Abyss Knight » Funny Stuff

Flex Web Cam Effects Demo

Abyss — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:25:04 +0000

Just updated the blog to WordPress 2.3.3 and figured it was time for another post. Today on InsideRIA.com they posted a rather interesting post about Flex graphical filters. Now, I’ve wanted to do this sort of thing for a very long time, but only today had the down time to give it a try. Basically, the application I’ve attached shows your regular web cam feed on the left, as well as a filtered feed on the right. I’ve only scratched the surface with what you can do with filters, combining filters, and the like but the demo serves a very useful purpose.

When my boss saw my little demo running his first comment was, “Wow, that’s fast.” and he was right. Flash was rendering the filtered stream in real-time; side-by-side with the regular output. Granted, blurring and practically inverting the colors isn’t rocket science, but the applications are limitless. Personally, I’d love to see a background subtraction library for Flex with other real-time video processing effects. My guess is that someone over at Adobe already has something to this end for working with YouTube Remixer and similarly powered applications.

Code and source after the break…

You need the Flash Player to view this video.

WebCamDistort Flex Source

Cross Post from MyBlogLog

Abyss — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 05:36:07 +0000

I just had to cross post this. If for no other reason than to show off, gloat, or otherwise inflate my ego. That or just to prove how incredibly crazy the web really is. Small world, huh?

MyBlogLog Fun Friday Stats

More Funny Cameraphone Photos

Abyss — Sun, 14 May 2006 22:57:39 +0000

Here are some more of those classic cameraphone photos that I take:

This fedex truck was having some serious issues with his hazard sign. It kept blowing around and I managed to snap this one at the light.

We were at Walmart and I noticed that Coke is really expensive there… Geez, $110 for a 20 oz.

The Economy and Skirts – An SDF Exclusive

Abyss — Tue, 02 May 2006 21:35:35 +0000

[wliao] he tries to show: as the price of oil drops, the pace of freedom goes up in places like Iran, Sudan. As the price of oil goes up, the pace of freedom goes down
[davek] ‘Pace of freedom’? What the **** is that? How do you measure that?
[smj] the length of the skirts?
[14:23:28] LINK from wliao@sverige: http://sdf1.org/links/1146605008
[wliao] length of skirts have been used as an index of economic healt/well-being
[roint] long skirts are in fashion these days
[rdhatt] like the Big Mac index
[jca] maybe there’s a direct correlation to number of birkas observed and oil prices.
[wliao] he only mentions it in passing. Basically, his premise is that authoritarian govts are being funded by the high price of oil.
[14:27:02] LINK from wliao@sverige: http://sdf1.org/links/1146605222 (http://www.jmrlsi.co.jp/english/mij/r_eye/2004/05.html)
[roint] i somehow doubt that the economy has anything to do with skirts
[wliao] it references a correlation between skirt length and S&P
[wliao] yes, but the idea is that skirt length is an indicator of how well people are doing (and generalizing to the US economy)
[roint] the asprin thing might verily be real, though
[wliao] it also mentions the golf ball index, lipstick index, etc

All hilarious material courtesy of freeshell.org’s com.

MySpace – What is our Internet coming to?

Abyss — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 17:58:51 +0000

I saw this amazing link on Digg today and thought I needed to make my stance on MySpace heard. MySpace.com is quite honestly the most rebellious and anarchistic social networking site I have ever seen. Users can pretty much do whatever they want to their profile, post what they want, and befriend who they want. All in all, this sounds like a wonderful Utopia of social goodness and web based interaction. The problem with all this freedom is that at some point that animated GIF background, your flash based video and music player (which autostarts no doubt) will make your content illegible and probably annoy any potential viewer. On top of the usual suspects, there is illiteracy. The article actually graphs the millions of grammatical and spelling errors that MySpace is chock full of and I must say, it is very, very scary.

Anyways, enough ranting. Enjoy the link.

When C code gets a mind of its own…

Abyss — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 03:02:01 +0000

I was writing Pass 1 of a SIC/XE assembler for class, when well, the code decided it really liked my hard drive and wanted it for itself.

Hamsters, Snakes, who’d of thunk it?

Abyss — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:48:24 +0000

Snake befriends snack hamster

This is why I joined the scouts…

Abyss — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 04:21:17 +0000

Boyscout Builds Neutron Gun

LTSP -> Windows -> LTSP

Abyss — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 21:35:06 +0000

We all got a little VNC happy at work, and well, the geeky readers out there will get this: