paranoid blog

Holy *’$@#! I just looked at slashdot for the first time today and I really can’t believe what I’m reading: A 13(!) year old sixth-grader from california just got 6.5 million dollars in venture capital for a company he co-founded and which he is said to have been running the last year or so in his garage.According to the slashdot article and the original article behind it the kid raised the first capital for his company by selling online game items. Now his company tries to fully commercialize this market and offers game publishers a platform enabling people to sell and buy online game stuff (like that kick ass wow sword you always wanted) directly in-game.Ok, we were already getting used to 18 year old dot com millionaires and other web 2.0 strangenesses, but this story now seems to set a new record. So I guess that all those college students wishing to start their own companies should hurry up just a little. The next generation of kindergarten enterpreneurs is already forming…

Tags: TheStuffKnownAsMisc by admin
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Edit: There is a new version of this software.

I’ve just finished my first Cocoa/Objective-C application. It is called (right now) ‘iSightMaster’. It enables you to control your mac using your iSight and simple motions of your hand (or red/blue colored objects). The screenshot below shows a configuration of iSightMaster in which Expose is triggered if there is a motion from right to left with a certain speed. At the moment iSightMaster is still in its alpha stage, so it ony recognizes simple up/down,as well as left/right motions. If you would like to try it out yourself, then download the application here: isightmaster.zip  (should be a universal binary)Below the screenshot is a short description how to use iSightMaster. Controlling Expose using iSightMaster:

1. Start the application. If you see a black and white image appearing, iSighMaster isworking on your computer.
2. We will use motion detection in this example: Set the sliders according to the screenshot above. Play around a little bit such that ‘motion left’ is shown in the log only when you move your hand, etc., fast enough from right to left.
3. Click ‘Add…’, then enter in the left cell ‘motion left’ and in the right cell ‘tell application “System Events” to key code 101′. (You can enter any other AppleScript you wish in this field)
4. Now Expose should be triggered whenever you perform a quick left to right motion.
5. Have fun experimenting and drop a comment with your experiences.!

Note: This software is probably very buggy! So use it at your own risk! I do take no responsibility for whatever damage you might do to your software and/or hardware!

Tags: MacFun by admin
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Check out this: http://www.wissenschaft.de/wissenschaft/news/282945 (in German). Some scientists apparently have been trying to find a difference in how persons who consider themselves rather liberal (or conservative) deal with new situations. The result they came up with seems to be quite interesting: Whenever the situation in the experiment changed, in most ‘liberal brains’ a different area was activated than in the ‘conservative brains’. The ‘liberal area’ in the brain seems to be the anterior cingular cortex. The scientists conclude that this might be a clue to whether political opinions are inherited saying that political opinion usually doesn’t change throughout one’s life. I can imagine the next Fox News headline: ‘Scientists: Liberals need brain surgery.’ 

Tags: TheStuffKnownAsMisc by admin
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According to this article on forbes.com a US B-52 bomber mistakenly(!) flew around six nuclear armed missiles across several states of the US. Guess I’ll go rent me some Kubrick DVDs now…

Tags: TheStuffKnownAsMisc by admin
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Hear ye, hear ye, this is the song of Ibem and his chosen people, the Siliconites.This is the song of the first covenant of computation and the breaking of the seal.
In the beginning there was Ibem. And Ibem ceated the first covenant with man who then went forth to adore Ibem and bring the message of peaceful compuation to the people of Itarnia. And for a time it was good. [Read more →]

Tags: TheCovenant by admin
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