Sybreon Ones Nought

Having seen a digitised signature on a friend’s blog, I decided to make one of my own. The result is the signature image that you see on the right part of this blog. Instead of using the method that he suggested, I decided to do it using a different method. This was primarily because most of the tutorials used tools that were not at my disposal. So, this is my technique for creating a signature brush using only Gimp and Inkscape.

1. We need the raw signature, which can be obtained through a variety of means. I used a sharpie and scribbled my John Hancock on a piece of white paper. Then, I used my digital camera to take a photo of the raw signature. This raw photo will need to be processed.
2. The photo needs to be cleaned up first. This can be done in Gimp using the Colour-Threshold settings to clearly define the paper and writing. The resultant image will be a largely black and white image.
3. The signature now needs to be cropped. Once again, using Gimp, the signature is selected using the selection tool. Then, using Image-Crop to Selection the signature is cropped and everything outside the signature is removed.
4. Being now cleaned and cropped, the signature can be imported into Inkscape using File-Import. Then, using Path-Trace Bitmap and setting it to Brightness Cutoff mode, the signature is converted from a bitmap into a vector image.
5. As a vector image, the signature can be made a little artsy by using the Path-Simplify command in Inkscape. This reduces the number of points in the vector image and smooths the stroke edges. This can be repeated a number of times for artistic effect. The resultant image looks like it is painted.
6. Using File-Export Bitmap from Inkscape, the vector image is saved as a raster PNG file. This PNG file should be sufficiently large in size in order to allow the signature to be resized without too much distortion.
7. This PNG can be imported into Gimp for final post processing. The image is flattened using Image-Flatten Image and converted into grayscale using Image-Mode-Grayscale. This is an important step to ensure that the brush works correctly.
8. Finally, the resultant black signature on white background, is exported as a Gimp brush. Use the File-Save As command to save the image as a Gimp brush (*.gbr) format image. This image should be saved in the ~/.gimp-2.4/brushes subdirectory. Then, refresh the brushes and it is ready for use.

And the result is the signature brush as seen in the image above. I can use this brush to insert a signature into any of my future photographs, like how artists of old used to scrawl their names into the corner of their paintings. My signature brush is 900 pixels across, which should be good for use in any decent sized image.

I watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics yesterday. What immediately struck me was the order of the languages: French, English and Mandarin. I tried my best to figure out what they were saying in French, and then double checked it in English and Mandarin. What can I say, my French is about as good as my Chinese.

Needless to say, I was very impressed from the very beginning. When the BBC commentators mentioned that Zhang YiMou was the director of the opening ceremony, I knew to expect a breathtaking display of lights and colours, which is characteristic of his style.

The opening, with the drums that lit up when struck, was extremely impressive. Drumming in such a large group is already grand enough, but using it as a light display is extremely creative. I liked the way that they counted down to the start using the drums as pixels on a large display.

The next act that impressed me was the caligraphic painting done by people dancing with brushes for hands. It was very artistically done. The rest of the acts did not quite impress me until the final act, the lighting of the torch. Although the pace of the flying runner was not right at times, it was an extremely impressive way of lighting up the torch. I don’t know how London could possibly top that, in 4 years time.

My friend and I were also busily watching the different cute Chinese girls that were involved in the ceremony. We were commenting that after this opening ceremony showcase, Chinese girls will experience <em>saham naik</em> worldwide. Overall, I think that China managed to put on a dazzlingly spectacular show of an opening, which will set the benchmark for all future Olympic openings.

Then the parade of athletes started. When they mentioned that they were being arranged according to the stroke count of the Chinese characters, we realised that Malaysia would come in quite quickly, as “ma” had only 3 strokes in it. Then, when the contingent came in, we lamented on the small size of the contingent. As usual, politics would come into the picture.

In the past, our country had many good athletes in various different events. However, these days, we are hardly competitive in anything outside a handful of events. Our only hope for an Olympic medal is in badminton (unfortunately, squash is not an Olympic event, otherwise, we’ll get the gold there for sure). But outside that, we’re kind of hopeless.

Then about halfway through the parade, they mentioned that Brunei was left out of the parade because the officials forgot to register the team. That was such a fiasco and I think that someone’s head might actually roll for it. We quickly messaged our Brunei friends to tease them about it. Funny!

I think that my photography skills have reached a medium level. At the very least, it is enough for me to understand what my limitations are and to give me enough insight into appreciating the photographs of others. So, I have recently been thinking about focusing on a specific skill to further develop it. After some consideration, I think that I will try to do some black and white photography.

I have always had an interest in black and white photographs. For some reason, I have always found black and white photographs to be very strong, emotionally. After some consideration, it becomes obvious why. Due to the lack of colour, there is nothing that can carry the photo through except the emotion that it captures.

So, I’ve been doing a little reading on black and white photography. And surprisingly, it seems that the best way to shoot black and white, is to actually shoot in RAW colour. The different sites all distinctly recommend against shooting in JPEGs. With the added colour space available in the RAW format, a more dynamic black and white photograph can be obtained from it. This was good to know because my camera does not have a black and white mode.

So, it wouldn’t make much difference for me when taking the actual photograph. I will just need to take them in colour RAW and do the post processing on my PC. The main difference will come from composition and lighting. But seeing that I have always made composition an integral part of my photography, it should not be a problem for me to compose subjects. But the issue that I will need to look at is lighting. Lighting plays the most important role in black and white photography.

Well, I won’t have anything to show for the moment as I am not going anywhere interesting. I will probably play around with it, and my new lens, after I go home.

I guess that I have been digressing from my blog posting in the past. On my previous blog, everyone voted overwhelmingly for me to write more personal posts and less technology and political posts. But on this new blog, I have not been sticking to this regime. So, I thought that now is a good time to start sticking to this regime. So, I will try to stick to the schedule of writing only political and technology entries on weekends only.

So, what better time to start than now. Since it’s not a weekend, I will write a personal entry today.

For several months now, I have been experiencing a lack of motivation and drive. Things have been diminishing gradually and now I’m truly feeling quite low. I don’t quite know why this is the case but I can feel the effects on my work. My number of productive days has been dropping and this is proving to be a hindrance to my writing up. Some days, I spend my whole day working in front of the computer only to write two paragraphs. On other days, I end up writing nothing.

I have tried altering my work environment to stimulate things a little. I have tried working in the department, and I have also tried working, out on the grass when the sun was out in July. But in all cases, the drop in productivity continued. I honestly don’t quite know what else I can do to increase it. As a result, I am beginning to hate my thesis and my writing. Maybe that’s the problem.

A friend of mine has asked me to come along on a holiday next week. However, seeing the lack of progress that I am making in my work, I am unlikely to do so. I really want to finish up with everything so that I can move on with my life. I feel like I am stuck in a limbo now and I hate the feeling.

PS: Sorry for the negative blog, but that’s how I feel now.

PPS: Just spent the last few hours changing the look and feel of this blog. Tada!

There has been some smoke being blown with regards to the Universities & University Colleges Act 1971 (UUCA). This act has generally been treated as an evil monstrosity by many political activists and civil rights people in Malaysia. Seeing that the government is planning to push through some ammendments to the Act, I decided to see what the big problem was.

Since I dread reading through legal documents, I googled around for some summary information and found that the various university websites only listed extracts of the Act. Unsatisfied, I decided to download a copy of the Act and skimmed through it.

It seems that most of the problems that people have with it are related to Section 15 of the Act, which has broad provisions that curtail the freedom of members of a university. In particular, the political parties are generally in disagreement with Section 15(3) of this section: (3) No person, while he is a student of the University, shall express or do anything which may be construed as expressing support, sympathy or opposition to any political party or trade union or as expressing support or sympathy with any unlawful organization, body or group of persons.

However, I am a little confused with what is stated in Section 5A(1) of the Act: 5A. (1) The provisions of this Act shall not apply to any higher educational institution with the status of a University which is authorized to be established by an order made by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong under subsection (2) and any private higher educational institution conferred with the status of a University or University College under any written law.

If this paragraph means what I think it means, the UUCA isn’t a very big problem. It does not apply to any of the private institutions, which is about 50% of the national student body. As for public institutions, the UUCA may not apply to all of them either. According to wikipedia, UPM was established with the Incorporation Order signed by His Majesty The Yang Di-Pertuan Agong as provided for under the Universities and University Colleges Act, 1971, and published in the Government Gazette as P.U.(A) 387 dated 29 October, 1971.

If the paragraph means what I think it means, it means that our government has been using the UUCA as a FUD weapon. While this is not right, it is the standard procedure used by all governments to keep people in line. So, I don’t blame them for using if it was there. I just think that the big amount of smoke being blown about by all parties is a bit too much.

If the paragraph means what I think it means, changing the Act would only benefit a small fraction of the student population. It would be better for us to focus our attention on fixing the deep problems at our universities, many which are not directly tied to the UUCA.

I have been using Konqueror as my main browser for a while now. It works very well for almost everything but once in a while I need to fire up Firefox to access certain websites. One of these problem websites is GMail.

The problem when using Konqueror is that GMail ends up falling back on the old-school HTML mode. This mode is a little less efficient than the newer AJAX mode as everything needs to be transferred through and from the central GMail servers. After doing a quick search on the web, it seems that a lot of other people experience the same problem and complain about it. Well, I’ve found a quick fix for the problem.

The simplest way is to change the user agent setting for Konqueror. When browsers visit websites, they identify themselves to the webserver in the user agent identifier. This information typically includes browser name, version, and operating system information. GMail uses this information to determine which browser is being used. When it detects Konqueror, it defaults to the old user interface.

So, the only question is what user agent to fake. At first I tried IE and Firefox, but it did not work. So, I thought that I should try faking Safari. Safari is the default browser on the Mac and it is derived from KHTML, which is the engine that is used in Konqueror. At this point, the user interface would load, but I was unable to click anything. So, finally, I faked it as Opera and voila, everything worked.

To fake Konqueror as Opera, just change the settings under “Browser Identification”. Then, customise Konqueror to identify itself as Opera9 to mail.google.com servers. This is illustrated in the screenshot below:

I had just read an article in TheStar about some trumpet blowing by our government on some technological matters. As I can never resist a good opportunity to bash the stupidity of our government, especially when it comes to technological matters, I thought I’d give it a go. MIMOS has design two new low-cost computers: a RM500 desktop and a RM1000 laptop, called the MakCik line of computers.

First, the name. They obviously lacked suitable people in marketing. It is so blatantly obvious that MakCik is Mac Kecil (small Mac). However, I doubt that the designs would be anything like a Mac. Each model is then named after our PM and his wife. This is just disgusting. A potential technological product getting the derriere kissing treatment.

Next, the price tag. RM500 for a low end desktop and RM1000 for a low end laptop is not particularly cheap. I’ll give you a breakdown of what is necessary to build a modern desktop at prevailing market rates:

• Motherboard + Processor (1.6GHz) + Video + Audio + Network – RM230
• 512Mb Memory – RM40
• Power Supply + Casing – RM 150
• Keyboard + Mouse – RM20

As you can see, a fully working computer can be assembled for less than RM500 off-the-shelf, today. As for the laptop, RM1000 is terribly expensive. The OLPC laptop only costs US$199 (RM650) to buy one. That’s a whole 35% cheaper than the cheap laptop of RM1000. Maybe MIMOS should have just bought the OLPC in bulk and re-badge them all as MIMOS computers. Or it can even possibly talk to Intel and get it’s classmate PC in bulk prices too.

I had previously admonished some researchers at MIMOS for extremely money wasting and frankly, almost immoral (in terms of technology morality) research. However, I have come to understand that their hands are tied in many ways. MIMOS is our governments’ applied research institute. It has to do whatever the government tells it to do, regardless of the technical merits. However, as our government has plainly shown in the last 6 years, it has no idea on what to do with technology.

Personally, I see a lot of potential for MIMOS, if only it is taken out of the hands of the government. There are some good people working there. But unlike politics, if something is not technically feasible, no amount of hand waving and sweet talking is going to make it work. So, I think that MIMOS should be left alone instead of being ruined by the government.