An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
- G. K. Chesterton
2006-05-20
Adventure
- G. K. Chesterton
The Death of the Save Icon
I noticed something strange the other day. In my text editor the icon for saving the document looks like floppy disc. A floppy disc?! I can't remember the last time I used a floppy disc. That's so last millennium. Do people still use them? As far as I know computers don't even ship with floppy drives anymore. Just out of curiosity I had to check some other programs to see what icon the use for saving. All the programs I checked, including MSOffice, OpenOffice, Adobe Reader (although their icon looks more like a zip disc), Google Skethup and GIMP, had a floppy disc as their save icon. The only exception I found was jEdit which used a pencil.
Since we don't use floppy discs anymore we need to come up with a better icon for saving. The floppy disc used to be a good symbol but in a few years it will just be confusing as people will have forgotten what it is. The question is then what icon to use. I certainly don't know. And perhaps it's not even the right question to ask. Maybe we shouldn't be saving things anymore at all. At least not manually. What if the text editor automatically synchronized the copy of the text document in memory with that on the disc? This is already happening to some extent with automatic saves but I think it could (and should) be taken much further.
But is it possible to completely eliminate manual saving? Probably no. I often download PDF documents which end up in the browser cache when I view them for the first time. But sometimes I want to save a copy of the document in some specific place on my hard drive. Then I really want to save manually. Or perhaps copying is a better word for it. Anyhow it will need an icon and the floppy disc icon is outdated. So, all graphics designers out there, I'm waiting for a better save icon!
Since we don't use floppy discs anymore we need to come up with a better icon for saving. The floppy disc used to be a good symbol but in a few years it will just be confusing as people will have forgotten what it is. The question is then what icon to use. I certainly don't know. And perhaps it's not even the right question to ask. Maybe we shouldn't be saving things anymore at all. At least not manually. What if the text editor automatically synchronized the copy of the text document in memory with that on the disc? This is already happening to some extent with automatic saves but I think it could (and should) be taken much further.
But is it possible to completely eliminate manual saving? Probably no. I often download PDF documents which end up in the browser cache when I view them for the first time. But sometimes I want to save a copy of the document in some specific place on my hard drive. Then I really want to save manually. Or perhaps copying is a better word for it. Anyhow it will need an icon and the floppy disc icon is outdated. So, all graphics designers out there, I'm waiting for a better save icon!
2006-05-15
The only acronym I know of which takes longer time to pronounce than the words it stands for
Try for your self: WWW vs. World Wide Web.
2006-05-11
Cars in the next lane really do go faster
Since I bought myself a car about a year and a half ago I've spent an increasing amount of time in traffic jams. Sitting in a traffic jam is the perfect place for pondering the mysteries of the world. Such as why the other lane seems to move faster on average than the lane I'm in. This might seem like a logical fallacy but it is not. The time a driver spend in the slower lane is longer than that of a driver in the faster lane. This is simply because the slower lane is, well, slower.
So, this is roughly how my thoughts have been going every time I've been in a traffic jam. And I was very much delighted today when I read an article called Cars in the next lane really do go faster which confirms my theory albeit with a slightly different explanation. It turns out that this result belongs to the field of observation selection effects and which has all kinds of interesting applications. I'll be sure to learn more about this in the future.
So, this is roughly how my thoughts have been going every time I've been in a traffic jam. And I was very much delighted today when I read an article called Cars in the next lane really do go faster which confirms my theory albeit with a slightly different explanation. It turns out that this result belongs to the field of observation selection effects and which has all kinds of interesting applications. I'll be sure to learn more about this in the future.
2006-05-04
Playing with Google Sketchup
About a week ago Google released the program Sketchup for free. Or rather, they release a trimmed down version of Sketchup where you can only save stuff to Google Earth. The idea is quite nice, letting people modeling stuff for their own amusement in Google Earth and thus making Google Earth richer.
Of course I had to try this. So I downloaded Sketchup and went through the tutorial. I must say that I'm really impressed with the tutorial. After having finished it I felt like: Wow, this is SO simple! I can do marvelous 3D modeling without tears! So I had to try my own little project. I decided to create a model of the house I'm living in. Which turned out to be not quite as easy as the tutorial had been. At times it became really frustrating. One problem, or rather mixed blessing, is that Sketchup is trying hard to guess what it is that you want to do. For example it helps you making lines perpendicular or aligning various point. While this can be good I found it to be a real frustration and I didn't find any way to turn it off. But in the end I managed to come up with something that at least remotely resembles the place I live. This is how it looks when imported into Google Earth.
Note the incredibly bad resolution Google Earth has of Göteborg. Shame on you Google! You ought to buy the same maps as eniro has.
I've create a .kmz file for you to download and see Rubingatan for your self in Google Earth.
Of course I had to try this. So I downloaded Sketchup and went through the tutorial. I must say that I'm really impressed with the tutorial. After having finished it I felt like: Wow, this is SO simple! I can do marvelous 3D modeling without tears! So I had to try my own little project. I decided to create a model of the house I'm living in. Which turned out to be not quite as easy as the tutorial had been. At times it became really frustrating. One problem, or rather mixed blessing, is that Sketchup is trying hard to guess what it is that you want to do. For example it helps you making lines perpendicular or aligning various point. While this can be good I found it to be a real frustration and I didn't find any way to turn it off. But in the end I managed to come up with something that at least remotely resembles the place I live. This is how it looks when imported into Google Earth.
Note the incredibly bad resolution Google Earth has of Göteborg. Shame on you Google! You ought to buy the same maps as eniro has.
I've create a .kmz file for you to download and see Rubingatan for your self in Google Earth.
2006-04-26
Switching back from Foxit to Adobe
For about a week I've been using Foxit Reader to read my PDF files. I open a handful of PDF files a day and I've been very happy with the snappiness of Foxit. It's just so much quicker that Adobe Reader to startup and consumes much less memory and CPU while running. All in all, I was very happy with it.
Until today. In the middle of reading a document I started to feel motion sick. Or something like that. I felt it difficult to read the text and it felt like the text was bouncing around on the screen. And once I became aware of this feeling it wasn't difficult to find the source of the problem. The letters was almost literally dancing on the screen. This is what it looked like:
Notice how the baseline of the letters goes up and down? The letters 'l', 'i' and 'v' is placed higher than the other letters. This is what made me feel motion sick.
First I thought that there was something wrong with the document. To verify this I opened it in Adobe Reader with the following result:
No more motion sickness.
So the Foxit story was just too good to be true. Although fast, it is a crappy renderer. As I spend a lot of time reading PDFs with lots of text this simply isn't an alternative for me. I've now switched back to Adobe Reader. And deleted Foxit Reader.
Until today. In the middle of reading a document I started to feel motion sick. Or something like that. I felt it difficult to read the text and it felt like the text was bouncing around on the screen. And once I became aware of this feeling it wasn't difficult to find the source of the problem. The letters was almost literally dancing on the screen. This is what it looked like:
Notice how the baseline of the letters goes up and down? The letters 'l', 'i' and 'v' is placed higher than the other letters. This is what made me feel motion sick.
First I thought that there was something wrong with the document. To verify this I opened it in Adobe Reader with the following result:
No more motion sickness.
So the Foxit story was just too good to be true. Although fast, it is a crappy renderer. As I spend a lot of time reading PDFs with lots of text this simply isn't an alternative for me. I've now switched back to Adobe Reader. And deleted Foxit Reader.
2006-04-25
2006-04-21
Rainbow pictures
Just spotted this on digg. Some simply amazing
pictures of rainbows. I just had to blog it! And don't miss the last picture on the page. It doesn't have a rainbow but is still sunningly beautiful.
pictures of rainbows. I just had to blog it! And don't miss the last picture on the page. It doesn't have a rainbow but is still sunningly beautiful.
2006-04-18
Laterna Magica
It was several years since I had a reading experience like this. Only a handful of times before have I been captured by a book like this. The book is 'Laterna Magica'; the autobiography of Ingemar Bergman.
I haven't read much of late. Due to my hard work and the sick leave that followed I haven't read a single book in a year. I simply haven't had the strength. When I have picked up a book it has felt like a long and heavy project and I've simply had to put it away. Which has been very frustrating since I used to read quite a lot. During my years as an undergraduate at Chalmers I typically read an hour or so every day. I've come to understand that that's very uncommon.
Laterna Magica is an ancient kind of projector in english known as the magic lantern. It mostly resembles a slide projector but used painted on pieces of glass instead of slides. Ingemar Bergman got a Laterna Magica on his tenth birthday.
Friday last week, Good Friday, my fiance and I went to her parents to spend the weekend. As it turned out we were shown to a new room to sleep in, not the usual one that we normally use. The new room used to belong to my fiance's little sister. On one of her shelves I found a copy of Laterna Magica and curiously started leafing through it. It didn't take long before I realized that I had actually started reading the book. And I just couldn't stop.
This isn't the kind of book I plan to read. First of all it's a biography which is usually enough to scare me away. But secondly, and more important is that it feels extremely pretentious to read an autobiography of one of the greatest filmmakers ever to have lived. It's like reading the book of nobel prize winners. It's like I should read it just so that I can brag about having read it despite what I may think about it. I just don't plan to read books like this. But I'm happy now that I did read it.
I haven't read much of late. Due to my hard work and the sick leave that followed I haven't read a single book in a year. I simply haven't had the strength. When I have picked up a book it has felt like a long and heavy project and I've simply had to put it away. Which has been very frustrating since I used to read quite a lot. During my years as an undergraduate at Chalmers I typically read an hour or so every day. I've come to understand that that's very uncommon.
Laterna Magica is an ancient kind of projector in english known as the magic lantern. It mostly resembles a slide projector but used painted on pieces of glass instead of slides. Ingemar Bergman got a Laterna Magica on his tenth birthday.
Friday last week, Good Friday, my fiance and I went to her parents to spend the weekend. As it turned out we were shown to a new room to sleep in, not the usual one that we normally use. The new room used to belong to my fiance's little sister. On one of her shelves I found a copy of Laterna Magica and curiously started leafing through it. It didn't take long before I realized that I had actually started reading the book. And I just couldn't stop.
This isn't the kind of book I plan to read. First of all it's a biography which is usually enough to scare me away. But secondly, and more important is that it feels extremely pretentious to read an autobiography of one of the greatest filmmakers ever to have lived. It's like reading the book of nobel prize winners. It's like I should read it just so that I can brag about having read it despite what I may think about it. I just don't plan to read books like this. But I'm happy now that I did read it.
2006-04-10
Mammatus Clouds
Digg had a very nice link today to mammatus clouds. These clouds simly look amazing! As I've mentioned before I'm just nuts about clouds. When I saw the pictures of the mammatus clouds I took out my copy of the nice "The Book of Clouds" by Dr. John "Cloud Man" Day. Unfortunately the book didn't have very much to say about mammatus and neither has wikipedia. But the mammatus article at University of Illinois is OK. Gee, I wish I get a chance to see this kind of clouds for real some time.
Geek wear
There's some really nice apparels over at cafepress. I'm thinking specifically about geek wear. Like the classic about understanding binary. There is a similar one about time. Since I'm a Haskell programmer there is ofcourse the Haskell shop. I've bought the mouse pad with that Haskell logo. Today, on #haskell, some guy linked to some new cool Haskell related clothes. The first link is simply a nice logo. The other was sime very cute toddler wear, both for boys and girls. But my personal faviourite is a variant on the "What part of ... don't you understand?". Go check it out for yourself.
2006-04-04
On Semantic Nuances
Today I had a rather interesting discussion with some of my colleagues. Andreas Abel is visiting Chalmers this week. Since he was working here for some time he is quite good at swedish and so we spoke swedish with him. But he wasn't quite sure of the swedish word for 'scientist' and tried 'vetenskapare' which makes kind of sense consider the general way that one can construct words in swedish but the actual term is 'vetenskapsman'. Which made us realize that the term 'vetenskapsman' isn't used about scientists today in swedish. Although 'vetenskapsman' corresponds to 'scientist' in english it has a different connotation. Instead the word 'forskare' is used which corresponds to 'researcher'.
So what do swedes really mean when they say 'vetenskapsman'? Ulf Norell suggested that it meant a scientist from say 16th or 19th century i.e. way back in history. Similarly, I suggested a scientist which has contributed to what is considered established scientific truths. But we couldn't really decide how precise these definitions were. Michael Hedberg then joined the discussion and said that the word 'vetenskapsman' made him think of Frankenstein or mad scientists in general. I'm not sure that does the job either but it is clear that the term has some very strange connotations which makes it unsuitable for today's scientists.
While it can be very interesting to try to think about what people mean with certain words I must also offer a word of caution. All too many argument are really about the definition of words. Never engage in such arguments. They are completely pointless and lead to nothing. Instead try to understand what people mean when they say something and when it seems strange to you ask them to be more precise. If their definition of a word doesn't correspond to yours then simply accept their definition as a hypothetical viewpoint and move on. There are more important things to argue about.
So what do swedes really mean when they say 'vetenskapsman'? Ulf Norell suggested that it meant a scientist from say 16th or 19th century i.e. way back in history. Similarly, I suggested a scientist which has contributed to what is considered established scientific truths. But we couldn't really decide how precise these definitions were. Michael Hedberg then joined the discussion and said that the word 'vetenskapsman' made him think of Frankenstein or mad scientists in general. I'm not sure that does the job either but it is clear that the term has some very strange connotations which makes it unsuitable for today's scientists.
While it can be very interesting to try to think about what people mean with certain words I must also offer a word of caution. All too many argument are really about the definition of words. Never engage in such arguments. They are completely pointless and lead to nothing. Instead try to understand what people mean when they say something and when it seems strange to you ask them to be more precise. If their definition of a word doesn't correspond to yours then simply accept their definition as a hypothetical viewpoint and move on. There are more important things to argue about.
How to pour Ketchup.
You just got to love it! Here's an article which delves into the mysteries of getting ketchup out of a bottle:How to pour Ketchup (Catsup). Full technical explanation. The thing is, the standard techniques, such as hitting the bottom of the bottle doesn't work very well.
The irony is that this article is mostly useless. People buy squeeze bottles nowadays.
The irony is that this article is mostly useless. People buy squeeze bottles nowadays.
2006-04-01
Applications of Randomness in System Performance Measurement
Here is a link to a PhD thesis entitled Applications of Randomness in System Performance Measurement. I haven't actually read the dissertation but the abstract is quite informative in itself. Here's a quote from the second paragraph:
When I read this several papers came to my mind which I suddenly realize doesn't hold water. Just as the above text says these papers report improvements which might just as well be noise.
The abstract then goes on to explain the contributions of the thesis:
Next time I'm about to measure the efficiency of a computer program I'm going to read this dissertation carefully. Today's computer system with all their complex ways to trying to speed up things has made measurements much more difficult. It seems that a little bit of randomness at the right place is the key which can alleviate these problems.
For TCP/IP, changes of a few percent in link propagation delays and other parameters caused order of magnitude shifts in bandwidth allocation between competing connections. For memory systems, changes in the essentially arbitrary order in which functions were arranged in memory caused changes in runtime of tens of percent for single benchmarks, and of a few percent when averaged across a suite of benchmarks. In both applications the measured variability is larger than performance increases often reported for new improved designs, suggesting that many published measurements of the benefits of new schemes may be erroneous or at least irreproducible.
When I read this several papers came to my mind which I suddenly realize doesn't hold water. Just as the above text says these papers report improvements which might just as well be noise.
The abstract then goes on to explain the contributions of the thesis:
To make TCP/IP and memory systems measurable enough to make benchmark results meaningful and convincing, randomness must be added. [...] We show how to choose reasonable amounts of randomness based on measuring configuration sensitivity, and propose specific recipies for randomizing TCP/IP and memory systems. Substantial reductions in the configuration sensitivity are demonstrated, making measurements much more robust and meaningful. The accuracy of the results increases with the number of runs and thus is limited only by the available computing resources.
Next time I'm about to measure the efficiency of a computer program I'm going to read this dissertation carefully. Today's computer system with all their complex ways to trying to speed up things has made measurements much more difficult. It seems that a little bit of randomness at the right place is the key which can alleviate these problems.
Hektor
I just have to write about this beautiful little thing called Hektor: which was featured on digg. It is a little machine consisting of two motors, a holder for a spray can, a bit of circuitry and wiring and when it is plugged into a computer sprays beautiful pictures. The design is so simple and elegant that the machine in itself is a piece of art. Make sure to watch the videos of Hector at work, they are fascinating to look at. I only wish I could have done this myself.
2006-03-31
The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science
I just read a great article on how to maintain healthy skepticism towards what is said to be incredible scientific breakthroughs called The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science. There's a lot of people out there who simply doesn't understand the way scientific research is done or simply wants to call themselves scientists so that they can get more credibility. The advises from this article can work nicely as a guide to when you should have a closer look at what you hear about or even dismiss it.
2006-03-28
Planet Haskell
Planet Haskell was launched a couple of days ago and now it is is hosted at planet.haskell.org. It aggregates a couple of Haskell related feeds into one blog. I think this is a very nice idea. It also makes me think that I should start blogging more about programming. This blog I use for all kinds of nonsense so maybe I should start my own programming related blog. When I'm thinking about it I do have quite a lot of things to write about that is programming related.
2006-03-27
Fancy Pants Adventure
Via digg.com I found this marvelous flash based platform game called Fancy Pants Adventure. Not only has it really cool graphics, hilarious animations and sweet music, it is also very playable with well designed levels. The game play borrows heavily from Sonic the Hedgehog. The general style of the game when it comes to graphics, sound and humor reminds me of Neverhood, another awesome game although not a platform game.
The only disappointment with this game is that it only features one world with three levels. I played through this pretty quickly including finding all the secrets ("collecting trophies" in FancyPants lingo). When finishing the last level it says that it will be continued. I sure hope that will be the case.
The only disappointment with this game is that it only features one world with three levels. I played through this pretty quickly including finding all the secrets ("collecting trophies" in FancyPants lingo). When finishing the last level it says that it will be continued. I sure hope that will be the case.
2006-03-25
The markings of a geek
OK. I admit it. I am a geek. A true geek.
This weekend me and my girlfriend visited her parents. While browsing their bookshelves my eyes were almost magnetically drawn to one title: Firefox. I felt an immediate urge to read the book despite the fact that I didn't know anything about it. The only reason I had was that I use the browser Firefox for my daily surfing. Now, how geeky is that on a scale between 1 and 10? Well, I don't know but I would rank it pretty high.
Since I'm in the mood for confessing my geekiness I might as well confess another little episode I've had. This one is about perfume, which in itself lowers my geek score but only marginally. Once I was reading the paper and my eyes fell on an ad for perfume for men. Now, these ads don't normally draw my attention but this one did big time because of a single fact: The name of the perfume was π. I was actually quite embarrassed by my immediate urge to buy this perfume, I wasn't wearing that much perfume at all at the time (and I still don't, although this perfume did boost my perfume usage quite a bit for a while). So I resisted the urge for at least two years. But whenever I saw the ad or the actual perfume in some store I felt I simply had to buy it. Eventually I couldn't resist it, returning home with a much too expensive perfume whose name was a transcendental number. I was a fragrant, happy geek.
This weekend me and my girlfriend visited her parents. While browsing their bookshelves my eyes were almost magnetically drawn to one title: Firefox. I felt an immediate urge to read the book despite the fact that I didn't know anything about it. The only reason I had was that I use the browser Firefox for my daily surfing. Now, how geeky is that on a scale between 1 and 10? Well, I don't know but I would rank it pretty high.
Since I'm in the mood for confessing my geekiness I might as well confess another little episode I've had. This one is about perfume, which in itself lowers my geek score but only marginally. Once I was reading the paper and my eyes fell on an ad for perfume for men. Now, these ads don't normally draw my attention but this one did big time because of a single fact: The name of the perfume was π. I was actually quite embarrassed by my immediate urge to buy this perfume, I wasn't wearing that much perfume at all at the time (and I still don't, although this perfume did boost my perfume usage quite a bit for a while). So I resisted the urge for at least two years. But whenever I saw the ad or the actual perfume in some store I felt I simply had to buy it. Eventually I couldn't resist it, returning home with a much too expensive perfume whose name was a transcendental number. I was a fragrant, happy geek.
2006-03-17
Piled Higher and Deeper
Since before my previous post I've had a very long blogging slump where I haven't written anything here. So once I got back to this blog I went through a couple of my old posts just to refresh my memory on what I had been writing about before. When I came to the Calvin & Hobbes post I realized it was not right. Apart from Calvin & Hobbes and Zits there is actually one other comic strip that read on a regular basis and enjoy. It is Piled Higher and Deeper. The strip is about a couple of PhD students at Stanford University. Of course the humor is very much concentrated around the life of a PhD student with low salary, long working ours, ignorance from the supervisor and the inability to graduate on time. I don't think it is very well known for people other than PhD students. But as far as I know it is pretty popular among PhD students, at least in the States. So if you're a PhD student I can warmly recommend it. A key element in humor is self recognition and I think you will find a lot of that in this strip.
Completely unrelated: this is my 100th post on this blog. Yay!
Completely unrelated: this is my 100th post on this blog. Yay!
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