.org. I also have a twitter account: [WWW]@philipn.

My email address is <philipn AT gmail DOT com>. My Jabber (Google Talk) name is philip@jabber.org, and I'm on that fairly often if you want to chat. For davis wiki-centric stuff, please email <daviswiki AT gmail DOT com> (for now).

I'm happy to respond to emails, but please take a look at the welcome to the wiki pages — especially the business owner page. If you have a general question, you should probably ask it on the general wiki community page.

Also see my wikispothome on the Wiki Spot hub.

If you'd like to help out with anything related to the back-end of the wiki please let me know. There's a whole lot of work to be done!

I really like Choice Voting because it's one of those ideas that, once you spend some time and think about it, makes a lot of sense. 

"Our minds are finite, and yet even in those circumstances of finitude,
we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite,
and the purpose of human life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude."
-Alfred North Whitehead

Some Favorite Pages

What do I do on the Wiki?

I make a lot of edits. What do I usually edit? These are my most common edits:

Deleting is very important, but should be done with care.

Note to self

Davis from the Inside Out by William D. Diemer. National housing register, 216 F Street, PMB 17. This is an interesting compilation of a ton of Davis related information that can be purchased for $15 at Newsbeat. Somebody ought to buy it to help out with facts/info.

Messages to me!

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2011-03-23 18:39:07   One thing that occurs to me, since so many seem to misunderstand what the Wiki is for... a small disclaimer on the front page, top or bottom... "This site is for information and entertainment purposes only" It may prove to be very helpful.

Also, in all the discussions we have here with business owners wishing to modify "their" site for promotional purposes, a link that gives everyone access to the IRS agreement that keeps the wiki a true non-profit... I have heard of this agreement, but when it comes up and discussions with business owners, no one ever seems able to find the information so it becomes more hearsay. —Wes-P

2011-04-06 11:15:48   Sorry, bad timing on my revert; I think it's worth keeping the proposal as something for people to kick around... including alternatives, like the less formal, rigid option you suggest. —TomGarberson

2011-04-22 19:09:05   Philip, If you see my e-mail, please feel free to call my cell phone, or write to me on the cell (rbmiller1@me.com). Thanks very much! Bob Miller —AdvancedValleyEye

2011-04-26 12:21:08   [WWW]LOL! —TomGarberson

2011-04-26 12:27:18   Oh, also, if there's anything that can be done to set up JW's Chrome plugin for Racemosa, that'd be really nice. I've been looking forward to giving it a spin for months. —TomGarberson

2011-05-07 18:28:35   Err.... Is there any way to nuke a bunch of [WWW]spam changes across tons of wiki pages without going through the trouble of logging into each one? —WesHardaker

2011-05-10 15:52:27   for some reason that whole episode that just occurred reminded me of outfoxed where the guy who invented the fox news alert talked about how they made the music fast and the graphics very bright and alarming, it was for when they broke into news and delivered serious stuff! It's kinda like the community alerts page... Not detracting from Davis state of mind, and getting it votes but having it on community alert just didn't feel right ¬_¬ hence the ire —StevenDaubert

2011-05-10 15:55:00   I was pretty enthralled by the discovery that when you preview a page your are about to edit you can still use the comment bar in the previewed version... It doesn't give you the edit but it puts the comment down...

^__^ —StevenDaubert

2011-05-12 15:49:59   [WWW]Outside links? —TomGarberson

2011-05-12 21:08:40   To be fair, UCDLJ doesn't really count... but point well taken! :) —TomGarberson

2011-05-20 13:58:43   I [WWW]touched up the Choice Voting page per your objections on the talk page. I agree that it's still tangential, but at least it's more relevant as a direct comparison to choice voting. If it looks satisfactory, do you want to kill the /Talk page? —TomGarberson

2011-05-20 16:32:11   Hey Philip, would you be willing to throw together some Davis-specific info for the LocalWiki page? It blows my mind that didn't already exist. It seems like there's a lot of Davis and Wiki-focused stuff that could go in there. People involved (you and Mike), WikiSpot history, what it means for Davis Wiki (and a general idea of when), and some links, to name a few. —TomGarberson

2011-05-20 20:40:56   Yay! Thanks! —TomGarberson

2011-05-21 00:01:01   Philip, you've made it clear from my earliest days on the wiki that you don't like me. I don't know why that is, so I can't change it. But I do think I deserve a direct answer to my question; others appreciate my contributions to the wiki even if you don't. The answer that you've given is not direct. —CovertProfessor

2011-05-24 16:07:53   Phil-we're having our RocWiki quarterly meeting soon (6/19), if you have anything you want me to mention, let me know pls. Thx —Users/PeterBoulay

2011-05-27 12:05:57   Ahh, thanks, I'll get that back in there. —TomGarberson

2011-06-07 12:36:51   It loads fine for me. —TomGarberson

2011-06-07 13:05:08   As an update, I asked for permission to use the photo and one other I found. —JabberWokky

2011-06-24 17:45:51   that isn't a weird comment that is some sort of bot or something doing some sort of harvesting

someone was deleting a ton of messages like that, the username and some other stuff varies —StevenDaubert

2011-07-09 11:42:05   Hello- I'm not very familiar with the Wiki but just want to post an announcement. I don't see any appropriate places. I have 3 loved pet cats that need a home. Where can I post this or find help in placing them? Thank you. -Lynn Gerner —LynnGerner

2011-07-13 10:55:11   I tried to shut off the alert the other day but was unable to do so. The police have done everything they could for my friend's shop, although the insurance has proven to be useless... Anyway, thanks for updating the front page. —Wes-P

2011-07-23 16:34:10   that page loaded really really slowly for me

=X —StevenDaubert

2011-07-23 20:28:52   I wandered over to the macros page on WikiSpot and was realizing that an awful lot of those macros result in extremely slow-loading pages. Naturally, I wondered what would happen if they were all on one page :) —TomGarberson

2011-08-16 20:00:01   Aww. And here I thought making all of Davis's People "town characters" was the perfect solution! —TomGarberson

2011-08-18 15:33:28   an edit collision would seem very scary for a person new to the format, any way to phase that out with 2.0 ?

also in navigating to your page I've noticed that the search seems odd, it won't give me you unless it's perfect. I can't just do Philip N in search box and find you quickly... what gives? —StevenDaubert

2011-08-19 01:06:39   you can't just make some sort of server side time that edits come in in hundreths/thousands and then get sorted by time etc etc

you would earn seeing an edit conflict then! —StevenDaubert

2011-09-20 16:50:51   Yo Pip! When's the expected release date on the new shit? —ScottMeehleib

2011-10-02 01:51:21   good call on the photo reverts —StevenDaubert

2011-10-31 04:42:40   Hell yeah! It's Philbo! You are AWESOME! —AshleyHamidi

2011-11-11 14:01:42   My Daviswiki account can't be used on Denton thru the wikispot hub? Cause this is localwiki project and is different? —StevenDaubert

2011-11-11 16:26:43   cooool —StevenDaubert

2011-11-12 04:38:10   buddy is stuck in SF right now, and I can't edit the SF wiki to add tow trucks cause it's localwiki now -___-

where is Arlen when you need him —StevenDaubert

2011-12-06 14:07:45   Done. —IDoNotExist

2011-12-09 18:21:26   The downtime did have the positive effect of getting me to check out the Sacwiki Test for a while. Glad you're back up though. —jefftolentino

2011-12-11 20:18:58   Nice. Took me a half a bottle of wine to finish that thing! :) Do you mind if I continue to futz around over there? Taxi wars are hurting my eyes. —jefftolentino

2011-12-12 14:19:58   Hey, sorry, I didn't realize the test Sacwiki page wasn't really supposed to be passed around yet. My apologies! I thought based on our conversation about getting edit parties together (including, potentially, in Davis), it was something I should be getting people into. Sorry...Should I take down mentions of the site until it's officially up? —NicholasBarry

2011-12-30 13:45:34   Ok, will do. In this case, I didn't actually realize it was a bug — I thought I might be doing something wrong. But I will be more attuned to possible buggy behavior in the future. —CovertProfessor

2012-01-11 00:26:09   would it be plausible to make a shoutbox style functionality that sits in the big black space between the logo and the user name? Like 4-6 lines of text big? Maybe functionality for PMing active users?

could be neat for chatting with whomever is also looking at recent changes, and could become a more friendly/readily available DWiki IRC! —StevenDaubert

2012-01-26 13:11:53   Thanks for getting the spammer —TomGarberson

2012-02-08 10:42:56   Hi, Just wanted to let you know, in case you didn't, that the Santa Cruz Wiki doesn't seem to be loading! —AlexDarocy

2012-03-19 19:49:20   You're quick. Like a ninja. Remind me not to try to be sneaky around you when you're carrying a sword. —TomGarberson

2012-03-22 16:18:33   Phil-attacks continuing. Username FreeInfo @ Blackmon & Associates Historical —Users/PeterBoulay

2012-03-22 17:49:12   Please do not address that without talking to me. Do not memory hole it this time. There's a lawsuit involved, and it is now evidence. —JabberWokky

2012-05-19 16:39:55   I left a message for your little friend, PhilipsNeustrom. -kb —KBathory

2012-05-22 20:27:51   Sure! :-) —CovertProfessor

2012-06-09 11:41:56   Just curious, is it general practice to block obvious trolls around here? —DonShor

2012-06-11 16:35:55   [re: search being broken] It seems to happen pretty often, which is why I don't fill out a more formal bug report. I assume it's something that's being worked out. —EdWins 

Traceback (most recent call last): 
  File "/srv/sycamore_base/Sycamore/request.py", line 912, in run
    self.config.page_front_page).page_name, self)
  File "/srv/sycamore_base/Sycamore/wikiaction.py", line 133, in do_search
    this_search.process()
  File "/srv/sycamore_base/Sycamore/search.py", line 523, in process
    for line in input:
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/socket.py", line 411, in next
    line = self.readline()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/socket.py", line 331, in readline
    data = recv(1)
timeout: timed out

2012-06-11 23:21:53   Last year there were hundreds of acres of sunflowers planted in the field adjacent to where I live. It was surreal. This year its barley and tomatoes, which from a visual perspective, is just real. That said, I'm wondering what happens to this barley...It would be interesting to try a brew made with Davis grains. The tomato plants on the other hand aren't looking so great after the wind storm last weekend. —MikeyCrews

2012-06-13 16:25:32   LOL on your photo choice for the featured page. —CovertProfessor

2012-06-14 13:56:57   But there were *three* turkeys. It was too perfect. (Now I see that it was TDD's edit, not yours). I can't believe that no one commented or complained! —CovertProfessor

2012-06-14 14:33:50   Can you confirm that the account LWolk was deleted? —CovertProfessor

2012-06-14 15:43:58   Thank you. —CovertProfessor

2012-07-26 14:05:34   I agree. Black Lion is seductively delicious :) —jsbmeb

2012-12-14 23:55:43   Well yeah, but our diplomas have the John Hancock of Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. That's gotta beat Comic Sans any day. —BrentLaabs

2013-02-19 11:55:03   The UX32VD Zenbook. I think it came in an older and newer version. Older had 4 gb of RAM (two soldered in, and a stick of 2), but 32gb of SSD, and it was really popular to wipe Win8 and install Win7 on the SSD (relevant [WWW]thread). Mine came with 6 gb of RAM surprisingly (stick of 4 instead of 2), but only 24gb of SSD space. I had already bought [WWW]this 8 gig stick, bringing me to 10gb. Install of the new OS was somewhat tricky; need to do it off a flash drive, and you need to get the USB 3.0 drivers for the USB first. Took the IT guy a few hours to fiddle with it, something about the drives confused him but I don't remember the issue.

I'm pretty happy with it. It's the only ultrabook-class with a real graphics card, which is nice, and it's plenty powerful. Doesn't get too warm. Easily manages to hook up to my 24" monitors, as well as my 40" tv. I have had a few issues: sound drivers in the first few months, I may have originally got the wrong ones for Win7. The sound would occasionally turn off, and I had to reset the computer. This seems to be fixed, I think a Win7 update at some point managed to resolve that. The sound itself is pretty decent for this laptop. Only thing is the speaker grills are on the bottom sides and face outwards. On a table, the sound 'bounces back' and sounds nice. If you pick it off the table and put it on your lap (if you're on the couch) the sound faces away which is slightly odd.

Weight is great, the size is fine. I would probably prefer a 14", but really, if I'm going to use it for any extended period of time I'd hook it up to a monitor or two. I did buy a usb 3.0 hub, to help ease the plug situation.

The keyboard itself is fine. No issues with the typey-typey. The touchpad is the only gripe. The firmware update helped a lot, but I think I need to disable some of the gestures - either I need to be more careful when using it casually, or it's a bit too sensitive. I find I keep resizing webpages when I mean to scroll. I do most of my work on a desktop setup, so it's something that I need to practice on (last laptop I used regularly had a solid button at the bottom, so I'm using to leaving a thumb sitting there, meaning any scroll becomes a pinch).

It's mostly being used by my SO for casual usage, I haven't actually put it to much of a major test for my own work stuff, mostly due to computers here being more powerful for our biotech analysis. Running hours of streaming video was fine, it didn't heat up to the point where I felt I should use a cooling pad. I haven't installed any games on it yet to play with that.

Just a few quick impressions off the top of my head. —EdWins

2013-02-26 09:14:32   Sounds like a long day yesterday. Good work. —jefftolentino

2013-02-26 16:40:29   I had downtime on my connection as well, so I was equally vexed when I realized that Daviswiki was still down for some reason even when my spotty net was working.. —StevenDaubert

2013-04-12 05:50:50   Your message reminded me — I use an external mouse. For awhile I had the trackpad turned off entirely, as I almost never use it. Originally I used a Bluetooth mouse, but the Logitech universal dongle is tiny, and it seems to be better than Bluetooth (no "shake to wake" up time, long battery life, etc). —JabberWokky

2013-04-12 18:29:12   Phil-you said two weeks ago you'd fix my access on the other wiki we discussed?? —PeteB

2013-05-17 13:30:16   Sure thing. I'll probably post a bit more about each IUD when I get a chance. —MeggoWaffle

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