I'm in Toronto now. Yay me.

I have an interest in computer graphics. Specifically modelling I think. Sometimes I like to examine real world objects and think about how they might be modelled by a computer. Of course I have absolutely no experience or knowledge of this field, but I still like to contemplate nonetheless.

Today I was looking at the towels in my bathroom and I noticed that they look like crap. They have been used and washed and dryed so many times that they have become distorted due to varying amounts of stretching among the composite threads. It made me think that if I were to attempt to create a computer model of those particular towels, that no one would ever think that the model looked very realistic or accurate (no matter how good it was) unless they were shown the original towels.

The reason for this is, of course, that the towels are pretty crappy looking. The only reason my family and anyone else who sees them accepts their appearance is because people assume that the world around them is accurate. When you see something on a TV or monitor however, you are more inclined to see fault and doubt what you see. So the computer model fails while the real things are accepted.

My point is that there is a distinct possibility that computer graphics may never fully be able to recreate the real world. We (or at least me) always like to look for flaws in things that appear on screens and we avoid looking for flaws in real life (because we assume real life to be correct). So when we see a computer generated image that contains something out of the ordinary (such as horribly deformed towels) we might very well interpret the strangeness as evidence of a failure of the computer to correctly render the real world, regardless of the accuracy of the models.

Thus, even if we get to the point where everything can be recreated by a computer, it is possible that the audience may not be so accepting because the real world is full of very strange things that we only accept because they exist.

Adrienne makes good cookies:

mmmmmm....cookie

Being lazy is fun!

Am I abusing my Internet service? Remember when Sympatico DSL limited you to 10GB of transfer per month? Is more than 120GB on my own machine in one month bad?

November 2004 Bandwidth

It's November, so that means I need a post so that my website isn't blank. But I'm still busy so it won't be a long one.

Back when I lived at Helene Crescent there was a small issue with my room in that there turned out to be a deep hole filled with water under the carpet in the corner. This disturbed both me and my landlord and everyone I showed it to. Fortunately the landlord got it fixed and everything was happy (especially me with brand new carpet). Here is a picture of what it looked like.

My Waterhole!

The hole was over a foot deep and liked to overflow and soak the carpet. The only thing that prevented me from falling in was a board that went on top like a sewer cover. The board did not stop water from leaking though.

October post, too busy for more than nine words.

I've been to almost all of my classes now and they seem alright. I think this will be a hard term though (although it is of my own making so I shouldn't complain).

I know I said that I would add a comments feature to my site, but it looks like I didn't and I probably won't any time soon. Oh well.

So I think I've reached that point in my life where I have no home. My mom moved at the end of August into a townhouse in London so when I go home now it is actually like I am going to my mom's house, not mine. I guess it was bound to happen but it is still a bit strange. The whole situation has made me want to get rid of everything I own except the essentials (clothes, books, electronics) so that I can move quickly and easily. Kinda weird but whatever.

I'm officially living in Waterloo again now. Moving sucks.

So we built my brother's computer, here are the specs:

• P4 2.8GHz with Hyperthreading
• 1GB PC-3200 DDR400 memory
• Intel 865 chipset on Asus P4P800 SE motherboard
• ATi Radeon 9550 256MB video card
• 120GB Seagate SATA harddrive
• Antec Sonata Case

It makes me jealous becasue it runs so nicely. Unreal Tournament 2004 is perfect at 1024x768 with all of the detail settings at maximum. The case and motherboard worked really well and everything was easy to assemble. It looks really good too, but my brother managed to put the main case sticker on upside down (picture coming soon). Oh well, still pretty cool. Must resist urge to upgrade computer...

Jen's birthday was pretty fun as well. A lot of people showed up and we had dinner at a nice restaurant (the Hot House) down on Front Street. Michael came up for both the meal and some of the computer fun. We took him to lunch at Zelda's at Church and Wellesley which is a really great restaurant. Working in Toronto has been amazing, but going back to Waterloo where there are more people will be really cool too.