The displays should arrive today, meanwhile I'll be out of town on business. I hope they arrive before I leave, or who knows what will happen...

*fingers crossed*



I thought I'd get this going by dropping in a half-finished version of one of several designs that I've started for my new project, The Sheer Line. I'm designing them as large format prints, but just how large depends on who I can get to print them.

There's a possibility that I'll be holding a public exhibition this year (there's been some interest from the regional art gallery director), so I'm getting a head start by working through some concepts I've had sitting in the back of my head over the last 6 months.



Last weekend was lots of fun... Saturday disappeared quickly and Sunday was spent out and about with two of my friends Todd and Aden (old friends are always the best friends ;) We hung around the city and South Bank for most of the day and went to see the Shaolin Warriors that night. The seats were good and the show was intriguing. I liked the 'weird' things the best: breaking metal bars using their heads, snapping staves over heads/arms and a number of other odd/dangerous-looking activities, like being suspended by 4 spears.

My new LCDs are still about a week away from arriving, I think. Because they're a special order, the stock has to be brought in directly from Hitachi. If they arrive earlier at the start or middle of next week, I'll have them sent by courier to here. It would be more expensive, but much easier.

I've also been looking into colorimeters and calibration tools for LCDs. Right now my CRTs are well balanced, but they're too dark (which means that, as an example, the side panel to the left probably appears to be a mid-blue on most computers, when it really should look much darker and richer).

If you don't want to hear about how colour on monitors is handled, just skip over the next two paragraphs ;)

The colour profiles I'm using right now were created by Sony, but I think they over-estimated the gamma of the monitors.

The gamma refers to the offset of the gradient of brightness between 0 (black) and 255 (white). In a perfect world the brightness on a screen would be identical to the brightness that the monitor was told to display, but because of the phosphors used in most computer screens the brightness of the output is actually a curved line with respect what it should be. For example, 127 brightness usually isn't exactly half as bright as 255, it's probably really displaying about 135 brightness. To fix this problem you use ICC profiles, which change the output signal being sent to the monitor to compensate for the monitor's lower or higher brightness at particular levels. On LCDs the problem can be more challenging as they exhibit a more S-shaped brightness curve. There are some sophisticated tools such as the Spyder and MonocoOPTIX, but I don't know anyone who has one that I could borrow (and spending $400 just to get my displays perfect is exorbitant when I could just use some free software to get it 'nearly right'). I might ask around and see if someone local that I've dealt with has one I could try, but my chances are slim that anyone would have one.

*end colour correction techno-babble*

This week I've continued coding.

*start encryption techno-babble*

Currently I'm working on finalising the RC4 encryption tie-in with the credit card system I've created, as well as the MD5 routine to hash passwords. RC4 is an "industry standard" encryption method that's very difficult to break. The number of possible keys is roughly "a 3 with 38 zeros after it", or about 340 undecillion combinations: 3.4x10^38, i.e. "a lot". MD5 is a "hashing" algorithm that is designed to scramble text in such a way that it's impossible to unscramble it (even if you want to). Although that sounds useless it has some great practical applications. For example, storing a user's password is dangerous because if anyone ever was able to steal or view the database it was stored in, they could then try to use those passwords on a user's e-mail account, or internet banking, or any number of other private things that you don't want people having access to (if the user used the same password for many things). Instead, you store the password's MD5 hash, and that way even the person that has the database doesn't know what the user's password really is. To check if the user enters the correct password, you simply run what they enter through MD5 and compare it with the stored MD5-hashed value. Much safer for the users and lower liability for the database administrator. If the user forgets their password, you simply create a new one for them (which they can use to log in, and then change to whatever they want).

It's surprising to see the number of sites that don't implement these systems. Disturbing is how many sites store credit card information in an insecure manner...!

I'm about to annihilate most of my bank account by jumping into the world of visual clarity, ordering two 20.1" 1600x1200 TFT LCDs to replace my existing 17" CRTs (which I can hopefully sell to my friends, where I know they'll get a good home :)

It's an upgrade that I've been trying to do for a long time. At first my main aim was to get the additional screen real estate of using 1600x1200, so I was considering 19" or 21" CRTs. After a while though, not really being happy with the sharpness of most CRTs, I decided that LCD would be a better choice. At the time there were no LCDs that had a native resolution of 1600x1200 and were large enough to use comfortably, so I've had to wait for the technology to catch up with what had become industry standard: 19" and 21" CRTs that could deliver 1600x1200 at good refresh rates.

Two of the biggest problems I've had with computer displays (lack of clarity, lots of flicker at high resolutions) are solved with TFT LCDs in the forms of discrete pixels and cold-cathode backlighting. The issue then becomes "how fast can the TFT be updated", or what's known as the pixel response time (the time it takes a pixel to "rise" to a brightness level it's given, and the time it takes a pixel to "fall" back to black).

Originally I was trying to find Sony X202 displays, but instead I've ordered Hitachi displays. The Sony X202s aren't available in Australia, their response time isn't as good as the Hitachi displays, but they cost a lot more. It became obvious that I should abandon brand loyalty ;)

I'd write the model name in here, but I can't remember it; Hitachi haven't got the hang of giving their products simple names :)

I was going to write a lot more in this entry, but that was before I got distracted (I started writing this in the car on the way to Brisbane, now it's a day later and I'm sitting on the floor with the laptop, about to roll over into bed).

Anyway, I'll be going to see the Shaolin Warriors at the Lyric Theatre tomorrow (in 'brain' dates) with a few friends, so that will be good :) I didn't know they were touring around here until Toddles told me, and the rest is history, as they say. The rain has settled again, but next week should bring some more. I think we need another good week of solid rain, though :)

'night.

Because they never work!

It's the one technology that's actually a handy idea, but refuses to work when you really need it to. The famous "tone of death" strikes again as the machines report "FAILED: 0 pages of 1 sent!" and can't negotiate...

*groan*

Now that e-mail is prevalent you would assume at first that people with access to e-mail would rather have something sent to them digitally, as opposed to using an antiquated telephone system. Yet people continue to use this failing technology, even when the alternative is much easier.

Facsimile: It wastes paper, jams, has low resolution, fades quickly, fails often, consumes time, causes frustration, is non-archival and often expensive if you're trying to send to a location that isn't local.

E-mail: Is quick and flexible, can contain multiple media, is cross-platform, rarely fails, doesn't require additional phone calls, is inexpensive for sending to locations that aren't local, can handle large documents, retains the documents' original formatting and flexibility, can be sent to multiple people simultaneously, can be blind-sent, can be sent from just about anywhere on the planet, doesn't require a device to be always powered on and connected to the internet, is archival and allows your message archive to be accessed from just about any terminal (using IMAP).

I understand that fax is great for people that don't have a computer and internet access... but now, nearly every business has a computer of some kind (even if it's old and clunky) and internet access through dial-up or ADSL is dirt cheap.

So for businesses that already have a computer and internet access, why on earth would you want to use facsimile? I'll never understand it (I must be missing something).

Today, the first Animatrix was released online for download. It's called The Second Renaissance Part I, and is very cool. It's a hefty download of 141 MB, so those without broadband might have to wait until the series is released on DVD later in the year. The other episodes have already started screening in selected cinemas, but I think most areas of Australia will miss out... so you can grab the first few for free from whatisthematrix.com or wait for the DVD release later :)

The skies have opened and are bucketing rain, as they have been for the past 24 hours. It's the result of tropical cyclone Beni, which crossed the mainland earlier today, bringing with it highly humidified air. This wet weather should continue for a few more days and is a welcome addition to the weather-scape!

A possible new client phoned yesterday, while projects continue to be coded. As suspected, my current main side project will not be ready for a few more weeks because of other work, but is steadily piecing itself together.

Massive Attack have just released their next album in Japan, with it hitting stores here on the 11th. I've heard the album already and it's definitely the album I'll be playing throughout next winter, along with OSI's debut CD (which is released on the 18th along with the limited edition CD set).

Today it "looks like rain", but so far nothing has come of it but a lot of wind. Forecasts indicate we should get some rain later today, continuing on Monday and Tuesday, but the forecasts don't seem to be very accurate for this region. The rain is needed; everything's drying up.

In shocking news, the USA space shuttle Columbia (the oldest of the fleet) didn't make it safely back to earth, disintegrating above Texas earlier today on re-entry. It's easy to forget how unpredictable and dangerous space travel is now that launches number over 100. To the spectator watching via video, it seems like a routine process. The reality is of a hyper-complex system under enormous physical stress, with thousands of elements required to work together flawlessly for a safe maneuver. It's a sad day for the world when something like this happens - it strikes at the core of humanity. Our natural instinct for exploration can lead to terrible consequences.



Attack of the domain campers: Here's a laughable story. I saw that frasercoast.com had been taken by domain campers and so I fired off an e-mail to see how much they wanted.

The response follows:

Hi

Our asking price for frasercoast.com is US$ 10000

Regards
Mirko Takac
JoinNet
info@JoinNet.com
+46 515-800 36

To which I replied:

Thanks, and good luck.

Though I was originally considering "LOL!" as my reply ;)