experiments

DNSFS and PingFS

The other day I came across this fun read – DNSFS. Store your files in others DNS resolver caches. And this bit in the article really cracked me up:

This is not the first time something like this has been done, Erik Ekman made PingFS, a file system that stores data in the internet itself .
This works because inside every ping packet is a section of data that must be sent back to the system that sent the ping, called the data payload.
Because you can put up to 1400-ish bytes in this payload, and pings take time to come back, you can use the speed of light in fiber as actual storage.
Now obviously this is not a great idea for long term data storage, since you have to keep transmitting and receiving the same packets over and over again, plus the internet gives no promise that the packet won’t be dropped at any time, and if that happens then the data is lost.
However. DNS has caches. It has caches everywhere.

Obviously, neither DNSFS, nor PingFS should be used for anything serious, but both are excellent experiments, demonstrating the flexibility of the TCP/IP and thinking outside the box.

John Resig : Write Code Every Day

John Resig, of the Khan Academy developers and the author of jQuery JavaScript library, ran an interesting experiment on himself – write code every day. The rules were very simple:

I decided to set a couple rules for myself:

I must write code every day. I can write docs, or blog posts, or other things but it must be in addition to the code that I write.

It must be useful code. No tweaking indentation, no code re-formatting, and if at all possible no refactoring. (All these things are permitted, but not as the exclusive work of the day.)

All code must be written before midnight.

The code must be Open Source and up on Github.

Some of these rules were arbitrary. The code doesn’t technically need to be written before midnight of the day of but I wanted to avoid staying up too late writing sloppy code. Neither does the code have to be Open Source or up on Github. This just forced me to be more mindful of the code that I was writing (thinking about reusability and deciding to create modules earlier in the process).

And he got some very interesting results, not to mention – a whole lotta work done.

While I’m not the biggest fan of productivity boost experiments, this one does resonate with me. I’ve done a similar one when I was learning photography. I decided to take at least one picture every day with my camera (no mobile phones), with no automatic settings. Some days were better, some were worse, but I manage to run it for about four month and I couldn’t believe how much better I got – I was still a noob, but the difference between the first days and the last days was huge! The routine, once you get into it, is a very powerful tool, apparently.

For about a year or so now I’ve been avoiding any side projects, trying to recover from a previous burnout. But now, slowly, I am looking into ways to get me back on tracks. This approach looks interesting enough for me to consider.

How much dirty lens affects image quality

The photographer Kurt Munger ran an experiment on how much dust, scratches and damages of the lens affect image quality. The results are very counterintuitive. At least for me. Fingerprints, dust, scratches, and even bits of non-transparent duct tape have no effect what-so-ever. The first signs of something going wrong appear with very serious lens damage, like this:

Even then, the image is not as bad as you’d expect. Here it is.

Read the whole thing for more details.

Discovery Channel Crashes a Boeing 727 For Science Documentary

Slashdot reports:

A Boeing 727 passenger jet has been deliberately crash-landed. The pilot ejected just minutes before the collision. The plane was packed with scientific experiments, including crash test dummies. Dozens of cameras recorded the crash from inside the aircraft, on the ground, in chase planes and even on the ejecting pilot’s helmet. All of this was done for a feature length documentary to be shown on the Discovery Channel later this year.

First of all, hats of to Discovery. That’s some serious undertaking!

Secondly, just trying to imagine the meeting where this project has been approved makes me smile. It must have been either too serious or too fun – either a preparation of the business plan, Gantt charts, discussion of the budgets and milestones; … or a “light bulb” idea in the morning after a huge part, and an after party.

Mark Malkoff Gets Carried in New York City

I’ve posted here about Free Hugs campaign some time ago. Today I came across an experiment with a smaller goal, but of the same sociality (if there is even such a word). Mark Malkoff gets a free ride across Manhattan island on the backs of total strangers, proving once again that this world is full of good, fun, strong and crazy people.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi4ClspNrNs]