It may not look like it. But that’s what we’re doing. Actually; Norah is cleaning up my drawings in Illustrator: tomorrow we burn!
All posts by Peter Terezakis
“Movement of camera sensor by 1/2 pixel width halves acuity.”
The title of this post was just one of many facts which Professor Rosenthal imparted during our first class. I think about this every time I consider picking up my camera.
Above is the image sensor of my camera (.jpg lifted without permission from Nikon).
According to the manufacturer’s specifications it possesses 36.3 million pixels and measures 35.9 mm x 24.0 mm
In full-frame (FX) format the device employs 7,360 pixels by 4,912 pixels.
If we disregard that:
1) the image falling on the sensor is round (as in round, not rectangular optics), that about thirty percent of those pixels aren’t used (because the image from the lens isn’t falling on them)
2) there are a chunk more pixels which are cropped from that circle to make the rectangle which we eventually do see, in an ideal situation, we have:
35.9 mm wide /7360 pixels = 0.0048777173913 mm approximate distance between each horizontal sensing pixel
and
24 mm wide / 4912 pixels = 0.00488599348534 mm approximate distance between each vertical sensing pixel.
This means that movement as little as 0.00244299674267 mm in the vertical plane or 0.00243885869565 mm in the horizontal plane will degrade the acuity of my images by half.
White-balance and exposure tests using north-facing local monolithic sample of Neoproterozoic CaMg(CO3)2
Vitor Freire and I teamed up for this assignment. We set our white balance using the gray card given to us by Eric, made certain we were in manual mode and went to work.
We soon realized that we were unable to acquire a a single sample image which included the park’s fountain and trees that did not include an area which was either under or over exposed. You can see the images with their respective histograms on this flash animation:
[kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”http://www.terezakis.org/itp/flash/park.swf” width=”800″ height=”500″ targetclass=”flashmovie”]
[/kml_flashembed]
I found myself bemoaning not being in a stage to shoot our tests; I am very comfortable lighting sets – which is why I usually like the challenge of shooting on location. Close to despair I turned to an area of the Washington Arch to which whose face was in shadow.
You can see our test results of photographing CaMg(CO3)2 (aka dolomite) by clicking here and letting a new window open. The .jpgs on that page are linked to original .tiff files.
If you are curious about the title of this post, it turns out that Washington Square’s Washington Arch was fabricated from a local material called Inwood Marble. Gneissly speaking while it itsn’t schist, it also isn’t the marble of Carrara.
I like mineralogy and geology a lot so I checked it out.
(BTW – if you didn’t know that the hanging tree was either where the fountain is now or where the arch is located, or if you didn’t know that the 9.75 acre park was once a cemetery and is built over the remains of 20,000 people, you might want to read this fascinating Wikipedia entry for even more information.)
Escapement: Functioning Jewels Beyond Bauhaus
Eric Rosenthal sent me a link to the video below. The news stand, piles of magazines, fashions, graphic design, near empty streets, tugged at the edges of memory: I was in Italy for a brief time in 1961 (though I seem to remember that things were in color) a year after this film was made.
If artless, unintentional beauty of complex mechanical movement is of interest, the documentary’s glimpse into the incredible engine which was the linotype machine is worth watching.
The way things go: Peter Fischli and David Weiss
Here’s the link to the two artists who made what is now a seminal film in 1987.
“Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right.” – Don Norman 2011
We had some reading to do for class. It wasn’t only that I took exception to dated text. I get persnickety when it comes to presenting ideas regarding art, design, history, politics, and technology to artists. Then again some say I am persnickety in general. Anyway, the first reading was Don Norman...
 |
I was bored to tears by the insipid, clever, whining of Don Norman about design. Reading Norman was reminiscent of someone attempting to divert accountability for keyboard entry errors (due to a lack of understanding) by referring to anomalous events as computer “glitches.” His tone is not dissimilar from the individuals who detonated ALL of the fireworks at once for the 2012 Fourth of July display in San Diego (call it a case of premature detonation) and blamed it on a “glitch.”
“Glitches” went out as an excuse for failure by all except the most non-technical illiterati after the release of MS-DOS 2.0 right after the, “dog ate my homework.” Though a case might be made for persistent glitches in Windows operating systems right up to XP service pack 2.
As usual, I Googled the writer. On his UCSD teaching site Professor Norman had this to say: “Today’s technology, especially that of the Personal Computer, is too complex. But the potential is enormous. ” You would have thought that an MIT EE & Computer Science graduate would have been a bit more forward thinking. Professor Norman was certainly correct about the potential of the PC, even if he failed to grasp what was so unique about the protean nature of microprocessors.
Creating the mantle of cognitive scientist, he was able to focus on exploiting the insecurities of others of his generation – and his seniors. He made a career out of being a whiner: inventing problems was a realized necessity for his job:
“Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right.” – Don Norman, 2011
Professor Norman’s quote is a good lead in to what I thought while reading Bret Victor’s, “Brief Rant on the Future.” Yes, I agree with a possible interface of the hand with accompanying gestures.
Let us bourree beyond our cro-Magnon ancestry, beyond Bret Victor and his hammer. What of speech as an interface? I talk to the machine, it talks back to me (ideally telling me that it did what I asked). If Apple quit being so Microsoft these days, maybe they would fix Siri and we would be one step closer to a better interface for everyday uses.
Or how about multiple manners of human-machine interface? Why must there be an exclusive interface? What ever happened to choice? In my studio I have eleven hammers, each one for a different job. I cannot use a sledge hammer to drive a tack (accurately, anyway), any more than I can use a ball peen hammer to drive a wedge to split a log: match the tool to the task.
While the future is never what anyone says its going to be, the seeds for tomorrow are around us now. Engineers and designers will continue to experiment and innovate. Today’s machines will evolve in order to successfully compete in the global marketplace. Ultimately it will be the customer who will determine the evolutionary paths of products.
About a year ago I was complaining to an Apple technician about not having control over the system font size on the iPhone. He patronizingly told me that Apple was planning on making smaller devices, not larger, and that I should look to another vendor for a phone. Now Apple is planning on rolling out four and six inch phones in response to the pounding they are taking from Samsung and others.
Bummer that Apple has become so much like Microsoft. But this is the fast moving near-present; not the future.
White balance test revisited
| OK. This is pretty white and correctly exposed. |
 |
 |
| Click for larger image. |
The Body and the Future are Eclectic
Here’s my two cents about tomorrowland: The future is in the transhuman.
Mankind has been struggling against the fetters of the flesh, the banal, the mundane since the discoveries of clothing, psychoactive drugs (including alcohol), body building, steroid use, meditation, and every manner of modification including neck stretching, teeth filing, skin coloring, scarification, tattoos, elective surgeries, the crippling of children to improve their careers as beggars, and more.
I am surrounded by a growing percentage of individuals visibly sporting more tattoos than traditional circus attractions and convicted felons. There is also a plethora of hardware hanging from forehead, lips, and nostrils – including hog rings (and that is only what is visible). In addition to piercings there are implants of every manner including dental, dermal, breast, calf, and buttock. There are even the absolute creepiest DIYs for piercing of the male member.
Beyond the realm of vanity and elective mutilation, organ transplants are no longer uncommon, and growing replacement skin and organs is burgeoning technology: fiction’s fodder has become reality.
The first company which is able to receive FDA approval for an implantable computer interface is going to make a zillion dollars – even if it “may” cause brain tumors should the user exceed “casual use.” The age of the megacorporation is upon the public and we are their food.
The discovery of the point contact transistor in 1947 New Jersey was less than a hundred years ago. Watson and Crick published their historic work in 1953. Developments in genetic engineering are more impressive than those of computer technology. However it is because of computer technology that the rate of contemporary genetics research is possible.
Organic processes (like evolution) are rarely clean, neat, or isolated. Almost without realizing it as such, we are well into the age of the Transhuman:
My friend Stelarc could be correct; transhumanism may be where we are heading. The first person to figure out how to implant/grow animal features (plates, scales, fur, feathers, and/or muscle mass) in human beings will be a zillionaire. Smeary tattoos and non-essential holes in the flesh will be the equivalent of bell bottoms and bobby socks.
E-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y wants to be something more than what they are now. Some even want to be machines and/or have sex with them. It could even be that AI will remove the human from the equation of the future altogether.
Machines will evolve. Clever people will make clever products and market them in clever fashion. That’s the way things work.
In a world of posers, whiners, and “wanna-bes,” David Cronenberg may be up to something. Any volunteers?
Support SB 833 : Protect Sacred Sites and Clean Drinking Water
Support SB 833 : Protect Sacred Sites and Clean Drinking Water
[emailpetition id=”4″]
RE: SB 833 (VARGAS) Water Quality and Sacred Site Protection in San Diego County – SUPPORT
Dear Governor Brown:
I would like to take this opportunity to ask you to please sign SB 833, by Senator Juan Vargas. This bill would prohibit the operation of a waste disposal facility within 1,000 feet of a drinking water source and within 1,000 feet of a site that is listed with the Native American Heritage Commission as sacred to a federally recognized Indian tribe. This bill would put a stop to the proposed Gregory Canyon Landfill project, which would be built on the border of the Pala Indian Reservation and next to the San Luis Rey River.
The Gregory Canyon Landfill presents numerous environmental problems, not the least of which is the threat to water supplies. The San Luis Rey River flows past the mouth of the landfill site; two California Water Authority pipelines that supply drinking water to San Diego County are located within the landfill footprint; and a vital groundwater aquifer lies underneath the site. A landfill in Gregory Canyon would unacceptably threaten the safety of these water sources.
A landfill in Gregory Canyon would also desecrate Gregory Canyon and Medicine Rock, two sites that hold tremendous religious significance for Native Americans throughout southern California. SB 833 would help insure that these irreplaceable sacred sites are protected for future generations.
Protecting precious water and respecting the religion and culture of Native American tribes is of utmost importance, which is why I respectfully urge you to sign SB 833 and protect Gregory Canyon forever. I respectfully ask you to preserve the Earth and Sky which are Sacred to both Native and non-Native Americans who have made this great land our home.
Sincerely,
Gears: Disraeli, Planthopper, and more….
| As a child, I never liked gears. I’ve always associated them with cars, trucks, and buses. They never came alone and were invariably accompanied by noise, dirt, grease, and unpleasant smells. I really grew to hate them when my father would draft my company to help him work on the family car(s). |
| “The mind of a child lasts one hundred years.” – Japanese proverb. |
| I’m still not a fan of mechanical objects. Never have been. No matter how graceful they may be made to be, they are old-fashioned, clunky, inelegant, and prone to failure. Guess there is some truth to the above. Now I am looking at gears and mechanisms to get through this class in order that I might not appear as a non-cooperative stick-in-the-mud (or worse).Today I discovered something very interesting. Looks like gears are used in the insect world to assist in locomotion. I may have to reassess my emotional bias against gears for being – if nothing else, too “man-made.”Click the image of the photograph by an electron microscope of gears in the jumping legs of a “planthopper nymph.” |
 |
| You are probably wondering about the reference to “Disraeli Gears,” the only gears I ever liked. Here’s the album cover which was totally cool when I was in high school and the album (if it doesn’t get yanked). |
You must be logged in to post a comment.