ksymeon

For years now I knew of a bug in this little utility I had written ages ago. "Akatanomasto" ("one that cannot be named" in Greek) was this little sticky-notes utility I wrote back in 1999. I think it was the summer of 1999 when I had this idea of floating notes on the desktop with the unusual twist of being able to send the little notes across the network, "stick them up" electronically on somebody else's desktop. Soon after, the little application developed a minor bug. You couldn't type a hyphen ("-"). You could paste a hyphen and you could type a hyphen using the minus key on the numeric keypad, but you couldn't type one using the Underscore/Hyphen key on a normal keyboard. An initial investigation did not shine any light to the bug and I didn't bother that much to be honest. Who would discover? The spring of 2000 found me being very busy with a job change, a move to a different country etc. The little utility was abandoned eve...

Here's how to make a 3D picture viewable with red-blue glasses. For this example we will assume that the left eye has the red filter and the right eye has the blue filter. Using your digital camera take two pictures from two different spots; place the camera at the same height (use of a tripod highly recommended) and take the first picture of your subject. Now move the camera one or two inches to the right, focus at your subject again and take the second picture. Imagine that you are taking two pictures from the viewpoint of each one of your eyes; the first picture is the left eye, the second picture is the right eye (see picture below). Open the two pictures in Photoshop. Go to the first picture (the left eye one) open the channels window and click on the Red Channel (Ctrl-1). Select all (Ctrl-A) and copy to clipboard (Ctrl-C). Go to the second picture (right eye), select the red channel (Ctrl-1) and paste the copied image (Ctrl-V). Without changing the selected channel click on t...

It took almost six weeks since I moved to my new flat, but my desk and chair have been finally delivered today. My life has a new meaning now... :-) No more lying or kneeling on the floor. I'm so happy I may actually publish my 3D picture making technique some time soon.

I was visiting byteburg today, in anticipation of something new, a new post, a new story, a new link. I found this link to Kai's article for edge.org. As I read it I was gradually realising how right he is! The executive summary says it all:          "Make plans and take pictures"

Several years ago, on a sunny autumnal day, I found myself waiting for my plane in the lounge of "Ellinikon", the Athens' airport. I was flying to Leros where I was serving my military duty for the Greek Navy. And as every other sailor or soldier, I was counting my days until my discharge and the return to normal civilian life. It must have been late October 1998 when I had this idea of writing a program that represents a calendar year in a circular fashion. You see, when I was really young, at primary school, we used to have in my classroom a big poster hanging up the wall that illustrated the months and the seasons of a year. As a circle. Along with vegetables, fruit, weather and whatever else you may think of. Grapes in August, snow in January, yellow leaves for October and strawberries for May... Every month, a perfect 30 degree circular sector. I realised that I had always had that vision of the calendar months in a year going circular, clock-wise in a big big circle...

Almost two months have passed since my last blog post. Two hectic months. Holidays over Christmas and new year, then a little bit of work, then a week's skiing holiday in the Alps, then a bit more work. Decided that I can't bear the thought of living in the same flat for a sixth year and started looking for a new place. It took my almost a fortnight to find a place and I'm glad I did. I was a bit reluctant to start, but once you get to agents and look at a few you just can't go back... Here I am now, looking forward to move to my new flat and post some more stories to my blog. And the next story is a very interesting one...