Knowing .NET

MSR has a paper describing a very clever trick for video. They describe it for automatically creating cartoons, but the applications extend beyond that. Basically, one of the things those clever kids have been paying attention to is looking at video as a 3-D structure and applying algorithms to the resulting “shapes”. In this case, you lay down reference points on two frames, and they tween the reference points not by linearly interpolating between X and Y, but by creating a spline that follows the defined color/shape as it goes through Z (time).

According to a study quoted in a recent New Scientist, the companies in the Fortune 500 with the highest number of women in senior management positions had 35% higher return on stockholder investment than those with the fewest. Sounds good, but be aware that the study was done by “Catalyst, a ‘on-adversarial advocacy organization,’works to advance women in business leadership with a particular focus on placing women on the boards of Fortune 500 companies.”

Researchers at USC have modeled the transforms associated with production of memory. It’s a black-box: they aren’t interested in the subjective experience of the transform, just how inputs (short-term memories) are turned into outputs (long-term memories). The article speaks of prosthesis for memory disorders, which is certainly the first market, but once you’ve figured out the IO model for memory you’re in major-league Philip K. Dick territory. What happens when you record my inputs and play them into your hippocampus? Do you end up with a personalized version of my experiences?

Cat. Zero-G. I’ll bet anything it’s been declawed.

Continuing the mini-trend of posts that have nothing to do with the software development industry…

The HydroOptix dive mask seems like an excellent idea: instead of a flat piece of glass, the mask is fronted with what underwater photographers refer to as a “dome port,” eliminating refraction and providing a dramatically better field of view that traditional masks. 

The admitted downside of this is that you need to focus just a few inches from your eye to see this (essentially, you focus on a “virtual image” on the inside of the mask). But, it so happens that the needed myopia matches my prescription of -4.5 perfectly, so for me, I just take my glasses off, put the mask on, stumble my way towards the big blue blur, and the instant I’m in the water, Bob’s my uncle.

The optics are excellent. You get a massive improvement in peripheral vision and if the water is clear, it translates into a noticeably improved vista underwater. Unfortunately, as a mask, the product just plain sucks. It has a tiny skirt and seals onto my honestly-not-abnormal nose so tightly that I literally could not equalize mask squeeze without using my hand to loosen the mask. And everytime I did that, the mask leaked. And since the mask has a huge volume and purge valves, clearing it requires an obscene amount of air.

Yesterday, I tried freediving with the HydroOptix. Horrible. Just absolutely worthless. I couldn’t descend past 20′, I wasted my lungs clearing it, and on those few occasions I did get to a decent depth, when I ascended the air in the mask expanded, cracked the seal, and once again, the mask flooded.

Worst, a pod of spinner dolphins swam by. Tina dropped down to 40′ and hung out while the dolphins swam right past her. I had to bounce along the surface, watching them cruise by beneath.

The Iowa Electronic Markets are a real-money trading system that is used to attempt to predict political outcomes. Right now, a $1.00 pay-off on the Presidency will cost $.58 for Bush. In other words, Bush is favored. There’s a strong case to be made that “real money” is a vastly better predictor of the future than polls, but I watched the IEM during the Democratic primaries and Dean, whose “lead” proved absolutely illusory, consistently led in the IEM.

So I’m pretty dubious. I think it’ll come right down to the wire and then (got my fingers crossed) the undecideds and un-pollable kids will break strong for Kerry. God, I hope so. I was going to write a polemic about why I like Kerry or, more specifically, why I think that Bush and Co. are cynical betrayers of everything that America stands for, but I was stymied by the idea that this election is going to be based on people who are undecided. I can’t for the life of me understand being undecided — I can understand being a Republican (especially when the alternative is being a Democrat), I can understand valuing conservative principles over liberal ones, I can even understand (barely) interpreting Bush’s behavior as “steadfast” and principled.

I can argue respectfully with conservatives. But I just can’t for the life of me figure out what to say to someone who’s undecided.

Umm… I know you’ll think I’m kidding, but Has Been is really good. I mean, really, seriously good. Not ironic good. Like, good good. I mean, Shatner works as essentially a spoken-word poet over the tunes and he’s got his distinctive cadence, but, y’know, that’s how the majority of hip-hop works, too.

EverNote, a note-taking app that supports the TabletPC, has entered public beta. I’m very excited about this app, as it has a couple great things that I’ve been dreaming about in a note-taking app: a timeline view, the ability to add custom categories, and templates for to-do and shopping lists. The result appears very promising for time-management in the “Getting Things Done” manner.

Software Development has published their annual salary survey. Essentially, slow growth. The most interesting graphic to me is the one that shows trends to the question “If you’re seeking a new job, what is the reason?” which shows a marked shift from passionate reasons (join a startup, new challenges) to defensive ones (job stability, etc.). The acute pain of the dot-com hangover may be over, but now we’ve entered the “I’ll never drink again,” stage.

A word of caution: salaries vary so widely over the country that the overall median numbers are close to worthless. The charts and tables for the various regions are much better. Say… wouldn’t it be cool if SD provided a Web Service that allowed you to retrieve relevant data by zip- or area-code? Would you pay $5 via Paypal for that?

My latest column for SD Times discusses Borland’s recently announced initiatives…