May 2004 Archives
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May 28, 2004
Night shots with Million Candle power infrared light!
One Million Candlepower Infrared Spotlight
This is exactly what we need for taking night shots with digital cameras. Remember, CCDs actually pick up Infrared. This is the basis of Sony's night shot functionality. But the infrared is fairly week.
Just yesterday I was talking with Laurie about getting a hot shoe infrared flash for the Canon Digital Rebel that would dimly light up the scene and then "flash" bright infrared when taking the picture.
Well, this 1 million candle power infrared light can probably do just as well -- and has the advantage of being able to be used with many cameras.
If you are wondering if your digital camera works with infrared, it probably does. However, to verify, there are a couple really easy things to do. The easiest is to take a remote control, aim the camera at it, and press a button. You should see a dim light coming from it briefly when the button is pressed. You'll see this in the preview window that most cameras have. Another way is aiming the camera at an active IR port on a laptop or PDA. This works well with ones polling, too, as they flash every few seconds or so.
Spammers Suck
This is, to date, the most convincing piece of spam I've seen. If you look closely at the image, you'll see a few clues that it's spam. The from address, though, is correct and thus it wasn't caught by an exclusive spam filter because it's a valid PayPal address. The return address is incorrect and some of the grammar is bad. Also, the link turns out to not actually link to what it claims (no, I didn't click -- I just looked at what the status bar showed me).
Gah!
Most people wouldn't even notice.
Yet another O'Reilly Hack Book
And this one is all about digital photography. I really enjoy the format of the Hack books. They're lots of quick tidbits of information that are usually quite useful. Granted, not all are new or impossible to find around the net, but certainly they are a good collection.
They actually remind me of the format of the programming books called "Gems", in particular Graphics Gems. They're also similar in the style to O'Reilly's cookbooks for programming. They're all easy to pick up for a few minutes and read from anywhere and put back down without marking any pages.
May 26, 2004
Chernobyl Journal a Fraud?
Joi Ito's Web: Woman racing through Chernobyl a fraud?
If this is true, it's rather quite sad. It still sounds like the pics are real. That makes the whole "is it a fraud or not" question strange. Certainly she was there, and she's in a couple of the pictures likely meaning someone else was there. And certainly there was no problem going to various locations. And the bike is featured in some pictures, just not "in deep" ones. And she doesn't actually talk about the bike in those, either.
So, if the pictures were real and she was really there, perhaps the bike part was a mis-communication or mis-translation and she only took a bike as far as she could? Of course, the front page implies something else. And who knows if the source calling it a fraud isn't a fraud itself?
The story can be found here.
For $60...
I'd actually consider buying an N-gage QD. It's too bad it doesn't have a camera, though. But that's almost as cheap as the Bluetooth dongle I'd need to have the most fun with it. ;)
But will it really be that cheap? We'll see.
May 25, 2004
Martial Arts and Coding
We had a discussion a while back at work about Zen and the art of programming. Essentially, keep yourself out of the problem to see the problem in a new light; a light without the worry of you or perception of you as making mistakes, etc.
Well, this article is both similar and different. It's about Ri-Ai and development. The two can work together very well.
May 24, 2004
2004 Darwin Awards
So, as prevelant as these are around the web, there appear to be multiple versions of the 2004 Darwin awards. This seems to be the most common list for 2004, though (although either the second one is an old one, or it happens every couple of years):
* According to police in Windsor, Ontario, Daniel Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their Snowmobiles.
* In Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.
* A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff on his daily run.
* Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beach-goers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach, on the outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.
* Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.
* According to police in Dahlonega, GA, ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, 20, was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23, who was trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the flak vest Berrena was wearing.
* Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in Selbyville, Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.
HONOURABLE MENTION:
* In Guthrie, Okla, in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede with a shot from his 22 caliber rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off a rock near the hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head, fracturing his skull.
* In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean out cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favor of a propane torch and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his house.
* Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, NJ, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, when a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 AM, the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but apparently failed to notice the window was closed.
RUNNER UP:
TACOMA, WA
Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 am. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say "said Bingham, "is that God was watching out for me on that night." "There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's foot was never located.
AND THE WINNER:
Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop! Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him" said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that "Shit happens."
Sources and counter sources:
Here and here (which has the list from 2003 on the previous site) and here (which is also a list labelled as 2004, but appears as 2003 elsewhere) and here (another 2004 labelled 2003 list) and here (you get the idea) and here is a single one that is 90% exactly like some others and here, which appears to be an undated list of various items that appear in various Darwin award lists.
Right, so does any of it happen? Probably. Is it all 100% true? Doubtful. Is it meant to be funny? Absolutely. Even at the expense of others? Depends on if it really happened, but yes either way. ;)
Good advice
Good advice on running a website to make a buck or two. This isn't one. I mean, who would pay for random ramblings?
java.net: Experiences On Running A Website For Profit, Part 2: Keep 'Em Coming [May 24, 2004]
May 23, 2004
Crazy if True
Joi Ito's Web: Rumsfeld bans camera phones in Iraq
If this is true, it's absolutely crazy. A complete ban on digital cameras, camcorders, and camera phones? What about standard cameras? And across the entire military?
I can't seem to get to the text of the article or find reference on other news sites, though. It seems a bit overkill. Does this apply to reporters? UN inspection teams?
On the other side, is it actually a right in the military to be able to carry with your gear whatever you want, be it camera, PDA, game boy, notebook, etc?
It does seem like modes of taking pictures that could be leaked during war time actually could be a security problem if the enemy can gain knowledge from them.
Who knows...
Reiter's Camera Phone Report has an article about this, as well.
The part about "some of the photos from the prison abuse" being taking with camera phones is silly. The taking of pictures is well known to be a torture and threatening tactic (e.g. I'll give these pictures to your family if you don't talk.). The point being: it doesn't matter what they were taken with since they were taken, with or without permission, for interrogation purposes.
If this is true, it's a another case of misunderstanding technology. Especially since there is no mention of PDAs with cameras or standard cameras that can easily have photos scanned, etc.
Time will tell...
May 20, 2004
Definitely
picturephoning.com: Red Alert in Companies... "Technology Thieves"
Oh, the Samsung buildings are incredibly secure. Every single piece of electronics item is written down by security, with all possibly identification numbers. This means each and every memory card, cell phones, laptops, even batteries. Before you're allowed to leave with said items, they sign a document and put stickers on everything -- I still have SD cards with stickers on them.
And this is given that you only get as far into the building as a conference room out front.
But then, this is in a country where these (LG, Samsung, etc.) pull in a tremendous percentage of the country's money.
All I have to say is...
Duh.
Now, maybe I'm wrong, but how often are killer ideas ever actually seen as such until they have become a killer idea? I mean, by definition, it's not a killer idea until it proves it is one, anyway.
And in this space, the killer idea seems to be mobile apps, in general. Why? Because, as IDC points out, it's spread across nearly all genre's to begin with which means it's also spread across many demographics.
However, that doesn't mean there won't be a killer idea. If there is one now, it hasn't emerged as such yet. Otherwise, it just doesn't exist yet and it's waiting to be invented. And if you believe IDC, it's the latter as they don't see any of the current apps as being "killer app quality" or having already shown to be growing as a killer app (meaning there would already be one).
From the... why-isn't-it-a-joke dept...
They really do call it the Beer Butt Chicken Cooker (not to be confused with BBC).
The least they could have done was demonstrate with good beer. And really, now, who's going to wait two hours for a chicken at a tailgate party?
I wonder what the Guinness chicken tastes like? Guinness beer bread (using a mix found a Trader Joe's and a can of Guinness) is really quite good.
(You can actually buy it here.)
May 19, 2004
Hidden or nearly hidden stuff
So, I've been hanging onto a Samsung A610 for quite a while now. It's not a great phone; it's big and klunky. But it works, it has a camera that could be worse, and it has a fun twisty screen.
What I didn't realize, and what's not accessible by normal menu, is that it has the cool natural language recognition for digit dialing and phone book access. We tried it out last night -- I read off a 10 digit number while Laurie was yelling out numbers. I was about 4 inches away from the mic and she was about 8 inches away, talking louder. It picked up the number I read perfectly. I didn't say "4 - 0 - 8 - ..." but rather I said "408...". (e.g. "four ... oh ... eight" was not needed, rather a "fouroheight" could be said). Absolutely amazing quality. Turns out, this is only accessible by pressing and holding the "*" key. The only indication is a little talking head on the key. But I assumed that was for voice memo -- and it is, but what actually comes up is a voice command menu.
The phone book access is even better. Press and hold "*", say "phonebook", say "phlog", and it asks me "Did you say flog?" I say yes, and it brings up the phonebook entry (no phone number to dial).
This is all from a company called VoiceSignal, who's logo splashes up just before the command menu.
This makes dialing in the car much easier. ;)
This isn't the first phone I've seen this in (the first was actually an LG handset). But it certainly was a pleasant surprise finding it.
May 18, 2004
Dell's at it again...
For only $349 you can get a Dell Axim X30 with a 624MHz processor. That's an amazing amount of speed and it includes WiFi and Bluetooth, in addition to an SDIO slot. It's two biggest drawbacks are lack of a CF card (for a hard drive that I happehn ot have spare) and a real screen -- the Axim's are still stuck in the QVGA world (wake up Dell, QVGA is for cell phones, PDAs deserve VGA resolution -- at least for a couple more years until VGA is the domain of cell phones. ;)).
The extra speed of Intel's PXA270 should make this a snappy browsing or video machine, especially given it's low resolution screen.
May 17, 2004
Rubik's cub solver done with Lego Mindstorms!
Joi Ito's Web: Rubik's cube solver done in Lego
This has got to be one of the most interesting mindstorm robots I've seen. Rubik's Cube solutions are very "robotic" in nature -- do this, then this, then this, then see a finished puzzle -- so it makes complete sense that someone could do it. However, doing a robot to do the moves based on camera input is pretty impressive. Even more impressive is that it's done with truly off-the-shelf parts.
Needless to say, but this might actually be a use for our two (I think we still have two) mindstorm sets. ;)
More information here.
The Skycar
Ah, you gotta love a car that can fly at 350+MPH and still get 28 mpg on automobile gas (although they don't actually say pump gas).
It would be truly useful if you could use it on your own driveway and land in streets and stuff -- but I'm guessing many communities would have a problem with that, even if they do meet their low noise targets.
Still, wouldn't it be fun? And at a range of nearly 900 miles (although at a "slow" 200mph) you can get pretty far -- distance by air is always lower than one might think.
May 12, 2004
Moblog use drops with time
Reiter's Camera Phone Report: The longer you moblog, the fewer photos you send and
picturephoning.com: Moblogging Use Fades and the source.
A report seems to have a lot of people questioning the long term usage of moblogging, specificaly with photos.
Firstly, blogging in general is a hip thing right now and mobile blogging, specifically is very new and cool. I think a dropping trend would be expected, especially when looking at the same group over time. I mean, who really kept up their journals in grade school for a long time?
Moblogging, after the first few posts, can become a chore more than anything. Not only that, but someone who posts 300 in the first week and gets the $75 bill for it is certainly going to think twice before posting. The numbers are for daily usage. Can people really afford, on average, to spend 25 cents a day? Not only that, but does the average person _actually_ have something interesting to post every day? I'm not talking about the people (like myself) who will post the food they are eating. That really isn't all that interesting.
The other problem with the trend is it has a huge decline in the number of users. This isn't just because the people stopped posting. This may be because the user changed blog hosts, created their own, starting using a carrier given one, or any number of other reasons. Given the apparent growth of photo blogging as a whole, it seems it's attracting lots of new people. And certainly, not everyone will continue.
However, as time goes one, the people that do continue to use it will probably settle in on a rate of posting for themselves. I personally think that if everyone who sustains posting of one picture a week indefinitely has a tremendous amount of use.
I also think that the novelty factor will be dropping over time, too. In a year or two it won't be new and fun to post just for the post of it. A lot of early posts are just that. Or they are catchup posts. You might post 50 pictures in the first week and then drop down to a sustained rate of 1 or 2 a week. That also makes trends hard to follow, especially when looking at the same group of people. Looking at the entirety of a few moblogging sites may actually turn up different numbers and trends.
Anyway, that's just my two cents on the topic... statistical data is always prone to giving whatever answer you want it to give with little to no use of fake data.
May 11, 2004
Exploding Batteries!
Saphion Battery Technology Doesn't Explode, Which Is Nice
This company, Valence, is advertising their batteries, which don't explode. However, in the process, they created a video showing standard Lithium Ion batteries exploding. And what a fun video it is!
See it here.
MP3 seller shipping mix up
eBay: Order MP3 Player, Get Gun
This is a little scary. Some guy in Canada wins an MP3 player on eBay, but a gun is shipped instead?
First, it was shipped through the mail -- and not noticed. Second, it was shipped across international borders, and not noticed. Third, it came with a license, which he clearly didn't apply for.
That's just a bit scary... It makes you wonder if the listing actually had hidden speak in it. There are rumours, of course, that you can actually buy just about anything on eBay if you know what to look for...
May 10, 2004
Facial tracking in new Japan phone
Reiter's Camera Phone Report: Vodafone Japan debuts camera phone with optical zoom, "facial motion"
As I was reading through this, I couldn't help but wonder at why this was so similar to what Eyematic used to do. I was across from them at a trade show a while back and they were showing off their technology in the BREW area.
A quick Google search showed why: they either are Eyematic or bought Eyematic's technology. This article isn't very clear on which.
Eyematic had avatar's, like Marvel characters, in use. Now the focus is more on modifications, like adding glasses to the face. They will do full avatar later, though.
One of the keys is that sending facial changes rather than whole face video is actually much lower in bandwidth usage. This can allow for a very smooth video phone experience even on slower networks. An example would be a "blink right eye" command versus the video for showing a blink in the right eye.
Combine this with background noise masking and background location masking and you can be someone completely different (a martian) in a completely different area (on mars). How fun is that? It's starting to sound like real time movie or game animation production. And imagine the games that could be done? Your in-game avatar gets all of your real life facial expressions. Now that'd be cool, especially on a platform like the X-Box where there is prevalent voice communication, including masking (for privacy, of kids especially).
Lots of fun stuff. ;)
Creative muvo2 4GB drive extraction
So, we finally got the Creative Nomad muvo2 4GB mp3 player in from Amazon last week.
And then I finally had time to extract the 4GB drive and write all about it here. I really didn't get very good pictures; they were all over exposed. I was having bad luck with the camera, I think.
Additionally, I was having more bad luck trying to get other CF cards to work. I tried our 2.2GB drive and that didn't work. I then tried a 256MB flash card, and that didn't work either. But this time, when trying to unscrew the case I completely stripped one of the screws and had to drill it out. Doh!
I finally turned to testing without the case. This let me find some cards that did work. I'm trying to figure out why some would work and some wouldn't. There'll be another article up on Laurie's site about all of this soon.
As an MP3 player, it isn't all that bad. However, it misses some things other Creative players have, like the environmental effects and such. It is very simple to operate. It also sounds just fine and given the battery life with the microdrive, it probably has excellent battery life with a flash card.
Geek Tent
So, this is completely geeky and all. You SMS your tent and it lights up. Nifty idea. Kind of like using your car remote to flash the lights to find your car.
But how often do you camp where there is cell phone service? And, simply, how often do you camp? And, if often, how often do you camp where you might lose your tent? How much service charge will there be for the tent? And if it's free service, how long before they're ripped out and turned into something else?
Don't get me wrong; this sort of use of technology is great. But I fail to see the real business case here.
Curious, though... you really have to wonder.. why a tent? Why not the car? I'd SMS my car to start it's lights flashing -- my remote doesn't work from very far a way, and being a Miata it often gets completely hidden between two SUVs.
May 9, 2004
Mother's Day
What a long day today was. We got up fairly early. We had intended on going up to Concord for the day, but changed our plans. Instead, I drove up to Concord and drove my grandma down to our house. (The Miata passed 60,000 miles while doing this!)
We then went to Bittersweet Bistro's Brunch, which was excellent. Lots of yummy foods. We all ate way too much -- but it was basically the only meal of the day. Laurie has some great images of this on her phlog.
Afterwards, we made calls to our respective moms. After a little bit of walking around outside, we watched Master and Commander since my grandma hadn't seen it. It's really quite a fun movie!
After this, my grandma and I went over to West Cliff Drive and did some bird watching and wave watching. The weather was absolutely wonderful, even near the water.
We got back to corn tamales, which we only ate a little of because we were all still fairly satiated from brunch. By the end of this, it was about 7:30pm so we I had to take my grandma back home.
By the time I returned from this, it was well after 11pm.
I'm exhausted and ready for bed.
May 7, 2004
Real Life Pacman!
MSNBC - Live-action Pac-Man hits New York streets
People on a street following commands via cell phone from a "command center" with a game map.
How cool is that? Well, it's odd, too.
Real Life Pacman!
MSNBC - Live-action Pac-Man hits New York streets
Played by people being controlled via cell phone from a "command center" with a game map.
How cool and yet odd.
