Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

User:JeffM

2012-02-29T21:05:08Z

JeffM: started to get rid of red link

Just another guy who wants a conservative counterbalance to all of the liberalism on the Internet.

Internet

2012-02-29T21:03:13Z

JeffM: /* Description */ grammar

The '''Internet''' is a global network of interconnected smaller [[computer]] networks. Although many people use term "Internet" and "[[World Wide Web]]" interchangeably, the two terms are not equivalent in meaning. The Internet and the Web are separate, but related, entities. The Internet is a massive network of networks, connecting millions of computers together globally, forming a network. On the Internet, a computer can communicate with any other computer, as long as both computers are connected to the Internet.

Data is transmitted between computers and networks in small packets using the Internet Protocol (IP); they are reassembled at their destination. The Internet originated in work that was funded by the Advanced Research Projects Administration (ARPA), a research funding arm of the [[Department of Defense]].

==Origin==
The conceptual foundation for the internet's creation was significantly developed by three individuals and a research conference, each of which changed the way we thought about communication, business and the exchange of technology:

*Vannevar Bush wrote the first description of the potential uses for information technology with his description of the "memex" automated library system.
*Norbert Wiener invented the field of Cybernetics, encouraging future researchers to focus on the use of technology to extend human capabilities.
*The 1956 Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence conference defined the concept that technology was improving at an exponential rate, and provided the first serious consideration of the consequences, the benefits and advantages or such a network.
*Marshall McLuhan made the idea of a global village interconnected by an electronic nervous system part of our popular culture. <ref>http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii.htm </ref>
*Ethan K. Heinz (cousin of Teresa Heinz), in 1969, created a network named ARPANet. ARPANet was developed in the US as a means for various research universities and government facilities to "talk" or communicate with each other, even in an event such as war.<ref>[http://www.internetisseriousbusiness.com]</ref> ARPANet grew quickly and eventually evolved into today's Internet. Today, the Internet is a public, cooperative, and self-sustaining facility that can be accessed by hundreds of millions of people worldwide; the Internet has grown into a worldwide computer network where anyone can have a chat with anyone else almost anywhere in the world, and is a vast source of free information.

==Description==
The Internet is sometimes also known as "[[cyberspace]]." Most users are familiar with the [[World Wide Web]] of homepages, marked up with [[HTML]]; the Web is facilitated by one of numerous protocols that operate on the Internet. There are also [[email]], [[FTP|file transfer]], etc.

The common protocol used to access websites (including this one) is the Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The creator of this is [[Sir Tim Berners-Lee]], who recently in an online magazine article claimed that given the opportunity, he wouldn't use the HTTP format for websites. Berners-Lee is currently the director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

[[Ted Stevens]] famously referred to the internet as "a series of tubes" during a panel on [[network neutrality]]. While the statement was technically inaccurate, it is a reasonable depiction of the internet as an interconnected system to a lay person.

The internet is formed from two basic elements, routers and connections. A router is basically a small computer that acts like a switching station, similar to the pumping stations of public water utilities. The connections are the pipes themselves, acting as a means to move packets from one router to another, and eventually from server to client.

===TCP/IP===
TCP/IP is the basic communication language or protocol of the Internet. Two recent adaptations of Internet technology, the intranet and the extranet, also use [[TCP/IP]].

===Ownership of the Internet===
It is true that the Internet is more a concept than an actual tangible entity. Despite this fact, the Internet still relies on a physical infrastructure that connects networks to other networks. Access to the Internet is controlled by [[telephone]] companies, because telephone companies own many of the infrastructure backbones and most of the connectivity hardware; however, no one actually owns the Internet, and no single person or organization controls the Internet in its entirety. There are many organizations, corporations, governments, schools, private citizens, and service providers that all own pieces of the infrastructure.

==Controversy==
Although the Internet has been shown to contain valuable information, it also contains pornographic or otherwise vulgar material. Therefore, some conservatives would like to see tighter controls on the Internet which would limit what can be hosted and what can be downloaded.

In 1999, [[Democratic]] presidential candidate [[Al Gore]] misspoke when intending to take partial credit for the development of the internet when he referenced his High Performance [[Computing]] and Communication Act of 1991, commonly known as the "Gore Bill":<ref>http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/09/president.2000/transcript.gore/</ref>

:CNN's WOLF BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.

:Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

:AL GORE: Well, I will be offering -- I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.

:But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

In response to [[Al Gore|Al Gore's]] comments, [[Robert Kahn]] and [[Vinton Cerf]], the two men responsible for the creation of the [[TCP/IP]] protocol which the internet uses for most of its communication and two men often credited as the creators of the internet along with [[Sir Tim Berners-Lee]], said the following:
<blockquote>
Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development.

No one person or even small group of persons exclusively “invented” the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore’s contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening.<ref>http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200009/msg00052.html</ref>
</blockquote>

Their letter continued to go on to enumerate Al Gore's involvement in the early periods of the internet.

===Keeping Pornography out of the Reach of Children===
Studies have shown that 90% of children have been exposed to pornography, with the average age of exposure being 11 years old <ref>http://www.healthymind.com/s-porn-stats.html</ref>. Many countries have attempted to take steps to keep underage children from viewing pornographic material. [[Australia]] has taken the important step of requiring [[internet service providers]] to use web filters to keep inappropriate material from being displayed in houses and schools<ref>http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm</ref>. This effort is being blocked by civil liberties groups (such as the [[American Civil Liberties Union]]) who believe that pornagrophy should be considered [[free speech]], and therefore not under the jurisdiction of the government.

Currently many private companies offer software-based web filtering for home use. [[Public school|Public schools]] in many US states are required to employ web filters. Most [[private schools]], [[libraries]], and employers also choose to use web filters.

==See Also==
* [[World Wide Web]]
* [[Subdomains]]
* [[Digital Philosophy]]

==External Links==
*[http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49299033,00.htm The 50 most significant moments of Internet history], ''Crave at CNET.co.uk'', September 25, 2008

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Information technology]]
[[Category:Internet]]

Baseball

2011-09-29T19:16:58Z

JeffM: Technically, a game doesn't consist of the players.

''This article is about the game of '''baseball'''. For other uses, see [[Baseball (disambiguation)]]

[[Image:Busch Stadium.jpg|right|thumb|200px|A baseball game at Busch Memorial Stadium, St. Louis, Missouri.]]

'''Baseball''', is a [[game]] in which nine active players on each [[team]] (except for those teams having [[designated hitter]]s) take turns playing defense on the field and batting one at a time. The object is for the batters to hit a ball thrown by the [[pitcher]] into "fair" territory such that it is not caught in the air and gives the batter time to run to a base. The offense strives to advance these baserunners until they circle the three [[infield]] bases in order and get to the fourth base, called "home". This results in the scoring of a run. Failing to reach a base during their batting attempt results in an out, and the offense is only allowed three outs before they must take the field once again. Each team is allowed nine of these "innings" during the course of the game, an exception being that a team does not bat a ninth time if they are winning after the other teams ninth attempt. If the game is tied after nine innings, additional innings are played until there is a winner.

==History==
A well-publicized [[tradition]] holds that the game was invented by [[Abner Doubleday]] in [[Cooperstown]], [[New York]] in 1839. But not even the [[National Baseball Hall of Fame]], founded on the strength of that tradition, seriously promotes this theory any more:
:After the [1905] Commission [appointed to determine the game's origins] reported its findings in 1908, many of the game's historians disputed Graves' accounts, noting that many of the innovations he attributed to Doubleday were already being practiced earlier in the 1830s. The discovery in 1999 of the original Mills Commission papers, long reported to have been burned, supports the view of many researchers that Baseball developed from, and along with, other bat-and-ball games earlier in the nineteenth century.<ref name=cooperstown>[http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/about/history.htm The Origins of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum]</ref>

The word "baseball" is mentioned in passing in [[Jane Austen]]'s 1803 British novel [[Northanger Abbey]], set in England:
:it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books...<ref>Austen, Jane (1803) ''[Northanger Abbey http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext94/nabby11h.htm]'', Chapter 1</ref>

but there is nothing in the context that tells any details of the game.

"Base-ball" or "base ball" was being played, under that name, during the [[Civil War]]:
:Captain Kimberly was an experienced and skillful player and base ball player and took the lead in inaugurating a series of games of base ball.<ref>Nash, Eugene Arus (1910) ''A History of the Forty-fourth Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, in the Civil War, 1861-1865'', [http://books.google.com/books?vid=0Tt8agPo9LwQQsMG9YEqtf&id=L1eQYSRFhIQC&pg=PA166&lpg=PA166&dq=base-ball+civil+war&as_brr=1 p. 166]</ref>
:The air seemed full of heavy shot, and as the flew they could be seen as plainly as a base-ball in one of our games.<ref>Johnson, Robert Underwood and Clarence Clough Buel (1888), ''Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,'' Volume IV, [http://books.google.com/books?vid=0veexS1IQVEWthmLI7jQgT3&id=rSwOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=base-ball+civil+war&as_brr=1 p. 37]</ref>
A 1902 book about [[Philadelphia]] says that "base-ball" was simply a new name for an older game:
:During the Civil War there was an interesting athletic development when the old game of "town-ball" was rechristened "base-ball." It is believed that the first town-ball club, called the Olympic, was established in 1833.<ref>Edmond, Franklin Spencer, ''History of the Central High School of Philadelphia'' [http://books.google.com/books?vid=0z6LOHidtNQ5hb4rcxNHUcc&id=wogWAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA251&lpg=PA251&dq=base-ball+civil+war&as_brr=1 p. 251]</ref>
In 2004, a baseball historian made national news with the apparent discovery of 1791 bylaw of the town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, stating that
:for the Preservation of the Windows in the New Meeting House... no Person or Inhabitant of said town, shall be permitted to play at any game called Wicket, Cricket, Baseball, Football, Cat, Fives or any other game or games with balls, within the Distance of Eighty Yards from said Meeting House.<ref>[http://www.pittsfield-ma.org/subpage.asp?ID=226 Pittsfield is "Baseball's Garden of Eden"]</ref>
The first definitively recorded organized baseball game took place in Hoboken, N.J., in 1846.<ref>[http://www.hobokenbaseball.com/ Hoboken Baseball]</ref>

The Abner-Doubleday-in-Cooperstown tradition was a reaction to famous baseball writer Henry Chadwick, who had stated that the game evolved from the British game of "rounders."<ref name=cooperstown/>. In response, Albert G. Spaulding, another baseball pioneer, urged the formation of a commission to determine the game's origin; one was formed, and in due course issued a report on December 30, 1907 stating "the first scheme for playing baseball, according to the best evidence obtainable to date, was devised by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, N.Y. in 1839."
The results of the Spaulding committee led to the 1939 founding of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in the city of Cooperstown.<ref>The National Baseball Hall of Fame was inspired by the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in New York. Established in 1901, with a 600-foot colonnade ultimately containing bronze busts of 98 great Americans, the Hall of Fame was at one time a major landmark, and the additions of honorees to it was a national news event. Ironically, the Hall of Fame for Great Americans has itself passed into obscurity; today, the phrase "Hall of Fame" has practically come to mean the National Baseball Hall of Fame.</ref>
Just how long has baseball been played? The only valid answer known (as of the summer of 2008) indicates that it must have been played before March 31, 1755. In a diary found recently, a lawyer by the name of William Bray wrote as follows: "After Dinner Went to Miss Jeale's to play at Base Ball . . . ." The next known reference to the sport is the 1791 law in Pittsfield, Mass., forbidding the game to be played. There are also some Egyptian carvings in which a bat and ball may be seen, but these are indecisive.

==Modern Baseball==
The game of baseball is now played the world over. In North America, the primary governing body at the professional level is Major League Baseball, which consists of thirty clubs. Major League Baseball is divided into two groups; The American League and The National League. Every year, all of the MLB clubs from each league battle to earn a place in the World Series, the pinnacle of the sport. To date the New York Yankees of the American League have won the most World Series titles with 26 followed by the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League with 10 wins. College baseball in the United States is governed primarily by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

In Japan, professional baseball is primarily governed by Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). There are a total of 12 teams. The association is divided into two leagues of six teams each, the Central League and the Pacific League. With 21 overall titles since the league's inception, the Yomiuri Giants have been the most successful Japanese club since the NPB's beginnings in 1958. <ref>[http://www.japanball.com/teams.htm Japanball.com Team and League Information]</ref>

==Miscellaneous==

The baseball as we know it—or at least the familiar "figure-eight" stitched cover—was invented in the 1840s by Ellis Drake of Stoughton, Massachusetts.<ref>[http://www.19cbaseball.com/19th-century-baseball.html Nineteenth-century baseballs]</ref>

The umpire's hand signals for "strike" and "out" were invented by deaf baseball player William "Dummy" Hoy (1861-1961)<ref>[http://library.gallaudet.edu/dr/faq-deaf-place-names.html Deaf Place Names]</ref>

==The ball==

[[Image:Baseball.jpg|left|150px]]
''' Baseball ball ''': The baseball’s core is made of rubber and cork. Yarn is wound around the rubber and cork centre. Then 2 strips of white cowhide are sewn around the ball. Official baseballs must weigh 5 to 5 1/4 ounces and be 9 to 9 1/4 inches in diameter.
 
 
 
== References ==
*[http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/baseball/beginners/glossary.html Baseball Glossary] WETA.
*[http://www.nocryinginbaseball.com/glossary/glossary.html Baseball Glossary OF TERMS]
*[http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/pitch_glossary.shtml Pitching Glossary]
*[http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/bat_glossary.shtml Batting Glossary]
== External links ==
*[http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp The Official Site of Major League Baseball]
*[http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp Minor League Baseball]
*[http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/features/alumni/article.jsp?article=history BASEBALL HISTORY] Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association.
*[http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/features/alumni/stats.jsp Stats]
*[http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/index.jsp Hall of Fame] National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc.
== See also ==

*[[Major League Baseball]]
*[[Baseball (disambiguation)]]
{{baseball}}

==Notes and references==
<references/>

[[Category:Baseball]]

Interlingua

2011-09-29T19:15:03Z

JeffM: took out hyphen

'''Interlingua''' is a [[constructed language|planned language]] that uses words that are found in most West European languages.
[[Category:Constructed languages]]

Talk:Marriage

2007-09-10T21:31:23Z

JeffM: OT marriage

[[Talk:Marriage/Archive 1]]
==Marriage in the Old Testament==
I think we should talk about the various forms of marriage in the Old Testament. Since we allude to the Old Testament by mentioning Adam and Eve, we are opening ourselves up to the charge that we are liberal Christians who pick and choose which parts of the Bible we want to believe. Also, assertions of the "will of God" should be backed up, chapter and verse, with the Word of God. [[User:JeffM|JeffM]] 17:31, 10 September 2007 (EDT)