Pav Am

A Brand New Blog!

Alright, guys, first of all, I wish to apologize for not updating this very blog at all in these past months and betraying my followers but unfortunately, I've ran into some personal problems right after this site was last updated, after which I completely forgot about it.

Now that I have absolutely no idea with what kind of further content to supply these pages, I have decided to make an entirely new blog. It's dedicated to all sorts of useful information I have found all over the internet. I will be updating it every single day with one picture, containing a statistic, infographic, a guide, tutorial, or anything else that could be considered useful in some way. 

So, why don't you head over to http://usefuldaily.blogspot.com/ and check it out!

Damn You, Weather!!!

That's 0 degrees C and it feels like -5 C.

Ok, I am majorly pissed right now. Everybody knows the weather has always been a bitch to us all the time but this… this is completely ridiculous. Let me tell you why.

Today, the 13th of April, started out cloudy, rather cold and windy. Around mid-day temperatures started rising to a point where it could have been considered warm. But as the day came to an end, it started to get very cold very fast. Normally I wouldn't care, because the weather has been like that pretty much the whole week but tonight I look through my window and guess what! IT’S FUCKING SNOWING!

And it’s not just a bunch of tiny snowflakes falling out of the sky. Oh no- everything is getting bombarded by huge chunks of white like there’s no tomorrow. It’s the middle of April and I live in a humid continental climatic region where shit like that has never happened during my lifetime and below zero temperatures during this time of the year definitely aren’t normal.

But today's snow was just the icing of the cake. I’m mad because the weather has been absolute shit for the last 5 months with the exception of a few sunny days and I’ve been eagerly waiting all this time to get off my lazy ass and finally do something productive outdoors. But I guess it’s just going to be more video games, internet and food for me from now on, since I don’t see the weather getting any better anytime soon.

It’s times like this I wish global warming actually existed and HAARP was actually a global weather control device.

Anyways, I’m done complaining. Here’s some rhythmic yodeling to make you feel better:

 

Light Painting

Hi there! How are you all doing? I'm posting some light paining photos I made a while ago I decided you should take a look at. Of course, they're nothing too serious, since they're not exactly light paintings- just some random shakings of my light source. It's sort of a little experimenting I've done with exposure time, a dark room and a flashlight. Enjoy!

Mysterious Marine Sounds

Today I woke up with three strange desires- to brush my teeth, to buy a Nintendo 3DS and to write the thing I’m going to write about now. And while I didn’t do the first two, I’m definitely going to tell you about what I found out about not long ago that I think is very intriguing- the strange, unidentified underwater sounds in the Pacific Ocean. The thing isn’t exactly news, to be honest but I was surprised I’m hearing about it for the first time ever. 

All of the sounds (6 in total) were first heard somewhere around the 90’s, but what’s strange is that 4 of them were discovered in the same year- 1997. All of them are recorded by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Also, have in mind that all of the recordings you’ll be hearing aren’t in real time but are 10x their original speed.

Bloop

Probably the most notorious of them all is the Bloop. With an estimated location somewhere near 50 degrees S; 100 degrees W and unknown origin, the sound was repeatedly recorded during summer, 1997 and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km! That’s louder than any animal known to man. Experts at the NOAA don’t believe it’s man-made and and is very unlikely to be a living creature. Probably Lovecraft fans can give us more detail on that.

Upsweep

Upsweep is roughly located at 54 S, 140 W and was first heard in 1991. The sound is loud enough to be recorded throughout the Pacific. It appears to be seasonal, generally reaching peaks in spring and fall. The overall source level has been declining since 1991 but the sounds can still be detected. While it’s said that it is highly unlikely for the source to be man-made or of biological origins, experts suggest that underwater volcanic activity may have caused Upsweep.

Slowdown

 

This one has got to be the creepiest of them all. I still remember when I  first heard it. A million bricks have been shat that night. When it was first recorded in May 19, 1997 somewhere near 15 W, 115 S the sound was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on three sensors, at a range of nearly 2000 km. It was not heard of ever before or since. When the guys at NOAA first discovered it, they thought it was some kind of machinery that was making it so they consulted the US Navy to see if it was some kind of fancy military equipment being put to the test. However, the answer was a definite “No”, as they weren’t even aware of such a sound. After some research, a hypothesis has been suggested, claiming that Slowdown had been caused by a massive friction phenomenon, possibly involving glacier movements. 

The three other unidentified sounds you can listen to are Julia, Whistle and Train. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find sufficient information on those, as they seem to be the least known about of all six.

Now, ironically, I‘m not a big mystery nut. I know people who can talk on for hours about UFOs, conspiracies, lights in the sky, ghosts, vampires and all other crap like that, but I’m not like that. Yet, for some reason those sounds have definitely grabbed my attention. 

Feel free to let me know what you think about it in the comments.

Powdered Physics Simulator

A fun java-based application, which simulates particle physics with different properties and the relations between them. There's no real goal to the game (if you can call it that) except to just pick from and experiment with the 33 different materials and additional features to either construct something that actually works or just get completely chaotic results (pictured above). The whole thing is extremely fun and and a perfect time killer for when you have nothing better to do. I remember wasting hours on the Powder Game when I first discovered it, even tho it didn't have as many stuff as it does now.

Go check it out HERE!

Duke Nukem Forever Delayed

The question is: Are we surprised? Sure we've all gotten used to it and I mean, a month delay really is nothing compared to all those years of waiting but if Gearbox is going to become the next 3D Realms things are going to get scary. This game is like a freakin' curse! It could be a joke, tho. That is, if that joke hadn't stopped being funny about 12 years ago.

Chiptune

To some it may sound ridiculous, others may find it's highly pitched tones, 8-bit samples and often fast tempo unfitting for their tastes. Those people don't know shit, because chiptune music is the most epic musical form ever conceived by man kind, the pinnacle of the science and understanding of the audible sounds. Don't believe me? Listen to this.

Or this.

Chiptune music is also often referred to as 8-bit videogame or Keygen music, because those are the two forms this genre has been made most popular trough. The latter is making it extremely hard to track down the creator of the tune (or any other information about it whatsoever), because keygen tracks are named only by the name of the software/game they're made for and the group that cracked it/made the keygen.

If you're interested, check out the Keygen Jukebox. It's got exactly 1480 tracks in it's collection right now and they're constantly making new entries. Have in mind tho, that there are minor exceptions where some of the music isn't exclusively chiptune. But those are only a few songs, so you have nothing to worry about.

Joy

Wow, I actually made it to 200 followers! Thanks to all of my readers for supporting me and helping me get to where I am now.

One a side note, I wrote this very post with Live Writer, a free application for writing (as the name implies) blogs, that comes with the Windows Live package, along with other stuff. I just wanted to try it out, because I’ve had it for a long time, since I reinstalled my Windows last year. The program itself is OK, I guess. From what I’ve seen so far. It’s a basic word processor with tools for creating and editing blog entries. It doesn’t seen to offer a lot more than blogger’s editor, aside from the picture formatting tools, but at least now I can write and graphically preview posts even when my Internet connection is down.

 

And to test out the formatting features of Writer, I mentioned, above are two photos with different frame styles. I hope this works!

Incendia Tutorial

So, finally I have gotten some time on my hands and I am able to write a relatively longer blog post this time. Again, I apologize to my readers for not updating so frequently as I used to last month.

OK, so, in this one I'll be showing to those interested in fractals how to quickly make and render one with Incendia. It this tutorial I'll pretty much be covering the basics and the mandatory steps without going into much detail into the extra features of the program. Tho, later on on, if I have the time and I've decided there's enough interest on the subject, I'll make another tutorial about them too.

So the first thing you should do is, obviously download and install the newest version of Incendia (the one I'm using) and start it up.

Upon doing so you should see the window pictured above. This is where you'll pick what kind of fractal you'll be rendering. What you'll want to do here is pick a fractal formula from the "Fractal Type" list (1) and then click "New Fractal" (2) which will randomize the shape. Repeat steps (1) and (2) until you get something you like.

By clicking on the display (3) and dragging the cursor you'll be able to rotate (left mouse button) or pan (right mouse button) the fractal. Zooming in and out is done by either the slider below of the scroll button on your mouse.

Next, go to the "Editors" tab (1) and click on "Edit" (2) and the on the "New" button (3). You'll see a whole bunch of stuff appear. Do not worry, as we'll use only the most important of them this time. Select the "Points" option (4) to see your fractal from the way you have set it to be. DO NOT TRY TO PAN OR ROTATE FROM HERE, as clicking and dragging do a completely different job here (which, again, won't be covered in this tutorial.).

Afterwards, explore and pick a baseshape from the list (5). This is the model that's going to be iterated, following your fractal's formula. By changing the value of the "Depth" slider (6) you choose how many times that shape will repeat itself. If you don't have a very powerful computer and/or enough time for rendering, I suggest keeping it below 10. When you're done it is very important to set the "Panels" option back to "Vector".

Now, go to the "Render" tab and click on the "Preview" button below the display (sorry, no number here). You will see a preview of your fractal, hence the name, with the applied default textures. Both the ambient lighting and diffuse reflection (1) have the same set of materials so feel free to play around with them until you find the perfect match for your 3D fractal.

After you're done head over to the "Camera" tab. Not much to do here, except change the light direction (1) and and the resolution and anti-aliasing of the final image you're going to export. As, you can see, I personally prefer to work with the highest possible and I suggest you do that too, because it doesn't affect the render time significantly. Now you can finally hit "Render" and watch the magic happen, as a fractal is being born.

After some time, it you've decided it's good enough, go back to the "Render" tab and export the result as an image file by either picking "Save Bitmap" or "Save PNG" (I personally prefer bitmap). Congratulations!!! You have just made your first fractal! Here is mine:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it and goodnight!

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Video Pick #3

Have you ever seen or heard something so wonderful and astonishing, that you couldn't help but think to yourself: "Man, the person behind this thing must be a genius!"? Don't answer, because this is exactly the case with Brad Neely- a comic artist, who has made some of the best works in cartoon history. At first glance, his drawings might look somewhat crude and even ugly, but once you see the ways of his work, you realize how lucky we all are to be blessed with his creations.  Just take a look at this shit right here:

I bet your life is changed forever now. What are you waiting for? Go and watch all his other stuff, now!

Wallpaper #2

 

Decided to make another wallpaper from a photo I took some days ago for you widescreen users out there. It's the same resolution as the previous one- 1920x1200. Enjoy!

The Most Disliked Video in All of Youtube

Congratulations to all the haters out there for reaching and going beyond the one million dislikes milestone, thus officially making Justin Bieber's "Baby" video the most despised thing in all of Youtube. Now, as everyone know this person is going to go down in history as the most hated thing in this generation (and possibly the entire history of mankind, right next to Herr Hitler himself), they can all die happily, knowing they did something significant during ther existence.

I find the whole JB hating fad both surprising and hilarious. Personally, I don't really hate him. Sure, he's an annoying little jerk with a horrible haircut, female voice and no actual talent or skills, who will never go through puberty, but he's so insignificant to me, I just can't bother experiencing any kind of emotion towards him (let alone hatred). Why? Because there were, are and will always be thousands of little douche bags just like him that nobody cares about for some reason that I've found best to ignore than waste time ranting on how much they suck.

Better Than Facebook Games

So, I've recently discovered this site called Lumosity. It's perfect for when you feel like killing time, because what it basically is is a collection of small brain training flash games. Some of them can be very addicting once you get the hang of it.

The coolest thing about Luminosity is that it keeps a personalized track of your progress and plots a stats graph for every time you play and divides the score in 5 categories: speed, memory, attention and problem solving. Your score is calculated in BPI (Brain Performance Index) Lumosity points, which are displayed on your account page for everybody too see and envy of your mental capacities. 

You can enroll in various courses, which require you to do certain exercises daily for a given period of time or just play whichever games you like and try to beat your best score. 

So, if you're interested just make an account and try a course. Oh yeah, it's got a friends list feature too and if you want to, you can add me.

A Wallpaper

I know it's nothing special but I wanted to try making at least one of the stuff I edit in Photoshop in a proper resolution, suitable for a desktop wallpaper. 

At 1920 x 1200 pixels, it's something widescreen owners may enjoy, unlike me, ironically. I'm still using a shitty old low-res square monitor, which flickers horribly when gray (a very common color in website backgrounds, including this blog) is dominating the screen and is incapable of displaying colors properly. So yeah, I'm in desperate need of buying a new one very soon.

Tired

I've been so busy with a few exams and a bunch of other work in the last couple of days, I can barely think properly, let alone write and compose an entire decent blog post. So, sorry if I can't update on a regular basis, even tho I'll try.

Well, I guess I'll try to make this post a little less pointless than it already is with some more ridiculous rip-offs of famous products and brands.

Folding @ Home

First of all, I  am sorry that I've rather inactive in blogging for a while, but, as I said a few posts ago, I am quite busy lately and I don't really even have the time to turn on my computer.

Today I shall write a post mostly about the marvels of modern science and technology, or more importantly- distributed computing (abbreviated DC) and it's probably most successful and famous project- Folding@Home (F@H for short). Since it's start in 2001 F@H now uses the spare CPU cycles of thousands of idling home computers to simulate the folding process of proteins in the human body and try to discover the causes for illnesses such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and many types of Cancers. What this means is you can contribute to the development of modern medical science by simply running a program on your PC.

What is protein folding, you ask? Well, proteins are one of the types of organic matter that build up everything in our bodies. Once they are synthesized by the ribosomes in our cells, proteins fold themselves incredibly quickly before they can carry out their designated functions. If all is done properly, everyone is happy.

Sometimes, tho, errors can occur during this process and those can cause the diseases mentioned above. To find out what exactly makes those errors happen, scientists needed to know more about the folding process in detail. Because folding is an incredibly complex thing, not even a modern supercomputer can't cope with simulating it in an efficient matter of time. So a bunch of people got together in the Stanford University and made a piece software called Folding @ Home and made it available for download to the entire world.

Now, more that ten years later, almost 400 000 CPUs (as you can see by the graph on the right) are actively folding proteins for the further progress of medical science. That's hundreds of times faster than if the project was granted exclusive access to the most powerful supercomputer!

To wider the range of the project and make it even more efficient, F@H has had a client released for every OS out there, including the Sony PS3. Besides those, there are also GPU clients (pictured above) for users with more powerful graphic cards. As you can see, the coolest thing about it is that you can view the folding process in real time.

Here's how it basically works- you download the proper client, enter your nickname, the program downloads a protein from their servers. Then your computer starts working on the unit, which can take from 2 to 10 hours. If it's done before the deadline, the finished unit is then sent back to Stanford and the data is compared to 2 more copies of the same protein calculated by different computers (in case of errors due to a faulty CPU). If everything is OK you get points for the work well done and your rank amongst everyone else who folds goes up.

Interested? You can download the proper client for your OS from here. Or, if you own a high-end graphics card (Nvidia with CUDA supportm for example), download the GPU client from here. If you own a Sony PS3, you need to have the most up-to-date firmware version and then download the optional Life with PlayStation software, which automatically starts to fold every time you run it.

Video Pick #2

This is one of those things you discover, most of the times by accident, that change your life forever. It is so amazing that I just felt the urge to share it with as many people as I could. You've probably seen trippy, psychedelic animations on Youtube before, but nothing else can be compared to "Love & Theft" by Film Bilder- a German animation studio that has been around for 20 years now. The video itself has been nominated and has won tons of awards at many festivals throughout the years. 

Photoshop Is Game To You?

Yes, it is. It's like Sim City, only without the natural disasters. In this particular blog post I show you photographs, which have gone trough slightly more severe digital manipulation, unlike some of my older posts where it is rather lacking. As you can see (those of you, who are familiar with the program itself), adjustment layers and I are good friends. Other than that filters and some of the tools come useful in the process.

Crysis 2 LEAKED!!!

News has come that yesterday, 11.2.2011, the beta version of the highly anticipated game, Crysis 2 has been leaked by an unknown source and is now being hosted on all major torrent sites. Only the PC version, which was supposed to officially come out on the 22nd of March, this year, is known to have been leaked.

I seriously have no idea how EA Games are going to react to this but they sure won't be happy.  Law suits and crucial game game changes with delayed release dates aren't out of the question in this case. We'll just wait and see how things turn out.

Personally, I'll just be patient for Crysis 2 to officially come out so I can play the finished, bug-free product.

Ripoff Masterpieces

We all know very well by now that everything is bound to be ripped off, whether it's material or work of fiction, popular or unknown. From toys to electronics, famous brands to iconic figures and names. Literally everything. Here are some images of products, in the final frontiers of ridiculousness.

   

"I'm the operator with my pocket calculator."

"Once own, nothing can instead."-
quote of the century!

This is what the new WoW expansion might look like.

Anniversary Time!

Holy Jesus! I can't believe I actually got one hundred follows! Honestly, I didn't think I could reach even 10, but instead I got ten times more than that! That news certainly made mt day. I'd like to thank every single one of you who has followed me and encouraged me to post more. Next stop- 500.

However, I have buried myself in quite some work recently, which means that frequent blog updates are not guaranteed. I've posted daily so far, but unfortunately, I'm afraid I won't be able to allow myself such a luxury in the upcoming week or two. But worry not, for I am going back to the previous tempo after I've finished with all the work.

So anyways, have a nice remaining week and here's another picture of a cat.

Life in Macro

I just decided to dump some of my macro photos.

If anyone of you can help me identify the bugs and the type of moss in the second picture, that would be great.