Scott D Richards Blog

Free Desktops!

Scott — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:24:45 +0000

So I just uploaded my life onto skydrive. It is like Dropbox, but you get 25 gb instead of 2 or 3 that Dropbox offers. Also, it is run by Microsoft which means it is much more secure (imho) but they may phase it out in a few years. For the time being however, it is a great service to keep everything in sync between my devices. I have a folder that is a collection of my favorite “desktops” and I am sharing it with you! Enjoy!

A touch of motivation

Scott — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:41:36 +0000

This is a graphic I just made. All original.

Economics

Scott — Mon, 14 May 2012 05:34:00 +0000

I graduated in economics and I finally figure out what (should) make economists different. We do not try to place value on things, for it is impossible to do and your decisions NEVER are dependent on how “valuable” something is. What we do try to evaluate is the relative value of certain decisions. Using the classic sunk cost example: You pay $10 for a movie ticket, the movie is awful. The fact that you paid $10 for it is irrelevant at the moment. If people are now paying $30 for it, it still is of no worth to try to evaluate the movie. What an economist does is think “what are my available options?” and “which of those will bring me the most happiness?” At that time you might try to place value on things, but only relative to the other options. This probably sounds so simple, but then again… how many times have you walked out of a stupid movie, or finished eating a gross plate at a restaurant, or some other irrational thing? This is not to say that things don’t have value, and you can increase your enjoyment of things by trying to enhance how much you value them (think about appreciating art or nature).

I kinda fell like the person that all of the sudden looks around and thinks “shoot, gravity! It works! This is crazy, I’m stuck to the ground!”

Campfire

Scott — Tue, 01 May 2012 06:55:50 +0000

Kudos to anyone who can see how many marshmallows I eat.

Photoshop fun

Scott — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:15:11 +0000

So my parents are building a new house, I couldn’t let such a canvas go un-photoshopped.

SJQ College of Law Annual Ping Pong Tournament HD

Scott — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 22:49:43 +0000

Insurance

Scott — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:28:52 +0000

The creation of the insurance market

Fun with Photoshop

Scott — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:44:51 +0000

My first attempt at a composition, not super realistic but it was fun.

Original

More fun with Knex

Scott — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:17:16 +0000

A high five to anyone who can tell me what this is!

3D

Scott — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:15:23 +0000

Our ears use two different ways to determine direction of a source: the difference in when the sound hits each ear (more for low frequencies) and the distortion that your head causes as sound passes through it to the far ear, usually just a lower intensity (more for high frequencies). Similarly, our eyes have two methods to determine the distance of a source (direction is basic): the direction which your eyes point (seem to be more useful for things far away) as well as how your eye needs to focus (very useful for close objects where only one eye can be used).

The common method to do 3D film is to give each eye a different image, with a separation between objects to make them seem further/closer than the screen. If you sit in the right place (as centered and back as possible) the illusion is pretty satisfactory, especially if the director opts out of the eye-catching/suspension-of-disbelief-rattling idea of having things seem to come out at you. This completely disregards the focus method to determine depth, which doesn’t really matter if the objects are far enough away and the director doesn’t apply any shallow depth of field effects (bokeh).

Commentary aside, this is a picture of my dorm from ’05, just took two pictures about the same separation of our eyes and combined the two (switching lef-right). Classic simplicity. .To view, use any of those tricks you use to cross your eyes: hold up a finger somewhere around 1/2 to 3/4 of the way to your screen and look at that until the background matches up, or look really close and move backward while keeping your eyes steady, or just cross your eyes- I think that is easiest.

By the way: to make a true-3d image (which you could focus on) you could make an array of ridiculous resolution screens, each only having a small pin-hole to emit light a few mm away. This will create a “light-field” display which would (almost completely) project light position AND direction.

~and yes, we did clean our room every once in a while.