Remembering Robert Frost

I keep on hearing the President about "tuwid na daan" since his campaign to clinch the presidency.  I have this thought that people might mistake the "tuwid na daan" as the easy path and the "baluktot na daan" as the difficult one. 

I think it should be stressed that what we should be doing is to find the correct path, the path not easily discovered.  I recall a poem that we read in Mrs. Favoreal's class back in early 80s at NPS. The poem was written by Robert Frost, an American poet.  

The Road Not Taken

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(Robert Frost, Mountain Interval,1916)

Robert Frost was born March 26, 1874 and died January 29, 1963.

Giyera ng gulay -- circa 70s

Noong unang panahon, sa konstantinopla
Hari ang pipino, reyna ang malunggay
May anak-anakan na isang prinsesa
Bansag na pangalan, si donya patola
Kaginsa-ginsa ko, nag-kagulo-gulo
Lumabas ang lahat na konstabularyo
Nagpa-embahada si heneral upo
Si kondeng kalabasa ang siyang sumaklolo
Si sundalong talong ay sulong pa nang sulong
Si sundalong patani ang siyang sumalubong
Si sarhento bataw, mga sundalo'y tinipon
Dahilan sa giyerang hindi mai-urong

-- author unknown

I recall that this is part of our required readings when I'm in Grade 1 or 2.

The author perhaps is referring to a sort of a vegetable cuisine that involves pipino, malunggay, patola, upo, kalabasa, talong, patani, bataw -- salad?

Revisiting Fractal Compression technique

During the early nineties, I was involved in the Fractal Image Compression research of Ateneo de Manila.  Last night, I uncovered an early IFS-based algorithm implemented by Michael F. Barnsley and Lyman P. Hurd in 1992.  The implementation was written in C and only works on TGA monochrome images.  I modified the algorithm so that it would work on colored images. I then implemented it in C++.

A total of 2304 affine maps are needed to encode the 192 x 192 image below:

Using the said 2304 affine maps, the image below was produced after 16 iterations:

Obviously, the resulting image is not good because the reconstruction errors are very apparent.  I decided to throw away the use of unsigned char (used by Barnsley and Hurd). Instead I used floating point datatype to represent pixel data.  After a thorough code modification, I got the result below:
 

This result is amazing!  The difference image below shows where the errors are:

While I'm quite satisfied by my implementation, the compression process is slow.  I recall that this is a problem that hindered the progress of our research then.  I may work on this problem again when I get a substantial amount of spare time.

Gusto ko lamang

Gusto ko lamang sa buhay ay yakapin mo ako
Hindi naman ako milyonaryo
Basta't araw-araw yakap mo ko
Feeling ko ang yaman yaman ko

-itchyworms

Configuring Prepaid Globe Tattoo in my Ubuntu Linux 10.04

I bought Prepaid Globe Tattoo several weeks back.  However, it would not work in Ubuntu Linux out of the box. I found this thread in the internet and the guys there can't find a solution either.

I finally made Globe tattoo work.  It turned out that the Globe dongle I have is by default in mass storage mode.  A quick lsusb shows the following information.


me@me-laptop:~$ lsusb


Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 003: ID 09da:000a A4 Tech Co., Ltd Port Mouse
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 08ff:1600 AuthenTec, Inc. AES1600
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 064e:a103 Suyin Corp.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 12d1:1446 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

The product ID is 1446 (mass storage mode) and not 1001 (modem mode).  I simply have to switch to modem mode!  To do this, I have to install usb-modeswitch program, which quite easy to do using apt-get.

me@me-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install usb-modeswitch

After which, the next step is easy. Switch to modem mode using the following command!

me@me-laptop:~$ sudo usb_modeswitch -H 12d1:1446 -v 12d1 -p 1446 -R -V 12d1 -P 1001

I ejected my Globe Tattoo and reinserted it.  I now works wonderfully.  In fact, I'm using Globe Tattoo now in my trusty Ubuntu Linux box. 

Btw -- of course you still have to do the usual mobile broadband configuration.

Making Epson T10 work in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

I have been using Ubuntu Linux since October 2009 as my main OS (Windows 7 is still available though on top of VirtualBox OSE).  I can't print however using Epson T10 even if I already installed the gutenprint library and cups-driver.

For three days, I searched the net for instructions on how to install the correct driver for Epson T10. Not one worked except for this post I got from Pinoy Computing Tips & Tricks.  It turned out that I have to downgrade libgutenprint2 v5.2.5 and cups-driver-gutenprint v5.2.5 to version v5.2.4.

Here's a procedure that worked for me (I'm using 64bit Ubuntu Linux 10.04):

1. Remove the existing gutenprint packages:

sudo apt-get remove libgutenprint2 cups-driver-gutenprint

2. Download the 64bit version of gutenprint v5.2.4 packages:

libgutenprint2 v5.2.4 (64-bit)
cups-driver-gutenprint v5.2.4 (64-bit)

3. Install the library.  Double-click libgutenprint2_5.2.4-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb file and click the Install button.

4. Install the cups-driver. Double-click cups-driver-gutenprint_5.2.4-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb file and click the Install button.

5. Lock the v2.5.4 version. Run Synaptic Package Manager and search for the gutenprint packages installed. Select each package and click Package ->Lock Version.

To Gie -- our colleague in teaching

She's someone who will never give up in any challenge.

She's my first Senior Project advisee back in the late 90s. If I'm not mistaken, she's the first one to finish the Senior Project requirement in the history of the Department of Computer Science of Ateneo de Naga. She's also the first editor of the Computer Science student publication named Bits and Pixels. She's the first CS graduate who accepted a teaching position in the Department of Computer Science. She's the first Region 5 Chapter President of the Philippine Society of Information Technology Educators.

She's a well loved teacher and a well loved colleague in the College of Computer Studies. She's a well loved daughter, sister, wife, mother, and friend to us. We will surely miss her.

There's no more fear, no more pain. When you surrendered your soul to God Almighty, only love remains -- love that we will remember in our hearts.

New Posting for 2010!

It's been a long time since my last post.

Hello Blogger! I'm here again.