Kick Ass Weekend
Have a great Labor Day weekend, everybody!
360° Light Field Display…
From the Graphics Lab @ USC Institute for Creative Technologies
We describe a set of rendering techniques for an autostereoscopic light field display able to present interactive 3D graphics to multiple simultaneous viewers 360 degrees around the display. The display consists of a high-speed video projector, a spinning mirror covered by a holographic diffuser, and FPGA circuitry to decode specially rendered DVI video signals. The display uses a standard programmable graphics card to render over 5,000 images per second of interactive 3D graphics, projecting 360-degree views with 1.25 degree separation up to 20 updates per second. We describe the system’s projection geometry and its calibration process, and we present a multiple-center-of-projection rendering technique for creating perspective-correct images from arbitrary viewpoints around the display. Our projection technique allows correct vertical perspective and parallax to be rendered for any height and distance when these parameters are known, and we demonstrate this effect with interactive raster graphics using a tracking system to measure the viewer’s height and distance. We further apply our projection technique to the display of photographed light fields with accurate horizontal and vertical parallax. We conclude with a discussion of the display’s visual accommodation performance and discuss techniques for displaying color imagery.
That’s way too cool…
Awwww… wook at da wittle chimp…
Hilarious Screaming Frog
If there was ever a museum that needed to be blowed up, this is it…
The Creation Museum in Kentucky is one of those things that I just can’t believe Americans would be that stupid. Way to make us look like a bunch of morons, guys! The idiotic museum opened in May. Here, three students attend the opening and make a short documentary. Enjoy.
Flying Saucers Go Into Production
US company Moller International has begun to manufacture parts for its Jetsons-like personal flying pod, the M200G Volantor.
The M200G is the size of a small car and is designed to take off and land vertically.Company founder Dr Paul Moller calls the craft “the ultimate off-road vehicle” as it is able to travel over any surface.”It’s not a hovercraft, although its operation is just as easy,” said the aeronautical engineering boffin.”You can speed over rocks, swampland, fences, or log-infested waterways with ease because you’re not limited by the surface.”Moller International has not arranged for training or licensing requirements to operate the vehicle.
The company has said the price for its M200G could start as low as £44,340 depending on the number ordered.
The Pope is smarter than Texas
Two news items came to my attention today.
First, the Governor of Texas (Rick “the dick” Perry) has appointed a creationist to head the Texas State Board of Education. This is not good. Soon texas is going to require that science textbooks discuss intelligent design. The textbook companies, needing to sell textbooks in texas, are going to comply. Then we’re gonna see these textbooks being forced on other school systems who have no choice but to buy the textbooks that the companies are selling. The same texbooks that were made to please the Texas State Board of Education.
Then i saw that The Pope commented on this debate, calling it an “absurdity”. Hey if the Pope says evolution does not conflict with faith, why cant Texas get it’s act together?
Fuck you Rick Perry. You’re a idiot, a moron, and a fucktard.
New @Home Project
This is important stuff… If you have extra computing cycles on your computer (and everyone does…) help NASA look for Earth killing asteroids… Click…
(Note: This project has simply been approved by NASA and work units aren’t being distributed yet, but I’m really excited and I’m sure Carl Sagan would be as well (if you know his views on our potential demise as a species)) I’ll let everyone know as soon as I know they are sending out the units.. in the meantime, there are quite a few other @Home projects that need your cycles… (Mr. Quadcore)…
He should put the bowtie back on… at least I’d like looking at him then…
In other news, Norman Borlaug was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor yesterday… Let me just say to him, “Thanks Norm… You’re perhaps the greatest human being to ever live.” He was credited at one time (before receiving the Nobel Peace Prize) with saving a billion people’s lives worldwide… I mean, Jesus was pretty cool and all, but Norm is the shit… This is from the Huff Post story about him…
Yet Borlaug is unknown in the United States, and if my unscientific survey of tonight’s major newscasts is reliable, television tonight ignored his receipt of the Congressional Gold Medal, America’s highest civilian award. I clicked around to ABC, CBS and NBC and heard no mention of Borlaug; no piece about him is posted on these networks’ evening news websites; CBS Evening News did have time for video of a bicycle hitting a dog. (I am not making that up.) Will the major papers say anything about Borlaug tomorrow?
So, it’s tomorrow, today (isn’t that crazy how that works) of what I could find on this news in the past week, only newspapers covered it… Nothing on any MSM nightly news program… At least the WSJ covered it, but then they had to do the whole ‘if he listened to all you hippie anti-development fucks, millions of people would be dead.’
About his Nobel Prize (which he thought was a joke when he was first told he was being awarded one) “When the Nobel Peace Prize Committee designated me the recipient of the 1970 award for my contribution to the ‘green revolution’, they were in effect, I believe, selecting an individual to symbolize the vital role of agriculture and food production in a world that is hungry, both for bread and for peace.” What a humble, humble man…
From the Bill passed by congress, and then signed by ushy-Bushy… “Dr. Borlaug has saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived, and likely has saved more lives in the Islamic world than any other human being in history.”
I don’t like that they tossed in that sort of “fuck you” to the people of the Islamic world who hate us right now (with some good reasons), but well said… BTW was Tucker tossing a “fuck you” at Dr. P with the Manilow comment? I couldn’t tell…
Science in yo face
Great site. basically just a collection of great science demonstrations from around the net. Some old, some new. All entertaining.
