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bert's blog v1.21 Powered by glolg Programmed with Perl 5.6.1 on Apache/1.3.27 (Red Hat Linux) best viewed at 1024 x 768 resolution on Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Mozilla Firefox 1.5+ entry views: 1224 today's page views: 755 (45 mobile) all-time page views: 3246225 most viewed entry: 18739 views most commented entry: 14 comments number of entries: 1214 page created Thu Apr 17, 2025 22:14:35 |
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Tying up some loose ends... A Not-So-Subtle Analogy The Straits Times reported that young Japanese women are now outearning their men, or rather the bachelors who would have been their men, since they aren't getting married. An excerpt: "Professor Yamada's research showed that two out of five Japanese women hope to marry a man who earns more than six million yen (S$93 500) a year but the 'supply of such men is limited', he remarked wryly, as they make up only 3.5 per cent of the eligible population". The way I see it, something's got to give. Moderated expectations, adjusted family gender roles, mass immigration of non-ethnic Japanese, relooking marriage, or a slow and tortuous decline (unless they get their mecha up and walking). An Even Older Chestnut  Percentage of graduate parents, for pupils in selected schools (Source: The Straits Times) A news article on how having graduate parents was an edge in entering top secondary schools appeared last week. Our Minister Mentor, who has never been shy about stating his views (especially in this regard), put it down to the "nature" of the students - which I interpret as a reiteration of the hypothesis that smarter (at least in the academic sense) parents have smarter (again in the academic sense) offspring. This sort of talk has always been a potential minefield, and some commentators have expressed disbelief in the statement that top schools do not actually have better facilities and teachers than neighbourhood schools. While that may or may not be true, they apply only after the student gets admitted, and a better way to approach the question may be to examine the primary schools, and other enrichment activities, that these students attended previously, if the objective is to discover what makes students more likely to qualify for top secondary schools. From the data above, however, it appears that having graduate parents helps mightily, but is far from essential (see yours truly). It has also been suggested that having connections, wealth, being alumni, or exceptional in sports helps, which it certainly does, of course. However, despite one odd claim (paraphrased) that Singapore while Westernized is still at heart an Asian country where who you know matters, such bastions of higher education as Harvard and Yale openly practice legacy preferences, as undoubtedly do selective high schools in the States and elsewhere, so this is hardly a local evil. The key significance of this article, I would say, is that that it channels Singapore's ill-fated Graduate Mothers' Scheme of 1983, which as we all know, fell flat on its face. The subtext seems to be, if graduate parents produce kids that are more likely to enter top sec... ah ok, smarter kids, why shouldn't they be encouraged to have more of them? Indeed, why not? Again, this is the sort of things that reputations and careers can and have been ruined over, which makes MM Lee's staunch advocacy all the more impressive; for example, for even daring to suggest that the distribution of intrinsic intelligence (at least in ways relating to science and engineering fields) may differ between genders, Harvard president Lawrence Summers got raked over the coals. Speculations in this regard are extremely tricky. For example, it may be scientifically acceptable to do a study and conclude that having high testosterone levels results in (or at least, coincides with) profit-taking for traders. It is also likely acceptable to discover that females generally have significantly lower testosterone levels than males. What cannot be done is to put two and two together and suspect that females may tend to be less successful traders (I'm not suggesting this at all, mind you - this is purely an illustrative example), and that there therefore are far fewer female traders, because of this, among other such factors, and not solely because there is a male-dominated hierarchy keeping them down (which does likely play a part, though). However, it is - if however marginally - acceptable to suspect that females can lift less weight, and sprint less quickly, among other physical feats, at the professional level. It is political suicide just about anywhere (other than Singapore, perhaps) to even whisper that smarter parents may, just may, tend to have smarter kids. When faced with Yao Ming (2.29m tall) and his wife Ye Li (1.9m tall), it is however quite alright to wonder how tall their kids will be, or to discuss the potential of Ronaldo's toddler son at football. So it seems that some composite traits are allowed, expected, or even eagerly anticipated to be inherited, while others are not allowed, and even if they appear to be, should not. It's all very complicated. Old But Not A Chestnut Continuing on this regard, there have been scattered mutterings that foreign top-scorers in the PSLE and O Levels are often slightly overaged. This may reek a little of sour grapes, moreso as there is up to a year of age differential within each cohort in any case (as a January-born, I'm hardly complaining). Still, if true, it's a little odd why this discrepancy has been allowed to stand. If there's truly no advantage to be had, then there shouldn't be a problem for everyone to join their expected cohort, and conveniently silence any residual grumblings, no? La Innovación On the tech front: Recently got wind of an iPhone app called Word Lens, which translates text on the fly (See video above). This is a superb example of how splicing mostly-existing technology together can bring forth an altogether impressive product. The Word Lens effect is composed of several subproblems. Firstly, the iPhone's computer has to locate and recognize the text. Secondly, it has to determine the geometry of the text. Thirdly, it has to translate the text. Fourthly, it has to select a font similar to the original used (optional). Lastly, it has to render the translated text back to the screen in the selected font in real-time, according to the (possibly-changing) geometry. The first part, the location and recognition of text, is basically what is done with license plate recognition, which was one of my module projects a year or so ago, and is as I mentioned back then, not that new. The second part is the determination of the geometry of the text. Actually, it can be considered part of the first point, since location and recognition presupposes this knowledge. The third part is translation - nothing that novel here either, though of course building something like Google Translate from scratch is not trivial. They appear not to have implemented autodetection of languages yet, though, which however should speed up the recognition process somewhat - critical for a real-time app. Still, an obvious area for future development. The fourth part is the matching of fonts, so that whatever is drawn back onto the screen won't look too out-of-place. Note from the video that an exact match is not achieved (or required). A basic implementation of whatever WhatTheFont does would suffice. And the last part... well, since the geometry, the font and the content of the text is known, projecting it back shouldn't be too difficult. Tracking the text as it moves should be reasonably straightforward too in most cases, especially as the letters were very likely quite distinct to begin with; they certainly are, in the examples shown. The lesson here is that to wow the crowd, one doesn't have to come up with something completely new. Sometimes, splicing existing technologies together can have a comparable, or even superior, effect. So-so, And Still Unbeaten...  Is That For Reals? (Source: Redcafe.net) After watching United somehow scramble back from two goals down to beat Blackpool 2-3 (taking their league unbeaten run to 23, +5 if you add the end of last season), and resorting to another comeback against the Saints in the FA Cup, I was left wondering, yet again, how the heck they do it. As the infographic above shows, United are not a team known for invulnerability. Even in their best title-winning seasons, with their most majestic teams, they would never fail to trip up somewhere. At an in-form Arsenal or to rank underdogs like Wolves, it didn't matter. Today, with a side that is, let's face it, not quite up there with the Cantona-sparked, Keane-led, Treble-winning or Ronaldo-boosted vintages, and a Wayne Rooney that is at times so sloppy that fans would have called for him to be taken off if he were an 18 year-old recruit named Roon Wayney, they have managed to go unbeaten for twenty-three league matches. That's more than twice as long as any previous such streak, mind. Who would have thought? The world is a strange, strange place... Next: On My Back
anonymous said... wat do u think will happen if ppl start using wordlens during sex tape filming. u think camera shoot their own cock will have any words come out or not
Sr. Hambro said... Tal vez, como en esta situación: Este hombre estaba tan profundamente en el amor que poco antes estaba casado, tenía el nombre de su novia tatuado en el músculo del amor. Normalmente, sólo la primera y última letras eran visibles, aunque cuando se despertó, el tatuaje enunciados WENDY. Ahora están en su luna de miel en un hotel en Montego Bay. Una noche, en la habitación de los hombres, este hombre se encuentra de pie junto a un jamaicano de alto en el urinario. Para su sorpresa, se da cuenta de que este hombre, también tiene las letras WY tatuado en su pene. "Disculpe", dice, "pero no pude dejar de notar su tatuaje. ¿Tiene una novia llamada Wendy?" "De ninguna manera, mon, yo trabajo para el patronato de turismo. mío dice: "Bienvenido a Jamaica, común, tener un buen día."
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