Archive for February 2006
Swing Tilt for fun
February 28, 2006, 12:16 pmSo, long story short, Boingboing had photos by a Japanese photographer using a swing tilt lens. The lens creates a very narrow area of focus, so when you view the photo, the brain thinks the subject is very small in scale. The lenses are pricy, which depressed me, until someone pointed out that the same effect can be achieved in photoshop. So I’ve been playing around;
Also, Don Knotts and Darren McGavin have died, two of my heroes. Everybody knows they’ve died by now - their passing is garnering the attention they deserve - but in case you weren’t aware, they’re two of my favorites. Sniff.
I’ve been falling asleep watching old Kolchak episodes, and once I have the free time, a Knotts marathon is in order. I may make a trip up to the dollar store and pick up one of those two dollar Andy Griffith DVDs, just to round it out.
—castewar | 1 comment
(posted in the Chiara category)
I choo-choo-choose you!
February 14, 2006, 1:54 pm
Happy Valentine’s one and all - take someone out to dinner. Buy them a gift. Don’t buy them a card. That’s just playing into Hallmark’s hands. Maybe make one.
Here’s my gift to you all - no, I didn’t make them, but I did prep them for use on an iPod and I saved you the trouble of downloading them from their original source, which has been swamped with traffic.
xoc
—castewar | 3 comments
(posted in the General category)
MyStats
February 13, 2006, 11:20 pmI started up a MySpace account. Partly because I’m curious about all new internet trends (and this one is really taking off) and I jealously guard all opportunities to register the name “castewar”.
So far, it’s interesting, but eh. I did however notice that on a randomly generated page that welcomes you when you go there, that they spot your country, and then randomly drop in “cool new people”, presumably so you’ll go meet them and giggle together and eat cake. What I noticed is that every single one of them was really, really young. So, I became curious. Is MySpace really a young hipster type thing, or were they carting out the yoots to draw people in? So, I turned to stats.
I can tell you that it’s not a yoots parade - a 42 year old dude showed up in the returns. So now it’s a question of what age groups use MySpace the most.
What will this prove? I haven’t got a clue, but it’ll drive me nuts if I don’t do something about it. Plus it was a good excuse to bone up on my basic stats lessons.
OK you bastards. It’s come to stats. I mentioned before I noticed an age trend in the random sample of “cool people” being generated into my MySpace home page. Well, I actually re-taught myself stats for this - the initial data set is small (it’s boring hitting refresh and writing shit down), but it will grow over the coming weeks. Them I break out the pie charts and look for the really interesting trends. Actually, I didn’t re-teach myself as lean heavily on half-remembered grade school math class, one full blown Doctor of things way beyond me (thanks Chris), and Dr. Math, whom I don’t think is an actual doctor.
Male,
32 results
7 tossed as duplicates
21 21 21 21 22 22 22 22 22 23 23 23 23 23 24 24 24 24 25 25 28 29 29 29 29 29 34 42
Range 21
Mean 25.143
Median 23.5
Mode 22, 23, 29
Notes: That 42 year old guy is fucking up the set. The 34 year old isn’t helping either. But they did disprove my first hypothesis, that there wasn’t anyone over 30 showing up in the “cool new people” section.
Female
26 results
3 tossed as outliers
2 tossed as duplicates
21 21 21 21 21 21 22 22 22 22 23 23 23 24 24 24 24 25 28 28 29
Range 8
Mean 22.143
Median 23
Mode 21
Notes: Of the outliers I tossed, two were of the same girl, who put herself down as being 99. This is something I’ve seen a lot of I’ll have to keep track of it. For the record, you’re a pipsqueak girly, even if you can surf the infoweb. And we can all tell.
Also two returns are Suicide Girls. Out of 21 results. Huh.
These numbers will flatten out as I gather more.
—castewar | 2 comments
(posted in the General category)
Ancient gamer secret, eh?
February 12, 2006, 3:06 pmI’ve known about this report for awhile, but the Globe and Mail picked it up - when a mainstream paper picks it up, it’s good to note.
Basically, the report says that a gamer multi-tasks like a mofo (it actually says that in the report), the same as a bilingual speaker. If you’re a gamer and bilingual, you’re a tasking monster.
This is all common sense, but it’s largely ignored in a world where people like Jack Thompson insist on calling video games “murder simulators”. And of course there’s not grey in discussion, so you can’t argue that some games are violent and shouldn’t be played by the young, but in general games have benefits. No, they’re “kill trainers.”
I’ll tell you this - My grandfather did crossword puzzles and remained sharp right up into old age. What exactly was happening wasn’t clear, but it was easy to see that using your brain meant you got to keep using it longer.
Now the report fills in the details - Mental exercises basically train your brain to ignore data not related to the task at hand. So, by working on crossword puzzles, Grandpa kept his brain trained not to be confused by extraneous info, something you see in the elderly a lot. By extention, those of us that read a lot, play games, do puzzles, or even just work continuously, will maintain our faculties better. The government will be happy - it’s a good arguement for seniors to keep working.
And on a related note, have you ever read anything Jack Thompson has written. Dude needs to play more games.
—castewar | 3 comments
(posted in the General category)
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