Multi-Touch Interaction Experiment Gone Mad

We all have seen Tom Cruise in that futuristic science-ficition thriller set in the not-too-distant future, “Minority Report“. Remember the scene where he goes through hundreds of video archives looking for that segment of evidence to arrest someone of a “pre-crime”?

Well, I guess maybe that’s not too science-fiction after all… The clip shown below demonstrates what’s called a “Multi-Touch Interaction” technology for touch screens. Most touch screens today can only accept one user input at a time. But this new technology recognizes and is able to interpret multiple user inputs at any given time.

Apple has reportedly applied for a patent that covers similar technology.

Why Linux Will Never Make It to the Mainstream

To get ready for a Linux class I am taking, I have to put Linux back on the old Dell I have abandoned ever since moving Grace to the Mac. I decided to try the latest flavors out there — Ubuntu 5.10 and Fedora Core 4.

Linux has been great as a server environment for me. But I have been frustrated with it since the Redhat 8.0 days (precursor to the current Fedora project). Nothing has been intuitive in almost every aspect of the Linux wold. Everything from application naming convention (WTF is “Gimp” if you don’t Google it?), install, setup to the simplest things such as application upgrades. I have picked up quite a bit of Linux just from Googling and learning everything myself with occassional Q&A sessions with Kyung. But it never seems to get any easier.

Ubuntu
Start with Ubuntu, the latest and the greatest and the most recent “king of ease of use”. Sure enough, the entire installation and setup process was seamlessly fast — took less than 3 hours with everything installed and done. It was as easy to install as the Windows installation process, I thought. And all it took was one 700MB disc. Easy! I liked the experience so far.

But it sucked when it came to upgrading Firefox from the default 1.07 to the latest 1.5.0.1. I had to download Firefox, extract the file to some other directory, make symbolic links in one directory while changing other files and variables to make everything happy. Screw that. I tried using apt-get to update the software automatically, but then I was too lazy to figure out where to fix the repository list so that it’d get the latest Firefox, so I ditched Ubuntu.

Fedora Core 4
On with Fedora. I have used it quite a bit before. But that didn’t make the experience any easier. Upgrading Firefox was a bit simpler. But I still had to go through similar hoops. The main stumbling block on Fedora was trying to get VNC server to work properly (so that I can free up the monitor for my laptop). To demonstrate how much crap I had to do to make it work, here’s what I did…

1. Install VNC server by issuing this command

1
yum -y install vncserver

2. Check to see if vnc server has the right runlevel:

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/sbin/chkconfig --list | grep vnc

;
but I got this:

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vncserver 0: off 1: off 2: off 3: off 4: off 5: off 6: off

(hint: runlevel 5 should be

1
on

)
3. Change runlevel:

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/sbin/chkconfig --level 5 vncserver

4. In

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~/.vnc/xstartup

file, uncomment these two lines:

1
2
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

5. From the menu, go to “Applications > Preferences > Remote Desktop” and change options to allow remote users to control the workstation
6. Change rules in the iptables file (Linux version of a firewall) in

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/etc/sysconfig/iptables

by adding a new rule:

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-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 5900 -j ACCEPT

(5900 being the port I need to open to allow VNC to accept communications through that port)
7. Restart iptables:

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sudo /etc/init.d/iptables restart

8. Start VNC server:

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sudo /etc/init.d/vncserver start

Yeah sure, I have everything in one place now. It sure took me some work and digging to put all the pieces together. Can an average Joe get VNC to work not knowing all this? The answer is obviouly a NO. And I rest my case… Unless things drastically change in simplifying the environment, it will never be in the mainstream.

UPDATE 06/14/2006: More info on how to set screen resolutions for vncviewer.

All the Web Colors Under the Sun

I was looking for more variety of colors other than the standard web-safe colors provided by BBedit, my preferred plain text editor for programming on my Mac. I found a pretty damn cool site that converts Pantone colors to RGB and Hexdecimal colors.

This color conversion tool allows you to convert Pantone® Spot Colors to RGB (sRGB) color values (Red/Green/Blue) and Hexadecimal color values (Hex). You can also view a Web Safe Color Palette and X11 Color Keywords with RGB, Hexadecimal and CSS Shorthand Hex color values.

It’s unfortunate that the combinations of web browsers, monitors and operating systems all treat colors differently. There’s no real way to have a uniform color palate… But the website is pretty cool nonetheless.

Time Travel Impossible. Distanceless Travel A-OK.

Slashdot has an interesting article referencing the possibilities of time and space travel:

“The bad news is that time does not change. Spatial velocity is given as dx/dt. Velocity in time(dt/dt) is nonsensical. As simple as that. In other words, no time travel to the past or the future, no motion in space-time, no wormholes and no hanky-panky with your great, great grandmother. There is only the changing present, aka the NOW. The good news is that distance is an illusion and we’ll be able to travel instantly from anywhere to anywhere.”

Just the kind of language to impress a hot date.

An excerpt about the concept of “space”:

The Nasty Little Truth
Physical space is given as a collection of positions. The idea is that, in order for any physical entity or property to exist, it must exist at a specific position in space. But if a position is a physical entity that exists, it too, must exist at a specific position. In other words, if space exists, where is it? As with time, one can posit a meta-space but this quickly turns into an infinite regress. The nasty little truth is that there is no such thing as space.

Interesting theories. I haven’t had time to look into the author of the site yet. But he has all kinds of crazy stuff (and of course, “crazy” is a relative term).

via [Slashdot]

Fetal Cells Protect Mother after Birth

Amazing article/audio from NPR once again.

Morning Edition, February 8, 2006 · Some scientists have proposed that when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or a daughter, but a gift of cells that stays behind and protects her for the rest of her life. That’s because a baby’s cells linger in its mom’s body for decades and — like stem cells — may help to repair damage when she gets sick. It’s such an enticing idea that even the scientists who came up with the idea worry that it may be too beautiful to be true.

Link to the audio.

via [Slashdot]

Connection in Video Games and Literacy

My Thesis Committee Chair, SuAnne, suggested that I read up on linguist James Paul Gee and his book, “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy” about certain the idea of how the notion of “value” is often perceived differently by different people.

In the book, Gee points out that video games go beyond just helping children with their hand-eye coordination. Rather, the whole idea of video gaming requires a different kind of literacy — the kind that’s not even taught in schools these days. A good example he used was a simple sentence in basketball lingo. To someone who doesn’t understand the sport, s/he would simply read the sentence literally and superficially, completely missing the underlying message about the strategy or situation in which the basketball players are engaged in. On the other hand, to someone who is “literate” of basketball lingo, the seemingly simple sentence is much more profound and interesting.

The same can be applied in video gaming. Gee argues that each and every video game requires a different set of learning and literacy aquisition. Children understand the notion of themselves as the main character in the game. And they understand the difference in fantacy and reality (i.e. they are the character in the game but return to being themselves outside of the game). Furthermore, as game consoles become more and more sophisticated, so are the games. And they demand steeper learning curves. But children aren’t discouraged from playing them. Why? Because they are engaging, and they present problem solving possibilities that are simply not available in most schools.

Take for example, a game Gee’s six-year-old plays presents a few possibilities in confronting a sleeping enemy — wake him and confront him head on, sneak pass the enemy without awakening him or confront him and recruits help from other characters. This kind of problem solving skill is more engaging and involves critical thinking and planning. Compare that to what is being taught in typical American schools (I assume he was talking about schools in America), teachers and administrators are so stressed over testing and result-driven curriculum that they just want to get the “basics” down — reading, writing and arithmetic. But how do they apply the skills to the bigger picture of social literacy (which is a big theme in the book)? Children have learned to read and write so they can test well. But can they truly read and write in the social and interpersonal context?

Gee also reminds readers about what video game means to different generations of people. To the baby boomers, video games are a waste of time. And he’s not surprised. But he points out who are they to judge video games when they can’t even understand the literacy required to understand and play the games? He argues that this is where the problem is: People who don’t value social and inter/inner-personal literacy in children are making all the policies in education and running the schools. It’s no wonder that kids are failing at schools but doing exceptionally well when it comes to the most challenging games available. That makes the game designers the master teachers today, Gee concludes.

At one point the author ponders on an interesting question: What does it mean to have a rapper who can rap but can’t read or write? How does the academic world see someone who can rhythm but can’t read sheet music? Are they any more crippled than kids who can read and write but can’t pick up the meanings between the lines of songs that depict social issues?

James Paul Gee is a linguist and educator. Coming from points of views of liguistic development (in a broader sense) and education, he makes the book that much more interesting. Unfortunately the edition I read is plagued with misspellings and ongoing babel on certain points that make the reading a little distracting and confusing. But all in all, just the first two chapters alone are worth reading (the rest of the book is about his learning theories).

Server Problems

Our server in Texas went down in the afternoon yesterday and didn’t get back up until pretty late last night. That was pretty annoying. I can only imagine what kind of mail failed to deliver during the down time. So I hopped on over to Roller Network and set up a back up MX record to hold and deliver emails in case my server misbehaves again. Roller Network provides free back up DNS and MX service.

After this experience, I think I am going to set up a rsync scheduler to back up all mine and my clients’ data on our spare Mac’s hard drive at home soon. Growing pains of small business… The operation is big enough to warrant its own server but not profitable enough to set up a redundancy system for down times like the one we experienced.

UPDATE 02/07/2006: Roller Network provides an awesome log of messages delivered through its system. It turns out that my mail server sometimes does take longer to respond (due to all the spams it has to sniff through) and some emails ended up delivering through Roller Network. It turns out that its delivery mechanism identifies and blocks known spam emails!! Wow!

via [Broobles Blog]