Vector Magic

Anyone who has dealt with editing images files that contain text or drawings knows that once you save a file as a raster image (.jpg, .bmp, .gif), the text / drawing will look really bad if you try to zoom in on it.

I came across a new site/service called Vector Magic (by a group at Stanford University) that will automatically convert a rasterized image into a vector image. The vector image actually defines the text/drawing as a series of shapes which can be blown up with no loss of quality (it just draws bigger shapes).

For an example, I took the tiny logo from my site at margelefsky.com:




At the normal size, this picture looks just fine. However, since it is a .jpg file, when you zoom in on the file, you can see that it looks extremely pixelated and blurry.





Now, compare that zoomed view to the version of the file that I produced using Stanford's Vector Magic site:


(note: you can click on the image above to see a bit more of the file)

Obviously, the vector graphic produced by Vector Magic is MUCH clearer. Notice, however, that when the text was "traced", some of the letters did get a bit distorted (like the curved sides of the letter Y). However, considering that the old way of ray tracing an image was to do it manually in Photoshop or Illustrator, this is a HUGE improvement.

Android....not impressed

I just looked through Engadget's "Visual tour of Android's UI".

I was shocked at how little innovation Google has done to the mobile platform. I know that this is an open-source effort, and that the OS will evolve as more and more developers start to dedicate development to the project. But come on, Google! Is that seriously your first crack at a mobile platform? Definitely more evolutionary than revolutionary.

I wanted to demonstrate how similar the brand new Android interface is to my outdated Windows Mobile 5 phone. You'll have to excuse the big "DEMO" text over my screen captures, but I didn't feel like actually paying for a screen capture utility for Windows Mobile device.

See my side-by-side comparison here.

Storytelling in Toledo

Stephanie and I drove in to Toledo on Friday night to see my mom perform in the Frogtown Storyteller's event for Tellabration 2007.

I wouldn't want to prevent anyone from being able to share in the joy of listening to 2.5 hours of storytelling, so I present to you the full video of all 150 minutes of storytelling. Enjoy.






Just kidding...it's just a clip of mom's story.

Detroit news...or lack thereof

Val, Steph, and I went up to Detroit on Saturday to visit the newly renovated MGM Grand Detroit. We were making great time until about 6:00pm when we encountered a fresh accident about 11 miles South of Detroit.

A car had, apparently, flipped and turned sideways, blocking all lanes of traffic on I-75 North. Only the left shoulder was getting by...until the police arrived on the scene and used the left shoulder as a police-only parking lot.

While the police, and a handful of Fire and EMS vehicles tended to the accident the motorists on I-75 just sat and waited. Some got of their cars and wandered up to the accident scene - or into the nearby trees for relief.

I looked up Detroit traffic on my phone and saw that they had completely closed down I-75 a couple exits behind where we were sitting. At that point, we knew we were going to be sitting there for a while, so we found some snacks to eat in Stephanie's car and enjoyed making fun of the motorists-turned-pedestrians that were wandering the expressway.

 

After over an hour of waiting, the police finally moved their cars over and re-opened the left shoulder, allowing us to continue on our way to the MGM Grand.

We spent a few hours there at the casino: gambling a little bit and waiting in long lines for crappy food. We left at around 10:00pm, heading back down I-75.

Much to our surprise, I-75 North was STILL closed at the scene of the earlier accident. Police were still on the scene with surveying equipment and the vehicles involved (there was a second vehicle about 100 yards away from the flipped car) hadn't moved since we had last seen them.

When we got home I looked online to see if there was any mention of this accident and road closure, assuming that for them to close down the road for that long there must be some sort of story. However, I found NOTHING. No mention of the accident and/or road closure on the Detroit Free Press website or any of the local Detroit TV station websites.

I just looked again today, figuring that maybe all reporters in Detroit took the weekend off and STILL find nothing. How can you close a major expressway for at least 3 hours and have not a peep in the local news? Were all of Detroit's news crews at the MGM Grand? That may explain why there was a 40 minute wait for crappy chinese take out food at the casino's food court.

(Is it just me, or have I seen an unusal number of accident recently? Maybe I should just lock myself in my condo like my neighbor)

Scary Scene in Twinsburg

This weekend there was a horrific accident on Route 91 outside of my neighborhood. Luckily, we had made a Swenson's run, and were well clear of the area at the time of the accident. However, on arriving home, Rt 91 was closed and I had to take the back way into my development.

Stephanie noticed that there was crime scene tape roping off the area through the trees near Rt 91, so we walked out to see what was going on.

We found a gruesome scene - four cars completely destroyed, 12 police cars from all over the area, and a huge stretch of road roped off with police tape.

We found out from onlookers that an elderly man had been driving northbound on Rt 91 when he suffered a heart attack (or some other health problem) and lost control of his vehicle. He struck 3 other vehicles before careening off the road and into a hill that separates the road from the nearby houses.

We watched the swarm of police investigate the scene (including brining in a firetruck to lift a police photographer high in the air to take aerial shots of the cars) until they were about to remove the body of the elderly man...which we didn't need to see.

More information here

How many tacos does it take to give everyone in America indigestion?

I'm sure most of you were familiar with the Taco Bell publicity stunt during the World Series in which they promised a free taco for "everyone" if any player stole a base during the series.

Well, a player did steal a base, and earlier this week, Taco Bell gave out X tacos.

I was doing a little bit of searching online, trying to figure out just what X was. I'm curious how many millions of people managed to pack themselves into Taco Bell for their free sample of crappy Mexican fast food.

Unfortunately, I was unable to come up with an answer. However, I did find some interesting articles revealing the history of this Taco Bell promotion.

It seems that it started back in 2001 and was related to falling space station debris, and not to baseball. Taco Bell floated a 40x40 ft target in the Pacific ocean before the Mir space station fell to earth. If the Mir landed on this target, everyone in America would get a free taco. Kind of ironic that a Russian spacecraft could feed millions of Americans.

The next year, the promotion shifted to baseball and the 2002 World Series. For that promotion, a player had to hit the ball out of the park and onto an inflatable target in the water outside of the stadium.

Then, for the 2003 World Series, Taco bell decided to make the promotion a bit more realistic. They designated a 16-person section of the crowd as the target. If a player hit a home run ball into that section of the stands, then everyone in the country would get the runs win a taco.

In 2004, they changed the promotion a bit again. This time, they hung a banner at the World Series, and if a player hit a ball into the banner, then everyone would suffer eat for free.

It seems that Taco Bell took a break from this promo for 2005, but returned with another variation in 2006. For the 2006 World Series, the payout would occur if a player hit a home run over the left field wall in game 3 of the series.

After seeing how this promotion has evolved over the past 6 years, it makes the recent "steal a base" promo seem like shooting fish in a barrel. Now the question remains...how many people actually took Taco Bell up on their offer for a free taco in a 3 hour window of time this past Tuesday?

Can any of you find the answer for me?