Category: Uncategorized

Well, I’ve finished with the easy bit. I’ve written code to grab a frame from the webcam and do a bit of postprocessing. The postprocessing looks like a good step towards making barcode recognition easier. I’m only working on this at nights so far, so I figure coping with the poor lighting I have in… Continue reading UPC scanning

A memix of blasts from the recent past. How many do you remember? (Did I just coin the word “memix”? Meme + remix!)

I’ve acquired a new PC from the office flea market at the knockdown price of $50. With an Athlon 2200, GeForce 4400, and 1.5GB of RAM, it’s going to be my MAME machine. A significant step up from my previous MAME machine (Athlon 800, GeForce 3, 0.5GB of RAM). My only dilemma is whether to… Continue reading New PC

Delicious Library is a non-free Mac application that catalogues your library of books, movies, CDs, etc. It does this in an inspired way: apparently you simply hold up the item to your webcam (or iSight as the Mac people call it) and it will read the barcode and discover what the item is automatically. Clearly,… Continue reading Open barcode database, anyone?

(or 1200 bits wider, if you like) The more observant among you will notice that this blog column has become slightly wider. This is because the default WordPress theme has a 450 pixel wide column, whereas the “medium” size photo on flickr is 500 pixels wide. To prevent photo squashing, I did some CSS hackery… Continue reading A bit wider

You’ve seen them. They’re cropping up all over the place now, and not just for online banking. I’m talking about those so-called “secret questions” that are supposed to authenticate you if you ever forget your password. They are (sort of) based on the principle of two factor authentication. Except they actually make the system less… Continue reading Secret questions and two factor authentication

I’ve just discovered Project Euler (from Osfameron, via Planet Haskell). This seems like great fodder for recreational mathematics and Haskell programming. Some of the simpler questions I might even co-opt for interviews (I have been known to ask the interview question “How many trailing zeroes has 100!” which has a similar flavour). I haven’t programmed… Continue reading Project Euler

People who aren’t (or who aren’t accompanying others) pushing strollers, in wheelchairs, or riding/propelling some other form of wheeled transport should not use lifts when there are perfectly good (and probably quicker for everyone, if you would just use them) escalators available about 50 yards away. I mean, does anyone actually enjoy what are already… Continue reading Elevators in malls

I’ve added support for OpenID. For those of you from LiveJournal, this means you have an easy way to post comments here. You’ll see an OpenID URL box when you comment. You already have an OpenID – LiveJournal invented it – and it’s simply the URL of your LJ: for example, mine is http://elbeno.livejournal.com. Put… Continue reading OpenID support

Girl gets arrested & charged for taping 20 seconds of “Transformers”. Clearly what we need are flash mobs of camera-carrying moviegoers who take it in turns through the movie to hold up their cameras for 30 seconds to look like they are recording, but actually tape nothing. DoS the system!