Currently thinking about: Coffee
Hello! My name is Pandora Xero, but i prefer to be called just Xero (it bothers me very much, being a guy, to be called "Pandora", or worse, being a cactus, to be called "Pan" (which a lot of people call me on FFXI, and it really gets on my nerves.)
My edits to articles are usually minor technical or grammatical details. I may also Add or Edit Pics from time to time. The images depicting the appearance of gil on the Final Fantasy items page were taken by me. the image depicting FFVI gil was created by me from a screenshot of Final Fantasy VI running in ZSNES. i scaled it up 1:3, changed the background to alpha transparency, and converted it from 24-bit color to 16-color (4-bit), which drastically reduced the filesize of the image, and, since its in png format, no quality was lost (the old image at that location was a jpeg, please avoid using this format for non-photographic images.) if you want to see the exact original, scale the width and height down 3:1. if it had 2 fewer colors, it could've fit in 2-bit color.
The other image of gil is one I added. Prior to me adding it, there was no image of it at all. I was surprised it fit in 8-bit color. the pic itself is from Final Fantasy XI, PC Version. I took the screenshot some time ago, as the image page says (at time of edit) I took it with Windower, which i stopped using over half a year ago in favor of JP POL.
Final Fantasy XI Specific information about me can be found on my ffxiclopedia profile where it belongs. i'm not gonna waste space on either server posting irrelevant information.
In my edits, if I am correcting spelling, i correct neither "British" nor "American" spellings of the same words. "Centre" stays "centre", "Rumour" stays "Rumour". "Meter" stays "meter", and "favor" stays "favor". This is a personal policy, but I'd like it if everyone would just acknowledge both spellings, even if its spelled one way in one sentence, then the other way in the next, there's no point in editing it. Due to its widespread use, the English language has an exceptional degree of understandability by native speakers. Even imperfect English can be easily interpreted. Further, words which are completely different exist in variations of the language. Petrol and Gasoline are the same thing. while i feel that an article should only use one of these two words, I will not be bothered to edit an article which contains both. I hope both parties ("American" spellers and "British" spellers) will accept my personal policy.
Further, I feel that in creation of an article, or new sections to an article, one should not struggle to use a specific variation of the same language. if you're used to speaking American English, edit in American English, and likewise for speakers of British English, or Australian English. Until they decide to split off the english wikipedia into different languages for the different dialects, i feel that each variation has just as much reason to exist as the next.
times the number 2 (numerical or written out) occurs in this article: 18
Hard Drive Capacities
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Many people probably already know, but hard drive manufacturers define a gigabyte as 1 billion (1,000,000,000) bytes. every other computer-related industry defines it as 1024^3, 2^30, or 1,073,741,824 bytes
...so i got to wondering... how many times can they do this until it makes a difference of a whole Order of Magnitude (which i'll call OOM from here on)? in the case of the decimal (0-9) number system, an OOM is 1000^x, whereas in binary, an OOM is 1024^x
so i threw some numbers at OpenOffice.org Calc (a spreadsheet program) and found that a 10x difference can be felt as early as 98 OOM. After this, there was a flaw in my original method. namely, an overflow error. this was because of the way i was executing my operation, that is: 1024^x/1000^x ... to fix this, i shortened it to a simpler 1.024^x, and found that after 292 OOM, a diffference of ~1017* would be seen, and a difference of over 1,000,000* at 583 OOM
a "fix" for this problem was proposed and accepted into SI. this solution, "Binary Prefixes" would change the meaning of "giga" as it relates to the computer industry to suit the greedy desires of hard drive manufacturers worldwide. It is understood by all but the most untrained of computer users that kilo is 1024, mega is 1024^2, giga is 1024^3 as it relates to the computer industry. the SI's "Binary Prefixes" is not a solution. It is only another problem.
The Intricacies of Coffee
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Coffee. what a wonderful substance. Prone to turning vile if left uncovered for much longer than 15 minutes, coffee is a liquid which has served the greater American good for ages. The way one drinks coffee can say a lot about that person. common additives to coffee include, but are not limited to, sugar, milk, non-dairy creamer, whipped topping, and chocolate. there are fast-food-type restaurants in many countries dedicated to serving a nice hot cup of coffee culture to all who walk in.
