Category Archives: Computer

I like paper and pencils

Computerphile: Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea. (YouTube, 8:20min) “Voting is centuries old, why can’t we move with the times and use our phones, tablets and computers? Tom Scott lays out why e-voting is such a bad idea.”

“[Electronic voting] is a terrible idea. And if a government ever promises to use it, hope they don’t manage it before you get a chance to vote them out.”

PBS News Hour: An 11-year-old changed election results on a replica Florida state website in under 10 minutes.

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It’s a spherical video in a mathematically triplified space with symmetry in space-time

Vihart: Peace for Triple Piano. (YouTube 3D video, 4:15min)

This has got to be one of the most amazing things done with a 3D camera I’ve ever seen. Pro tip: Watch this in fullscreen mode on your phone so you can look around by moving the entire phone, and use headphones to get the full 3D sound effect as well.

Make sure to also watch

Henry Segerman: The Making of “Peace for Triple Piano”. (YouTube video, 13:52min including a “flat” version of the above 3D video).

In this video Vi Hart and Henry Sergerman explain how the video works: how they made one grand piano and one Vi look like three, but one Henry look like only two at the same time.

Vi writes a little more about this project on her weblog: Vihart.com: Peace for Triple Piano.

(This was published back in February, but I only now realized that the RSS feed of this YouTube channel stopped working.)

Superhero-vision camera

NPR all tech considered: Super Sensitive Sensor Sees What You Can’t.

“A team of engineers at Dartmouth College has invented a semiconductor chip that could someday give the camera in your phone the kind of vision even a superhero would envy. […] Fossum calls his new technology QIS, for Quanta Image Sensor. Instead of pixels, QIS chips have what Fossum and his colleagues call “jots.” Each jot can detect a single particle of light, called a photon.”

“On the final day, he recorded late into the night.”

The Guardian: How a new technology is changing the lives of people who cannot speak. “Millions are robbed of the power of speech by illness, injury or lifelong conditions. Can the creation of bespoke digital voices transform their ability to communicate?” By Jordan Kisner.

“Last November, Joe Morris, a 31-year-old film-maker from London, noticed a sore spot on his tongue. […]
The image revealed a tumour like an iceberg. It was rooted deep in the base of Joe’s tongue, mounding upward and out, its tip breaking the surface just where the telltale sore was located. […]

“You’re going to lose two-thirds of your tongue,“ the doctor was telling him. “This is going to seriously affect your ability to eat. And your speech.“

Joe wanted to know how the surgery would affect his speaking. Would he have a lisp?

The doctor hesitated, and then looked at his hands. “Your family will still be able to understand you.“ “

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