Bad Hairday

So I decided to finally look up how and why hair behaves like that:

The science of hair according to shampoo makers:
http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_toc.htm

After reading that, you might want to turn bold which

• Saves you money on haircuts, shampoo and conditioner, water & electricity (blowdryer) and styling products

• Time to force it into shape in the morning (time being variable since it depends on the type of cut)

But I did get out of it:

• I probably should use conditioner (thought it was just marketing for extra sales)
• Don’t blow dry your hair to boiling levels (due to the water hair contains)
• Hairspray coating is very effective against humidity and heat, keeps your hair in shape

Making the best boardgame

Just in a random flash i remembered that as a child I wanted to make my own boardgame that would be the best boardgame ever. (this was before I had a pc or gameconsole and played a lot of boardgames with my friends) I had all these designs worked out. I wonder if I still have them..

My worst nightmare..

probably would make for a good popcorn flick!

Memorization

Mathemagician Arthur Benjamin on TED

(for squaring its easier to break up: (a+b)^2 = a^2 + 2ab + b^2)

Blindsolving the Cube tips

….another link wich I forgot (oh how ironic)

-work in progress-

Thoughts on Fashion

- Fashion shows: all about exposure of new and or improved designs, goal of fashion shows is basically to bounce of ideas to the public and other designers.

- Fashion can be made anywhere, by anywhom (not just NY, Paris etc.) provided there is sufficient media exposure.  //Update:  Interesting site: www.lookbook.nu, people sharing photos of their street fashion.

- Fashion can be designed locally, small scale and limited quantities opening up a new level: micro-design shops.

- Current focus on US and European design, larger market opportunities are in Asia (India, China), cultural clothing styles either modernized and/or fusion with other styles.

- You either sell limited editions sets and sell that at exclusive prices (haute couture / bespoke) or make ‘ready to wear’ (prêt-à-porter / off rack)  lines which are mass produced factory clothing of which the style is more evolved around wearability albeit sometimes less durable and fitting because of the use of standard sizes and cheaper materials

Java ME, A mobile Rubik’s Cube Timer

CubeMobile on a Nokia Phone

So here’s my first MIDlet or mobile java mobile edition program for mobile phones.  I wanted to have a Rubik’s Cube scrambler and timer application on my phone so I could cube on the road. It’s very basic and doesn’t include a database with highscores and averages maybe I’ll include that in the future.

You can download the application here (rightclick, /saveas): http://taggle.110mb.com/CubeMobile.jar

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Update 1:  ‘Whoops’

Someone pointed out the scramble function had a flaw (making neutral moves), heres the corrected version:

http://taggle.110mb.com/CubeMobile1.2.jar (right-click, /save as)

Thanks for trying it out, over 900 downloads.  I wrote this program because I couldn’t find one, perhaps by now there are good timers for the phone out there. If so leave a link in the comments!

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Java Midlet, writing your own mobile phone programs

So after 8 years of walking with the same old mobile phone (back then the life cycle of phones was longer ) it was time for a new one, the Nokia 6500.  A world of difference but I have to say its easy to get used to a color screen, camera, build in mp3 player and ofcourse the java games!

I like the idea you can write your own programs on your phone, adds an extra dimension of control! So I downloaded the Java Wireless Toolkit (2.5.1.) because of the platform you can’t write normal java applications but you have to write MIDlets (basically a stripped down / lean version of Java Virtual Machine) since you are not writing for a pc but a cellphone (although that difference is fading rapidly).

I also tried development environments like NetBeans (like the visual approach) and Eclipse for mobile applications but really all you need to begin and what I am using is

(1) notepad and (2) JWT (Java Wireless Toolkit)

then follow this
(3) quickstart: http://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/wtoolkit/

and look then at the code of this
(4) example: http://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/getstart/

I had some trouble after having packeged (Project/package/create package) my program into a jar file it would say ‘invalid application’ on my phone. This had to do with the API platform selection which was set on MIDP2.1 but my phone only had support up to MIDP2.0, so after changing that option (under custom packaging options) it would run like a charm!

<This post is a work in progress>

Space Time

Our perception perceives time as a flowing river from A to B. But it also could be that time has similar properties as space. Instead of over there for space one could speak of over then for a possible space-time state. Making both A and B sequences of existing space-time state changes not necessarily linked to each other. Causality however does not fit as a primary driver in this picture, making the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of a space-time state existence/realization largely indeterministic. This opens up the possibility of ‘free will’ or in other words an indeterministic mind.

Time stops flowing when we get control over how to move around in it!

Not the first nor the last to thinker about this, some more info:
Paper: Nature of time and causality in Physics, Francisco S.N. Lobo, 2008

The universe behind the eyes

A brief encounter

locked onto her eyes

I lost myself

between new constellations

too soon I woke up

in a reality

missing that universe

Writing with LaTeX

Just started writing with LaTeX which from what I understand lets you focus on the content and automatically sets the layout, typesetting etc. correct based on templates you use.

Basically the system is as follows, LaTeX uses 3 files

• YourDocument.tex, this is where you write your content
• LetterClassic.sty, this is the stylesheet with predefined settings of font, size and position. Basically an instance of a class
• Letter.cls, the class with its definitions and functions

you mostly work in the *.tex document, if you want to tweak some settings you can either try an overwrite command directly in your *.tex document or you can make changes in the *.sty or *.cls files. But if you are bound to a specific class and style for example an article for a magazine you only have to worry about the *.tex file.