tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39067242024-03-07T22:42:19.773-05:00Astrila!This is the place to jot down relatively half baked impulsive thoughts in short text blogs. I call it "On The Run" version of my main blog at <a href="http://www.ShitalShah.com/blog">http://www.ShitalShah.com/blog</a> which is where you'd rather be!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.comBlogger107125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-17631750957939911522010-08-26T02:40:00.002-04:002012-08-18T19:12:06.095-04:00Mountain Weather in WashingtonUsual weather websites do not give you the forecast at a point but rather around some town/city which renders them pretty useless for mountains. Here are the collected links for mountain weather forecasts for Washington:<br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=46.77557504115353&lon=-121.74479126930237" target="_blank">Mount Rainier at Paradise Visitor Center</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=46.835477098178494&lon=-121.73139095306396" target="_blank">Mount Rainier at Camp Muir</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=48.46654767913529&lon=-121.05972290039062" target="_blank">North Cascades NP – Sahale Arm</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=48.4748&lon=-121.0735" target="_blank">North Cascades NP – Sahale Arm TH</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=48.720357602590724&lon=-120.6697940826416" target="_blank">north Cascades NP – Windy Pass</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=48.0702&lon=-121.8147" target="_blank">North Cascades NP – Mount Pilchuck TH</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=46.240651955001695&lon=-122.14599609375" target="_blank">Mount St Helens – Windy Ridge</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=46.2499&lon=-122.1362" target="_blank">Mount St Helens – Windy Ridge TH</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=48.84693994263992&lon=-121.69255256652832" target="_blank">Mount Baker – Artist Point</a><br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=48.874651&lon=121.855215" target="_blank">Mount Baker – Skyline Divide</a><br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=-48.8463&lon=-121.6927" target="_blank">Mount Baker – Ptarmigan Ridge TH</a><br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.48385887160761&lon=-120.78180313110352" target="_blank">Enchantments</a><br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.91870051188839&lon=-123.38238716125488" target="_blank">Olympics – Hurricane Ridge</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.941963086450755&lon=-124.65096473693847" target="_blank">Olympics – Hole in the Wall</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.8278&lon=-123.0408" target="_blank">Olympics – Mamot Pass TH</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=45.672363557944365&lon=-123.93608093261719" target="_blank">Oregon Coast – Nehalem Bay State Park</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=45.330366510894535&lon=-121.70937538146973" target="_blank">Mount Hood – Timberline Lodge</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=45.426407377512774&lon=-121.72164916992188" target="_blank">Mount Hood – Vista Ridge</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.50653361720931&lon=-121.739501953125" target="_blank">Snoqualmie Pass Corridor – Mount Si</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.42367407957422&lon=-121.49333953857422" target="_blank">Snoqualmie Pass Corridor – Granite Mountain</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.45954949060109&lon=-121.4668607711792" target="_blank">Snoqualmie Pass Corridor – Chair Peak/Snow Lake</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.4174&lon=-120.9361" target="_blank">Salmon La Sac – Iron Peak TH</a> <br />
<a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.4292&lon=-120.9377" target="_blank">Esmeralda Basin TH</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-66054222823507555382009-12-17T02:41:00.001-05:002009-12-17T02:41:18.071-05:00Tomato Firmware for Router and Comcast Cable Modem<p>Just a note… if you have Tomato installed as firmware in the router and Comcast cable internet then try followings:</p> <ol> <li>Disconnect cable modem and router and wait until their lights go off. For Comcast modem it takes fair bit of time because of internal battery.</li> <li>If Internet connection is still lost then connect your computer directly to cable modem. If this doesn’t work then you need to call Comcast at 1-800-COMCAST.</li> <li>If above works then the problem is that your router isn’t syncing with cable model. To confirm this, log in to router login page usual <a href="http://192.168.(0">http://192.168.(0</a> or 1).1. See the status in overview. If this status is “Renewing…” and never changes then disconnect cable co-axial wire going to model. Turn off cable model. After all LEDs goes off turn it back on. Reconnect cable co-ax to it.</li> </ol> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-72376141812694930592009-08-10T20:19:00.001-04:002009-08-10T20:19:32.129-04:00Intel Xeon – the worse branding ever?<p>This is really frustrating if you didn’t knew. Intel likes to call many of their processors for “business class” systems “Xeon”. When they say Xeon it can mean anything from those dinosaurs based on Pentium II and the latest and greatest ones based on on Core i7. So when you see a system built with Xeon processor you really need to look up its exact subtle number and carefully study its specs to figure out what it really is. </p> <p>For example, <a href="http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=39718,37147,">Xeon W3520 is same as latest Core i7-920</a>, including the price. The only difference between two is Xeon supports ECC memory. So what’s the point in branding this processor as Xeon instead of Core 2 i7?</p> <p>BTW, new Intel Core i7 series is definitely a winner and finally makes 2 year old Intel Core 2 series actually obsolete. This processor can execute 8 threads simultaneously and supports 3 channels for DDR3 access tripling the RAM bandwidth! Best of all, it costs more or less same as older Core 2 processors.</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-28430743592247022202009-02-20T04:09:00.001-05:002009-02-20T04:09:25.111-05:00Snoqualmie Falls Hike Analysis<p>Today was perhaps my 32nd hike at Snoqualmie Falls. I've adopted this trail as my daily hike routine. Today I brought my new Garmin Oregon 400t GPS with me and recorded the track. Fortunately there is a website (although not that good) called MotionBased which can slice and dice and analyze this track data and tell you lot of cool things.</p> <p>Here's the MotionBased's <a href="http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=7658501">analysis of Snoqualmie Falls hike</a>.</p> <p>Few interesting things:</p> <ul> <li>This is a 1.4 miles hike with 475 ft elevation gain.</li> <li>The hike takes about 35 minutes.</li> <li>Ascent and descent speeds as well as times are roughly same (note that I do not made any stops except at ends of the trail).</li> <li>My speed while ascending is 2.4 mph and vertical speed is 14 ft/min or 840 ft/hr. Not too bad.</li> <li>This hike has average grade of 16%. This is just 1% more than max allowed by typical gym treadmills. At steepest point the trail is 30% grade while about the "safe" max limit on typical maintained trails.</li> </ul> <p>Using my watch which can measure elevation I thought that was 300ft elevation hike. Obviously my watch can easily be 100ft off. Here's the elevation profile of this hike:</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUm5UGuyTviLov5XjHzi8mIz2HeerDFJKzI8zGyFC7-EIEVJ4Gfg2IIoDE6emZg6J3U25EBCcQCJ0-7HPtNKaM_vjhXz05yHUIqOLGlILPZqk2rnTRyXNWqXAcNp21CCLfa9SCcA/s1600-h/image%5B3%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaew8SBQ50-0YEo9Lq5IngTegko51z53im_QHodv__CYI_JwqQJ_0HMy6u8lzbmMJ0hCIWiV98TyfabVjePlQ8DYWeYz5NxR3Et_2jf99Buzi2vVJ-L0QRzxrIfcBNwzdrZFOxYw/?imgmax=800" width="244" height="164" /></a></p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-11299001567148179802009-02-14T03:02:00.001-05:002009-02-14T03:02:49.452-05:00Treadmill Grade to Angle Conversion<p>Gym machines like treadmills and even some roads express the slop as "grade" in percentage. For example, most gym treadmills allow up to 15% grade. I've left going to gym since last few months and instead I'm doing this Snoqualmie Falls hike almost every other day (which is 0.5 miles one way and 300ft elevation). But occasionally I have to go to gym because of early sunsets. I usually put max grade (15%) and speed walk for one mile burning 350 cal. So naturally the question is how many feet I climbed?</p> <p>For this I need to convert grade in % to angle. But what is "grade%"? Turns out it's ration of rise/run or in other words,</p> <p> <img src="http://shitalshah.com/default.aspx?$grade=\frac{tan(\theta)}{100}$" /> </p> <p>So your vertical climb in feet is given by,</p> <p><img src="http://shitalshah.com/default.aspx?$\sin(\tan^{-1}(grade.100)).5280.miles$" /></p> <p>So by that calculation, at maximum grade on gym treadmill I climb 783.2 feet for each mile I walk. Not too bad.</p> <p>Via conversation <a href="http://forum.onlineconversion.com/showthread.php?t=7377">here</a>.</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-59601980041716134712009-01-23T07:14:00.001-05:002009-01-23T07:42:59.041-05:00What is the best time to hike Zion Narrows?<p>I LOVE slot canyons and Zion Narrows hike is something on my To-do for very long time since I saw it in a <a href="http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=60029430&trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=2061597409_0_0">documentary</a> and <a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Zion_Canyon_Treasure_of_the_Gods_IMAX/60000565?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=1473599445_0_0">IMAX</a>. So when I saw this deal from Southwest about 50% off on all travels my first thought was to book tickets to Las Vegas (nearest to Zion) or SLC. Due to restriction on this deal the travel needs to be completed by May 31st.</p> <p>So the question: Is last week of May the best time to do Zion Narrows? I've fanatically looked for answer all over and here's the summary. Disclaimer: that I haven't been there so all these research comes from web, not my experience.</p> <p>My criteria for "best time" is fairly simple: </p> <ul> <li>Avoid wearing dry/wet suit to do this hike</li> <li>Avoid wading in 1ft of water for miles</li> <li>Pleasant 70s temperature that allows good other hikes like Angel's Landing </li> </ul> <p>Several websites have various opinions on "best time". A <a href="http://www.zionadventures.com/best_seasons_to_hike_the_narrows.html">top Google hit</a> puts up a table indicating May, June and Septembers are the best. This is way too fuzzy answer because early May is actually as worse as April and it doesn't tell you different late May really is compared to late June. Yes, there is a big difference!</p> <p>Next, other websites gets more specific and tells you late June and late September is the best time. We are getting closer to a specific answer but still no data points.</p> <p>After lot of searching I finally hit the pot of gold:<a href="http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ut/nwis/dv?cb_00060=on&cb_00065=on&format=gif_default&begin_date=2008-01-01&end_date=2009-01-01&site_no=09405500&referred_module=sw">USGA Water Data</a>! This website has exact numbers for CFS (cubic foot per second) and gage height data for each day all the way back to 1988. The rules are quite simple: anything below 50 CFS is easy and 250 FS is too much. The USGA has done fantastic job in presenting this data on website. For example, here you can see CFS levels for 2008:</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRt7E-LFHsIbf3rBKRdraYkkEoPS0vO7ZIweRpTq_28wT0gKzmVGR8cAQh4mwUDx5sB55d9A1qTHVyuK4qDXtQrQUPi2vrCkCj-keXscPxvacp1tzK25dN6h8FjCzx27pGW_F3mg/s1600-h/image%5B14%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_mlwfBfxsuaAdrbF7vQBBMvwGcfLwNgs7mSrQIzCOStxSLj_AoeyGnsUD5EUubozsKj45OI7d31PlGxiqiRHLBLkoDV1RqdpzUlI9De5ZS98jcVLGUrWsN8etcltTzgxO91OTpA/?imgmax=800" width="464" height="318" /></a> </p> <p>Now you can see late May is not all that good but it is rapidly getting better over entire June although it takes all of the June before we get 40 CFS. This means late June is pretty good time to go but difference between early June and late June is almost two fold! Then notice all those spikes in early July. My guess is those are flash floods or thunderstorms. On other hand look how stable mid-end September is! We get 30 CFS almost all month.</p> <p>Here's the corresponding chart for Gage Height: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5z7H73qsgMGFIIybtxuRzLmMuu0j1voj0Fkd54SFawydCnal6vVOLBfPf5SfnA9OCyshyphenhyphenLk3yRG-qZ1fzVv6RDtHq7NUIzdyi4zxKRJGQuHE3_m0pfC0_SLbXgtlC8aiY4atzQw/s1600-h/image%5B16%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1DYwtzazZLTfY7Ok09hOnXxNA4o9AVzSTajn51dTo2BVkrN75uGR5fpFdmUoSTLahkfUGnuL1H6mxfo-pwgAxyHg3IKYagcS6LmB4bHN0V4S5klvqmTSqj5lW0S9URwaDyfutg/?imgmax=800" width="467" height="320" /></a></p> <p>So we are looking at about foot of water at May end and about quarter of that in mid-end September.</p> <p>Likewise you can go through charts for may years back. It obviously varies from year to year. For example, year 2007 had very low stable CFS at end of May unlike rapidly decreasing high levels of 2008.</p> <p>For the past few years worth of charts that I checked <strong>one theme emerges: mid to end September has most stable and low CFS!</strong></p> <p>But how about temperatures? Here's where <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/NORMS/DisplayNORMS.asp?AirportCode=KCDC&SafeCityName=Zion_National_Park&StateCode=UT&Units=none&IATA=CDC">Weather Underground's seasonal average feature</a> helps! Here is the seasonal averages weather graph for Zion National Park:</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB4JFoK9EwPhpLayCfxWJSqzhYOfCo1lLjTo_-jwgw0X48Wbj5868E5_g8CcDcS4ug2-7kIclcZbHQt2V59oxu849HDPeHVwVoo31Bj5nL1XAVuQNzMjRPa5UMNaY4kx1SK-LMpA/s1600-h/image%5B17%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb2n7OCZ7buE3tJzoW7vdbfc_GRybSKyelBT9R8JyLZxlPo4LThucFgTQUgMlRwWuS2lpzmtkVSx_GwicNDYlR2LVSK3dePpWETmwqOvUXmBD2HysQj0KNMREesqWuE2UcZqT58A/?imgmax=800" width="462" height="687" /></a> </p> <p> As you can see, the temperature in mid-September is pleasant 70s just like in June.</p> <p><strong>So there you have it! Mid September to September end (2nd and 3rd weeks of September) is the best time to go to Zion National Park and Narrows. That's when you are most likely to get stable low water levels.</strong></p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-53450502111813769622009-01-04T21:22:00.001-05:002009-01-04T21:32:58.006-05:00Mount Si - Take #2<p>Today I tried Mount Si hike again and returned back before I saw "Snag Flats", second time. Snag Flats are supposed to somewhere between 1300' to 1500'. It's relatively small hike that you can do in 2-3 hours (full hike to summit of Mount Si is a long 8 hour 3200' climb). Today because of heavily packed wet snow it was extremely slippery. Many people even had crampons on. People who did not had any <a href="http://www.ems.com/catalog/subcategory_simple.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302879862">traction devices</a> (like me) had very hard time to go up on slippery trail and even harder time to come down.</p> <p>I would not do this trail without wearing <a href="http://www.rei.com/product/774966">Kahtoola Microspikes</a>.</p> <p>Last time I'd to turn back at1250' because I'd started too late and it was getting dark. Today I got up to 1440' but still saw no sign of so called snag flats or a view point where Mailbox peak and Mt Rainier can be seen. But then I suddenly realized that I'd forgotten my camera on the trail during last water break! So I went down to look for it but didn't found it. I finally got down in parking lot and walked there for quite sometime looking for any lost & found places (<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104533212117189621673.00044d8c694b6da7eb931&ll=47.496618,-121.732464&spn=0.031315,0.090637&t=p&z=14">Mount Si trailhead</a> has HUGE parking lot and somehow there are always dozen cars there). Several people were coming down or going up but no one had seen it.</p> <p>Then an amazing thing happened. Just when I was driving out the parking lot and I was almost out, I decided to stop for a minute and put up a sticky note. And I suddenly saw 3 guys coming down and they had <a href="http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=11592&pq-locale=en_US">my camera</a>! It was just a matter of few seconds and I would have left. Thank you strangers!</p> <p>PS: Those 3 guys mentioned that they were going to return it to ranger station. So next time if you loose something always check with ranger station or forest service.</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-69098487841958687922008-11-30T05:18:00.001-05:002008-11-30T05:18:33.782-05:00So, which digital photo frame is the best?<p>If you are in the market to look for Digital photo frames this note will hopefully save you some time. It's really frustrating to buy one of this when selection is so large. This is very nice Christmas gift to your loved ones. I take lots of photographs but rarely have time to actually see them. So they are excellent gadget even if you want to buy for yourself!</p> <p>One of the coolest feature in new frames is wireless connectivity to Internet. You can throw RSS feed from flickr or other photo sharing websites and the frame will download the new photos automatically. Some frames would even allow you to specify tags in Flickr for the photos you want to see in frame. So imagine your parents or grandpa suddenly see your trip photos in their photo frame as it is occurring! This the way photo sharing is supposed to be.</p> <p>There are two major services that most of these digital frames supports: <a href="http://frameit.live.com/">Windows Live FrameIt</a> and <a href="http://www.framechannel.com/">FrameChannel</a>. These services helps deliver even more stuff like weather and news in your frame.</p> <p>There are quite a few vendors offering these types of frame. Some of the current models (11/2008) are:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/490897-REG/Digital_Spectrum_U_40118_MemoryVue_MF_8115_15_Premium.html">Digital Spectrum MemoryVue</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.earthtechproducts.com/p2569.html">Memory Frame by Earth Tech</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.momentolive.com/Tech.aspx">Momento Live</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.edgetechcorp.com/accessories/12-digital-photo-frame.asp">Digital Frame by Edge Tech</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DSM-210-Internet-Photo-Frame/dp/B0014B8GR8">D-Link Internet Photo Frame</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.pix-star.com/product/language/GB">PixStar Photo Frames</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.estarling.com/">eStarling WiFi Photo Frame</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.i-gala.com/product">iGala Photo Frame</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.photovu.com/digital-frames">PhotoVu Widescreen Wireless Frames</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SPF-105V-10-Inch-Wireless-Internet/dp/B001GXRWCE/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3RC50455WHXTJ&colid=29A7YSXW6L4G7">Samsung Wireless Internet Frames</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kodak-EasyShare-W1020-10-Inch-Wireless/dp/B0016NOTOI/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=IY8LFHFUZVOR7&colid=29A7YSXW6L4G7">Kodak EasyShare Frames</a></li> </ul> <p>Lots of choices! To make filtering easier I would suggest to eliminate anything below 15" size. Those sizes (8" and 10") are typically only useful if you want to put frame on the desk just couple of fit away from you. Also frames below 15" will have resolution of 800X600 at best which is not all that good. Even the low end laptops have 15" screen and run at 1028X768 so you can put your laptop where you want to place frame and see how it looks.</p> <p>In above bunch so far only two frames are 15" or bigger. One from Digital Spectrum and another from PhotoVu. The PhotoVu ones are actually even larger and really expensive ($700+) so for most people only descent choice may be <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/490897-REG/Digital_Spectrum_U_40118_MemoryVue_MF_8115_15_Premium.html">Digital Spectrum MemoryVue MF-8115</a>. There you go, that's the best value frame as of Thanksgiving 2008!</p> <p>What about the future? Actually if you look at of lot of deals around you will see that LCD displays as big as 22" can now be bought for under $170. So I would predict that bigger frames especially in 15" to 19" range would be under $200 by Thanksgiving 2009. Most of above manufacturers who still don't have 15" models would probably have them pretty soon. Another important note is that life space of LCD frames is not very huge. Most manufacturers aren't releasing this data but depending on brightness levels it can be as low as 20,000 hours. Now that comes out to just above 2 years. So don't consider these frames as your long term investments.</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-23578582429727713942008-11-03T19:03:00.001-05:002008-11-03T19:03:23.383-05:00Do you really need 1080i or 1080p or 1440p?<p><a href="http://www.burnyourbonus.info/hdtv-faq/faq3.html">This study</a> basically says that if you have 50" TV and you are watching it at about 9' of distance then 720p has all the resolution human eye with 20/20 vision can ever see! </p> <p>Currently we use 80X40 screen through our Panasonic projector PT-AX100U. Now that's equal to almost 4 of your tiny 50" screens so certainly 720p won't be enough at our current viewing distance of 10' (our current screen size is limited because of wall size and I think the projector is perfectly capable of going up to 100" diagonal). Actually at that size looks like even 1080p won't be enough. The 1080 runs out its steam at just 76" screen.</p> <p>For now we will probably stick with our 720p projector though. The 1080p projectors are still super expensive right now($2500+)! Whoever said current HD technology is "enough"...</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-80569749488631260742008-08-15T19:46:00.001-04:002008-08-15T19:46:15.516-04:00How Much Is There To See?<p>We often say there is just too much out there. You can't even possibly see everything that this universe has to offer in a million year or even a billion year.</p> <p>Consider an image with resolution of 640X420 (i.e. better than standard TVs and pretty close to DVD) and RGB color depth of 0-255. Although not the best, this is perhaps a good approximation for the human eye. With this setup there are actually only 4457 billion images possible. Let's say you were watching one image per second then in about 141,332 years you would have seen everything that is possible to see! If you were making video at 25 fps with each frame being unique then within 5653 years you would no longer have anything else to shoot.</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-11251736821842678942008-06-09T07:34:00.001-04:002008-06-09T07:34:28.515-04:00Oil Prices - Summary of 4 hours of news bits in past month<p>I did not knew oil prices had crossed $4 mark and got a huge surprise to see that last Thursday. I don't watch news generally because much of it is irrelevant but after we have set up PC to our TV it's much easier to see exactly what matters. So I was just watching series of MSNBC videos going all the way up to May on oil prices going up, people leaving their RVs behind, people trying to sell out their SUVs, GM planning to dump Hummer, people choosing to do home barbeque instead of traveling for memorial day... There is a new term called Staycation for people staying home for vacation (we heard another term "Junctober" to refer to colder windier October like weather in June at our visit to Vason island)! a big dose for me of all of that. However the most worrisome part was airlines cutting down 25% of the seats and tickets sky rocketing 2X to 4X. So I looked up SEA to SLC and fortunately Utah ticket is only gone up by $75 ($225 to $295). Yes, big increase but its not like $600 - yet. It would be painful to think of Utah drifting away from the reach. On the other note, gas prices in Europe and elsewhere is about $8 so it's not very unrealistic that US prices will match up to that in not very long term. However all indications are that if oil prices goes above $5 there will be a crash in economy because lot of businesses are currently trying to swallow this increase in one way or another and with continuous rise all of them will finally dump it on customers.</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-56304569873232550942008-04-12T02:17:00.001-04:002008-04-12T02:17:25.361-04:00Kiwi Berries<p>Oh... these Kiwi Berries from Te Puke, NZ... some of the best fruits in the world!</p> <p><img src="http://www.nzkiwiberry.com/images/kiwiberry_pic.jpg" /></p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1144899152489786152006-04-12T23:32:00.000-04:002006-04-12T23:32:32.560-04:00The ACM Turing Programming Contest Problem Set ArchiveHere's the list of problems used in ACM Turing programming contest. Surprisingly, like many other such contests, lots of problems are s simply a variant of shortest-path problem.<br /><a href="http://www.acm.inf.ethz.ch/ProblemSetArchive.html#A_FINALS">The ACM ICPC Problem Set Archive</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1141809768502378432006-03-08T04:22:00.000-05:002006-03-08T04:24:19.356-05:00Another Pick At RandomnessThere is lots of intersections on my thoughts on randomness with Chaitin's. I think his papers would be extremely interesting. I think it could be significant advancement to my Minimal Instruction Set and Program Complexity theory I'd been toying with many years:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/">G J Chaitin<br /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1141808235002032262006-03-08T03:57:00.000-05:002006-03-08T04:27:39.800-05:00CritticallThis is very interesting concept. I wonder if a language can be specifically designed so that genetic algorithms can natuarally be applied. Notes as my next project!<br /><br /><a href="http://critticall.com/">Critticall<br /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1128095964806599922005-09-30T11:59:00.000-04:002005-10-07T01:22:49.990-04:00Earth: The Largest Neural ModelIt appears that the individuals in population and their interaction with each other very closely models neural activities in brain. The entire neural network can be looked upon as smaller fractal version of human population, with lot fo details vanished. In other words, an alien might prefer to look upon Earth as the planet hosting one huge "brain" instead of individuls independently living their life!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1128095503730099932005-09-30T11:51:00.000-04:002005-09-30T11:53:35.593-04:00Why BN.com Has To Suck?I've written quite some code whoes sole users are probably just few dozen people. Even than I'd went to extra-ordinary lengths to make sure that code was having highest number of features and ease of use than anything else that existed and was comparable. There are lots of businesses everywhere ranging from car rental companies to book stores who have, unlike me, thousands and thousands of users every single day, staff of hundreds and millions to dollars spend. To add all the cool features in their services that would delight their users every now and than, it would take probably cost a sub-percent of their revenues. Why it doesn't happen? Why it is so hard for Barnes and Nobel to create a website that can proudly stand besides Amazon in slickness, modern looks and innovation? Cost is certainly not the factor. What is it? Why certain part of eco-sphere is doomed to be second class regardless of available resources to them?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1126556403365421552005-09-12T16:20:00.000-04:002005-09-12T16:20:03.406-04:00Things Behind The eBay DealI couldn't have read more braindead deal than Skype for $2.1 billion. Obviously Skype isn't worth that much (so far it has got invetsments of under $21M). One could have built much more feature rich, customized software for 1000 times less money than that. What about future? Wouldn't Skype have revenues of zillion dollars in 2010? No, it won't. Biggies like Microsoft and Yahoo are already coming up with similar software with far deeper reach than Skype could ever imagine to have. Plus cable companies are throwing away entire need for computer and microphones and have very soon plans to dial from regular phone and route it through Intenet.<br /><br />So why executives at eBay would decide to through away half of their cash in deal that needs everyone to take microscope to find what's so good about it? There are many deals like that have happened in past where people just can't find justification and had just has to go with the aura of the buyer. My guess is that big heads in eBay is going to get, somehow someway, huge cuts in this deal. The thing is that when company has $4B floating in thier bank account, its not easy for executives to get it simply transfered in their bank accounts. So you go out, cut the deal to buy $2000 car for $200,000, have seller spend $188,000 on things you liked but which you couldn't have directly spent by yourself. And meanwhile, cross your fingers to have journalists think you are a smart guy and have them keep discussing that there must be something super cool in that car that a visionary like you can see but dumbass journalists like us can't. I meant those journalists which your PR department haven't bought out, yet.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1126029320723156672005-09-06T13:55:00.000-04:002005-09-06T13:55:20.753-04:00Exception Code Template For CodeRushHow CodeRush could miss this template? Anyway you can copy and paste this in CodeRush Options (Expert mode) to have your own!<br /><br /><font size=2> [System.Serializable]<br /> </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>public <font color="#0000FF" size=2>class</font></font><font size=2> InvalidDataException<br /> {<br /> </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>public</font><font size=2> InvalidDataException()<br /> {<br /> } <br /><br /> </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>public</font><font size=2> InvalidDataException(</font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>string</font><font size=2> message) : </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>base</font><font size=2>( message )<br /> {<br /> } <br /><br /> </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>public</font><font size=2> InvalidDataException (</font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>string</font><font size=2> message, System.Exception inner): </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>base</font><font size=2>( message, inner )<br /> {<br /> } <br /><br /> </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>public</font><font size=2> InvalidDataException (System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationInfo info, System.Runtime.Serialization.StreamingContext context) : </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>base</font><font size=2>(info, context)<br /> {<br /> }<br /> } </font>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1125553217080108342005-09-01T01:40:00.000-04:002005-09-01T01:41:57.666-04:00Hurricane FormationsSince yesterday night the question how Hurricane takes birth was eating me away. I resisted googling it and try to find the answer just using what I know. My best bet was 2nd law of thermodynamics (which I've become a huge fan due to <a href="http://www.secondlaw.com">this website</a>). The 2nd law essentially says that nature intrisinkly tries to equal out everything. That means if there is high pressure somewhere, the inherent consequence would be nullify the excess and have an equal average pressure everywhere. So I'd been trying to figure out what kind of pressure patterns would be required so a rotation would occur. I planned out a little computer simulation of this with the guess that a ring of low pressure would probably produce hurricane-like whirlpool.<br /><br />Aha, I was dead wrong. The 2nd law would prevent cyclone from happening instead of be a reason to produce it. My wife intuitively pointed out that hurricane would occur due to warm air that goes up where the cold air is but while it does so, the Coriolis effect kicks in which would produce whirlpool (similar to the whirlpool produced when flushing the toilet). Her intuition is awesomely right. All hurricanes in northern hemisphere go in anti-clockwise and southern hemisphere in clockwise. The huge power that a hurricane demonstrate is supplied by rotation of the Earth which itself is so massive.<br /><br />I was also intrigued by how hurricanes are named. It turns out some international committee has preset list of names starting with letter A,B, C.. for each year. The list repeats every 6 years (i.e. names for 2005 hurricanes would be same as 2011). While now many names used are male’s names, previously only female names were used to name hurricanes :).<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1123180605506540752005-08-04T14:36:00.000-04:002005-08-04T14:36:45.530-04:00Endless ColumnsThere are only few tracks <a href="http://music.yahoo.com/track/1781258" title="Blue Man Group - Endless Columns">that</a> can be so immensly philosophical and still be modern and classy. Ofcourse, there are no vocals.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1122177325990122922005-07-23T23:55:00.000-04:002005-07-23T23:55:26.033-04:00The Business Experiment<font size=3>This <a href="http://www.thebusinessexperiment.com">Business Experiment </a> got initially attracted me but I immediately realized why it would bring only an average or below average results. This experiment basically wants to try running a startup by votes from the people. The idea is to harness "wisdom of the crowds". I think, the smartness factor would be averaged out in this sy</font>stem instead of "more than sum of its parts". It's blind one-shot voting after all; not a structured logical argument going in the crowed which could otherwise have made difference. Other way to look at it is that such business is already in existence which is virtually run by voting and belief system of crowd: government! It may be fairly robust and may be sufficiently stable over centuries of existence but its the most inefficient business that we know of.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1121715150691306842005-07-18T15:32:00.000-04:002005-07-18T15:32:30.740-04:00Google Indexing LegThis is different for different websites but it took Google 24 days to index my last blog entry!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1121485301785221422005-07-15T23:41:00.000-04:002005-07-15T23:46:55.156-04:00Finally Runs Even If Method Returns!<code><br /><font size=2> </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>using</font><font size=2> (DisTest o = </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>new</font><font size=2> DisTest())<br /> {<br /> </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>return</font><font size=2>;<br /> }</font><br /></code><br /><br />OR<br /><br /><code><br /><font color="#0000FF" size=2>Dim</font><font size=2> o </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>As</font><font size=2> DisTest = </font><font color="#0000FF" size=2>New</font><font size=2> DisTest</font><br /><font color="#0000FF" size=2>Try <br /> <font color="#0000FF" size=2>Return <br /><font color="#0000FF" size=2>Finally</font></font></font><br /> <font size=2> o.Dispose()</font><br /><font color="#0000FF" size=2>End <font color="#0000FF" size=2>Try</font></font><br /></code>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3906724.post-1121481123149759622005-07-15T22:32:00.000-04:002005-07-15T22:32:03.193-04:00Interesting HeadersThe response headers returns with Google's logo looks like this:<br /><code><br />Content-Type: image/gif<br />Last-Modified: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 21:06:18 GMT<br />Expires: Sun, 17 Jan 2038 19:14:07 GMT<br />Server: GWS/2.1<br />Content-Length: 8558<br />Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 01:52:05 GMT<br /></code><br /><br />And for some gif served by IIS on Win 2003 Server looks like this:<br /><code><br />Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0<br />X-Powered-By: ASP.NET<br />Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 02:08:59 GMT<br />Content-Type: image/gif<br />Accept-Ranges: bytes<br />Last-Modified: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 09:12:29 GMT<br />Etag: "20bb944a9a20c51:acc"<br />Content-Length: 3779<br /></code><br /><br />You can get this by using Web Developer Toolbar's Information > Reponse Header button in Firefox.<br /><br />Interesting things are:<br /><ol><br /><li>Google is not using Cache-Control: max-age=xxxx header which tells browser to cach the image for a while and not re-request from the server again. This is surprising because you would think Google would use every possible way out there to reduce the load on their server.</li><br /><li>Google has named their custom web server as Google Web Server, not surprisingly.</li><br /></ol>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17770894365676216610noreply@blogger.com0