You go, NASA photo caption person

While browsing NASA's website for the latest multimedia from Cassini-Huygens, I stumbled across this excellent reference to Star Wars in the caption for this photograph of Mimas. I guess Yavin and Saturn were both gas giants...

first things first

damn protestors, getting ahead of themselves. Where are all the people who support the cause to malloc Tibet?

That is so going on a t-shirt btw. Much easier to do than try my graphical chops at a ascii art rendering of the great firewall of China.

who designed these things?

Does anyone else find the Twilight to look more than a little like the classic B-wing? You'll have to click through to see the alternate views of the Twilight, as there are two wings that fold out vertically (just like a B-wing).

As for why it is 100 bucks, well, hell if I know. It used to be there would only be one set in the $100 range for any particular lineup (with maybe two $5 sets, two $10 sets, two $20 sets, one $30 set and one $50 set), but LEGO has gotten a lot more popular it seems, especially with the Star Wars crowd, that they can charge these kinds of ridiculous prices.

Still, one does tend to find some good deals in the online LEGO shop, occasionally, such as the $200 ISD Mark I. Hmm, I wonder if anyone has made a retrofit into a Mark II yet?

Mwa ha ha

I was catching up on my RSS feeds, when I found this post on Boing Boing on IQ differences between groups using different browsers on different OS'es.

So of course, I took it, knowing full well the stupidity of an online IQ test as well all its inherent biases.

Well, the result was certainly unexpected.

Why you should teach your kids to spell

Because Sodoku is something completely different!

Thanks to comments on Tom Snyder's excellent post on Soduku, the newly invented Jedi vs. Droid laser battle puzzle.

Events from last week

Saturday (M's b-day party):

The awesome: Watching him open gag gifts his friends bought for him. Also, the food.
The amusing: playing I-never with various people from the lab and their significant others.
The not-so-awesome: Having my dish come out not quite complete. (I need to get a larger steamer, dangit!)

Sunday & Monday(hanging out with my cousing, S):

The awesome: My cousin's a pretty cool guy.
The amusing: Having him try two variants of not-good-for-you fries: carne-asada fries, and In-n-Out's animal-style fries.
The not-so-awesome: One of my other cousins (Z) chose to do his co-op in Texas instead of SD?

Tuesday (Anne-Sophie Mutter in concert):

The awesome: Anne-Sophie Mutter in concert.
The amusing: Having Lambert Orkis sign the cd for an album he didn't accompany her on.
The not-so-awesome: Not bringing some of my other cd's because there wasn't any mention of a signing on LA Phil's website.

Friday (Jennifer Frautschi in concert):

The awesome: Jennifer Frautschi in concert (Beethoven violin concerto to boot!)
The amusing: Seeing Prof. and Mrs. Frautschi at the concert.
The not-so-awesome: Too much echo in the cathedral (not sure what to expect there), getting seated at the end even though I bought an aisle seat, guy in front of me blocking my view.

Random News

Damn! A key component of my plan to marry a rich supermodel and become a highly educated trophy husband has been revealed: Apparently marriages where the women are hotter than the men end up happier because the men try harder and the women feel more secure.

Also, what could be a better present than Ikaruga for XBLA being released on my birthday?

1) If someone gave me an Xbox 360. :)
2) If Anime Expo announced the return of Maaya Sakamoto to AX for 2008, given that I missed her in 2005 because I WAS IN JAPAN!

Satyagraha

According to TSA Bob, the x-ray of my macbook air is "sensitive security information".

Well, this is my big chance to leak "sensitive security information"; here you go: 

note: I actually took this using photo booth's x-ray effect.

my new favorite marine inveterbrate

Sorry, Mr. Octopus, all your learning skill and flexibility just isn't as cool as the fact that the Mantis Shrimp can see circularly polarized light, live longer, have fricking awesome eyes, and oh yeah, they generate cavitation bubbles when they strike with their claws at >10,000g.

Color

Partially inspired by this post, seen on Boing Boing, I pondered the naming of colors.

Specifically, if we have navy blue and army green, shouldn't there also be an air force red?  It only seems logical.

Well let it be known that I hereby claim the rights to the color known as "Airforce Red".  Crayola, have your lawyers give me a call, whenever you decide to expand to 256 colors.

Television again!

Ok, last post about inconsistencies in the new Terminator show, seriously.

Conversation between John, Sarah, Cameron, and Charlie.

Charlie: [about Derek Reese] He needs a transfusion.
Cameron: Sarah's O-, the universal donor
Charlie: It doesn't matter, he needs at least 3 units of his own type, AB- [...]
[...]
John: Test my blood. Test me.
[...]
[Later we see, John donating blood to Derek]

Yes, as someone with O-type blood, Sarah can't be the mother of John, who has (apparently) AB-. Unless of course, some weird mutations are involved. Which wouldn't be THAT surprising, considering that John's father was a time traveler.

Speaking of time travelers, the newest Doctor Who series on BBC is fantastic. Especially the 2nd series finale with a particularly hilarious conversation between the Daleks and the Cybermen:

Dalek: Identify yourself.
Cyberman: You will identify first.
Dalek: State your identity.
Cyberman: You will identify first.
Dalek: Identify.
Mickey: (aside) It's like Stephen Hawking meets the speaking clock.
Cyberman: That is illogical. You will modify.
Dalek: Daleks do not take orders.
Cyberman: You have identified as Daleks.
Dalek: Outline resembles the inferior species known as Cybermen.

[...]

Cyberman: Our species are similar, though your design is inelegant.
Dalek: Daleks have no concept of elegance.
Cyberman: This is obvious.

[...]

Dalek: You propose an alliance?
Cyberman: This is correct.
Dalek: Request denied.
Cybermen: Hostile elements will be deleted.
[They fire, Dalek's shield holds up.]
Dalek: EXTERMINATE!
[Dalek fires, Cybermen fall.]

Cyberman: [...] Daleks be warned. You have declared war on the cybermen.
Dalek: This is not war; this is pest control.
Cyberman: We have five million cybermen. How many are you?
Dalek: FOUR.
Cyberman: You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?
Dalek: We would destroy the Cybermen with ONE Dalek. You are superior in only one respect.
Cyberman: What is that?
Dalek: You are better at dying.

I get comments. seriously!

I generally don't expect comments on my blog, for a number of reasons:

1. I'm too lazy to post regularly.
2. I'm too lazy to format everything to look pretty.
3. Have you seen the breadth of topics that my posts cover. Not just strange popular culture, but really really obscure references, technology discussions, rants about education, and restaurant "reviews".

Nevertheless, I was wondering why some recent posts didn't make it online, and it was because I hit "save now" instead of "publish post". So I went ahead and published some posts that had been sitting there.

and that's when I noticed that I actually had comments.

The first is from Kirk who thanked me for linking him. Not that it matters; I assume my pagerank is so anemic as to really do nothing for his. Still, one has to admire his dedication as a food blogger. I did some cursory searching for a similar-level of food blog in other major metropolitan areas (so I could find good places in LA, DC, and NYC on my visits there), but didn't have any luck. I guess that naturally raises the question of whether having a local food blogger count as an incentive to move to an area. *shrug*

The second is from my post on my USPC 2007 results:
"I love this blog. I myself have a special interest in Web Suduko"

It looks fairly normal, until you realize points 1-3 above. Also, running around the linked website reveals that it is probably some sort of phishing/scam site. The same content regurgitated across multiple posts with images and links to fishy places... My favorite part of the linked post has to be this section:

free online web sudoku

free web soduko

free web sudoko

free web sudoku

free web suduko

which is clearly designed to get more search engine hits. I guess the fact that the comment was located on that specific post should have been a dead giveaway. The only person who I could imagine having some interest in my USPC performance is J, and only because we discussed the competition afterwards.

EDIT:
And this time, I got spam about increasing your pagerank, etc., etc. To quote Strongbad, "DELETED!".

stolen ideas!

two examples of video games stealing my ideas:

1. When they announce the capabilities of the Wii controller, I immediately told James that there should be a cooking game. A couple months later, Taito announced Cooking Mama: Cook Off. James later rented it; our impressions? the best part was the accent when you did well, and mama says: "better than mama". Yeah, the controls were kinda off.

2. Long ago, I had the idea for software that outsourced mathematical problem solving to India instead of developing an actual algebraic computer system. I even parodied Maple's old slogan of "Harness the brilliance of a thousand mathematicians" by inserting "Indian" into it. At some point, Maple changed their slogan, which forced me to dig around for an old copy for one scene in my lloyd video masterpiece: ACM 95a emergency procedures. And then, someone comes out with a math drill game for the DS that features some Indian guy (I wouldn't have a clue how to convert back the katakana into an Indian name...).

Strategies for CLUE

So I was in the shower, thinking about game theory and wondering what some strategies might be for the board game known as CLUE.

For those who are unfamiliar or may need a refresher, the game involves guessing a specific combination of person, room, and weapon to solve a murder. Players are distributed equal proportions of the unused cards, so they can immediately cross off certain persons, rooms, and/or weapons off the suspected list. This information, is obviously private and distinct for each individual. Play begins with players navigating the board and making guesses after entering room (the guess must use the room that the player is in, so there is some navigational trickery involved). After making a guess for a combination, the person to the left is given a chance to disprove it by revealing a card to the player who made the guess. If the person has one of the cards that is part of the guess, they must show a card, but they may choose which card if multiple cards can be shown. The card is shown only to the player who made the guess. If the person to the left cannot disprove the guess, then the next person to the left is given the opportunity to disprove the guess. If no one disproves the guess, the player who made the guess is then given the option of making a formal accusation, at which point he looks at the hidden cards for the actual person, room, and weapon and reveals if he was correct or not. In the case of an incorrect accusation, he is prevented from further play but must still participate in revealing cards.

Now, the information that is available to each player can be divided into several levels:

1. direct information
- Each player can cross off the cards they hold in their hand as they cannot be part of the murder trifecta.
- Each player can cross off the cards that are revealed to them in the course of making guesses and having them disproven.

2. indirect information [this is probably key, since it can expand the amount of information known since you can learn something new with every person's guess, and not just your own.]

- When making a guess combination (such as Mr. Green, Kitchen, Candlestick), any person that doesn't reveal a card to disprove the guess (when given the opportunity) cannot have any of those cards in hand.
- The same is true when other people make guesses, you are given information about what cards are not in a person's hand if someone does not reveal a card to the player who made the guess when given the opportunity. Also, any reveal tells you that the person who revealed has one of the cards in the guess, keeping track of this can reveal what card is revealed if one knows where the other cards in the guess are located.

I also considered one strategy of using misleading guesses to throw off the other players, but doing this successfully requires not just keeping track of what one knows, by modeling the available information everyone else knows, so that they won't KNOW that you are misleading them. I'm also not entirely sure what you gain by misleading guesses, since if you make a guess that is composed solely of cards in your hand, it will be apparent if other players have seen specific cards in your hand. Given the amount of effort required to model everyone's information, I don't think misdirection is a really viable strategy.

chutzpah OR don't raise your kids in Texas

I've decided to add chutzpah to my vocabulary. I understand it comes from Hebrew and is not unlike that chinese phrase da(4) dan(3), meaning bold or brave. I first met chutzpah when reading about the China Airlines 737 that, well, exploded after landing in Okinawa. Surprisingly, everyone made it off ok, even the pilots that jumped out of the cockpit as the plane went up in flames. You can watch it on youtube. In a display of awesome chutzpah, China Airlines got permission from whatever transportation agency that is doing the investigation, to paint over their logo, so photos of it for future news stories wouldn't have their prominent logo. Not that China Airlines wasn't well-known for bad air safety to begin with. Besides all the major news outlets already had the story covered, with photos taken, as well as copies of that youtube video.

As far as Texas is concerned, it seems like their educational standards are going down the tubes. Not that anyone thought it was doing well before McLeroy was appointed the chairman of the state board of education, but still, one might have some hope that there were people trying to promote real science. Now that the story has traveled the blogosphere for a while, it looks like the major news outlets have picked it up: Chris Comer, the Texas Education Agency's directory of science was fired for forwarding an e-mail informing the recipients about an upcoming talk by Barbara Forrest. In particular, the NY Times article has an example of some amazing chutzpah: "Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the state’s education agency in Austin, said Ms. Comer 'resigned. She wasn’t fired.'" Which is technically true I guess. Although, it is more like a Hobson's Choice scenario when your alternative to resigning is to be fired.

As if you needed more reasons not to live in Texas.

All that is necessary for bogus quotes to proliferate is for lazy writers not to follow-up on sources...

Apparently, Edmund Burke's "famous quote" does not have an original source. It is probably a paraphrasing of some things that he has actually said. Nevertheless, it is reasonably famous, seemingly first appearing in Bartlett's Famous Quotations (14th ed, 1968).

Well, normally, this alone would not qualify it for a blog post. However, in the recent port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to PSP as a bonus for Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, the "best" ending has an exchange between Alucard and Richter Belmont that includes within it, the following dialogue:

Alucard: "[...] The only thing necessary for evil to triumph..."
Richter: "is for good men to do nothing."

So, I say, why attribute a fine quote like that to Edmund Burke, when you can attribute it to the son of Dracula and a Belmont! Since this version of SotN has a redone translation, I will have to check my PS1 copy to see if it is the same in the original. Also, bear in mind that a literal translation of the Japanese voice-acting does change the word-order so exactly which half of the quote belongs to whom is a translator issue.

Symphony of the Night remains a highly-praised game, having seen release on multiple systems. If you haven't played it yet, either the XBOX 360 Live Arcade version or the Playstation 3 / PSP download from the online Playstation Store should suffice.

Although the port in Dracula X Chronicles has redone voice acting, translation, and some changes to the gameplay, it also costs three times as much, since it is actually a bonus to another game. I have to say, however, that the main game in Dracula X Chronicles is not all that fun, suffering from some major gameplay issues that weren't fixed when they decided to remake the original Rondo of Blood. Besides, it can only be a bad thing when such famously "bad" voice acting lines are replaced:

Dracula: "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets! [...]"

Anime-induced epilepsy

Nowadays, it is fairly common to see a warning that appears before the opening sequence of an anime. For example, consider the following warning that precedes Minami-ke:

(Minami-ke is one of my favorite series of the fall season. The character-based comedy is very well done, and it doesn't seem like it's going to take a nosedive like Zetsubou Sensei.)

Ok, so what is the origin of such a warning. Well, when reading a book, it is advised to have a decent amount of light so as to not strain the eyes. However, because a television emits its own light, there is usually plenty of light to see what's going on in the TV. As far as distance is concerned, I don't think there is any real reason for keeping the attended region small on the retina, so much as ensuring that strain is not occurring due to focusing on a nearby object for an extended period of time. (Books are generally another story, because there is constant movement of the eyes, I think.)

I checked out some of my anime DVD's and wasn't able to find a warning, so presumably, it only happens for the Japanese television broadcast. One way to check my hypothesis would be to examine anime broadcasts recorded prior to 1997 and broadcasts made after 1997 to see if the presence of the warning jumps from zero to a high percentage.

To understand the origins of this warning, I think we need a trip back to 1997, when the now infamous "Dennō Senshi Porygon" (でんのうせんしポリゴン) episode of Pokémon was aired in Japan. At some point in the episode, an explosion occurs that results in flashing of bright red and blue lights at 12Hz for 6 sec total. (4 sec for most of the screen, and 2 sec for all of the screen) Of course, these are prime conditions for inducing photosensitive epilepsy: high contrast, red color (certain wavelengths work "better" than others), a frequency between 5 and 30 Hz, and flashing across a large portion of the visual field. The episode is now banned worldwide, and hundreds of Japanese children were treated for symptoms, although mass hysteria resulted in some 12,000 individuals reporting symptoms. You can find more details on wikipedia's articles for photosensitive epilepsy and Dennō Senshi Porygon. The large number of epileptic victims was probably due to the extreme popularity of Pokémon, a show whose primary audience falls right into the population that is most susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy. The "best" part of the story is that, in a stroke of pure stupidity, Japanese news programs that reported on the story later that day, replayed the scenes in question, sending a second round of epileptic victims to hospitals.

Ok, so what then, does the warning accomplish. By increasing distance to the television, the amount of visual field occupied by the television is decreased. Also, increasing ambient light decreases the resulting contrast of scenes presented. While these changes serve to alleviate the inducing of photosensitive epilepsy, it probably is not terribly important, as I'm sure television producers are now aware of the conditions to avoid so that viewers don't develop symptoms.

The PTL Synaesthetic Color Space

Because we don't have enough color spaces, I have come up with another one of my own. Relying on precise measurements of colors that are induced by tones of varying pitch, timbre, and loudness in sound-color synaesthetes, it should be possible to create an alternate color space. I don't believe that the same is possible using grapheme-color synaesthetes, because although such synaesthetes are, overall, more consistent in their synaesthesia, there is not good space for graphemes to begin with that will also provide for a smooth gradation of colors. Sound-color synaesthetes on the other hand, do appear to have smooth gradations, which should yield a pretty good mapping. In order to boost their consistency in color-matching, we just need to look for the ones that also have absolute pitch.

Recent innovations:

Flat XLB Policy: similar to an LCD manufacturer's dead pixel policy, restaurants should have a flat XLB policy where you get a refund or another batch made if a certain proportion of your xiao long bao (steamed pork buns) come out flat (i.e. the inside juice has leaked out through the wrapper). Because batches are usually 8 or 10, the most likely policy is going to be 0 or 1 / batch.

Inverse Costco Effect: when buying something in bulk is more expensive than buying in smaller quantities. (e.g. a whole pie sells for $12, but individual slices, closer to a quarter of a whole pie are $2 each)