Analyzing Code in Movies – Tron Legacy Does Great

If you are a programmer like me then you probably stop to analyze/assess the quality of any film when computer code appears (by pressing stop, pause, rewind, and play [and sometimes screenshot shortcut keys thereafter]). If it weren’t for the independent toolbars at the top of each window open (see screenshots below), then I would score Tron Legacy’s accuracy of what code really looks like a 10/10; but since they do, I award them a solid 9/10.

Disclaimer: I am not the holder of any credentials in the field of movie critiquing. Please do not make any life-changing decisions based on my 9/10 rating.

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Mac OS Screenshot does not Allow DVD Player to Appear in Captured Region

This is the first time I have ever taken a screenshot and had the Mac OS manually hide an area of the captured region (in the case, using: “CMD+SHIFT+3”; takes a screenshot of the entire screen).

I was watching the first [of our generation’s] Sherlock Holmes on DVD (using Mac’s built-in DVD Player) when I took the screenshot, see below: 

The Beauty of Galaxy Formation (Simulation Videos)

Well, we all know just how beautiful our very own Milky Way Galaxy is…

But how much thought have you put into how these galaxies form? For starters, and to give some frame of reference, it takes billions of years for a galaxy to form. And considering that humans live less the 100 years on average, this truly puts things in perspective (i.e., creating beauty takes time… a lot of time).

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has really done something incredible. Simulating the formation of how a galaxy is formed (while also identifying some interesting trends), like I’ve never seen in such astonishing detail.

Here is a video simulating a galaxy being formed:

Another related video, including trend analysis of various sizes of galaxies with commentary from some of the researchers on the project, below:

The full article regarding this research can be found on this NASA page.

… thank you NASA (and the universities associated with this project, and all others) for being relentless in your effort to further strengthen our understanding of the universe .

 

• note: To simulate 13.5 billion years in the life of a single disk galaxy, NASA needed more than your average desktop PC. The memorable video below is the direct work of the agency’s Pleiades supercomputer and, by NASA’s estimates, approximately 1 million CPU hours.
• see also: NASA.gov (Maggie’s Blog), shows detailed frame-by-frame of small and large galxies forming over billions of years.

YouTube has 3D Option for Select Videos – I never knew…

First time I have seen this was today (while checking out the AngelHack Hackathon site).

Usually, I do not see this feature while watching videos at YouTube.com–pretty neat!

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Update 1: When I when back and refreshed the ‘3D’ option went missing… I am not sure if this was because YouTube is only randomly (and selectively) offering the feature to 3D-compatible videos… or, if it was because I had too many additional apps (using memory) the second time I went back (after I refreshed the page). Supposedly, the latter is the more likely.

Update 2: Revisiting today (5-4-13), I toggled the video resolution to 1080p HD. Only after this, the ‘3D’ option would then appear. Apparently, you must put the embedded player into an 1080p HD mode (by clicking the ‘gear’ icon in the lower-right). Possibly, the 3D icon/option becomes visible when the embedded player is in any HD setting, e.g. 720p.

 

Two of the Best Web Apps I’ve Ever Seen — leveraging HTML5 and JS

 

Two of my all-time favorite interactive (and most user-friendly) web apps were discovered both this week…

 

First honors (but just barely) would have to go to thedevs behind famo.us. Using only JavaScript and HTML5, they have taken the growing physics-driven web apps to an entirely new level. As one Forbes.com article puts it,

“…the company’s HTML5 development platform that incorporates a fully featured physics engine into its revolutionary surface rendering engine. And all of it is pure HTML5 and JavaScript. No plugins. No third-party libraries. Just unbreakable 60 frames per second animation of hundreds of 3D surfaces with physics. And Famo.us allows an app to do all of these things with the content itself. In developer-speak, these are manipulations of objects in the DOM (document object model), the core method of representing content on the web.”

 

famo.us:

Famo.us Peek 1

Famo.us Peek 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a close finish for second-place, a web app which shares information in a way that is not only interactive and fun, but also very design-savvy.

 

Vienna, Austria:

Interactive Vienna Website Preview

My Fascination with Finance and CS–Resulting App

Led me to build an app using JIT and d3.js. It’s a soon-to-be-useful-tool in my startup‘s technology.

Check it out: