User:Grendelkhan

My primary calling around here is janitorial stuff. I've yet to write a featured article (though I do have a featured picture); I tag images, disambiguate links, fix up syntax, and generally try to make it easier for bolder contributors to do the real work. Any actual encyclopedic writing I've done is only because I felt a burning need to have an article there, and no one else stepped up.

Contents

1 Subpages / Links 2 Philosophy and Practices 3 Interests 4 Education 5 Pages I've made significant contributions to 6 Projects 6.1 Large and/or ongoing work 6.2 Quick notes to self

Subpages / Links

/Images . /Scratch . /SNES Screenshots

CfD . IfD . VfD

Philosophy and Practices

I consider myself an inclusionist, for the most part. I believe that every ep of every vaguely significant TV show ever produced should have its own page. I think that, Wikipedia should strive to be most things for most people, that if you want to know something, anything, this should be where you start.

I also believe that Wikipedia should have the highest-quality images possible---I look forward to the inclusion of vector-based (SVG) graphics. I'm a huge fan of the autothumbnailing feature; I believe that digital camera pictures should be well-focused, well-composed and well-lit; I'm quite picky about the ones I upload.

I believe that Wikipedia should be print-ready. (Or at least ready for high-quality 300dpi displays, like this (http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/intellistation/t221/) but cheaper.) To this end, all images should be kept at the highest possible resolution. This doesn't mean that JPEGs should be saved at the maximum available quality factor; the returns are terribly diminishing at that point.

I wish wiki2pdf (http://wiki.auf-trag.de/) had images working, automatically fetching high-quality versions to sub in and scale for the autothumbs. That'd be hot.

Interests

I'm from Northeastern Connecticut, at the moment. I'm trying to fix that.

I'm currently (well, occasionally) working on importing the Library of Congress classification information available here (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html). Also speedy-deleting a lot of obsolete thumbnail images.

Also have introduced the word hierarchicalization around here. If it's still around in a year, I'll be proud.

I am an amateur photographer. I hope to get better at it as I take more pictures. When I grow up, I want to be Arpingstone.

Education

My main fields of knowledge is in computer science, though I took some college courses in mathematics (third-year calculus and differential equations, signals and systems, abstract analysis, point-set topology, and abstract algebra, which I did terribly in) and physics. (My mechanics is good, but my E&M needs some work.)

For fun-reading, I mostly absorb science fiction. I've read the entire oeuvre of Robert Heinlein (with the current exceptions of Tramp Royale and The Star Beast. Enjoyed Vernor Vinge greatly. Am still trying to get everyone I know to read Kings of the High Frontier by Victor Koman. Was underwhelmed by The Da Vinci Code. Am checking out Terry Pratchett's work at present.

My practical education is wide-ranging but rather shallow. I have a variety of Boy Scout knowhow, several years of experience in the martial arts and consider myself a connoisseur of cheap pens.

Pages I've made significant contributions to

These are some selected pages I've made more than cosmetic changes to. They're chosen mostly on the spur of the moment, when I notice something too bare or too ugly to leave alone, or when I need to reference something that there's no article about yet. For an encyclopedia of this size, it happens surprisingly often.

300 (comics) - AMD K5 - Bok choy - Boruvka's algorithm - Canon EOS - Canon EOS 10D - Canon EOS 300D - Cerebus the Aardvark - CHILL programming language - Christopher Commission - Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums - Color rendering index - John Derbyshire - DVI file format - Anne Geddes (SCARY) - GNU readline - Maurycy Gottlieb - David E. Hughes - ISO 3103 - Kings of the High Frontier - Victor Koman - Library of Congress Classification and most pages under it - List of moments of inertia - List of The Twilight Zone episodes reformatted a few; maybe someone else will take up the slack - Catharine MacKinnon - Mauve - Omega (TeX) - John Perry - PostScript Printer Description - William Henry Preece - Bernhard Rust - Space activity suit - John Stoltenberg - Tan (color) - University of Göttingen - Willimantic River - Willimantic, Connecticut - Windham Textile and History Museum - Zero Girl

Category:Digital cameras - Category:Harry Potter - Category:Fictional - Category:Matrix series - Template:BadReligion - Template:isfdb name - Template:isfdb series - Template:isfdb title - Template:US currency and coinage - Wikipedia:Categorization

meta:Article validation

The images I've contributed can be seen on my images page.

Projects

Large and/or ongoing work

1. Add nice versions of the cm fonts (via Metafont's printing capabilities) to A, B, ...
2. Occasionally work on Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links.
3. Convert every GIF I can find into a PNG.
4. Work more on this project (http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_on_fr_with_no_interwiki_link_to_en).
5. Spruce up pages like Preacher, Strangers In Paradise, etc.
6. Use this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Template:Regnum) to find taxoboxes to update to use the new syntax.
7. List obsolete thumbnails on speedy-deletion with {{delete}}
8. Work on Wikipedia:Untagged images.
9. Convert User:Arpingstone's image tags from {{PD}} to {{PD-user|Arpingstone}}.

Quick notes to self

1. Read In the Beginning Was the Command Line (http://www.spack.org/wiki/InTheBeginningWasTheCommandLine).
2. Add ZSNES or SNES9x screenshots to Final Fantasy VI.
3. Take a picture of the mill museum and add it to Windham Textile and History Museum.
4. Look into the differences between dvipng and dvi2bitmap in PNG creation for wikitex. (It's in the extensions part of the CVS tree now.)
5. Image:Kde3.1-screenshot.jpeg is a JPEG where it should be a PNG. It's also in the wrong place (doesn't make sense where it is), and 260k. Make a replacement.
6. Illustrate pita.
7. Get my copy of Structures: Why Things Don't Fall Down back from whoever I lent it to, and use it to update the article on ballistae. (Damn it, ballistae were better than catapults! No weapon until cannon could knock down stone walls after the technology of the ballista was lost in the dark ages!) (References [1] (http://print.google.com/print?id=OtgyOIf05tkC&pg=85&lpg=85&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3Dballista%26ie%3DUTF-8%26id%3DOtgyOIf05tkC&sig=jh6kr326626Hx5nxINHCg5QmTlY) through page 87, I think.)
8. Scan a better version of Image:Oheaviside.jpg.
9. Get a larger version of Image:Rabin at peace talks.jpg
10. Get a better version of Image:Hard-drive-allsorts-1990s-s.jpg (from [2] (http://www.redhill.net.au/id.html)? Mail and ask...)
11. Get permission [3] (http://www.dpreview.com/misc/feedback.asp?to=phil) to illustrate the digital camera models.
12. Get a macro lens and illustrate 7400 series.
13. Slightly rotate Image:PDphotos-org mikes 1 bg 050104.jpg. It was clearly taken after drinking the bottle's contents...
14. Fix Image:Somerset sm market.jpg.
15. Edit Bondage Fairies.
16. Level-adjust the images on Sunset Boulevard.

Last update: grendel|khan 14:56, 2005 May 30 (UTC)