Shawn Lankton Online

2D is nice, but these days I’m getting interested in doing computer vision in 3D. One way to get 3D data is to use two cameras and determine distance by looking at the differences in the two pictures (just like eyes!). In this project I show some initial results and codes for computing disparity from stereo images. Read the rest of this entry »

It is with a sense of sadness and triumph that I write these words. Last night I finished the last of author Tom Robbins’ books. It was a good one to end on. “Still Life with Woodpecker” expounded on the nature of love, outlaws, pyramids, and redheads. Being crowned with crimson myself, I tried to identify with the fanciful prose and witty remarks about my carrot-topped comrades.

I even went on to investigate my own redness. When I asked my mother (who recently did our family lineage) if the red hair was Irish or Scottish or what, she informed me that the rouge locks on my noggin were “from the Saxon Reds.” Ah yes. Visions of sea-faring Vikings wielding battle axes and the pagan god Thor wielding lightning and hammers flashed in my head. Anyway… back to the book.

Now that I’ve read all of Tom’s stuff, I guess I’ll have to find a new author to obsess over and kiss the ass of. Anybody have a good suggestion? I’ll leave you with some amusing and inspiring quotes.

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

“The analytically minded might conclude that persons with red hair tend to be either dangerous or funny.”

“In the world according to the positivist, the inspiring thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn them they’re sunny side up. In the world according to the existentialist, the hopeless thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn the they’re scrambled.”

“What limits people is that they don’t have the fucking nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.”

I have been a big beet fan for some time now, and I enjoy turning others on to the magic of beets. (For more on this, read “Jitterbug Perfume“). I usually stir-fry beets and it turns out nice, but I recently heard of baking them. This sounded like a great low-hassle way of preparing these voluptuous, vibrant roots.

Sure enough, this turned out to be easy and delicious! This is far and away my new favorite beet recipe, and will be a good introductory dish to convert non-beet-eaters. Give it a try (and look below for baking instructions). As usual, this is 100% vegan and tasty-tasty-tasty. Happy pink pooping! Read the rest of this entry »

I finished Tim Ferris’s book, The 4-Hour Work Week. This book is very inspiring, and takes a very different take on entrepreneurship than most books you’ll find on the subject. Tim suggests increasing efficiency in everything you do (both personal and professional) by applying the 80/20 rule and setting deadlines. (The 80/20 rule says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts) When you only do 20% of the things you were doing before, and you set deadlines so you complete them faster than you normally would… efficiency ensues.

So in addition to this efficiency point, Tim also suggests setting up little-to-no effort income streams in the form of small niche-market internet-based businesses. He recommends outsourcing everything to a handful of companies so that your only “job” is making sure everybody plays nice together.

Once you have your life efficiently outsourced and funded with a work-free business… you take unlimited vacations and party like a rock-star! That sounds like a pretty sweet deal. I think this review came off making his book seem overly simplistic and not realistic. That wasn’t my experience at all. I really felt like he gave good information on how to make his reality come true! In fact it got me very excited about the prospect of having a “muse” (his word for a hands-free income stream). I’ve been making some moves in that direction since then. This book is definitely worth a read, and will end up in the stockings of some of my friends this Christmas.

Also, check out Tim Ferris’s Blog. It has lots of interesting stories and ideas regarding his “lifestyle design.”