blog dds: sights

2009.05.16

A Bug Creates Art

Sometimes beautiful images are generated serendipitously; think of snowflakes or Lissajous curves. Today I got one when I encoded an animation of the back dials of my Antikythera mechanism emulator with the CamStudio lossless codec (v1.4). When I played back the movie with the VLC media player (v0.9.9) a bug in the player (or the codec or the video driver) gave me a black background and a series of overlaid images with the stark colors of the gears. I think the bug is related to the alpha channel, which I use for partially obscuring the gears behind the translucent dial face. I found the result eerily beautiful.

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Last modified: Sunday, May 17, 2009 1:25 am

2008.10.16

Missing the Point

A number of Greek web sites offer for download a very strange Excel form.

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Last modified: Thursday, October 16, 2008 5:36 pm

2007.05.23

Decyphering Modern Texts

One would think that the decyphering of old writings would be the domain of archeologists poring over ancient palimpsests. It turns out that, thanks to modern technology, the quality of documents written only a decade ago can decay to the point of requiring decypherment. And don't get me started on the problems of digital preservation and the decay of URLs.

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Last modified: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 6:34 pm

2007.05.02

Of Wine and Software

Today, following the yearly IEEE Software board meeting, we visited the Casa Valduga winery near Bento Gonçalves at Rio Grande do Sul. The guide told us that the winery nowadays made all its wine in stainless steel vats, which have largely replaced the traditional oak barrels.

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Last modified: Wednesday, May 2, 2007 3:02 pm

2006.12.21

The Escape of a Small Program

C. A. R. Hoare's Law of Large Programs states that inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out. The parking receipt I got yesterday returning from a SQO-OSS meeting proves this fact.

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Last modified: Thursday, December 21, 2006 10:59 am

2006.11.28

Internet Explorer's Cleaner Look

Today the Microsoft update on my Windows machine asked me to upgrade the Internet Explorer to version 7.0. My bank refuses to work with any browser other than IE, so, although I'm using SeaMonkey as my everyday browser, I'm also forced to keep a current copy of IE. The installation's banner reinforced some of the fears I have regarding Microsoft's technical prowess.

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Last modified: Friday, December 15, 2006 4:10 pm

2006.07.11

Boot Lock

I first admired this ingenious method of locking a car in Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean series. A few days ago I saw it in real life.

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Last modified: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 11:15 am

2006.05.24

Security is a Problem of the Weakest Link

While attending the ICSE 2006 conference I stayed at the Tong Mao hotel. My room featured an impressive-looking safe: thick steel, two bolts, and a digital lock.

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Last modified: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:49 am

2006.02.22

Management Support Technologies

My academic title contains the words management support technologies. I therefore considered the new and efficient document management and dispatch system I saw in use at my health insurance provider a rare gem, worthy of inclusion in this blog.

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Last modified: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 0:46 am

2005.12.19

Who Will Edit the Editors?

I am often asked to review papers that are written in a language only superficially resembling English. In a few cases the writing is so confused that I return the manuscript, asking for it to be edited by a native speaker of English. I realize that writing proper English is an additional hurdle for, possibly brilliant, scientists who are not native speakers of English, and I often wondered how authors could address this problem. Apparently, there are companies that will edit scientific papers for a modest fee.

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Last modified: Monday, December 19, 2005 2:53 pm

2005.09.15

Information Kiosk

The inclined panel is indeed a computer screen, and, of course, it is not working. Another, more reliable, technology has prevailed.

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Last modified: Thursday, September 15, 2005 0:47 am

2005.09.05

Preparing for the Exams

The (retake) exam period has started. At the metro the passenger sitting opposite me is obviously a student frantically sorting the cards containing a 6%-reduced photocopy of her forensic psychology textbook.

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Last modified: Tuesday, September 6, 2005 0:23 am

2005.05.19

Cats and Cigarette Lighters

On April 14th, the US Transportation Security Administration started enforcing a new ban on cigarette lighters. A month later, I saw the corresponding announcement posted on a check-in desk at the Samos international airport. At the same airport I also saw a free-roaming cat getting its food delivered directly on the tarmac. I entered my flight feeling a lot safer.

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Last modified: Thursday, May 19, 2005 3:06 pm

2005.04.09

Vatican's Prescient Web Masters

The Vacancy of the Apostolic See web page appears to have been prepared one day BEFORE the Pope's death.

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Last modified: Saturday, April 9, 2005 11:34 am

2005.03.14

A Plea for Usability Design in Children's Electronic Toys

I am not particularly fond of children's electronic toys, but they constantly arrive at home as presents, and they also attract the children's attention. Unfortunately, the usability aspects of most electronic toys for toddlers and children appear to be ignoring important and well-established principles of user interface design.

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Last modified: Monday, March 14, 2005 6:54 pm

2004.10.16