I sit on the couch and stare at that rustic path and those big old maple trees. By now I know the name of this particular wallpaper or background or whatever it is: Autumn. Moving to the desk and gazing more closely, I see a vague, dark, summoning something at the end of the path. A cabin? A covered bridge? A barn? I want to be there, for real, on that path, under those maples, moving slowly toward that dark, summoning something.

He’s talking about the windows background with the trees and bright orange leaves, and he actually tracked down where it’s from.

Categories: Funny, Photos
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A team of computer scientists at Tel Aviv University have developed an algorithm that makes people in pictures more attractive:

This sketch presents a novel method for digital face beautification: given a frontal photograph of a face (a portrait), our method automatically increases the predicted attractiveness rating of the face. The main challenge is to achieve this goal while introducing only minute, subtle modifications to the original image, such that the resulting “beautified” face maintains a strong, unmistakable similarity to the original, as demonstrated by the pair of faces shown in Figure 1.

The algorithm makes minor adjustments so that the picture is more attractive, but still recognizable as the original subject.

Pseudo-scientifically, it works by taking the original picture and comparing it to optimal hotness (also called the Dave Dworin Point), and then makes minor adjustments to reconcile the two. Or something else involving math.

Categories: Israel, Photos, Science, Technology
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My photos from Boston are online, but don’t have any meta-data yet. I’m going to leave them open to everyone for the next week, then probably make them members only.

Pictures from my other random adventures are online in the gallery too, though almost nothing for the past year has any meta-data.

Categories: Photos, Travel, Winter of Dave
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I’ve updated my gallery and integrated it into the blog. Most of the pictures are Members Only, so in order to see them, you need to create a username.

I’m using this as a way to restrict access to people who actually know me, and if I find a lot of total strangers looking at them, I may escalate the security to “Just Friends.” As an added incentive, I’m also going to start posting things Members Only as well, and my guess is that these posts will end up more interesting (or at least funnier) than the usual stuff.

Categories: Ephemera, Photos
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