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By John, on January 17th, 2011
The Camera Culture Group at the MIT Media Lab has come up with a way of marking objects with a 3mm wide bar code that a normal digital SLR camera can read at a distance of over 4 meters (a cell phone camera needs to be closer) :
 Comparision of the new bokode and a conventional barcode
(Image from MIT Camera Culture Club's Paper about bokodes)
The experimenters at MIT call the new bar code a bokode, to distinguish it from its larger counterparts. The bokode uses an effect known as bokeh which is a characteristic of all camera lenses and often causes the highlights of out of focus objects to appear as groups of circles on the photograph.
The advantages of the bokode are its small size, which means that it can offer very inconspicuous identification of objects, and that it can be read from several meters away, thus allowing new applications for bar codes.
One possible use could be to add information to shops and other buildings which could be read and stored by Google Streetview cars, allowing more information to be displayed on on-line maps. The researchers have several other ideas, and are looking for commercial partners to develop the bokode further.
See a video about bokodes here; read more about bokodes here.
(Via Cool Hunting)
By John, on January 6th, 2011
Over the Christmas holidays I have been working with my brother-in-law to update his business website. It had been somewhat neglected over the past couple of years.
Now we have completely redesigned the look (while keeping the corporate image, especially the characteristic “teal” colour that they use), and completely re-written every page. We’ve also added a news section and a lot of new pages about projects they have completed recently.
Below are the before and after images – you can see the screen shot of the old site a little larger, if you click on it.
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The old version
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New version
By John, on January 6th, 2011
Today we mailed the signed, scanned, contract back to the builders – they have told our lawyer they intend to start the construction immediately without waiting for the physical copy in the post. So now I expect we will see our bank account empty like a waterfall, as the construction proceeds!
I still have to decide whether to rent a flat for the construction period, to be on hand and keep an eye on progress, or whether to fly down every couple of weeks for a day or two to see what’s going on. We are waiting to for some information about the price of flat rentals from our property agent in Xàtiva before we decide.
By John, on December 31st, 2010
 Contract and price breakdown
We were pleased yesterday to hear from our lawyer in Valencia – he has successfully concluded negotiating the contract for the construction of the house with the builders. We even have a penalty payment in the contract for each day that the handover is late, if they don’t complete on time. So we are fairly hopeful that the house will be finished in July/August of 2011. We expect to actually sign the contract next week; we are waiting for the written copy of the permission to build from the local authority in Xàtiva, which is supposed to arrive next week, and which the builder needs before he will start work.
By John, on December 25th, 2010
 Merry Christmas
We seem to have had endless snow here in Schmitten – we were out again this morning clearing the fall from last night. It’s good for keeping the excess weight under control that we would otherwise be putting on eating mince pies and other Christmas goodies! The temperature tonight is forecast to drop to -12°C – brrrr!
By John, on December 18th, 2010
We were in Valencia on Tuesday this week to see Antonio, our architect. It was nice to get away from the endless snow and cold (around -4 to -9°C here the last week or so) to a warmer +9°C in Valencia!
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Fountains
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Fountains and Xmas Lights
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Christmas (Palm-) Trees
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Plaza del Ayuntamiento
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Plaza del Ayuntamiento
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Christmas Teddies
The pictures above were taken on Monday evening after we had checked into the hotel. We were quite surprised that red teddy-bears seem to be very festive in Spain! You can click on one of the images to see a larger version and a slide show of them.
We went though several points with Antonio that we wanted to raise about the design of the house and had some good news- he had spoken to the responsible architect in the Xàtiva planning authority, and been told that our planning permission has been granted (it should arrive any day now by post).
We also looked at three bids that he had received from building firms – we had put the project out to tender to 4 companies, one decided not to submit a bid. We’ve chosen one of the companies and also visited our lawyer and asked him to negotiate the contract with them. So we hope that we might be able to start construction in January. Before we do that, we have to organize liability insurance for the site during the construction phase, but we already have a contact to a broker who will do that for us when we are ready to start.
By John, on December 9th, 2010
There’s an interesting article by Alfred W. McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on TomDispatch. It is prepended by a commentary by Tom Engelhardt, so for the article, it’s best to read it on alternet.org.
McCoy thinks that the American decline in world influence has already started (triggered by Bush’s ill-advised invasion of Iraq) and that it will be swift. In as little as 15 years, the USA will have ceased to be the dominant world power, overtaken by China. It’s unlikely that the US government and population will accept the changed situation, which means that times are going to get “interesting” in the near future.
Here’s McCoy’s take on the current situation – read the article to see how he thinks it could play out over the next 10-15 years:
Today, three main threats exist to America’s dominant position in the global economy: loss of economic clout thanks to a shrinking share of world trade, the decline of American technological innovation, and the end of the dollar’s privileged status as the global reserve currency.
By 2008, the United States had already fallen to number three in global merchandise exports, with just 11% of them compared to 12% for China and 16% for the European Union. There is no reason to believe that this trend will reverse itself.
Similarly, American leadership in technological innovation is on the wane. In 2008, the U.S. was still number two behind Japan in worldwide patent applications with 232,000, but China was closing fast at 195,000, thanks to a blistering 400% increase since 2000. A harbinger of further decline: in 2009 the U.S. hit rock bottom in ranking among the 40 nations surveyed by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation when it came to “change” in “global innovation-based competitiveness” during the previous decade. Adding substance to these statistics, in October China’s Defense Ministry unveiled the world’s fastest supercomputer, the Tianhe-1A, so powerful, said one U.S. expert, that it “blows away the existing No. 1 machine” in America…
… Viewed historically, the question is not whether the United States will lose its unchallenged global power, but just how precipitous and wrenching the decline will be.
By John, on December 7th, 2010
I mentioned the Israeli approach to airport security a few posts ago – they aim to have you out of the carpark and into the departure area in a maximum of 25 minutes by applying intelligent security checks.
Contrast this with Europe:
 Check in 15 days in advance with Ryanair - and confirm no-one has interfered with your luggage
With Ryanair, and most other airlines you can use the internet to check in. It speeds up the check-in process when you get to the airport. In Ryanair’s case, you can do this 15 days in advance. But only if you confirm that no-one has interfered with your baggage or any item that you are carrying or checking in, and that you are not carrying anything for someone else. Otherwise you can’t check in on-line.
Right – don’t leave your coat in the cloakroom in a restaurant for the next 15 days; don’t let your colleagues or kids touch that laptop you are going to be taking.
How mindlessly stupid can bureaucracy get? Accepting a statement like this 15 days in advance is brain-damaged. And expecting anyone with a brain to take this form seriously, when it asks for this confirmation given 15 days in advance, is too.
Kill the form – lets see a minimum of intelligence being applied by our well-paid bureaucrats, and streamline the check-in process without such idiocy. (Yes – I have been flying more often recently  )
By John, on December 7th, 2010
… but you can’t pay to support WikiLeaks.
Wikipedia on the Klan:
Today, a large majority of sources consider the Klan to be a “subversive or terrorist organization”. In 1999, the city council of Charleston, South Carolina passed a resolution declaring the Klan to be a terrorist organization… …In April 1997, FBI agents arrested four members of the True Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas for conspiracy to commit robbery and to blow up a natural gas processing plant.
From today’s Guardian at 4.14pm (my emphasis):
Charles Arthur, the Guardian’s technology editor, points out that while MasterCard and Visa have cut WikiLeaks off you can still use those cards to donate to overtly racist organisations such as the Knights Party, which is supported by the Ku Klux Klan.
The Ku Klux Klan website directs users to a site called Christian Concepts. It takes Visa and MasterCard donations for users willing to state that they are “white and not of racially mixed descent. I am not married to a non-white. I do not date non-whites nor do I have non-white dependents. I believe in the ideals of western Christian civilisation and profess my belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God.”
It seems that Visa and Mastercard don’t have consistent interpretation of their own terms and conditions. Which organisation is most likely to be involved in criminal activities? (Remember too, that when the Washington Post investigated the Watergate scandal, that was no talk of action being taken to close down the newspaper or to cut off funding from subscribers.)
By John, on December 4th, 2010
If you don’t like being tracked (i.e. having advertisers being informed about which sites you have visited) when you are visiting websites, you can block some 20 or so ad-serving companies doing this (including some big ones, like Google, Yahoo and Akamai). You will still see on-line ads but at least you won’t get targeted with car advertisements because happened to visit VW’s website last week!
Visit aboutads.info to restrict advertisers tracking you. You need to fill out the form in each web broswer you use, as the request mechanism sets cookies in the browser.
The situation might improve more, if the US government gets its way – the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is supporting an initiative called Do Not Track.
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