Qik - view from "analipseos" chapel by Elias Polytarchos

Brain Multitasking

Lately, while I was solving a rather difficult problem on IPv6, I read this report about multitasking (on humans, not the iPhone).

(Picture found at http://www.textually.org)

Facts

The article more or less described that human brain is capable of handling two tasks simultaneously, but no more than that (by the way, I think that these tasks resemble processes and not threads, as they don't seem to share a common address space [e.g. texting while driving or watching TV while cooking], but I digress). In order to support more than two tasks humans employ task switching, much like the way single processor (pre-Opteron) computers (and, recently, the iPhone) handle multitasking, but they pretty much suck at it when the tasks become increasingly complex [1] (much like my mobile phone, which I otherwise adore).

Each of these two tasks gets handled by one of the hemispheres of the brain.

Speculations

My thoughts on the brain multitasking are the following:

1. I assume that our brain is something like a dual core processor. Based on my personal observations though [reference is missing here], I think that one of the hemispheres is dominant and handles the complex tasks, while the other is secondary and handles more simple tasks and/or provides aid for the more complex tasks.
2. I also think that the secondary hemisphere is the sub-conscience
• When you are consumed in a heavy-mental (lol) task and someone asks you something: Your secondary hemisphere will probably successfully answer, but your answer was not actually your answer; it's the answer of your sub-conscious brain.
  
• Having conversations while sleeping. This is your secondary hemisphere speaking, who (or which? how much do you value your alter-ego?) is not sleeping at that time.
• The popular "sleep on this". The primary hemisphere sleeps while the secondary can process the pressing issues, free of worries and distractions.
3. One form of multiple personality could be the rebellion of the secondary hemisphere. The sub-conscience does not want to be hidden any more and, thus, once in a while, it gets unleashed from the tethers of the conscious brain (\m/).
4. Ambidexterity is when both the hemispheres are equal and work in harmony towards the completion of every task at "hand".

Multitasking mentioned in all the sections above involves cognitive brain functions. I suppose that lower level functions (such are breathing or heart beating, etc.) are handled by the swarm of living organisms (i.e. the random cells) whose conglomeration forms our bodies via the complex network of nerve fibres that interconnects them using DMA-like mechanisms where needed. This is true old-fashioned fail-safe interrupt-based low-level hardware multitasking (\m/).

Executive Summary-Conclusion

I know that the executive summary is usually at the top of the publication, but this format has recently become very popular in Greece.
In this paper, I have presented my thoughts on the multitasking capabilities of the brain.

License: GPLv3

That's all :)

References

(links to websites have been deliberately omitted, since they are mentioned using HTML)
[1] Margaret Weigel, Katie Heikkinen, "Developing Minds with Digital Media: Habits of Mind in the YouTube Era", Developing Minds with Digital Media Project, Harvard, November 2007

GPL Recipe

Hi!

How y'all doing?

After huge public demand, I decided to open source the recipe that can be obtained at my previous post (http://dilulog.blogspot.com/2010/02/todays-special-dish.html).

So, now it is licensed under GPL version 3. A copy of the license can be found here.

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

Qik - office by Elias Polytarchos

This is a video that I shared through the Qik using my mobile phone.

Eric Grohe & Greece

Hi!

How y'all doing?

Two days ago I received an email from a friend that contained a PowerPoint presentation about an artist Eric Grohe Miller, who specializes in murals. I was fascinated by Mr. Grohe's artworks, so I googled him using (obviously) his name (Eric Grohe Miller) as the search keyword.

Interestingly, the majority of the results originated from Greek sites (or blog posts from Greeks or sites that are one way or another affiliated with Greece). I was really intrigued by this fact, so I clicked on this link, which, by the way, was the first result. In this page there is a presentation of the mural that has been designed by Eric Grohe for the Miller brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Thus, the whole Greek cyberspace (sic) is literally filled with false information about Eric Grohe. Some exceptions exist, but they are just a handful.

So, reasonably, I started contemplating on various issues:

First of all, the reason why people tend to circulate unverified information. The effect of people acting merely as repeaters of information is tightly connected with rumours.I am using the more general term "people", instead of Greeks, as, I suspect, judging from the rumours concerning the recent H1N1 "outburst" (this is the first example that popped into my head), that this is a global attribute of humans and it is not an indigenous characteristic of Greeks.
The reasons for rumour spreading could be:

• Trust to the fellow human being (who is spreading the rumour)
• Gullibility (from the recipient of the rumour)
• Boredom to verify whether the rumours are just rumours or not
• The inherent need of people to impress others
  

Some solutions: Trust Nobody (cliche) and Verify Everything

Another thought had to do with the addition of the "Miller". Why do people from Greece think Miller is his last name? Some possible explanations:

1. The site is named "Eric Grohe Murals and Design". Someone with insufficient English knowledge and/or poor eyesight could have misinterpreted the Mural as Miller.
2. One of the Grohe's murals being displayed in the site has been designed for the Miller brewery, so a Google search after a conversation for a misheard "Eric Grohe Miller" would have produced acceptable results for a person that doesn't have the time and/or the curiosity to search more.

After this initial mistake, the fallacy propagated to all the other Greeks via chain mailing. So, I began to wonder how on earth didn't the same error appear on foreign articles.

• Did the foreign recipients detect the error and didn't pass the mail on?
• Shame on us (the Greeks)

• No foreigner ever received a mail about Eric Grohe Miller?
• The Greek cyber-ghetto :P

• Do we have to blame the Spanish about it? (I think the original presentation that contains the mistake is spanish and there is a significant number [not significant enough though] of spanish sites after the 4th page of the search)

Either way, the fact that Eric Grohe is known as Eric Grohe Miller in Greece is caused by the recession. :P

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

Today's Special Dish

Hi!

How y'all doing?

Recently I learnt how to cook the best meal ever and now I'm going to share it with the world!

The whole process takes less than 30'! :D

In order to prepare it you need the following ingredients:

• Meat:
• Two pieces of pork tenderloin (assuming each piece is about 0.4kg)
• Spices:
• Freshly ground pepper
• Oregano
• Saffron
• Vegetables:
• 1 green pepper
• 1 chili pepper
• 1 onion
• 1 tomato
• 1 potato (optional)
  
• Appliances:
• A standard stove (electric, gas, coal or whatever makes you happy)
• A Kuhn Rikon Hotpan
  

The cooking process consists of:

1. Prepare the meat (clean it), chop the vegetables and prepare the spices
2. Heat the Hotpan over medium-high flame until the pan is so hot that causes drips of water to evaporate instantaneously
3. Add the tenderloin and let it sear it from the one side until it can be easily be removed using a fork (1-2')
4. Turn it to the other side, add the spices and let that side sear using the same method described above
5. Turn the piece over again and add spices also on that side
6. Turn the stove off
7. Add all the other ingredients
8. Close the Hotpan and let it cook for 20'

Ready! :D

Serve with San Michali Cheese (PDO) (google translate link)

Improvements (still untested):

• Pour 2-4 tablespoons of white wine after sautéing the meat

Well, bon appétit :)
elias a.k.a. diluted

New pc

Hi!

Greetings people!

I upgraded my PC [supercharger]! It's been two-three weeks since I actually upgraded it, but now I got the chance to write about it.

I bought the following things:

• A Gigabyte X58A-UD7 (here's a more detailed description)
• A Core i7-920 (2.66GHz, LGA 1366)
• An OCZ Gold Low-Voltage 6GB DDR3-1600 RAM (PC3-12800) Kit
• An Intel Postville X25-V 40GB SSD
• A Nexus 1000Watt Power Supply
  

So, by keeping the following components from my old computer, I assembled the new supercharger:

• NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT (1GB DDR3) [I can't remember the brand though]
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 (160GB SATA) [tell me the reason why this is the best hard disk ever]
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (320GB SATA)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (320GB IDE)
• Western Digital Caviar Blue (500GB SATA)
• Samsung SH-S183L DVD-RW (SATA)
• NEC (Sony) Optiarc DDU1675A DVD (IDE)
• Razer DeathAdder Mouse
• Logitech NewTouch Keyboard 200
• Samsung P2350 TFT (that's sort of new actually, I bought it a week before buying the other stuff, knowing that I will buy the rest soon ;))
• Creative Live! Camera
• CSR based Bluetooth Module (2.0+EDR, class, 1 100m range)
• Cambridge Soundworks 4 point surround FPS1600
• Chieftec Dragon case (black) [this is the best looking case ever. Important: it's the old version, without the transparent left cover]
  

I installed Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) on two 20GB partitions of the SSD and I'm happy playing Left 4 Dead 2 :P

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

failing to install a phone (continued)

Hi!

How y'all doing?

In a previous post I talked about my failure to install a phone and a home network in a friend's home. A long time has passed since then and I've gone back to his house 2 additional times (as far as the phone and network installation is concerned).

To make the long story short, I've managed to install everything successfully.

The telephone was relatively easy (after the issue with the correct line was resolved), since a call center was not required (if anyone talks to any of the 5 phones and another one picks up another phone, he will just join the conversation).

The biggest challenge that had to be dealt with was the network, since the house didn't have a LAN infrastructure (can you believe it? A 3-storey house with a 100m^2 underground parking and a swimming pool built in 2008 without LAN!). What I decided to do was to install a modem router at the penthouse and then transfer the network to the other floors through the power line using Belkin HD powerline adapters. 4 adapters were needed:

• 1 in order to transfer the network from the penthouse to the rest of the house
• 1 in the 1st floor in order to be connected with a wireless router to provide wireless network-internet access to the three bedrooms located there
• 1 in the ground floor, again connected with a wireless router in order to cover the living room, the kitchen and a most of the pool and garden area
• 1 in the basement, which will be connected to the usual wireless router which will provide network access to the study of the ground floor, as well as the two bedrooms and the living room of the basement

So, we (me and my friend) thought to purchase two HD powerline kits, which contain a pair of adapters each and pair all the adapters together. Though, due to a limitation of the kits (or lack of proper explanation in the manual), the 4 adapters were unable to be synchronized (couldn't understand what was wrong; possibly unable to enter search mode?). When despair and fatigue had evaporated our hope that this could ever work, I thought one last thing that we could do: To return the one of the two kits and buy a single adapter instead (whose manual explicitly referred to pairing with other adapters). I wasn't very optimistic that this idea will bear fruits (and if it did, I though they would be rotten), but this scheme actually produced excellent results and the resulting network was exceptionally stable and fast (the penthouse to the basement link is the slower with 4mbps).

I will end this post here, but I will edit it accordingly with total cost of the infrastructure and further details about the project!

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

PC malfunction

Hi.

Today is a bad day. A day full of sorrow and remorse. My thoughts are (and yours should be) with my beautiful motherboard (or, unlikely, its RAM) that ain't continue the boot process beyond the detection of the graphics' card and the BIOS manufacturer printout. It stops right before the RAM chip detection. I tried to start the PC with only one of the chips (and no drives attached), to no avail, as neither of them seems to respond (thing that increases the possibility of a motherboard malfunction).

The motherboard is the Chaintech Zenith VNF4 Ultra.

Anyone with similar experience?

Going back to resume tryin' and cryin' :p

elias a.k.a. diluted

Self analysis

Hi!

How y'all doing?

I'm pretty good too, thanks for asking.

Today, kids, we're gonna talk about self analysis; not self disclosure, an idea that just popped into my head :p

A colleague at work is very fond of analysis and we've thoroughly discoursed about its merits and advantages. In this post, I will try to establish the notion of self analysis, as that concept has been perceived by me.

In order for one to analyze itself, one should be sufficiently qualified for practising clinical psychotherapy, or even vaguely familiar (that's me) with the concepts of psychology and psychotherapy. One should have read his share of Yalom and Lacan.

After the above requirement has been met, the therapist-patient hybrid should successfully detach the 2 aspects of itself, in order to establish a fictional dialog session. The therapist self should be agnostic of the patient self in order for the maximum objectivity to be achieved.

Enough with my incomprehensible mumbo jumbo.

Ta ta, 
elias a.k.a. diluted

2012

Hi!

Today was the big day that I finally went to see the great blockbuster 2012.

Now, I will write some thoughts. It was an action movie. In an action movie you expect to entertain yourself by watching the awesome (and, may I add, highly unlikely) adventures of some pretty damn lucky people from the United States of America. That's why they are cool :P

The movie sucked in every other aspect (scenario, scientific basis, acting), but all these parameters are sufficiently covered-hidden by a lot of action :P (imagine the dressing that hides the real taste of the food)

By the way, in order to compile vlc 0.9.0 in debian lenny (in order to use it with Gmote), one should first install the packages below and then configure with "./configure --disable-mad --disable-a52 --disable-glx --prefix=/usr", followed by the standard "make" and "sudo make install"
Packages: libhal-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libglib2-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libpostproc-dev libfribidi-dev libqt4-dev libgcrypt-dev libdvbpsi5-dev

That's all boys and girls :)

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

failing to install a phone

Hi!

How do you do? I could be better actually :p Today, one of my best friends called me for help with his new phone connection in his new house. I consider that I have a certain aptitude towards electronics, so I gladly accepted his invitation.

I expected the usual stuff that I deal with in similar situations.. That is: A functional connection to the telephone network at the outdoor station where the line to the house should be connected. In the house, things should be simpler, with a small call center to manage the phones and a router, coupled with some switches and access points to manage the network.

But not at all.. Indeed there was a (working) connection with the telephone network at the outdoor unit, but there were, like, a million telephone wires in the indoor unit without even a remote indication that would denote which of these is connected to the outer world. After countless combinations, we failed to locate the correct line, so we decided to call a technician (as I, the worthless bloke, failed miserably). If the technician does his job well and the telephones start working, I'll go and fix the net (and also fail at that task too :p)

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

HTC Hero!

Hi!

How y'all doing?

I'm ok :P Have I got news for you! I'm the proud owner of an HTC Hero (pictured below)!

The Hero has some advantages and disadvantages.
It's merits are endless and contain, among others (all the features below are out-of-the-box features; using the Android Market or searching in the web, every imaginable feature can be added):

• Tethering
• Flash
• Gmail, Google Talk, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr integration
• Google Maps (street view enabled)

On the other hand, there are some drawbacks:

• Lack of out-of-the-box blogger integration (loved that feature in my Sony Ericsson K610i)
• Lack of data connections for the Bluetooth (e.g. the OBEX profile)
• The Bluetooth sometimes does not connect with my car's hands free
• The USB mounting function does not always function with my car's USB port

I hope that most of the drawbacks above will be resolved with the upcoming Android 2 :P
I can live without tight blogger integration, although such a feature would be awesome (imagine taking a photo of a place and geotagging-uploading-blogging with one keypress). I've found, though, an application for on-the-fly blogging, but it's not as cool as my k610's tight integration ;)

Your opinions for the hero or any other android phone (especially interested in the HTC Tattoo and the Motorola DROID-MILESTONE)?

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

Upgrading Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 RTM

Have found this article in lifehacker.com. Very cool. Awesome. Just rip your original Windows 7 dvd, make a slight modification and here you are! :D

@ the kavourotripes beach

Hi!

How y'all doing?

After three days in the 1st peninsula of halkidiki (kasandra), me and my friends decided to visit the 2nd one, sithonia. There, we went to a beautiful little beach, kavourotripes. It is one of the greatest beaches I've been to.

That's all for today! Ta ta,
--
elias a.k.a. diluted

Let the vacations begin

Hi!

How do you do?

Today I will start my vacations, which will last till the end of August.

For starters, I will go at the Polihrono village at the peninsula of Kasandra in Halkidiki for 5 days (from 20090809 to 20090814), along my good friends Stathis and Tasos . We have booked a room at the hotel Odiseas. It is worthy to note that the hotel has free wifi access to the net. Awesome :D

After that, Irene and I will travel to Hania for 8 days (20090816 to 20090824). We will stay in Epimenidis hotel in Agia Marina.

I'll try to post some photos from the hotels.

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

mips qemu

Hi!

I created a mips virtual machine using these instructions. What I exactly did was:

• Since I've got a debian, I didn't compile the qemu, but I just "sudo apt-get install"ed it
• Created a hard disk using "qemu-img create -f qcow hda.img 10G"
  
• Then I downloaded the images initrd.gz and vmlinux-2.6.26-2-4kc-malta from http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny/main/installer-mips/current/images/malta/netboot
• After that, I ran "qemu-system-mips -M malta -kernel vmlinux-2.6.26-2-4kc-malta -initrd initrd.gz -hda hda.img -append "root=/dev/ram console=ttyS0" -nographic", in order to install debian
• Then, after the installation was completed, I booted into the system using "qemu-system-mips -M malta -kernel vmlinux-2.6.26-2-4kc-malta -hda hda.img -append "root=/dev/hda1 console=ttyS0" -nographic -localtime", installed a few additional packages (e.g. "apt-get install gcc g++ bison gettext")
• The machine can access the network, but only through TCP, Thus, SMB and TCP-NFS remote mounts are only available.
• The instructions provide a way for full network access, but I don't need it.

It's awesome. :D

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

Hi!

How y'all doin'? I am at the beach of Agios Dimitrios near Koropi.
It's not the first time I come here, but today it was special, as I
managed to skip the traffic, which was terrible, using my GPS unit.

Other news include that I booked a room for me and 2 friends of me at
the Kasandra peninsula of Halkidiki and specifically in the Polihrono
village. We'll be there from the 9th of August, till the 14th.

I think that's all :P
Ta ta,
--
elias a.k.a. diluted

Workplace 2009

Hi!

How y'all doin'?

I'm still striving through the hardships of life :P

Today kids, I'm gonna show you my workplace! I know that it's dreamy and extremely sexy; that's why I'm showing it off ;)

Let's start with the right side; in the picture below, you can see the following things there:

1. the XPU board (the thing with the heat sinks and the chips),
2. my old computer (p4@1.3GHz w/ 256MB RAM),
3. my eastpak (black of course; it contains many things, which will be covered in a different post [if requested]),
4. my bathing suit (it's summer, yay),
5. a laptop (it's not mine [my laptop -netbook- is in the eastpak]; it's a friend's where I will install some things; a pentium M@1.4GHz with 128MB RAM),
6. my coffee thermos (espresso roasted @ my home; don't so much like the [otherwise free] filter coffee the company offers; also note the subliminal message that the phallic shape conveys :P),
7. 3 CDs turned-to-coasters (keep the workplace clean),
8. my freddo glass (it's no Serse Freddo, but it's kinda cool :P) and last, but not least,
9. a half eaten apple (in order to complete this dead nature masterpiece with a cliche).

Now it's the turn of the center side, here the main work takes place. Let's see what that contains:

1. My telephone (for old school communication),
2. My new pc (Debian GNU Linux 5.0 Lenny, Core2Duo 7400, 1GB RAM),
3. Two mouses (one for my new pc and one for my windows pc),
4. My two monitors (the TFT is for the new pc; the windows pc handles both the screens),
5. The new pc keyboard (sleek and cool),
6. A brochure for accessories for my car (a rather cool brochure),
7. The keyboard of my windows pc and
8. A DSL modem that is being used as a switch (in order to connect the PCs and the boards to the net)

As for the left side, it is worthy to note:

1. The windows pc keyboard (must figure out how to use one keyboard with two pcs),
2. the windows pc itself (which is a P4 with 512MB RAM btw),
3. another board (named IDU; a rather cool board actually),
4. the power supply for the boards (and an accompanying fan) and, to conclude the tour of my workplace,
5. the MUSIC board.

Now you've seen where I work. Isn't it magical? It sort of reminds me the pictures of Google in Switzerland.

ie8

Hi!

I downloaded (through the windows update) Internet Explorer 8, with blog accelerator. I am now trying it out :P

Sorry for posting so scarcely. :(

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted