User:George Swan

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Revision as of 15:29, 24 May 2013 by imported>George Swan (more details)
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Bio

personal

Among my interests are the history of science, nautical history, and social justice. In recent years I have been writing about the implications of the "global war on terror".

Project Xanadu

I was a student in an experimental program at the University of Waterloo in 1979. During this time I met Ted Nelson, when he was on a speaking tour, and volunteer to be an intern on his Project Xanadu. I will be writing more about my experiences there on TI:George Swan. It was an experience that shaped my ideas on how hypertexts, like the Citizendium, should be organized.

Unfinished degree

I did not complete that degree.

Work as a computer programmer

Most of my work, since then, has been in the fields of computer programming, or computer training.

Wiki work

In September of 2005 I came across unclassified dossiers from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals held for captives held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.

On March 3 2006, in response to a court order, the Department of Defense released 60 large portable document format files containing several hundred transcripts from the CSR Tribunals, I set myself the goal of reading through them. Since then the DoD has released an additional 10,000 or so pages of documents. I plan to read them all.

Writing about this material, on a project like the Citizendium, can be difficult, because authors have to keep from inserting their own conclusions and interpretations. So, I try to make more of an effort to maintain neutrality.

I think anyone who has a concern that I have lapsed from neutrality will be satisfied that I take their concern seriously. I'll ask only that you be specific. George Swan 17:15, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

Work

The rest of this page will point at my rough work, and the tools I use.

Public Domain and free images I have uploaded

Maps

I have created one hundred or so maps, all using a free online map-making tool Other people make much better maps than mine. I'd be happy to get pointers. But for freely distributable maps that can be created very easily, this tool can't be beat.

I'll help others create similar crude maps, and I'll consider requests to create maps.

That wonderful online tool went dark unexpectedly. Wow, if I had anticipated this I would have rushed to complete a couple of hundred maps. Darn.
The underlying tools that the online tool used are available in a package that can be downloaded. Those underlying tools are command line driven, not menu-driven, and seem to require a very considerable effort to learn how to use. A small handful of talented people seem to have figured out how to create some exceptional maps using those tools however. George Swan 20:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Images from US Federal agencies

The work of employees of US Federal agencies, in performance of their duties, is in the public domain. One can find cool images there if one does a google image search confined to the ".mil" or ".gov". Not all images this turns up will be public domain. Some State agencies are also under the .gov domain. Photos may be the product of an employee of a firm which works, on contract, for the US Federal government. Those aren't PD. And neither, of course, are images that have a credit to a third party.