User:Tannin

Hi all. I'm new here as of mid-December 2002, and still in the Wow! This place is amazing! stage. (I have a sneaking suspicion absolute certainty that this is a stage from which there is no escape.)

I'm based in Ballarat, Victoria and have a varied background. My degree was in the social sciences (with majors in research methods and psychology, minor in statistics) and I work with computers, but my main areas of interest are history and biology (which is really just history writ large, if you think about it that way). I'm responsible for (or possibly irresponsible for) for a long-established site mostly to do with computer history, which can be found here (http://www.redhill.net.au), though I don't get to update it very often these days.

I am notorious for appalling spelling, for being grumpy on Fridays, and probably for leaving dozens of things lying around half-finished.

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Jack of all trades, master of none, I've made or threatened to make decent contributions to:

Natural History

• Ratites: emu, cassowary, kiwi, Little Penguin
• Anseriformes, Anatidae, Musk Duck, Freckled Duck, Hardhead, storm-petrel
• Wedge-tailed Eagle, Buzzards, bronzewing pigeons, Brolga, Pelecaniformes, Pelican, Australian Pelican, Ciconiiformes, Threskiornithidae,
• Megapodidae, Malleefowl, Blue Crane, Rüppell's Vulture.
• Psittaciformes: the parrots, cockatoos, Lorikeets; Paradise Parrot, Red-rumped Parrot, pygmy parrots.
• Southern Boobook, Caprimulgiformes, owlet-nightjar, kingfisher, kookaburras, Piciformes
• Maluridae, honeyeaters, Tui, Pardalotidae, pardalote, Petroicidae, cisticola.
• Magpie, currawong, Mudlark, White-winged Chough, lyrebirds, Willie Wagtail, fantails.
• Marsupial carnivores: Dasyuromorphia, Thylacine, Planigalinae, Long-tailed Planigale, Common Planigale, Phascogalinae, Numbat, marsupial moles, Tasmanian Devil.
• Marsupial omnivores: Peramelemorphia, bandicoots, bilbies, Pig-footed Bandicoot
• Aboreal marsupial herbivores: Diprotodontia, possums: Common Brushtail Possum, Honey Possum, Leadbeater's Possum, Sugar Glider, Feathertail Glider
• Terrestrial marsupial herbivores: Diprotodon, Macropods: kangaroo, wallaby, walleroo[?], tree kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Western Grey Kangaroo, Red Kangaroo, Parma Wallaby, Red-necked Wallaby, Quokka
• Koala, wombat, Platypus, echidnas
• Australian placentals: hopping mice, Fawn Hopping Mouse, Dusky Hopping Mouse, Spinifex Hopping Mouse, Dingo.
• Ungulates: Bovids: Bovinae, Water Buffalo, duikers, grazing antelope, goat antelope, zebras, Plains Zebra
• Others: Virginia Opossum, Monito del Monte, Aardvark,
• Carnivora: skunks, civets,
• Procyonidae, shrews, elephant shrews, golden moles, hyraxes, otters, Black-footed Ferret, Hare, colugos
• Rodents: jerboas, kangaroo rats, lemmings
• Australian copperheads, American Copperhead
• Whales: rorquals, beaked whales, Bryde's Whale, dolphins, Short-finned Eel
• Sclerophyll forest, expanded Eucalyptus, added the most magnificent eucalypt of them all, Mountain Ash; Corymbia, Corymbia ficifolia. There are lots more significant Australian plants that ought to be described here and don't get a mention yet.
• Species, subspecies, Australian birds, Australasian birds, list of extinct Australian animals since 1788. I aim to add a matching list for those that became extinct before European settlement eventually.

Modern history & related topics No prizes for guessing that my particular interests are the Napoleonic Wars, the Pacific Theatre in WW2, and aircraft generally. (I love anything with wings, with or without feathers.)

• Edmund Burke, Arthur Coles Lawrence Hargrave, Henry Maitland Wilson
• Congo Free State, Battle of Texel
• Described the first half of the Pacific War in World War II, worked on strategic bombing.
• Trench warfare, much of Hirohito
• The critical Battle of the Coral Sea & Shokaku. With luck, I'll add entries for the other major Japanese carriers eventually.
• Americal Division
• Rachel Carson
• General Galtieri of Argentina.

• Australian contribution to the 2003 Gulf War

Sociology is an area that Wikipedia covers very poorly at present: many major sociological issues and concepts are not present at all, and as many others have incomplete, abbreviated or downright misleading coverage. It's been a long time since I used to teach sociology but now and again I get annoyed enough about the gaps and errors to devote a few hours to covering the basics. So far, I've worked on:

• Role
• Authority
• Added a little to Auguste Comte

Aircraft and airlines

• A comprehensive list of Aircraft of the RAAF.
• I try to keep Aircraft types maintained - if you write a new entry on an aircraft, please either let me know or add it to the list!
• Military types: B-24 Liberator, CAC Boomerang, B-29 Superfortress, English Electric Canberra, Macchi MB-326, General Dynamics F-111, Saab Viggen, SEPECAT Jaguar, and Eurofighter Typhoon.
• Civil types: Douglas DC-3, Airspeed Ambassador , Douglas DC-8, Douglas DC-9, Airbus Beluga, Boeing 717, and Airbus A380.
• Added to Bristol Beaufort, V1 Flying Bomb
• The Roulettes, the Napier Lion aero-engine, a companion piece to Maury Markowitz's excellent article on the Napier Sabre, Wide-body aircraft.
• Trans Australia Airlines, much of Air New Zealand

Computer stuff: I try to avoid this, but now and again I give in to my professional urges and take a hand in things like:

• Cyrix, Athlon, Pentium 4, SCSI host adapter, PS/2, GDI
• DR-DOS, PC-DOS, Microsoft Windows (an odd one - not often I work on an entry and it gets smaller).
• Netscape Navigator, Modula-2 and Wintel.

General Interest

• Tidied up Australia a little, a fair bit of Australian republicanism (dunno why - it's a terribly boring subject).
• Expanded on Melbourne's wonderful W-class trams.
• Steve Bracks, a fair slice of Gough Whitlam
• CS Forester's The General
• Culture of Australia (not really my thing these days - I rather lost interest in people as opposed to birds and plants some years ago - but anything is better than a recitation of film stars), Dreamtime (which needs lots more detail).
• Margarine and Beach cricket - just for something completely different.

The best ones? Well, the best one is always the next one! But I like these in particular:

• Species (half finished still)
• Emu, Brolga
• wombat, Numbat
• Congo Free State
• Trench warfare
• Battle of the Coral Sea
• Rachel Carson
• Australian contribution to the 2003 Gulf War
• Douglas DC-8

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