Miscellaneous Debris – Archive

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I don’t know when the Biluyim’s next show is – rumor has it they’re playing next Saturday at the Abraxas pub in Lilienblum – but whenever it is, do yourself a favor and catch it. Take it from me. Go.

Common compression algorithms use statistical analysis of data to determine common patterns and give those patterns shorter representations in data. And I’m thinking – if the data to be compressed is a block of text, can a dictionary not be used to compress the data? Have the compression program have an indexed dictionary, and replace […]

The Uncanny Valley is the strange discrepancy in people’s emotional reactions to robots (originally). When they’re completely inhuman, they’re cute, and the reaction improves the more human-like they get – until you reach a point where the reaction flips and turns into repulsion – until you reach a further plateau where you’re again close enough […]

Been going over an old issue of Wired, from 1999. Middle of the bubble. It’s all about Dow Jones continuing to inflate throughout the 2000’s, much-funded little-product startups (described in glowing terms) and suggestions for all the new millionaires on which charities to give to. Oh, the sweet optimism.

Nothing quite like working at 1024×768 on a 14″ laptop monitor to give you back a sense of perspective – and SPACE – when returning to your beloved 17″ LCD at 1280×1024. Aaahh….

Amsterdam was great for clearing my head, but it left me dead tired. House-sitting for my folks is a great way to pass these last days of vacation in total mental numbness and physical rest. I’m experimenting on a comination of bourbon and cable TV. Seems to work. My brain’s getting moldy.

שנתיים. שנתיים שאני גר כאן בדירה, בתל-אביב. נהייתי רך. נהייתי מפונק. לילה אחד אצל ההורים שלי ביפו הספיק להזכיר לי נשכחות. להחזיר לי את החוויה היפואית – האותנטית, המקורית, המרעננת – של לקום בשבע בבוקר וללכת למשטרה לדווח שגנבו לי את הרדיו מהאוטו. שש שנים. שלושה רדיו-דיסקים גנובים. ממוצע לא רע.

While watching Spiderman 2 on the plane yesterday, I noticed that Michael Chabon got Screen Story credits – which is cool beans, since I just finished his remarkable Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay two days earlier, and he definitely proved himself a big comic fan and authority. So what does IMDB tell me when […]