Since July, summer’s ended, and my last fall semester as an undergrad has begun. This semester, I’m taking three math classes: complex analysis, applied number theory (basically the mathematical theory behind some cryptography systems and their implementations), and a conference course on geometric combinatorics (an overly simple explanation of that would be shapes in any dimension and stuff you can do with them). I’m also taking a psychology course on perception. While I’m a math major, and I’ve always been interested in pure math, psychology has always tugged at me, specifically the crossroads of psychology and cognitive science.

What’s been particularly interesting in my perception class is discussion of really abnormal perception, such as what happens with Anton-Babinski syndrome and motion blindness. In the former, individuals claim to have a complete visual experience, and can describe what they think they see in detail, but in reality, they’re blind and what they perceive and describe don’t correspond to reality at all. It’s only when they bump into things that they don’t “see” that they start to realize that their visual experience is a lie, although a quite vivid one. It’s essentially the opposite of blindsight, where an individual perceives nothing, yet can still interact with the environment in a visual way, such as consistently catching balls thrown at them.

In motion blindness, individuals can’t perceive motion, and experience life in a series of still frames. For instance, when a motion blind person tries to pour a cup of water, they have to stick their finger in the cup to tell when it’s full, since they can’t visually perceive the motion of the cup filling up. Instead, once the cup is full, and the liquid is no longer moving, they instantly see the cup go from completely empty to completely full. It’s extraordinarily difficult to imagine living life like this, but the fact is, people do, and it’s all caused by how the brain processes the visual information it receives and incorrectly displays it to our consciousness due to brain damage. I admit, stuff like this is often more fascinating to me than even the most extraordinary mathematics.

On the recreational front, I’ve gotten back into video games to a certain extent. I got a Nintendo DS and a certain special cartridge that lets me play games I legitimately own and have made archival backups of. I definitely think it’s something game companies should look into, since purchasing and downloading games to put on your device makes a lot more sense than carrying around tons of cartridges. I also bought Spore, amazingly unique game. It’s not for everyone, but it’s worth checking out. I might write a review of it sometime.

That’s basically all I’ve been doing for the last month and some weeks. I’m seeing Ratatat next Monday, which should be a worthwhile experience, and I’ll try to get some pics and stuff from that. I’m also looking forward to fall TV starting again, and I’ve been watching season 2 of Mad Men in the mean time. Excellent program, with excellent commentary at the site the House Next Door. Sorry this wasn’t more sexed up, but I haven’t updated in a while because not much updatable stuff has happened. I’ll try to do better, since you should at least get your money’s worth. Oh wait, you don’t pay? Never mind then, see you in October.

P.S. Franz Ferdinand has a new song recorded called Lucid Dreams. Good stuff, listen. Now, I’m gonna take a nap, because I’m old and stuff. Q.E.D.

Sweet, sweet NES goodness, right there in my pocket. The original NES ran at a crawling 1.79MHz, compared to the iPhone’s 412 (Wiki says the processor can run at 620, but it’s underclocked). However, back in 1985, 1.79MHz was more than enough. The NES still continues to rock.

However, while I’ve learned to love the NES, the console I actually grew up with was its super successor. Unfortunately, the iPhone just doesn’t have enough juice to power a Super Nintendo emulator. Besides, SNES games deserve a bigger screen to play on, so I wanted to get an SNES set up on my iMac. Not only that, but I wanted to have a controller to use, since the keyboard just isn’t the same. It crossed my mind that the Wii classic controller was designed after the Super NES controller, and that I had one in my living room. Could it be possible? Wonder no more.

I know what you’re thinking. I could just be holding the controller in front of a screenshot, and that there’s no emulation or wireless control going on here. However, this screenshot is accurate, and I’ll tell you what you need to do, because experiencing it yourself is simply amazing.

First, ZSNES is arguably the best SNES emulator out right now, but Mac users have been snubbed since it’s optimized for x86 processors. However, since Apple switched to Intel, work has been done to port ZSNES to OS X. This means that you have to have a newer Mac to use the program. No official release is out, but I managed to find a custom compiled version of the latest version, which you can get here. Alternatively, others consider the Snes9x emulator to be superior to ZSNES. If you’re having trouble with ZSNES, or you just want to try both, you can download the latest version of Snes9x here.

Now that you have the emulator, it’s time to set up your classic controller. You need to download a program called Wiiji, which is a Wii remote driver for OS X. After you install it and reboot, make sure Bluetooth is enabled in system preferences, then go to Applications, then Utilities, and click on Wiiji. Once it’s loaded, it’ll appear in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Press 1 and 2 on your Wii remote, and the program will find it. If your classic controller is plugged in, you can open ZSNES and go into the input options and set up the controller.

Finally, you’ll need the actual ROMs of Super Nintendo games. Legally, you’re supposed to use your own hardware to back up the ROMs of games you already own. If you’ve made it this far, I trust you know what to do about them (and that includes not asking me about it).

Keep in mind this is all for Mac OS X. For Windows users, I know there’s a Windows ZSNES, available at the ZSNES homepage, but I don’t know about Windows drivers for the Wii remote. Maybe this’ll convince you to switch, lololol. Also, if you don’t have a classic controller, you should grab one soon since Nintendo lost a court case and they might be disappearing. If you’re trying to set this up and I haven’t made something clear, leave a comment. I spent a couple hours figuring all this stuff out so you, a fellow Nintendo fan, don’t have to.

GENE KELLY, FRED ASTAIRE, PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE HEALTH CARE

The persistent false rumors that Obama is Muslim appear to create as much confusion in Beirut as in the US. “He has to be good for Arabs because he is a Muslim,” says grocer Ahmad Abu Talib.

“He’s not a Muslim, he’s a Christian,” says a customer.

“He can’t be a Christian,” Mr. Abu Talib retorts. “His middle name is Hussein.”

Another great example of reality imitating the Onion.

I saw this ad in RLM today. Click it to see the full version. There’s been a long history of variations on the beer pong table theme. CollegeHumor has a lot of pictures of unique tables, and I definitely think this one deserves a place next to them. The seller of the table has some pics and videos, and it looks like the table lives up to the hype. If you’re interested in the table (which the seller wants $900 for, but is willing to negotiate), email aquariumtable@gmail.com. No, I don’t know who’s selling the table, but I wish I did. It’s the only piece of furniture I wouldn’t mind people spilling beer all over.

As far as I know, the very start of this trend was the invention of the webcam. Back in the day, all a webcam could do was take a picture every minute and upload it to a website. You did it every minute because that’s how long it took to upload a decent pic on 56k. It wasn’t live, but it was the beginning. People were interested, and they wanted to watch. Blogging was the next major stage. Blogging sites like LiveJournal, Blogger, and Xanga added a community aspect, giving rise to MySpace, Facebook, and the general concept of social networking. And now, we have Twitter and this concept of micro-blogging, where the emphasis is on less substantial, but more live, up to the second, postings. While all these services allow you to limit who sees your updates to friends only, most people decide to make their posts public. Advanced cell phones like the Blackberry and iPhone have allowed this sharing to become even more live and detailed, including the use of pictures, audio, video, and live chat, at almost any moment.

A lot of people still opt out, choosing not to put their private lives out there for anyone with the ability to type a web address. But an increasing number of people want to share their lives. Advances in technology have made it easier for the less savvy to engage in. Will we ever grow out of this? Perhaps. But for now, it’s new and interesting, and people want to do it, for no reason other than the fact that they can. In a way, it makes you famous. Millions might not watch you, but the fact is, they could if they wanted to. Where is it going? I’m not sure, but as a technovoyeur, I like it.

Are you a technoexhibitionist? I want to know why or why not. “Because I want to” isn’t a very good reason at all. I do it because I like to keep my friends informed. I don’t think I have a particularly interesting life, but everytime I post, I see people reading those posts. Somebody’s watching, and they keep coming back. I don’t feel comfortable sharing everything, but that might change as I become more comfortable with it. For me, technoexhibitionism keeps me honest. I put myself out there, not trying to impress anyone in particular. It’s very egotistical, admittedly.

The Dark Knight has already broken Spider-Man 3’s record 3 day gross with $155.34 million, in addition to breaking the largest midnight showing gross and largest one day gross records. Clearly, superhero movies are in. However, I think the Dark Knight has gone beyond your typical superhero movie, establishing itself as a film with a legitimate story that stands seperately from the comics and previous media that inspired it. In this film, the line between good and bad isn’t so clear cut, and at the end of the day, there are no winners. This is a pretty new movie, so in case it wasn’t already clear, possible implicit spoilers ahead, but nothing explicit (I don’t think).

This movie’s been so hyped up, that I don’t think there’s much I can say plotwise that you don’t already know. I will say that the movie is a lot more complex than the trailers let on. The Dark Knight’s Joker is genuinely insane, with no apparent motivations or remorse. The Joker’s “games” are one of the most compelling aspects of the movie, as he manages to consistently defy rationality and come up with more and more twisted situations to put everyone else through, seemingly for nothing more than his own amusement. His quirks, from his constant lip licking to his nasty hair that looks like it hasn’t seen a drop of water in weeks, are awkward and creepy, externalizing his mental instability. By the end of the movie, you don’t know the character any better than you did at the beginning, making the Joker one of the most unsettling film characters I’ve seen since Hannibal Lecter. Heath Ledger definitely deserves an Oscar for the role, and not just because he’s dead.

A main theme of the film is the exploration of what exactly constitutes good and evil, especially through Harvey Dent/Two-Face. Unlike previous incarnations of the character, Two-Face isn’t insane or suffering from multiple personality disorder. Two-Face’s acts in the film are motivated by a twisted sense of justice. The people he goes after are definitely guilty, but it’s questionable as to whether or not Two-Face has the right to be judge, jury, and executioner. And, of course, the same can be said of Batman.

Bruce Wayne/Batman (SPOILERS LOL) changes the most throughout the film. His vision of changing the city comes crashing down. He feels betrayed, unappreciated, and hopeless. Dressing up and beating up bad guys isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. He suffers more failures than successes in this film. This is the reality of the film, moving away from the superhero who either always wins, or fails, but ultimately finds redemption. He may find it in the third movie, but like the Empire Strikes Back, this one ends on a down note.

For the technical aspects, the pacing of the film is great. It genuinely did not feel like a 2 and a half hour movie at all. Nothing about the plot feels superfluous. The cinematography is stunning, bringing Gotham City alive. There’s no shortage of action or suspense here, either. The score avoids typical clichéd motifs, making the film feel much more down to Earth and less fantastic. There’s a lot more that can be said about the movie, but now I’m just rambling, so it’d be faster if you just went and saw it yourself (after tickets become available again). It’s a complicated movie, so I’ll probably end up seeing it again, maybe in IMAX next time.

If you’re not familiar with the history of East Germany and the Stasi, this movie is a great place to start. Actor Ulrich Mühe lived in East Germany, so when asked how he prepared for the movie, he simply replied, “I remembered”.

The story takes place in East Berlin, 1984. Playwright and author Georg Dreyman is considered by the government to have pro-Western sympathies (as most intellectuals at the time did), so his apartment is secretly bugged and put under the surveillance of Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler. The movie examines the subsequent interactions between Wiesler and Dreyman (interactions which are, of course, completely unknown to Dreyman). As Wiesler begins to learn more about Dreyman’s life, he comes to examine (and question) his own.

The movie does an excellent job of conveying the unsettling nature of the constant surveillance and invasions of privacy that the East Germany government imposed on its citizens. The story is captivating and compelling, immersing you in this frightening world that was the reality for many people at the time. Everything about the film is done near flawlessly, from the plot and the acting, to the score and cinematography. It’s definitely one of my favorite films. The film won a number of awards, including the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. If you’re interested in seeing it, be aware that the film is in German, so you’ll probably need to make use of the DVD’s English subtitles.

Perhaps more prominently, I’ve decided to be a hypocrite and add my Twitter feed to the sitebar. I know, I said some nasty things about Twitter in the past, but I think the ability to update with trivial things that don’t warrant a post is worth it. Or maybe it’s not. Who cares, it’s there, and now you can see what’s going on with my life in an even more detailed, privacy invading manner. Because that’s what the Internet’s all about, right?

If you want to follow me on Twitter, my username’s v64. I’ll also post a Twitter update (I refuse to call them tweets) whenever I update the site.

I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with what’s out so far. To start, Apple released an application called Remote that lets you control your iTunes with your phone. Kinda gimmicky, but interesting. If you’re familiar with the Internet radio station Pandora, they’ve released an application that lets you listen to Pandora on your phone (over WiFi or the cellular network). Similarly, there’s also an AOL Radio application that lets you listen to all its stations over WiFi, and a smaller selection over EDGE. Like I said, since I don’t have a new phone, I don’t know how these apps treat phones on the 3G network.

For information apps, there’s a great app called BoxOffice that lists movies that are playing close to you, what they’re rated on Rotten Tomatoes, and what the showtimes are at the theaters. If the theaters allow you to order tickets online via Fandango, the app does that too. WeatherBug is a much more advanced weather application, allowing you to get weather information from local sources, see live weather radars, and look at pictures of the sky from weather cameras near you.

Facebook has its own app that accesses the site in a way that’s faster and cleaner than the iPhone optimized website. MySpace has a similar app. The New York Times and Associated Press have also put out news apps that load faster than their respective websites, with pictures and videos included.

There are tons of social networking apps, but I’ll mention one in particular I like, Graffitio. It’s like a Facebook wall for physical locations. You can open it up and see and leave messages from people who have been where you are, using the location features of the phone. I imagine it’ll be more accurate for those with the new iPhone and GPS. If you’re around here and you can see it, leave a message on “v64’s house”.

And yes, I got the iPhone Super Monkey Ball, and if you love Monkey Ball, you won’t be disappointed. If you have any questions, leave a comment.