Ordinary Video in 3D

Normally when you watch a video, you perceive the flatness of the screen because your brain compares the image it sees from each eye and realizes that the objects on the screen are not solid. But try this:

1. Position yourself so that the video screen fills most of your field of vision and watch a segment where the camera angle is moving around.
   
2. Close one eye.

The illusion is very convincing because you eliminate almost all the cues that your eye is looking at a flat surface. Note that following these procedures will also make you one-eye high.

Inspirational

You know how over a billion people don't have electricity or even clean water? Obviously this is not an easy problem to solve because it takes a lot of engineering infrastructure, and the political infrastructure doesn't exist to make that possible.

But this article makes it sound like Dean Kamen, the Segway guy, might really revolutionize things. From the article:

Instead of putting up a 500-megawatt power plant in a developing country, he argues, it would be much better to place 500,000 one-kilowatt power plants in villages all over the place, because then you would create 500,000 entrepreneurs.

Good stuff. It's an inspiration to Mr. Kamen turn his entrepeneurial efforts toward making the world a better place.

Super Saver Shipping

When you go to Amazon.com and make a purchase that totals $25 or more, you get free shipping. This is a pretty brilliant scheme. I know that whenever I shop on Amazon, I always feel like I'm missing out on savings if I buy something under $25.

But another, more subtle aspect is that Amazon sell a bunch of stuff for just a few bucks under $25. So since shipping normally costs almost $6, you're going to want to get your order up to $25. But then all the products that sell for only a few bucks don't qualify for Super Saver Shipping! So it's an incentive to spend significantly more than you otherwise would.

Recently I had an order that came to $23.99. So I searched for a while around Amazon for the cheapest item that qualified for Super Saver Shipping. I finally found it: FastCap Glu-Bot Yorker Tips, 5 pack. They had it marked down from $1.50 to $0.99, so I actually had to buy two. But with the savings on shipping, it was still a logical decision.

Think about what a ridiculous effect of consumerism it is that I'm receiving two packages of Glu-Bot Yorker Tips, whatever the hell those are, because I took advantage of the system. Not only that, but Amazon has actually ended up putting these in a separate shipment! A carrier service is being paid to carry a package with two sets of five useless Glu-widgets to my address, a package which I will promptly throw away without opening. Instead of me paying Amazon for one shipment, Amazon is eating the cost of two shipments. And there is also the environmental cost of all the steps in the process of getting a useless product from the factory to my trash can.

So having discovered Glu-Bot Yorker Tips, it changes the game of shopping for small orders on Amazon.com. Now you can expect to grab at least a little overall discount if your main order is as low as $20.

Fractals

Fractals are images that have repeating elements at any scale -- their resolution is infinite. I had an assignment in CS class to make a computer program to generate a fractal by looping through each pixel and determining the color. Here is one of the fractals my program created:


The program renders grayscale pixels whose brightness is determined by a series of mathematical operations. It works like this:

1. Each pixel represents a number in the complex plane. The real component ranges from -1 to 1, and the imaginary component ranges from -i to i. The center of the image is the origin, which represents 0 + 0i, or just 0.
   


2. The program is given the function F(z) = z^4 - 1. The roots of this function are 1, -1, i, and -i, but the program doesn't know this. For each pixel, the program uses Newton's method to calculate one of the roots of the function given an initial guess z0 that corresponds to the pixel's location in the complex plane.
   


3. Newton's method figures out roots of a function by generating a series of guesses, each one dependent on the last, and usually the guesses tend toward one of the function's roots. The program is satisfied that Newton's method has found a root of F(z) when the function of the k'th guess, F(zk), is between -0.00001 and 0.00001.
   


4. The program then looks at the value of k -- the amount of successive guesses it took Newton's method to arrive at one of the function's four roots. The fewer guesses it took, the brighter it renders the current pixel. Thus, a pixel's brightness measures efficiency with which Newton's method finds a root of F with the starting guess being at that pixel's location.
   


5. But if a pixel is located near to one of the four roots, it should be easier for Newton's method to refine a guess starting from that pixel's location. So each pixel is multiplied by a constant that darkens it in proportion to how close it is to any one of the four corners. Notice the dark spots in each of the four compass directions -- those are the locations of the roots.

Now assuming you roughly understand the process by which this fractal was generated, imagine trying to visualize the image in your head without having seen the computer generated image. You couldn't. So as a result, you wouldn't be able to get some insights about, for example, the efficiency of Newton's method at various locations.

Aren't fractals and computers great?

Double Clicks

A lot of inexperienced computer users can't tell when to single click and when to double click, so they just develop a habit of double clicking on everything. Microsoft has compensated for this in many areas of the UI. For example, double clicking on the Start button or any taskbar button only toggles its state once (except in the classic UI).

I was testing my new website (more on that later this week), and I discovered that IE also compensates for double clicks on web form buttons. It only executes the button's JavaScript code as if it were clicked once, even though it graphically shows the button being depressed twice. This may also be to prevent things like double form submits.

Atheist Catchphrase

Tell me your definition of God, and I'll tell you whether it's wrong or meaningless.

Not supporting the troops

Joel Stein writes in an LA Times column, I don't support our troops. Makes sense. Check it out.

Time Experiment

My time survey suggests that most people keep really close tabs on the time. I probably check it dozens of times each day. So I was thinking:

What would it be like to go an entire day without checking the time?

Don't set your alarm clock, wake up whenever you wake up, and go the whole day without looking at a timekeeping device. I think you should be able to look outside, because otherwise it just becomes unrealistic. But what would such a day be like?

If you're like most people, you probably can't make it a school or work day. Precise reminders of the time would be unavoidable. But it would be interesting to try to live like that on a Saturday.

Also, when would you go to sleep? Maybe it would be a lot earlier or later than normal. I will attempt the experiment on this upcoming weekend and post the results, so don't leave your computer.

Time Survey

Do not look at a clock until you answer this question:
What time is it? Try to guess it down to the minute.

Check your answer. How far off were you? It's extremely rare to be off by two hours or more. No doubt the vast majority of American adults can pinpoint it to within an hour.

What do you suppose is the median amount of minutes by which people are off? My guess is 5 to 10 minutes.

I conducted an informal survey by IMing the 19 people from my AIM buddy list who were at their computers during the interval of 9:50pm - 10:05pm PST (mostly teenagers). Here are their responses (number of minutes after (+) or before (-) the actual time when they responded), as well as comments they subsequently IMed.

Response:	Comments:
-5	lol
-1	well i saw it was 9:59 a when i came back to the computer [6 minutes ago]
-1	i just knew cuz 24 just ended
-2	my nigga
+1	shit, it's 9:52
+6
-6
+2	10 minutes earlier i was looking at my watch.
0	lol i looked at a clock a few mins ago, just woke up from a nap
-1	dude, i actually did it for real, i didnt look
0	i looked moments before reading your message because i have to get my laundry
-7
-3	close
0	holy shit, I swear I didn't look at a clock. i just remember it was around 9:47 a few [9] minutes ago when I called someone
+15	so what are u trying figure out
+2
0	i was right
-25	oops. oh well.
Liron wtf

Absolute deviation from the actual time:
Mean: 4.3 minutes
Median: 2 minutes

Wow, so the average teenager at their computer is going to be off by just a couple minutes -- somewhat more accurate than I expected. Maybe a bit too accurate... see the time experiment.

Signed deviation from the actual time:
Mean: -1.4 minutes
Median: -0.5 minutes

The signed deviation from the actual time is different from the statistic I set out to get -- it detects whether the entire population has a tendency to guess the time early or late. The numbers I got have no statistical significance, but it would be interesting to take a sample of thousands of responses nationwide and compare them to standard time to see if the nation is running early or late at all.

Friendly Close

Pasting in parts of AIM conversations, or "AIM-blogging", should be a whole new genre of blogging. Here is an AIM-blog entry about AIM.

Cute Overload

Wouldn't the web suck without all the great random sites like Cute Overload?

Religion Clash

I just got back from dinner, where I had a long exchange with a very devout Christian student (takes the bible quite literally, doesn't believe in "macroevolution", etc) from my hall.

I've been in college for a few months and I still haven't gotten tired of having heated discussions with my many religious hallmates. I thought this one ended in a rather poetic way:

Me: Look at me. I never pray, never acknowledge god, and openly disrespect the concept. I don't feel any god in my heart. And yet I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I'm satisfied with my life. So what am I missing out on?

Him: You're missing the experience of living for God. It's an essential part of life.

Me: Alright. But I think you're missing out on the truth.

Him: I think you're missing out on the truth.

Exeunt.

Estimating

This post about estimating by Ole Eichorn is great. He says that if someone is refusing to make any estimate about something, you can get the information out of him by guiding him through a binary search. I've used it a few times and it's neat. Even an order of magnitude ballpark figure is better than "I don't know".

Dude, Crazy

Is anyone reading this?

Hey Logic and Reason readership, I notice you are all pretty much silent when it comes to posting comments, and/or you don't exist. Come on, a blog is an open dialogue... except you can't speak until you're spoken to.

Diamonds

If I ever bought a diamond, I would have to kick my own ass. It's as simple as that.

Here is the main reason:

1. You've Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond
The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.

And here are nine more.

Seriously, it is shameful to give or receive a diamond.

Money Management and Hate

Ramit Sethi is smart and funny.

He has a great money management site: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com

And a hilarious list of things he hates: http://www.bittershirts.com/thingsihate

The money management site is neat, offering tips such as

Keep records [of phone conversations] and watch all [Sprint's] BS evaporate next time they try to hustle you.

And ThingsIHate is an unbelievably long list of witty complaints like

Anybody whose voice mail message on their phone is long and detailed, saying "Please leave your name, number, and the time you called." THIS IS 2005. PEOPLE UNDERSTAND HOW TO USE VOICE MAIL. That would be like me instructing people how to use the doorknob when they get to my house.

It's good stuff.

I can see your phone calls

With all the media attention being given to the executive branch's privacy breaches, I only just learned of this shocking fact:

Anyone can buy a list of your incoming and outgoing phone calls, cell or land-line, for $110 online.

Even though Congress has overlooked this for six months, I'm guessing this service will not be available forever because it is ridiculous.

Spy on your friends while you still can at http://www.locatecell.com.

Apple Keynotes

In last month's post about Microsoft vs. Apple, I mentioned that Steve Jobs was giving a masterful PowerPoint presentation. It turns out I didn't know the half of it.

I always thought Steve Jobs' keynotes were especially fun to watch. They feel simple and passionate, like watching one of Apple's characteristic television commercials. But the preparation process is incredibly elaborate. The Guardian article Behind the magic curtain talks about all the perfectionism that goes into crafting one of those seemingly simple speeches.

See Steve Jobs in action -- watch his most recent presentation, introducing the iPod video, here.

Turtle Flip Phone

This one made me laugh out loud. I just wish the beginning of the animation showed the normal turtle wiggling around for a while before revealing the flip phone functionality.

Still, it is funny as hell. Look how your view of the turtle's head is blocked by the display, but then the phone boots up and uses an image of it as wallpaper. Then after a while the backlight turns off. Brilliant.

Via fark.com's Photoshop contest section.