Articles



Mr. Wikipedia Person

I look up things in Wikipedia almost every day, and a few years ago I started editing it. I began with simple cosmetic fixes, and eventually started writing an occasional Wikipedia scientific biography (geologist Henry G. Ferguson and research pharmacologist Harris Isbell). Most Wikipedia readers don't realize how easy it is to edit Wikipedia (at least to make small changes), nor do they really have a good understanding of how Wikipedia works (e.g., how conflicts are resolved, and how such a free-form system results in a (fairly) reliable source of information).

So I wrote a four page article ( "Ask Mr. Wikipedia Person") in hopes of encouraging more people to edit Wikipedia (elsewhere, I described the target audience as people who are "intelligent, articulate, knowledgeable, and polite". Is that you?). The article is covered by a Creative Commons license, so you can distribute it freely or do pretty much whatever you want with it (if you want the LaTeX source, you can probably figure out where it is, or drop me an email).

"Ask Mr. Wikipedia Person" in PDF format.

Yamaha Reface DX

In 2016, Yamaha released a cool set of "Reface" velocity-sensitive mini-keyboards, including the Reface DX, which is an FM (Frequency Modulation) synthesizer derived from the DX7. I think it's a really great keyboard, but the documentation on how to modify or create voices is limited, so I wrote an introductory article about it (and may write a few more).

"Voice Programming on the Reface DX: Part 1" in PDF format.