Recent News
wmiirc and Disks
(From the not-useful-unless-you-use-Linux-like-I-do department.)
So, I've been using wmii as the window manager on my laptop. Other than changing its default meta key to be the winkey (I should really do something about that branding), setting it to launch uxterms, configuring it to show CPU and battery info, and setting up pidgin to change a tag color on new messages, I haven't had to change its default settings at all.
That may seem like a lot, but in the world of "nonstandard" window managers, well, it isn't. Programmers (the probable main consumers of -- and face-slappingly-obviously main producers of -- such WMs) are picky people. Indeed, the fact that I didn't have to edit the source code to do any of this is right civilized! (Unlike switching the meta key in, say, Fluxbox.)
However, I did manage to do something stupid when performing that second-to-last tweak.
First some background:
wmii has a status line at the bottom of the screen.
In the wmiirc script there is a function -- status() -- whose output is pasted into the lower right at some frequency.
To display battery information you simply create a program (likely a shell script) to echo the information you'd like displayed and have status() call it.
I learned as much from this forum post, which also includes a handy script to produce exactly the sort of info I wanted to display.
Thus, I adapted this script to my needs and it has been quietly working ever since.
But my hard drive has been being accessed every five seconds (even when the computer is apparently idle) ever since I set that script up. Turns out that here-documents in bash create temp files. Creating temp files is disk activity. Disk activity makes kjournald decide to write a journal every five seconds. Which is probably not good for the disk, definitely not good for battery life, and quite annoying. Here's my version with that problem fixed.
By the way, should you find yourself in a similar pickle, echo '1' > /proc/sys/vm/block_dump.
It will produce kernel messages (viewable by dmesg -- you probably want to turn off your system logger while doing this) which will let you know who is causing blocks to need writeback.
SIGGRAPH Panic
(Reported far after the deadline.)
SIGGRAPH is crazy. What do you do when you need more space to edit your video? Well, to be fair, I had those backed up on another computer. Still, it was the most convenient spare 10+ gig.
And kdenlive is quite buggy (not old days cinelerra bad, but...). I've resisted up to now, but I may have to write my own nonlinear video editor. Or maybe try blender's built-in editor. The key is to write up a library that can load and seek video files in a frame-accurate way, with minimal pre-processing and memory overhead.
Dead-Bugging a QFP32
This morning I spent a few hours soldering a QT1103. Now, the QT1103 comes in a QFP32 form factor -- a form factor which was almost certainly never meant to be soldered by hand, and, just as certainly, never meant to be soldered without a nice little footprint of tinned smd pads. But you can connect to them, so I had read, by flipping 'em on their back and soldering small wires to each pin, the result of which you see above. While this may look like a terrible job (a) there aren't any bridges and (b) this is really really small -- these wires are individual strands of a stranded copper wire.
Of course, I have yet to see if the device will actually work after I went to all this trouble (I could have cooked it, after all). But whatever the outcome, it was certainly the most fiddly soldering job I've ever done. I begin to see why people pay $20-$40 to have a PCB made.
SIGGRAPH Day 5
Well, that's it. The end.
I gave my talk today, and people seemed to appreciate it (and the presentation software). It would be cool if someone else started using my presentation style, but I doubt it will happen. On the plus side, this was a fully morally-correct presentation: linux and my own presentation software -- no non-free taints.
I also got my final sticker sheets: TCHOW in color + some 'redacted' stickers to place over my laptop's hard-to-remove branding. All told I have enough stickers to even give a few away or stick them on stuff.
SIGGRAPH Day 4
Today was exciting. I made stickers (again), and talked with Mat Shlian, who does cut and folded paper sculpture. The thing pictured below impressed me because it has a nice springiness.
I chatted with some interesting folks during the poster session; not so much about the poster and more about life in general. Most interesting was the conversation with a film restorer about how noise is removed and then re-added for old films.
I went to the reception and hung out with various people; found out that some other folks are also considering research much like mine (but I think it will be okay).
I did a talk dry run in here somewhere too. Should be interesting to see how it goes tomorrow.
SIGGRAPH Day 3
Not much happening that I was interested in today. Saw Ton Rosendaal and others talk; resisted the urge to get a photo with him. Picked up my stickers from Studio; I shall definitely do more! Digital Domain's pre-vis for Speed Racer used the Top Gear intro music.
I went to the Computer Animation Festival. There was a long run of films from a French school (supinfocom, if I recall), all of which had a lazy animation style that offended my eyes. It was very much like being slowly crushed by rocks. The other films were good though.
SIGGRAPH Day 2
Sat in sessions in the morning, talked with people about my poster (and about gradient paint) in the afternoon. Brian Curless apparently has something coming out at ECCV worth checking out. Gradient Paint seems to impress and confuse people (though different people are confused by different parts).
In the art gallery, I came across a cleverly cut sheet of steel:
Then came TCHOW logo-stuff.
Thanks to emerging technology (and the guts of an old printer), one can enjoy a TCHOW-branded cup of coffee, as pictured above -- though, unfortunately, they weren't actually allowing people to drink the coffee. So one could look at it, at least.
That's a lenticular print of the tchow logo (that is, a flat image with a lens sheet over it allowing for different views per-eye). Sort of very much like a zig-zag-folded piece of paper really. Upshot being that, in person, it's 3d. Which is nifty!
Finally, I made some TCHOW stickers, but those haven't printed yet.
SIGGRAPH Day 1
Doing a fast-forward is a bit of an adrenaline rush, I must say.
Everything else was pretty much me just being sleepy and hanging out; Alex Evans was going to talk but he canceled (which was disappointing).
Ed's keynote was nice -- I need to catch up with him and see how he reconciles his commitment to produce the best possible content with being a profit-seeking public comapny.
SIGGRAPH day 0
Consider this the first of my SIGGRAPH reports. I figured I'd write things up this year to capture the event for posterity.
Approaching the building, I began to again meet the realization of the sheer enormity of the event. The venue (the LA convention center) is giant, just like all the other venues have been. Somehow I always forget this.
I was early for registration and thus about the third person in line for contributer registration. For some reason I never got the mini-guide that is so useful for finding one's way about the conference. I'll have to get one tomorrow.
Also, I didn't get the ribbons I was entitled to (I got "Paper Author" and had to ask for "Poster Contributer" and "Paper Reviewer" -- by number, in fact) The ribbon-accounting is relatively poor, so I could probably easily have gotten some other ribbons I wasn't quite entitled to (I recall that Wojtan may have managed something of the sort last year). Nonetheless. I think there might also be a speaker ribbon or paper presenter ribbon or something. Really, it's all just silliness anyway.
But, on a positive note, I did get the copy of the proceedings I was entitled to (unlike last year). Of course, maybe it would have been better not to -- given as I spent the next five hours walking around with it in my backpack.
I did manage to relieve myself of one burden: my gigantic 8'x3' poster barely squeezed onto the provided board. (I did see at least one 8'x4' poster already up, so while I was tied for maximum width I was not at maximum area.) I put some post-it notes nearby with a request-for-comments; I'll see if anyone uses this novel system to interact with the poster.
So that's about it for day zero: some items lost, some gained, some not gained that should have been and some gained that perhaps, more prudently, shouldn't have been.