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# Lee Daniel Crocker

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I am a professional computer programmer, semi-pro poker player, amateur philosopher (specifically a devotee of Karl Popper), and a dilettante at just about everything else. More details and more up-to-date information can be found on my [personal pages]. You can send email to [lee@piclab.com], or to [lcrocker@nupedia.com] (Please use the latter address for Wikipedia and Nupedia related matters).

Because I am skeptical of the value of intellectual property law in general and copyrights in particular, I explicitly place all creative works original to me in the public domain. If you see an article here that looks like it was primarily written by me (such as ASCII, poker, copyright, and many related pages), and you wish to use it in a way not permitted by the GNU Free Documentation License, contact me. I may have a public domain version containing only my work which I will happily give you.

## Commentaries

While perhaps vaguely Wiki-related, the texts below reflect my personal opinions and biases.

- /Writing style
- /Semantic disputes
- /The Perfect Martini
- /The Myth of the Lone Inventor

## Notes

It seems to be an emerging Wikipedia tradition to place personal notes at the end of a person's page. I hereby encourage that tradition, and invite all to do so here. I do ask as a matter of courtesy that you not check the "This change is a minor edit" box if you add or change content--doing so makes a "stealth" change that doesn't show up in the RecentChanges list, so I won't be aware of the change unless I check periodically.

Welcome, Lee! -- Larry Sanger

Hi, Lee! I just visited your homepage, and I got an immediate sense of Deja Vu. I've been there, recently, and so I now wonder how and why. I don't think it was in connection with Wikipedia, but maybe I'm mistaken!

Are you interested in TheSingularity?

  Yep, I'm an active [Extropian], so you may have found me through various Extropian/transhumanist/sigularity sites. You may also have run across me in connection with [Freenet], or perhaps with the [PNG] graphics file format of which I am a co-inventor. I'm sure I'm linked in other places as well--I've been on the web as long as there's been a web to be on.

Your work on the United States Constitution page is stunning. Wow. --Jimbo Wales

I've found out that the best way to obtain a page about something is to begin the page, and someone like Lee will finish it ;)

Great Job with the Poker pages!

Did you read a book titled The Professor and the Madman? Well, you should. It is about the Wikipedia project, only 150 years earlier.

  Yes; for those unfamiliar with the work, it's ISBN 006099486X (Amazon, Pricescan), the story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary and one of its most prolific early contributors, Dr. W. C. Minor, who was at the time imprisoned in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. I second the recommendation. I'll have to write a page about the OED. Pity its 1928 copyright hasn't expired, it would be a wonderful source of info here.

You've been keeping me honest, I see. So far you've corrected one "egregious" assumption I made ([Copyright/Berne Convention]?) as well as an omission (My Fair Lady) and a misremembrance ([Computer Mouse/trackball]?). Point taken, even if you didn't mean one. :-) In future I'll be more careful.

I do admire your arguments in re: intellectual property quite a lot. (But at present I can't find the link, I'm afraid.) --KQ

  Rest assured that I'm not picking on you--indeed I'm glad you're adding so much useful stuff. You just happen to be adding things in subjects I know a lot about, so naturally I tend to edit them. Creating an initial page is a great way to induce people like me to flesh them out.

I didn't take offense. As the saying goes, "if the shoe fits, wear it." The shoe fit. I haven't been discouraged from writing; I've just been busy lately, and not suffering insomnia. :-) I will continue to cut and paste the CIA info, as well as writing on movies and so forth when I have more time. And here's an article I think you'll find interesting, if outrageous: http://www.uniontrib.com/news/uniontrib/sun/news/news_1n13own.html :-D

Thanks for the explanation about memes. Now I understand the issue much more better. And sorry for the (little bit) strong language I used. ErdemTuzun

  Thanks, I thought I might have been too strong in my criticism of your text. That's one of the things I love about Wikipedia--the more crontribtors argue and edit each other, the better the final result is.

LDC, your knowledge of poker is amazing! Have you competed in any tournaments?--KQ

  Many, including one of the smaller World Series events ($1500 Stud High-Low in 2000). I played professionally for about a year in Vegas, and again for about six months in California, but I've never done well enough to earn nearly as much as I do being a computer geek. But at least I'll get some good articles out of it (many more to come).

You must be quite good if you can play professionally at all. But why not combine your two careers and play Bill Gates? ;-)

  Oddly, Gates only plays casually at low stakes. I've seen him at the Mirage playing $3/$6 Texas hold'em, while I was playing $15/$30. I once calculated that if Mr. Gates decided to play with $1,000,000 chips, he would still be risking a smaller percentage of his net worth than I do regularly. I don't think I'll argue with how he chooses to invest his money--he seems to be making the right choices in that regard.

Lee, I admire your article about Karl Popper. You've inspired me to learn more about him. Are you familiar with the work of Michael Polanyi? I'm wondering how he compares with Popper. <>< Tim Chambers

  I'll take a look, but at first glance I don't see much in common. Polanyi seems a bit too mystical for my tastes. Popper was, as am I, firmly dedicated to the idea that some explanations of reality and methods for discovering it are most definitely superior to others, and that proper application of the human mind and reason can discern which. He was not interested in any "synthesis" of religious and scientific thought, but rather in putting each in its proper place, and using the right tools for the job: religion may be useful for providing a basis for human values, but it is useless for determining how the world works, and vice versa. Likewise, religion might tell us what kind of society we want to live in, but only science and rational thought can determine the best way to achieve it.

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Last edited August 14, 2001 12:24 pm (diff)
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