BACKYARD PIC 6+ (Story - Continued)

In a previous post I told the story of the first "paradise tree snake" that I met in our house. This is the story of our second encounter.

Lets just go over some facts about these kind of snakes first. These are highlights from the FAQ page of the flyingsnake.org website (yes these bastards can actually FLY!):

How big are they? Most adult flying snakes are 3-4 feet long (1-1.2 meters).

Do they bite? Yes, quite readily - they seem to strike at anything moving.

Are they venomous? Yes, but only mildy so. Most people that get bitten have no problems

DISCLAIMER:
I'd like to state that although I paint an impression of a truly scary snake and I may use unsavory language to describe them on occasion - I actually have a great deal of respect for these very beautiful (and obviously talented) reptiles... It just happens that I am a complete pussy when it comes to dealing with them!

THE STORY:
OK - So remember that at the time we didn't know anything about the fearsome reputation of these snakes...

CHAPTER 1: The Awakening:
02:30am: Woken up by the sound of Riise (our dog) barking loudly.

02:31am: Cursed loudly about the fact that the dog was still barking (waking up Carol in the process). Went outside the bedroom and found the dog in the kitchen (where she knows she shouldn't be) repeatedly looking up and barking at the exhaust fan between nervous glances back at me.

"SHHH Ris'!!" - Barking continues. I decide I'd better investigate - OK "Show me, Show me" I tell her. She's used to this command - normally moves ahead and shows us what she's getting all worked up about - not this time. She stays riveted to the floor, the hair on her upper back sticking up like all dogs who feel threatened or are about to attack. My eyes track to the location she is barking at and I see the snake. It's found its way in through a small hole near the kitchen extractor fan and is checking out my collection of wine bottles.

Photos above: The kitchen fan / wine bottles and Riise the dog.

02:32am: SHIT! "Carol!, Carol!" I yelp. "What?!!" comes the terse reply from from behind the bedroom door. "There's a snake in the kitchen... HELP!". I know from previous experience that Carol is fairly comfortable around legless reptiles. If we spot them outside on the veranda she often goes outside to "check them out" and see if she can touch them!

So she somewhat begrudgingly comes into the kitchen and in a pissed off tone asks "where?". "Up there" I point. The snake flinches as if it knows its finally met its challenge. "Get me a stick" Carol demands - simultaneously ordering Riise out of the kitchen with a sweep of the hand (Riise knows not to fuck with Carol when she's pissed off and promptly leaves the kitchen to take up a rear support position). I whine - to get at the broom sticks I have to cross the kitchen, past the snake and towards the back door where we keep the mops and brooms. "How about the cob web duster stick?" I suggest in a moment of very-early-in-the-morning brilliance. "Go!" Carol orders - I've now adopted Riise's philosophy - don't fuck with Carol!

So I fetch the cob web duster for Carol and she immediately begins gently prodding the snake in an attempt to convince it to leave the house from where it came. I decide that its probably not a good idea to be in the vicinity of this insane effort but for various masculinity reasons don't want to look like a pussy in front of Carol. The solution I realise is to offer the very important and heroic service of leaving the kitchen to call the professional snake catcher.

I'm in no particular rush to go back to the kitchen but am keen to see the snake finally removed from the house. Pest control informs me that they do indeed have people on standby at 2:45 in the morning and will dispatch their "guy" straight away. I put the phone down after profusely thanking the lady on the other end. Just as I hang up I hear a "ahhhhh!!!!" from the kitchen. "Are you OK?" I gingerly shout. "ahhhh! s**t!!!!, the snake just jumped off the ledge and came straight at me!!!" screams Carol. "Where is he know?" I ask as I quickly prepare for an exit out of the front door. Carol informs me that the snake is now no longer visible and has retreated behind the cooking stove / oven.

Carol casually walks into the living room where I am firmly barricaded behind my bank of computers. "MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T COME BACK OUT!" I scream at her. "I know..." she says mockingly "...I'm just getting a chair". With a complete lack of acknowledgment that anything was out of the normal Carol grabs a chair, places it in the kitchen (carefully orienting it toward the stove), sits down on it and then asks me calmly if I could make her a cup of coffee..... GET STUFFED! I'm not going anywhere near the kettle - it's too close to the snake infested stove! I'm desperate for a "stiff" drink to help calm the nerves but that would involve going into the kitchen so I decide I can get by with just cigarettes.

CHAPTER 2: The PJ-Wearing, Snake-Catching Guy:
03:00am: The snake catcher turns up and I'm convinced he's still wearing his PJs. I have to put the dog away because he's afraid of them - OK - so this guy catches king cobras and stuff for a living but he's afraid of dogs!?! Despite the irony Carol and I show him where we think the snake is. He cautiously looks around the stove, doesn't see anything and proceeds to move the stove for a better look. Still nothing. Out of frustration he hands Carol the snake catching stick with instructions that she should use it to grab the snake should it suddenly make an appearance (he can obviously tell that I would be useless at this task) and begins to systematically dismantle the stove. Carol complies with his request without hesitation - I on the other hand peer meekly around the kitchen door to ensure that everything is going OK.

03:15am: Carol and the snake catching guy don't find any snakes and declare that it has left the building via a small hole in the floor situated behind the stove (where the gas intake pipe feeds the stove). As a preventive measure Carol crawls behind the stove and seals up all the holes with masking tape (even snake guy wasn't going to crawl back there).

03:20am: We thank PJ wearing, snake catching guy and go back to bed. Even I'm convinced that the snake has gone.

CHAPTER 3: The Return:
04:30am: Riise wakes us up with more barking. SHIT!, SHIT!, SHIT! - this time I know what the barking means - it's friggin' back!

I peer around the edge of the bedroom door and can see Riise in the living room in a defensive posture barking at something underneath the dining room table. Squinting harder to negate the fact that my vision was still a bit dodgy (due to my recently awoken state) - I witness the snake slithering forward directly at Riise who immediately begins barking louder and backing up (smart girl). Vision immediately clears, heart rate immediately rises, bowels loosen (but fortunately not enough to bring on an additional concurrent emergency).

Surprisingly I find myself creeping forwards out of the relative safety of the bedroom and towards the living room to make a more detailed appraisal of the situation - must be adrenalin kicking in, or perhaps its my emergency coordination training. Either way it doesn't last very long and I quickly retreat to the nearest safe observational post (the bathroom). The snake continues to advance on Riise who is bravely barking but backing up at the same time. Unfortunately Riise has decided to back up in my general direction.

"Carol!... It's back!!!" I scream from the bathroom towards the closed bedroom door. ..... silence..... "Carol! - help - GET OUT HERE!". "Where is it?" she asks through the bedroom door and with the same pissed off tone as earlier in the night but this time it contains a trace of nervousness as well. "Out here" I reply. "Exactly where" she demands impatiently but with equal nervousness. "In the living room" - I begin to shake as the snake inches ever closer towards my stronghold.

Carol peers out of the bedroom door and somewhat mockingly (in a tone that is reminiscent of me asking Riise the same question) tells me to "show her". From my bathroom safe area I point around the corner into the living room. Carol takes a look for herself and I follow carefully behind using her as a shield.

The snake rapidly advances on Riise who by now only has one place to back up into - the couch. Poor dog jumps onto the couch and continues barking down at the snake which is now arching up at having a go at her.

I'm a bit suspicious that Carol has some sort of elite special-forces military training that she's not allowed to tell anyone about - because she handled the next fraction of a second with the precision and command of a general under fire.

Carol kicks the bedroom door open. "Riise. Get In!" - "Nick get in the bathroom!". We both comply without hestitation. Keeping her eye on the snake she closes the bedroom door sealing Riise in and protecting her from the further onslaught of the snake. It becomes clear to me that Carol is following the emergency response procedures P.E.A.R - People, Environment, Assets, Reputation.

With "people" out of the way she moves on to "environment" and "assets"; "Nick close the door to the spare room and seal it so the snake doesn't get in. Do the same for the bedroom." she calmly orders me. "Oh and get me the vacuum cleaner pole from the spare room" she adds.

The snake continues to advance towards us - presumably looking for Riise. Carol adopts the fall back location with me in the bathroom. I retreat further and stand in the bath tub. "Shit! it's right outside!". In a last attempt to convince the snake to move away from our general vicinity Carol sacrifices our only weapon (the vacuum cleaner pole) by rapidly launching it at the snake. It doesn't work - the snake continues to head towards us. Carol slams the bathroom door shut.

CHAPTER 4: Barricaded In:
Both of us barricaded in the bathroom - and we begin to formulate our next plan of attack. "Where's the phone?" asks Carol. "It's outside with the Snake" I reply. Crap. I go into survival mode and begin calculating how many days you could live in a bathroom before you die... Sleeping on tiles would be a bit uncomfortable but we've got lots of water and surely you can get some sort of sustenance from toothpaste. Worse comes to worse there are plenty of things that could put us out of our misery in the drugs cabinet.

Carol decides that we must keep track of where the snake is at all times and takes a peek out of the bathroom door. "Where is it?" I ask from inside the bath tub. "Crap - I can't see it" she replies. She sticks her head out further for a better look but suddenly retreats and slams the door shut again. "Its right next to the door on the right hand side".

CHAPTER 5: Re-Taking the Living Room:
We develop a plan: I'll stay in the bath tub and Carol will use the bath towel to cajole the snake away from us and back into the living room. Using the towel as a kind of shielding wall Carol exits the bathroom and faces up to the snake. The technique works well and soon enough Carol gives the "all clear" as she has re-taken the living room ground. The snake is happily sheltered underneath the couch apparently eating a gecko.

Now that we have re-taken the living room we have all of our weapons and tools back again: Vacuum pole, cob-web duster, mobile phone, torch, towels etc. Riise is still locked in the bedroom.

I call back pest-control and they dispatch their "guy" again.

CHAPTER 6: The Final Stand:
After finishing its early morning snack the snake decides to venture out from underneath the couch and again begins making its way towards the bedroom / bathroom area. Carol and I are worried that the snake will find its way into the bedroom with Riise so Carol tries to convince it (using "stick power") to go back under the couch. It doesn't work.

Carol lays Riise's dog pillows in front of the entrance way to the bedroom / bathroom area in an attempt to create a barrier for the snake. The nasty little bugger starts attacking and striking the dog pillows!! Biting, rotating and curling its body with each strike!

The snake breaches our makeshift barrier and heads towards the bathroom. Fortunately in my rush to leave the bathroom I forgot to close the door behind me. The snake enters and Carol rushes forward and quickly slams the bathroom door shut. TRAPPED the snake has nowhere to go.

About 15 minutes later the snake catcher guy turns up but this time he's not wearing his PJs and is more appropriately attired. He cautiously enters the house and his first question is "where is the dog?". "Don't worry" I say "the snake is trapped in the bathroom".

Snake catcher enters the bathroom. "Whoaaa!" he says and takes a quick backwards step. Apparently the snake is still quite aggressive. He bounds forward with his snake catching stick and grabs the snake. Triumphantly he brings it outside to show Carol and I.

"Did you hit it?" he asks me. He's obviously forgotten that I wouldn't go anywhere near a snake. "Not me! ask her" I say pointing a finger at Carol. Carol claims she never hit it. "Must be the dog bit it then" concludes the snake catcher "its got an injury on its tail".

GOOD DOGGIE RIISE!

CHAPTER 7: Final Words:
Following this incident Carol and Riise enjoyed hero status for several weeks before Riise runied it by raiding the rubbish bin and leaving an old bit of raw chicken on the couch.

In researching Paradise Tree Snakes since this incident I discovered that most of the Chrysopelea family of snakes have a reputation for being quite aggressive. This incident confirms that observation and also proves that dogs have no ill effects from a bite from this snake.

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BACKYARD PIC 8

This is an "Oriental Pied Hornbill" Anthracoceros albirostris that just landed in front of my kitchen window.They usually hangout in pairs (breeding I assume) - in fact this particular hornbill actually landed on the branch with a partner but the partner was a bit camera shy and soon flew off. Apparently the area where I live is the only place in the world where Hornbills live in a residential area.

Taken at a focal length of 150mm: ISO 100: 1/160s @ f3.8

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BACKYARD PIC 7

Here's another "White Collared Kingfisher"... This one is mid flight.

BACKYARD PIC 6 (+ Story)

The picture to the left is of a "Paradise Tree Snake" Chrysopelea paradisi. The photo is a little out of focus but that's coz I was just nervous (didn't want to get too close for too long). I met this particular guy in my bedroom! (but more on that a bit later). This photo was taken in our carport after the snake catcher guy managed to track it down and capture it.

A little more about the Paradise Tree Snake:
It's actually a very beautiful snake with a yellow belly and black scales on top which are punctuated with red dots all the way down its spine. Some say its a rare snake - but I can tell you that they are by no means rare around here. Its only mildly poisonous and by all accounts a bite doesn't seem to effect humans adversely (or dogs for that matter- again more on that a bit later).
Perhaps the most famous (or infamous) thing about these snakes is that they can FLY! Actually its more like gliding (as Carol found out - more later). Check out the following link for photos of them in flight! http://homepage.mac.com/j.socha/aerial_images/paradisi/paradisi_air_gallery_1.html I've read that they can even take out prey in mid flight!

OK - so we see snakes now and again on our verandah - hanging out in the pot plants or wrapped around the light pole or even trying to crawl up the wall. The Paradise Tree Snake always seemed very inquisitive. When they're on the other side of the window I often have a good stare at them and they seem to stare back with genuine interest. Carol has even gone outside to touch one and it didn't seem to mind that much.

We've had two of these in the house now and thats where I draw the line. By all means hang out on the verandah - just don't come inside the bloody house!

The First Encounter:
The first time I met one inside the house I was having a nap (Friday afternoon lunch time nap before going back to work). I heard a rustling at the window on the venetian blinds next to the bed (too loud to be gecko) so I looked up - and bugger me there it was - elegantly draped between a series of lateral blinds! - I've NEVER jumped out of bed that fast in my life. Ran out of the room in just my boxer shorts and started working on my "what the f*!k should I do" plan.

"Call the snake catcher"! - SHIT! - wouldn't you know it mobile phone network is down. OK use a land line - SHIT! - don't have one! By this time my dog thought I was raving mad as I was asking her for advice. OK go to the neighbours house and make the call from there. - SHIT! - where are my clothes? - SHIT! - in the room with the friggin' snake! - OK - suck it up Nick... run inside the room keeping your eye on the snake and grab your clothes. DONE. Seal up gap in door to prevent snake from exiting room and entering another. DONE. GO next door to make phone call to snake catcher - no neighbours - SHIT! - It's a Friday afternoon and most people are at the mosque! - OK go the office and call from there...

Lady: "Hello sir how can I help you?"
Me: "Yeah are you the snake catching people?"
Lady: "Yes sir we are how can I help?"
Me: "Can you remove a snake for me?"
Lady: "Yes sure what is your location?"
Me: "[LOCATION]"
Lady: "And where is the snake now sir?"
Me: "In the bedroom."
Lady: "ohhhhh... that's not good! We'll send someone around straight away."
Me: "Cheers" (so when would they NOT send someone over straight away?)

So I go back home and wait for the snake catcher.............. 1 hour later he turns up.

Snake Dude: "Sorry sir mobile phones aren't working so didn't know to come here sooner".
Me: "Thats cool it's in the bedroom. I'll wait outside with the dog"

..... 30 minutes later...

Snake Dude: "Sir I think he's gone home already - can't find him."

- Well thats just not f*!k'n good enough! - If he can come in and go out again then he can certainly come back whenever he feels like terrorising me.

So despite the fact that I am a complete pussy when it comes to snakes (as if you couldn't tell already) - I actually help "snake dude" go through the room looking for the stupid snake (actually it was mostly so he didn't find my porn stash :) - jokes.

NO snake. So trying to be as reassuring as possible "snake dude" tells me; "it's OK sir if you see him again just call my personal number and I'll come and get him".... Yeah cheers thats gonna be really useful when the mobile network is down!

So "snake dude" bids me farewell and I close the front door thanking him for his efforts and immediately begin isolating the portion of my house where I last saw the snake... being careful to ensure that I have all my clothes and prized belongings with me so that I never have to go into that area again. I can live with sleeping on the couch in the living room for the rest of my time in Borneo and I can always pee in the garden and use the hose pipe for a shower.

...... 30 minutes later "snake dude" comes back ; "I found him sir!". "Did you catch him yet?" I reply. "No sir I thought I'd tell you the 'good news' first, I'll show you." So me and "snake dude" go downstairs to the carport and he shows me where the snake is and begins outlining his theory of how the hell the snake got into my bedroom in the first place... "DUDE! JUST CATCH THE 'EFFING' SNAKE!".

So - Finally "snake dude" catches the snake and thats how I got the photo. Turns out the damn thing crawled up through a crack around the hole where the air-con intake pipe enters the house. I spent the night sleeping on the couch anyway and the next day siliconed up and sealed all the holes around the air-con intakes around the house.

I'll share the next "Paradise Tree Snake Encounter" in another blog (the next encounter is quite scary - so stay tuned).

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POSSIBLY OF INTEREST TO OTHERS: Clarifying Quadrilaterals & Solids (LESSON 3)

In the last "lesson" we looked at the different types of quadrilaterals. Now we're going to answer some specific questions:

1. OK... so what is an Oblong?
   
2. Are self-intersecting quadrilaterals actually real quadrilaterals?
3. Is there such a thing as "kite" and "diamond" shaped quadrilaterals?

Oblongs:
When most people think of oblongs I'm sure they immediately conjure up in their minds a picture of a rectangle. Well fine.. a rectangle IS an oblong - but many don't realise that the term "oblong" refers to ANY shape that is "oblate" i.e. flattened or depressed at the poles. It's derived from the latin latus which basically just means "wide" or "broad". "Prolate" on the other hand means "lengthened" or "extended" (usually applied to time rather than shapes).

Usually the term "oblong" only applies to shapes that are approximately rectangular or ellipsoidal - some definitions even state the ratio of flattening (usually 2 to 4 times longer than broad). Other definitions also state that the shape must be approximately regular with near-parallel sides.

The term "oblate" is often employed by biologists to describe the shape of leaves or spores.

Self Intersecting Quadrilaterals:
So quadrilaterals are 4 sided shapes... so are the following shapes really quadrilaterals?

Could we not count the sides as follows?...

I work in a discipline where we deal with the "topology" of shapes for modeling things such as roads, pipeline networks etc. For us a self-intersecting polygon is an invalid shape. From a more mathematical perspective however the answer is yes & no!

It all depends if at the point of intersection a vertex exists or not.

In Fig 1 a vertex exists at the point of intersection. Side 2, 3, 5, 6 must either start or terminate at this vertex. In this case the polygon IS NOT a quadrilateral as it has 6 sides.

In Fig 2 no vertex exists at the point of intersection and the polygon IS therefore a quadrilateral.

Kites & Diamonds:
I've heard of people who describe the following shapes as either "kites" or "diamonds":

Well technically a diamond is a stone made from carbon and a kite is a fun thing to fly in your local park or on the beach. What we really mean is that these shapes are "kite-like" or "diamond-like". The terms are employed as similes.

A "diamond" is also commonly used to describe the layout of "bases" in the game of baseball. To ornithologists a "Kite" is a type of raptor (bird of prey).

NOTE: In the above case the "diamond" shape is actually a parallelogram.

If you think about it the "diamond" shape doesn't even really represent a diamond! Raw diamonds (found naturally) have amorphous shapes - they're only cut by a jeweler into a regular 3D shape with multiple facets for aesthetic reasons.

We could classify the following shapes (although not quadrilaterals) as either "diamond"-like or "kite"-like too...

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BACKYARD PIC 5

Another monkey...

This is the photo that I use as my personal photo. It was taken in the late afternoon in quite low-light conditions at ISO 800 (which is why its quite grainy). This guy is the most senior monkey in the troupe (and the biggest) he is eating a mango from our mango tree.

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RANDOM THOUGHT 2: With a big enough computer we could predict the future!

Moore's Law essentially states that CPU speed doubles approximately every two years. Actually:

"The number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit is increasing exponentially, doubling approximately every two years".

Whilst this may have been true a couple of years back we can clearly see a trend away from the predicted exponential increase in individual CPU speed and more towards an increase in the individual "cores" in a single CPU (quad core CPUs being common now).

This coupled with the increasing trend towards low-cost commodity cluster computing leads to even faster growth in the number of FLOPS (floating point operations) that a compute cluster can achieve. Linux Magazine [May 2208] reports current Top 500 performance of up to 100 teraflops. This is extrapolated to an estimated performance of at least a petaflop within the year. The article goes on to discuss exaflop and even zettaflop capabilities in the near future.

So what's this gotta do with "predicting the future"? - Well I recently read a small article in a magazine that discussed the possibility that if we had enough computing power then we should be able to "predict" the future!

Let's think about this for a minute... We ALREADY use computers to make predictions about things. For example: Where is this oil spill likely to move?, What are the most likely areas to flood in the next 2 years? etc. These techniques are mostly based on probabilities and statistics given modeled and / or simulated input data.

But what this article was REALLY about was whether you could make predictions such as... When will I buy a new house? What will be the address of my new house? What will be the sex of my baby? etc...

These kind of predictions are obviously a massive stretch of the predictive computing capabilities of any machines out there now. They require results that have 100% certainty as apposed to modeling and simulation capabilities now which only require a good level of certainty (maybe greater than a 75% confidence level). So what would be required to perform predictions with near 100% certainty?

Reaching higher certainty levels really all comes down to improving the input model and data:

1. Increasing model complexity.
2. Increasing the number of input variables.
   
3. Increasing the volume of input data.
4. Increasing the accuracy and precision of input data.

If we take this to the extreme then we would want to model ALL the laws of physics and all objects in the universe at a sub-atomic level! Here we are dabbling in the realms of chaos theory! -

chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

So can we achieve a full deterministic "chaos" machine? Here's a couple of reasons why this is not possible:

If we assume that we can model almost all of the interactions between all particles in a closed system (of which our chaos machine is a part of) then:

1. You would need a machine that could process FASTER than the speed of light to allow it to be truly predictive - otherwise time would travel faster than the machine could model an outcome.
2. The machine would also have to model ITSELF! So we now have a cyclic problem! - Impossible - as the model would never gain time because it would be stuck in a loop!
   
3. The machine would become self-consuming - the more stuff we want to model - the more resources the machine will need and therefore - the more atomic matter and energy it will consume (from the closed system).

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BACKYARD PIC 4

Another backyard photo...

This is another photo of a "White-Collared Kingfisher". I think this particular photo was actually taken by Carol. The cool thing about this one is that it has caught a lizard (Takydromus sexlineatus). The kingfisher spent a while violently nodding its head from side to side - smashing the lizard against the branch until it was motionless - and then ate it!

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POSSIBLY OF INTEREST TO OTHERS: Clarifying Quadrilaterals & Solids (LESSON 2)

In the last "lesson" we looked at the relationships between various types of quadrilaterals using an inheritance diagram. Now we'll look at the specific properties of each of the mentioned quadrilateral types. Most of the content here comes from the "mathsisfun" website: http://www.mathsisfun.com/quadrilaterals.html

Polygon:	A polygon is a closed figure made by joining line segments, where each line segment intersects exactly two others.
Quadrilateral:	Quadrilateral just means "four sides" (quad means four, lateral means side). Any four-sided shape is a Quadrilateral. But the sides have to be straight, and it has to be 2-dimensional.
Parallelogram:	Opposite sides are parallel and equal in length, and opposite angles are equal (angles "a" are the same, and angles "b" are the same) NOTE: Squares, Rectangles and Rhombuses are all Parallelograms! Example: if a parallelogram has all sides equal and angles "a" and "b" are right angles, then it is also a square.
Rectangle:	A rectangle is a four-sided shape where every angle is a right angle (90°). Also opposite sides are parallel and of equal length.
Rhombus:	A rhombus is a four-sided shape where all sides have equal length. Also opposite sides are parallel and opposite angles are equal. Another interesting thing is that the diagonals (dashed lines in second figure) of a rhombus bisect each other at right angles.
Square:	A square has equal sides and every angle is a right angle (90°) Also opposite sides are parallel. A square also fits the definition of a rectangle (all angles are 90°), and a rhombus (all sides are equal length).
Trapezoids / Trapeziums: Regular: Irregular:	A trapezoid (UK: trapezium) has one pair of opposite sides parallel. It is called a regular trapezoid if the sides that aren't parallel are equal in length and both angles coming from a parallel side are equal, as shown. A trapezoid is not a parallelogram because only one pair of sides is parallel.

In the next section we will answer the questions:

1. OK... so what is an Oblong?
   
2. Are self-intersecting quadrilaterals actually real quadrilaterals?
3. Is there such a thing as "kite" and "diamond" shaped quadrilaterals?

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BACKYARD PIC 3

Here's another backyard photo...

This monitor lizard (Varanus salvator) (commonly called a "Biawak" in this part of the world) was walking around in the shallow water in a drainage stream that feeds into the river in my backyard. This guy was probably 1.2m long - but they are reported to grow up to 3m!

The photo is not very good - but it was taken using an 800mm lens in low light (ISO800 / f10.2 at 1/60s).

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IDEA 2: More Uses for Seam Carving

This video comes from a SIGGRAPH 2007 presentation it describes the use of "Seam Carving" to intelligently resize raster data whilst still preserving the most important details. The algorithm can also be applied for object removal in raster data.


The algorithm uses a simple gradient magnitude filter to determine features in the imagery which have the most "energy" and are therefore likely to be important. Resizing involves removing or interpolating vertical and / or horizontal "seams" that have been identified by the image energy functions.

The algorithm has been implemented in GIMP as the "liquid re-scaler". I assume something similar has also been added to Photoshop. This is fine for the casual user who wants to crop his/her ex out of a photo or wants to resize a photo for their blogsite etc - but I believe there are applications beyond aesthetic image processing. Here are some ideas...

1. Applied to dynamic resizing of video data - scale up to wide screen or down to standard ratios.
   
2. Applied as a raster compression method - remove un-important seams from imagery and dynamically re-insert them using the up-scaling sub-algorithm.
3. Up-scaling raster surfaces. Useful where rasters may contain data of hetergeneous sampling resolutions... null or low res' data could be interpolated using seam insertion (rather than the usual interpolation techniques which are usually quite un-natural). I'm thinking that this could be useful for multi-res terrain data.
4. Intelligent object removal in terrain data or satellite imagery.

There's gotta be plenty more!

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POSSIBLY OF INTEREST TO OTHERS: Clarifying Quadrilaterals & Solids (LESSON 1)

Last Sunday afternoon I was lounging around watching TV whilst Carol was busy preparing a lesson plan for her primary-level maths class. The question came up... what actually are the subtle differences between quadrilaterals, squares, rectangles, oblongs, parallelograms, rhombus', trapezoids, trapeziums, kite shapes, diamond shapes... This discussion obviously lead to a trip to Google and Wikipedia but also spawned even more questions:

• Are self-intersecting quarilaterals still actually quadrilaterals?
• Should students be taught to recognise 3D shapes through 2D abstractions and should the commonly used isometric representations of 3D objects be termed "solids"?

OK - so I'm going to try and address some of these issues... but because this could be a long article I'm going to split it up into a number of separate "lessons".

LESSON 1:

I thought the best way to demonstrate the relationship between all of the different types of quadrilaterals would be through an "inheritance" diagram:

To help you understand it:
A Square inherits properties from both a Rhombus and Rectangle which in turn inherits properties from a parallelogram which is of course a Quadrilateral which is actually a type of Polygon.

So... A square is a:

• Rhombus
• Rectangle
• Parallelogram
• Quadrilateral
• Polygon

More fascinating quadrilateral info' coming in the next lesson...

PTX 0.3
- Over

BACKYARD PIC 2

So here's another pic from my backyard.

This is a "White-Collared Kingfisher" Halcyon chloris.

I've noticed that they hang out in pairs (I presume breeding pairs) and eat small lizards and worms. The couple in my backyard have their favourite branches that they always visit (this is how a knew where to point the camera and preset the focus).

Again - taken @ 800mm.

PTX 0.3
- Over

ADMIN NOTE: PTAX 0.3

OK... a couple of inclusions in the blog taxonomy:

• RECIPE: [Recipe Name]
• COCKTAIL: [Cocktail Name]

PTX 0.3

- Over

IDEA 1: Personal Sensors & Wireless Communication Devices

I just saw a show on TV (The New Inventors) where this guy had invented a worn, wireless communication device that could sense if you were having a heart attack and then message (SMS) your friends, family or even emergency services alerting them of your condition. Great invention! It's basically an ECG sensor connected to a mobile phone (they connected the sensor via bluetooth).


Pretty simple idea (from a software engineering point of view):

• Get a bunch of sensors that are bluetooth enabled (or communicate by some other method).
• Develop some algorithms that make decisions about your status based on the inputs from your sensors.
• Generate alerts when the sensors indicate a certain scenario.
• Communicate these alerts with others via some wireless COM protocol (SMS, GSM, 3G, TCP/IP etc etc etc...).
  

It got me thinking (and I'm sure I'm not the only person who's thought about this)... This concept could be applied to so many things:

1. Do the same thing but for diabetics or eppeleptics (there's gotta be a bunch more).
   
2. Person A works in a potentially hazardrous environment. They may be exposed to certain gasses, temperatures etc. Why not monitor these remotely using a bunch of worn sensors that communicate back to a monitor station via some sort of wireless communication protocol. Alerts can be generated (either at the device or at the monitor station) and relevant people can be alerted.

Even better if you coupled this with a positioning device (GPS or some sort of local positioning system) then the alert could be coupled with the exact location of the person wearing the sensors!

I think I'll develop a desktop prototype and get back to you all.

PTX 0.2
- Over

POSSIBLY USEFUL TO OTHERS: USB HSDPA Modem With Ubuntu Linux

I got one of these 3.5G HSDPA USB modems from our local telco the other day. Theoretically should give me 7.2Mbps download speeds - all wireless!

www.dst-group.com/dstcom/index.htm

It's really neat and worked great with my Windows XP and 2003 Server machines. Caused a few problems on my work laptop (special flavour of Windows 2000 Prof') - got a blue screen of death every now and then. When it came to getting it going on my Ubuntu Hardy laptop it was a bit of a challenge. I noticed that quite a few people on Ubuntu Forums were having similar issues with these type of modems so I thought I'd share my experiences here.

Basically this device is known as a "flip flop" USB device i.e. it is both a GSM Serial Modem and an auto-mounting CD-ROM flash disk. Under Windows this is great because the first time you plug it into your machine it mounts as an auto-run CD-ROM and asks you to install the drivers. After you've followed the really simple instructions the auto-mount CD-ROM and flash disk functionality is disabled for the device and it now acts as a USB modem... off you go and start surfing!

Under Linux however the device is recognised as a flash disk and then doesn't go any further to init the modem. Fortunately Ubuntu Hardy already came with the drivers for this type of modem - and the manufacturers have a debian-based driver anyway... I just needed to get Linux to ignore it as a USB flash disk and instead see it as a GSM modem.

I've included my detailed notes on how to do this as an attachment. NOTE: that I need to do more stuff to get this working as I want but this is a great. Heres a quick overview:

1. Disable flash disk mounting by turning off HAL (hardware abstraction layer). (sudo /etc/init.d/hal stop)
2. Plug in modem and recognise now as a serial modem.
3. Set up pppconfig. (sudo pppconfig).
4. Connect to service. (pon [Connection Name]).
5. Start surfing.

Of course the disadvantage here is that you disable HAL and therefore once you are surfing you cannot mount other devices, check your battery status, use the CD-ROM etc. There is a way to get around this but haven't got it working yet... I'll post back when I've got it going.

Here are my detailed notes.

PTAX 0.2
- Over

BACKYARD PIC 1

So the idea of the BACKYARD PIC category is that I try to post a picture taken of something interesting in my backyard (or at least within the vicinity of my backyard. I'll try to post one at least once a week (but hopefully more).

So this is a picture of a a long tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis). These guys trudge through my backyard at least once a day (usually twice) in a troupe of about 20 monkeys! They're a pain in the arse coz they always raid the rubbish bin and leave rubbish all over the place.

This was taken with an 800mm lens ISO 400, f10.2 @ 1/120s.

- PTAX 0.2
- Over

RANDOM THOUGHT 1: Resurrect Q Codes

Everyone seems to be using shortcut 3 character codes on the internet. I've just come off an Ubuntu forum and everyone there seems to be "LOL"ing a lot (maybe at Vista). I'm not very conversant in these new conventions but I propose we resurrect an ancient language - the Q code. This convention has been around since 1912!!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_code

Some Q codes that may be useful:

QRA What ship or coast station is that?
QRD Where are you bound for?
QRK How do you receive me?
QRM Are you being interfered with?
QRN Are the atmospherics strong?
QRT Stop sending
QRU Have you anything for me?
QRV I am ready
QRX will call you again
QSL I Acknowledge receipt
QSN I heard you
QST General call to all stations (sometimes also CQ [Seek You] ALL)
QTA Disregard last message
QTH Location

Most of the Q codes were developed for radio operators on ships - but some others have been defined for specific use in aviation. I reckon the funniest one is....

QFU Runway in use

What would the reply be?... QFO I'm landing anyway!

I challenge anyone actually reading this to come up with some more Q codes now applicable to the internet... here are a couple of my own ideas (I was a bit pissed off that QFU had already been taken):

QFB Fat Bastard on seat.
QGK Geeky content folows.
QEM Email address.
QGD Gender.
QSX Fancy a shag?
QPR Parent in room (applicable to younger internet chat users).
QPB Lets go to the pub.
QDR Are you drunk yet / yes I am drunk.
QPL Generic pick up line.

That would be great you could have an entire conversation...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM: QFB / QGD MALE/ QEM nick.lake@techemail.com
RE: QGK

I reckon we should QPB and practice our QPLs - hopefully we can QSX with some QGD = Females but QPR at the mo'....

OK the QPR QFU'd but QDR already so see you tomorrow.

- PTAX 0.2
- Over

ADMIN NOTE: PTX 0.2

PTAX (Parsec Taxonomy) conventions will be renamed to "PTX". The latest version (PTX 0.2) will include an additional category...

RANDOM THOUGHT /n [Subject Name]

- This is in addition to all other PTX conventions already in existence as of version 0.1 (Beta).

PTX 0.2
- Over

ADMIN NOTE: Post Taxonomy

I'm trying to figure out my "post rules" or taxonomy... this is gonna help me figure out what to post and when - instead of just dribbling shit for hours.

This is what I've got so far...

• IDEA /n: [Subject Name]
• WARNING GEEKY CONTENT: [Subject Name]
  
• POSSIBLY USEFUL TO OTHERS: [Subject Name]
• POSSIBLY OF INTEREST TO OTHERS: [Subject Name]
• BACKYARD PIC /n
• PIC: [Subject Name]
  
• FUNNY: [Subject Name]
• EVENT "WORTH" MENTIONING: [Subject Name]
• UNDEFINED: [Subject Name]
• ADMIN NOTE: [Subject Name]
  

That's all I've come up with so far. I'm sure I will redefine this over time. I will version this taxonomy (I'm not sure why - just seems like a good idea). This taxonomy will be known as PTAX 0.1 (Beta). I will sign all posts by referencing the PTAX version before ending with "over".

NOTE: The use of a post script (PS) should NOT be used after an "over" has been declared.

PTAX 0.1 (Beta)
- Over

First Post

OK - so this is my first post... I'm not gonna put anything profound here now but I expect that in future I will post random ideas and the results of stuff that I am researching or reading about.

P.S> PARSEC - A parallax second (the distance from the sun to an object such that it would have a parallax angle of one second of arc as viewed from the Earth)... I bloody long distance of approximately 3.26 light years! - - - OR PARallel Spatial @ Environmental Computing : )