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AndreiVajnaII

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In this post I try to explain abstract art - those kind of paintings that are just some shapes and squiggles that don't represent anything, and they look like a kid drew them or that they can be done by anyone in Paint.

My approach is to explain one of Piet Mondrian's paintings, but first I explain what abstraction is. I do that by taking a short text (any Monkey Island fans out there?), that is full of descriptions, and abstract it over and over again, until there is barely anything left of the original. Then I explain how that same process works for graphical arts, and what it all means.

Ian's Shoelace Site 10 years ago

I've found this site something like 10 years ago and changed how I tie my shoes. I do a double loop thing and I never have to stop to tie them back because they came loose. Whenever I see a soccer player stop to tie his laces I laugh and say that that should be the first thing the coaches teach and this site would be a great resource for that.

And 12 years ago

The motivation for the title is specified right in the article.

Your explanation has just made the movie more interesting to me. Until now I thought it was quite idiotic, but your revelations do make sense.

Though I still think that the ending scene is badly handled. If the point is that Cobb doesn't care any more about the outcome of the spinning top, then Nolan should have just slided from the image of the top to Cobb and his children.

By zooming in on the top and cutting the shot right before it should falls, it just adds this unneeded baggage of questioning whether all that happened is real or not. Like some sort of magic trick. "Do you doubt what you've just seen?" And I just didn't find that that was the point of the movie.

Yes, I did see videos of rooted nook, and you could use android apps to view PDFs, but the problem with that is, of course, rooting the device.

I think Kindle 3 is better for PDFs than the Nook Touch, because you can zoom in. It is clunky, but at least you can do it. On the Nook you can only change font sizes, and that reflows the PDF and messes everything up.

The solution, as I see it, since they have a touch screen is to implement something similar to ezPDF, which is my favourite PDF reader for Android. Just a double tap on a section, and it'll zoom exactly on the section of text you want to read. You don't have to fiddle with fixed zoom settings and clunky movement to try and fit the viewport to include the portion you want to see.

Of course, they probably aren't interested in doing this at all, since they'd be very happy if you only read books bought at their store.

PS. The Kindle DX is probably the best for PDFs, but its price and size are big downpoints.

That's the news I've been waiting for. I mean, other than the new tablet, I was interested in their plans for the e-ink reader, so that I can decide whether to wait for a new version, or buy the Kindle 3. Kindle 3 and Kindle Fire are two very different devices and it's best for them to announce their plans regarding both.

No, like I said, the special theory of relativity is based on the speed of light being the same for all observers, not on its exact value. That is a supposition on which the theory is based, not one of its predictions.

If, for example we now find out that neutrinos move with 1.0002% of the speed of light, but that their speed is the same, measured by any observer, we will just replace the speed of light constant in the special relativity formulas with the speed of neutrinos constant.

But that all depends what the interpretations of the results are going to be.

The theory of relativity is based on the fact that the speed of light is the same for any observer, no matter if that observer is standing still or moving. From this supposition, the rest of the theory is just mathematics. So if there is something than can move faster than that speed, then the theory will still hold, as long as everybody observes the same speed, in any state of movement they are.

Well, this is great publicity for Apple. More importantly, not doing it would be terrible publicity. Still, I don't think that has anything to do with it. This is just something normal in times of crisis, where humanity is the driving factor, and whether there is a company involved is irrelevant. I'm pretty sure the things described here have happened in several other places.

Another point I'd like to bring up is that I feel all the new gadgetry is a bit over-hyped in the news (not just here). I wonder if a few decades ago people were so ecstatic about the telephone, radio or television.