random($foo) » Tech

You’ve Either Shipped or You Haven’t

lhl — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 22:04:33 +0000

scraplab — You’ve Either Shipped or You Haven’t (via waxy)

You’ve either shipped, or you haven’t. You’ve either poured weeks, months or even years of your life into bringing a product or a service into the world, or you haven’t.

…

But whatever you do next, you’ve shipped. You’ve joined the club.

And the next time someone produces an antenna with a weak spot, or a sticky accelerator, you’re more likely to feel their pain, listen to their words and trust their actions than the braying media who have never shipped anything in their lives.

Performance Comparison of Image Libraries

lhl — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:46:44 +0000

For the past couple years, I’ve been using the Python CoreGraphics bindings to do some of my image manipulation. While a bit more complex than I would have liked for setup (dealing w/ context rotations and other scaling math was a bit of the pain), it otherwise worked great (and more importantly, right out of the box) on Leopard. Unfortunately, with Snow Leopard, the CoreGraphics library was unceremoniously (as far as I know, without any sort of announcement or acknowledgement) deprecated. It’d only work in 32-bit mode and more troubling, certain Context calls that used to take floats now required CGFloats. Not so much of a problem… besides the fact that even after much research and poking, I found no way to instantiate a CGFloat (there’s an undocumented CGFloatArray call, but that just gives you uninitialized CGFloats w/o a good way to assign them).

As has been the trend, I’ve been isolating/switching more and more of my code from anything that touches Apple libraries. I’ve come to the conclusion that they just don’t give a shit about breaking your code (much less care about fixing or even responding what they’ve broken). It’s incredibly off-putting. In this case, it’s unfortunate, as the CoreGraphics code performs much better than both PIL and ImageMagick (I would have tested GraphicsMagick as well, but it doesn’t support the chaining features I needed for my particular resizing/layout operations).

CoreGraphics Python w/ kCGInterpolationHigh
real     0m1.885s
user     0m1.456s
sys      0m0.400s

PIL w/ Bilinear Filter Resize
real     0m3.380s
user     0m2.981s
sys      0m0.365s

32-bit Static ImageMagick
real     0m7.125s
user     0m9.730s
sys      0m0.652s

32-bit Static ImageMagick w/ Box Filter Resize
real     0m4.237s
user     0m4.438s
sys      0m0.636s

64-bit Shared ImageMagick
real     0m6.080s
user     0m8.495s
sys      0m0.366s

64-bit Shared ImageMagick w/ Box Filter Resize
real     0m3.268s
user     0m3.599s
sys      0m0.331s

A few things worth noting:

I try to use the system Python. After all the problems w/ 10.5->10.6 though, I am reconsidering.
PIL seemed to easy_install well (w/ a binary egg no less) on my 10.6 – I’ll have to test on a clean system to make sure I hadn’t made my life easier w/ MacPorts or something, but this is a huge improvement over the problems surrounding installing PIL on 10.5, which was what actually drove me to use the CoreGraphics Python library in the first place. UPDATE: on a clean 10.6 install, it compiles, but doesn’t have JPEG or FreeType support. waah wahhh
ImageMagick defaults to Lanczos filtering by default, which is quite slow. Testing out various filters, Box filtering was about twice as fast and for my test images had neglible-to-nonexistent image quality differences even under the loupe. Definitely worth poking around a bit if you’re trying to get better performance.
The 64-bit shared lib version of ImageMagick is fair bit faster than the 32-bit static version. Until I’m all on 64-bit hardware, is a bit of a moot point to do further testing though. I’m assuming the extra sys time is due to the staticness and the remainder is due to 64-bitness.
Given roughly equivalent performance between PIL and ImageMagick, I’ll be going with ImageMagick for the additional flexibility/features it provides.
Although it doesn’t work for this particular set of operations, I wanted to mention that Marc Lyniage’s CoreImageTool is just a wicked, wicked piece of software. It of course has all the CoreImage caveats though, especially if you have to deal with Intel’s crappy GPUs (*fist shaking*)

KIN Lessons

lhl — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:30:53 +0000

There’s been a lot of recent reporting on the complete failure of the KIN (and Microsoft in general). Of these, I think that this comment from a Danger employee posted on Mini-Microsoft both sums things up, and serves as an object lesson for anyone in tech, and is worth reposting in full:

To the person who talked about the unprofessional behavior of the Palo Alto Kin (former Danger team), I need to respond because I was one of them.

You are correct, the remaining Danger team was not professional nor did we show off the amazing stuff we had that made Danger such a great place. But the reason for that was our collective disbelief that we were working in such a screwed up place. Yes, we took long lunches and we sat in conference rooms and went on coffee breaks and the conversations always went something like this…”Can you believe that want us to do this?” Or “Did you hear that IM was cut, YouTube was cut? The App store was cut?” “Can you believe how mismanaged this place is?” “Why is this place to dysfunctional??”

Please understand that we went from being a high functioning, extremely passionate and driven organization to a dysfunctional organization where decisions were made by politics rather than logic.

Consider this, in less than 10 years with 1/10 of the budget Microsoft had for PMX, we created a fully multitasking operating system, a powerful service to support it, 12 different device models, and obsessed and supportive fans of our product. While I will grant that we did not shake up the entire wireless world (ala iPhone) we made a really good product and were rewarded by the incredible support of our userbase and our own feelings of accomplishment. If we had had more time and resources, we would of come out with newer versions, supporting touch screens and revamping our UI. But we ran out of time and were acquired and look at the results. A phone that was a complete and total failure. We all knew (Microsoft employees included) that is was a lackluster device, lacked the features the market wanted and was buggy with performance problems on top of it all.

When we were first acquired, we were not taking long lunches and coffee breaks. We were committed to help this Pink project out and show our stuff. But when our best ideas were knocked down over and over and it began to dawn on us that we were not going to have any real affect on the product, we gave up. We began counting down to the 2 year point so we could get our retention bonuses and get out.

I am sorry you had to witness that amazing group behave so poorly. Trust me, they were (and still are) the best group of people ever assembled to fight the cellular battle. But when the leaders are all incompetent, we just wanted out.

(On another note, every time I read the minimsft comments, I just can’t get over how fucked MSFT’s corporate culture is. There’s just so much wrong on every level, it’d pretty much be impossible to succeed.)

And an interesting follow-up comment from another insider on project particulars:

Microsoft is a large enough company that experience in one part of it may not be applicable to other parts. (Duh). In PMX, there was no backstabbing or people out to get people. There was only poor management, a poorly designed and implemented product, and an insane delivery schedule.

Some random thoughts:

PMX was said to be a risky project. You don’t fire people who fail at risky projects, because if you do, eventually nobody will be willing to take a risk. Nobody will get fired and whatever accountability there is will happen behind closed doors.

PMX was very poorly run. One HR manager involved with the Danger onboarding actually described the failure as a ‘cluster f***’. Danger was lied to about the reason for the purchase and that set the tone of the relationship between ex-Danger people and PMX. It would only get worse as the project continued. The onboarding was typical of the quality of management. The MS-Poll results, some of the worst on record, were accurate, even though they were written off as “influenced by disgruntled Danger people.”

The Verizon deal was made by business development folk before engineering had been consulted. There was no way a phone capable of selling in the marketplace could have been developed using Microsoft software management process in the time frame.

In addition, between inception and delivery, the market place changed dramatically but Microsoft was unable to move agilely enough to compensate.

The phone should never have gone to market. It is too poorly designed, too buggy, too incomplete, and too overpriced. When Microsoft became aware of the data plan pricing that Verizon proposed, the project should have been cancelled, saving a couple hundred million in development and advertising.

It did sell more than 500, but I doubt anyone is going to argue against the Wall Street Journal assessment that it sold fewer than 10,000.

The number ’2 billion’ is floating around as an estimate of the cost of PMX over its life. That number is too high, but ’1 billion’ is too low.

The Future of Leonard’s Computing

lhl — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:51:51 +0000

For the past few months I’ve been meaning to put some of my thoughts down about what I’m looking forward to in my next computing device. My needs are somewhat specific, and influenced by the fact that I type a lot, I stare at screens all day, and for almost a year now, have been semi-nomadic.

My primary computing device (and what I’m typing on right now) for the past couple years is a 13″ 2008 Aluminum Unibody MacBook. This is about the longest I’ve had a laptop in the past decade. In between, I’ve had an incarnation of just about every generation of PowerBook/Macbook (Pro) since the earliest Titanium G4s (I may even have some of these still in storage). It has a few niggles (fidgety headphone jack, bad magnetic latch, non-backlit keys), but on the whole this MacBook is the best-built laptop I’ve ever owned – and even two years later, the unibody construction still impresses me as much as the day it arrived. Also, with 4GB of RAM and after putting in an SSD last year, I can honestly say that I feel no need for anything more powerful for my daily use. That being said, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with my Mac. Over the years, it’s become too big and heavy, less portable (especially for use outside and on the go), and the battery life, much too short (even after buying a brand new battery last week).

A lot of these frustrations are probably magnified because of the other devices that I’m now carrying around. In my bag now, I have a Kindle, and iPad 3G, an HTC EVO, an iPhone 3G, and (for a little bit) a Nokia N900. None of these are laptop replacements, but all of them point to the future in a way that my MacBook doesn’t.

Of course, the most talked about of these is the iPad. I don’t think I have much to add to that well trodden ground. I’ll just preface by saying that I’m not a hater. The iPad is not only a great lean back device, but it’s also a valid, and pretty darn compelling vision of the future of personal computing (except for the syncing w/ iTunes part. That’s just archaic). For most people, it lets them do everything they would want to do with a computer easier, better, and more socially. (My personal favorite commentaries on the iPad include Alex Payne’s and Fred Wilson‘s.) So, with that being said, although I’m now carrying one around (thanks Music Hack Day!), and I’ve poked and prodded extensively (see project here), it’s not the future of my computing.

For me, the laptop replacement I’m looking for is the smartbook. For those unfamiliar with the term, the simple description is that these are ARM-based smarphone guts stuffed into a netbook form factor. They are fanless, have 10″ screens, full-size keyboards and hover just under 2 lbs (800-900g) in weight. More importantly, they have ridiculous battery life (8-12hrs actual), days of standby, and like smartphones have 3G, GPS, quick wakeup and active-network standby. They are all Linux-based (Android or Meego), and provide a decent browser, vim, terminal, and keyboard – the things I actually need to stop carrying my laptop around.

Unfortunately, with all the tablet excitement, the smartbook form factor seems to have taken a bit of a backseat. Although prototypes have been shown by ODMs since Computex 2009, the only smartbook that has been released so far is the HP Compaq Airlife 100, and even then, only in Spain via Telefonica. Devices like the Mobinova Beam and Lenovo Skylight both have been delayed (without solid release dates) as they’ve been retooled to run Android, and ODM designs from Compal, Pegatron, Quanta etc have yet to show up anywhere besides the occasional trade show appearance.

Right now, the most promising up and coming smartbook looks to be the Toshiba AC100/Dynabook AZ. It’s scheduled to launch in August, and has gotten some fairly detailed hands-on reviews. Here’s a German promo video that gives a decent overview:

The last piece of the puzzle for me, one that’s actually referenced (but not addressed) by the video above, is that my next computer should really be daylight readable. After some production delays, Pixel Qi (Mary Lou Jepsen‘s company spun off from the display technology she originally designed for the OLPC) has finally started selling its displays in kit form. Here is a video showing the Pixel Qi display compared to the iPad display outdoors:

And here’s a description of how the technology works:

There are other daylight readable technologies, CPT’s transflective display, Qualcomm’s Mirasol displays, and Liquavista’s electrowetting-based displays, but none of those have release dates yet. The Mirasol and Liquavista displays are very interesting, being color and bi-stable, but they’re currently being targeted primarily at e-book form factors/applications, so probably won’t be showing up in 10″+ screens anytime soon.

Qualcomm seems to be making good progress in releasing 5.7″ Mirasol-based e-readers by the end of the year, which would be darn nifty. Still, I won’t be holding my breath.

For those of you interested in following along, especially in the whole whole slightly weird world covering MIDs, tablets, and ultraportables, I recommend:

And, to sum up, there’s no product in the pipeline with quite these specs, but here’s what would make me a happy camper:

Good keyboard (Acer’s flat keys are my current favorite of the netbooks I’ve tried) w/ backlit keys
Large, multitouch trackpad
8-12hrs of active battery life, several days standby
2 lb weight, 0.5″ thickness
10-12″ 720p+ daylight-readable screen (capacitive touch bonus)
GPS + Location aware OS
3G WWAN (penta/hexband for bonus points)
Active network standby, notifications
Fast boot, instant resume
DisplayPort or HDMI output

Palm Pre Post-Mortem

lhl — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 13:09:51 +0000

Yesterday morning I went and picked up an HTC EVO 4G (post forthcoming). Like I did for my Iliad (inspired by Bunny’s exit reviews), here’s my (probably) last post on my Palm Pre (see earlier ones). This will be a bit long and rambly, and will be as much about the webOS platform as the device. You’ve been warned.

As you can see from the photo, physically, my Palm Pre hasn’t fared so well. I’m not gentlest owner – gadgets are meant to be used is my philosophy, but the Pre has fared much worse than my past few phones. Not only was plastic screen was a huge step back from the glass screened iPhones in terms of picking up random nicks and scratches, but in general, build quality left a a lot to be desired. Like all early Pres, mine suffered from light leakage (especially as it got warm) and a wobbly/not so nice feeling slider mechanism (the Palm Pre Plus is much better in that regard). In terms of wear and tear, the center button’s frosting/paint peeled off very early on. Hairline cracks developed at the corners seemingly of their own accord, and after flimsy USB/charger door finally snapped off, a huge crack started (continues?) growing on the side. Basically, it the hardware itself felt like it was on its last legs and over the past few months, really made me antsy about getting a new phone.

Last year, after giving up on AT&T and then spending a few weeks comparing an iPhone, Google Ion, and a Palm Pre, I went with the Palm Pre as my main phone. At the time, the Ion (HTC Sapphire) was running Cupcake, and for a variety reasons (no 3.5mm headjack, focus stealing bugs, and general UI wonkiness and incessant lag/chugging), really turned me off (I can still remember my disbelief how bad orientation changes were). In comparison, the Palm, while being the least mature, was obviously a better user experience.

Overall, I’ve continued to be a fan of Palm’s webOS, and it’s been a bit sad to see the lack of traction they’ve had in the market, especially considering how much of it they “do right.” That being said, it’s not exactly surprising. Besides some pretty huge strategic marketing and distribution missteps early on, there were/are a lot of technical/real reasons that it hasn’t been that successful.

First though, what Palm does right. I went to the Palm Developer Day for a variety of reasons: as a Pre owner/webOS developer (w/ interest in what was going on w/ the platform APIs, also a bone to pick w/ the state of their HTML5 support), a former developer event organizer (running Hack Days and such), and a long-time Palm fan (I had a USR Pilot! and I wanted to check out PalmHQ before they went out of business (or as it turns out, were acquired)). And… it turned out to be an awesome event. Just super-well done on every level.

I believe that what Ben, Dion, et al are doing w/ the Palm Developer community are spot on, and the APIs they’re rolling out are pretty exciting. As a web developer, the vision for webOS is pretty compelling, and the technology stack is pretty sweet. (The last talk of the day on the “secret” history of webOS by Rob Tsuk, was also pretty great, especially for anyone that’s poked around in the guts of webOS).

And of course, there have been plenty of people poking into the guts of webOS. One pleasant surprise, is that webOS has the cleanest/easiest to work with Linux I’ve seen on any phone (yes, it beats out OpenMoko). The second pleasant surprise is that Palm has been downright benevolent, nay, welcoming of the tinkering and hacking community (see also: WebOS Internals). There’s no “rooting” or “jailbreaking” and system modifications don’t require flashing ROMs, but rather with simple patches. In fact, since almost the beginning, there has been ipkg-based package management apps available (the current state of the art, Preware, makes all this downright civilized).

Because most of webOS is JavaScript based (basically, a WebKit/V8 instance sitting on top of Linux w/ a D-Bus service bus and some Java processes (being phased out)), there are many patches available that directly modify the system UI and included apps. I currently have almost two dozen patches, including those that change how the launcher is laid out, how the date and battery usage are displayed, text counting in the SMS app, how apps can be deleted, what the power button does. Just about any aspect of the system can be modified. (Heck, one guy, Jason Robitaille, has written tons of useful patches that have just made things so much more pleasant this past year. Thanks Jason!) The flip side, however is that the number of people that have installed these mods is almost certainly <1% of the installed base.

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t things about the webOS that aren’t inherently great. Both the notification system, and the “card” view for multitasking, are the best implementations of any mobile OS I’ve used. The UI is by and largely very well thought out.

However, even with all these pluses, there are issues that both have kept me from being very active in evangelism, and also leading to my recent switch. The rest of this post is critique. Since this is already too long, I’ll be moving to bullet points:

While Palm has a competitive platform, their hardware and overall rate of innovation is inadequate. At a friend’s suggestion, I loaded a CyanogenMod version of Donut on my Ion while on my Buenos Aires trip the end of last year. This was leaps and bounds better than Cupcake, and 2.1 and 2.2 are better still. What Android lacks in UI polish is made up for in performance, capabilities, and in sheer velocity, both of software and in the breakneck pace of newer and better hardware releases. Apple has been able to successfully fend off this relentless drumbeat thanks to its huge lead/install base and total UX superiority, however Palm obviously doesn’t have the former, and is hampered in the latter. Even still, come next week, Apple will have a next-generation hardware refresh that will bring it inline w/ current expectations (WVGA+ screen, HD capabilities), while Palm … just doesn’t.
webOS suffers doubly from not having any new hardware in sight because webOS is less optimized than Mobile OS X and Android, being both laggier and often running out of (and leaking) memory. It took probably half a year or so to get webOS to a good level. Even now, basic animations (CSS transforms) have yet to be GPU-enabled. And even after using an overclocked kernel (which clocks the OMAP3430 from 550MHz to 800MHz), my Pre suffers from enough intermittent performance issues (lag) to make me wish for something better (I actually like the keyboard and form-factor of the Pixi more than the Pre, but it’s even more under-powered)
Now admittedly, the worst of the issues has to do with the browser… all the WebView instances are actually shared, so when one runs out of memory, all of them end up getting kicked in the head (blanking out and reloading). Where this really hurts me is that webOS’s Google Maps app is really a WebView, not a “native” app. Beyond being grossly less featured than the Android or iPhone versions, it also inevitably loses state at the worst possible times while I’m navigating. I travel *a lot* and this has been one of the banes of my existence.
Speaking of the web browser, one of the other painful truths is that (ironically), webOS’s HTML5 support is worse than iPhone 3 and Android 2′s browsers. webOS is just using an ancient build of WebKit and it doesn’t have support for W3C Geolocation (good luck trying to use the NextMuni site), touch events, session storage, or web workers. ARGHULURHRHRHHH
There are a few other annoyances, like 2 minute boot-up times (I got an extended battery early on, which turned my Pre into a boat, but also meant that I almost never ran out of batteries unless I forgot to charge it, but I ended up rebooting a fair amount due to memory errors or other glitches – like with the radio or GPS), not being able to load things on boot (say launching the Govnah, or Brightness Unlinked, two must have homebrew apps) or not being able to upload to Flickr from the camera/gallery app (unfortunately, this couldn’t be implemented through the standard sharing framework because it required implementing account stuff through the palm bus, which won’t be available for developers until later this fall)
On the topic of APIs/software – having a recording API (again, coming by the fall) will open up whole classes of apps (voice recorders, Shazam/Sound Hound), but even with the APIs coming, there are still basic gaps (like a proper permissioning system, or stats/usage recording)…
I get it, it takes time to build – as a developer (and if I were primarily a mobile developer) this also makes it an exciting opportunity. With HP’s backing, presumably, webOS will continue to grow. However, as an end-user, it’s clear where the momentum is, and the apps/capabilities really speak for themselves. And I guess, more than any complaints about webOS specifically, it’s that it just that it just doesn’t fare well against the competition. I’m still avoiding the iPhone (mostly AT&T, a little bit customizability, a little bit principle), but even against Android… in terms of apps (now actually useful desktop widgets, offline news readers, wireless scanners, call analysis programs, SMS autoreply/scheduling, geofencing actions, Last.fm, Pandor, Slacker, Rdio, and Spotify, Shazam, and a host of navigation apps (including compasses, OSM offline maps, and Google Maps)) and hardware (touch focus camera, front-facing camera, microSD storage, etc, etc) there’s just no contest.
Competition is a good thing and I’ll be keeping tabs of what happens in the webOS world, but for now, I’m hopping on the Android train.

SXSW 2010 Recap

lhl — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:57:25 +0000

Better late than never!

Fav sessions from Interactive include:

“No Line” rule was in full effect during Interactive and served me well. The Drake, Ginger Man, and the Hilton were great post-party hangouts. A special shoutout for Datapop 2010 on the last night. Just tons of fun.

Now onto the Music…

Best Pre SXSW Music music – as mentioned above, Datapop 2010. A great chiptunes lineup, and the best crowd at SXSW:
Wished I caught them a second time – Washed Out
Best Showcase – Central Presbyterian Church on Wed night – I caught Balmorhea, and then skipped out on Zoe Keating and Volodja Balzalorsky, but dropped back in for Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka, which was amazing. All in all, a huge change of pace and a great way to ease into SXSWm.
Criminally Empty – I caught the last of Sole set after Shearwater – granted, it was a busy Saturday night, way too much stuff going on, but only a like a dozen people showing up for Sole? Too bad, was a great set.
Hey I remember that band, cool – Little Brazil – I discovered them a couple years ago and was a big fan – a throwback indie/emo sound that was both super familiar, yet… actually good. When I saw they were playing, I had to catch them, and I was glad I did
Came through in the clutch – Estelle – I swung by for one reason only, to hear American Boy live. I asked at the door (a good habit) how late they were running and they said only a few minutes, but I started getting antsy as time dragged on – there’s always that sunk cost/can I get to another venue in time conundrum – in the end, they ran almost 30 minutes late w/ the soundcheck. I was in a pretty bad mood when Estelle finally came on… but surprise! She was a lot of fun and a great performer. Knowing how late they were running, would I have gone elsewhere? Probably. But at the same time, it was worth my while.
Longest Walk – this is a tie I think between trying to catch Seabear at Cafe Mundi (seriously far) – who ended up not playing at the time I thought they would be and was a bit of a cold windy bust, and catching Quantic spin a set at Malverde, which totally rocked.
Biggest Disappointment – Sleigh Bells – now mind you, I didn’t actually really hear them. The disappointment was that I tried to catch them twice – one at an impossibly long line at the NPR day show, and the second time at the Fader Fort – I rolled there just a few minutes too late – there was no line for the badge line, but they closed the venue as I was literally <20ft away walking up to the gate. Doh!
Best Random Day Show Act Discovery – I caught a bit of Body Language, who were fun and new to me, but I think passing by Lovejoy’s and hearing the Deleted Scenes playing at a DC day show was my best random discovery – I would have stayed and caught more than a song (apparently, some ex-Q and Not U guys played right after) but I was meeting up w/ a friend elsewhere.
Best Act I caught at SXSW – Nneka – caught her at the Day Stage and was just blown away, and went and caught bits of her and her band at Cedar St, and The Parish after. Good stuff.

Oh, the bonus “Best of” for this SXSWm was the SXXpress pass – basically SXSW’s equivalent of a Disneyland Fastpass. The caveat is that you have to try to drag yourself up and to the convention center at 10am. Still, I definitely approve.

Overall, I had tons of fun and let’s be honest, I’ll be back again next year.

…Now I Am The Master

lhl — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:35:07 +0000

From Apple’s 1984 commercial:

Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!”

From Apple’s iPhone 4 SDK iPhone Developer Program License Agreement:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Some discussion at Boing Boing and Hacker News. (see also)

Hot Damn

lhl — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:10:53 +0000

Moving to a new server – 2.75TB of usable storage (quad core, 8GB RAM) and less expensive than my current one (an old Athlon64 X2 w/ 2G RAM I’ve had for.. 26 months). I stuck w/ NetDepot, who I’ve been super happy with for hosting.

Linux nd11544 2.6.31-16-server #53-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 8 05:08:02 UTC 2009 x86_64

To access official Ubuntu documentation, please visit:

http://help.ubuntu.com/

  System information as of Tue Dec 29 16:03:03 CST 2009

  System load:    0.0                Memory usage: 0%   Processes:       121
  Usage of /home: 0.0% of 784.65GB   Swap usage:   0%   Users logged in: 1

  Graph this data and manage this system at https://landscape.canonical.com/

Paul Graham Nails It

lhl — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:36:35 +0000

I’m not always in agreement with Paul Graham, but he’s absolutely spot on with his essay on how broken the Apple App Store is and how it’s disastrous.

So I bought it, but I bought it, for the first time, with misgivings. I felt the way I’d feel buying something made in a country with a bad human rights record. That was new. In the past when I bought things from Apple it was an unalloyed pleasure. Oh boy! They make such great stuff. This time it felt like a Faustian bargain. They make such great stuff, but they’re such assholes. Do I really want to support this company?

This essay is just chock full of good stuff and worth a full read.

How would Apple like it if when they discovered a serious bug in OS X, instead of releasing a software update immediately, they had to submit their code to an intermediary who sat on it for a month and then rejected it because it contained an icon they didn’t like?

By breaking software development, Apple gets the opposite of what they intended: the version of an app currently available in the App Store tends to be an old and buggy one.

If your company seems evil, the best programmers won’t work for you. … But the real problem for Microsoft wasn’t the embarrassment of the people they hired. It was the people they never got. And you know who got them? Google and Apple. If Microsoft was the Empire, they were the Rebel Alliance. And it’s largely because they got more of the best people that Google and Apple are doing so much better than Microsoft today.

Frickin’ Lasers! (and Pico Projectors)

lhl — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:15:23 +0000

Until this weekend, my interest wasn’t very piqued by the whole pico projector trend. They’ve been pretty low-res, low-light, and limited battery-life affairs. Even as a super-heavy traveller, I’ve rarely felt the need to project from my phone or even my laptop w/ a pocketable projector. The space has been heating up recently (720P? >10 Lumens? 2-4hr battery life?), but what really caught my attention was seeing that Microvision was finally releasing a real product using their laser-based projection technology.

Although I’ve never bought a product from Microvision, I feel like I have a bit of a history with them: one where they’ve constantly disappointed by having incredibly cool technology that never made its way into my grubby little hands. Back in the early 2000′s I went through a huge AR nerd period. At the time, with academia failing to pull through with gear, I started looking at what was commercially available, and found the Microvision Nomad – a $4-6K system that had a red laser pointed at your eyeball running Windows CE (breathtaking I know – I decided to wait for the next generation). Unfortunately, after hitting some financial difficulties, Microvision all but abandoned their AR displays, and no one else (Olympus, Brother, Sony, or Microvision themselves) has released any commercial AR overlay displays since (there appears to be a booming military market for these, however)…

Which leads us to Microvision’s recent focus on pico projectors. While this may have been the right financial decision to make, it was always for me, a pretty boring path, both in comparison to the AR products and also when considering the limitations of the projectors themselves. The Microvision SHOW WX at version glance doesn’t seem to be all that great – it’s only 10 lumens, battery life of 1.5-2 hours, and a WVGA resolution. (Oh, and it’s about 50% overpriced compared to its competition.)

That being said, one thing did catch my eye. Because of their projector is laser-based, it has infinite focus. That is exactly what you think it is – multi-planar (and non-planar) projection is automatically focused, no mathematical tricks required.

Which isn’t to say that there isn’t awesome math that can’t still be applied. Check out these vids on using structured light and pixel shaders to do some astounding color and geometric correction on arbitrary surfaces:

Of course, there’s even more fun stuff that can be done, with structured light (such an awesome term) like Johnny Lee’s work on projector based tracking:

In the same way that AR on simple magnetometer/accelerometer equipped cell phones (no IMUs or HUDs ma!) proved to have surprisingly useful (well, at least interesting) applications, so will, I suspect, these pico-projectors. Assuming there are some fast GPUs w/ flexible shader pipelines available in portable form… – well, even without that, there should be lots of interesting visual applications…