A surprisngly accurate test.

Okay, granted, I don’t buy into the whole concept of psychic whatchamacallit. Hell, I mostly regard psychiatry and related things as pseudo-scientific crap. That said, and barring consideration of any parts of the following pertaining thereto, this is actually a pretty accurate description of me:

You have a poetic sensibility and an ability to see beyond the day to day. You often seem to be living in a higher realm, or to be not-of-this-earth. Occasionally you imagine interior lives for friends and associates that are near-complete fabrications based on your fears or hopes for the future. You are often not aware of your own feelings. You have a strong sense of right and wrong, and because of this are often disappointed. Despite what can sometimes be a destructive inward-turning anger, you are very gentle. You are sometimes a bit out of touch with the ebb and flow of modern life. If your behavior is out of synch with your moral values, a severe psychic disturbance can result. Because connectivity is so important to you, you can become quiet and sulky if you feel that others around do not understand your point of view.

The test itself involves little more than looking at different (fuzzy, blurry) shapes and answering questions pertaining thereto (e.g. two circles, each a different colour, and the question “Which is angry?”). Sheer morbid curiosity should keep you clicking right through it.

Now, did I just happen to stumble onto a reasonably accurate summation of myself? Would I get the same result if I took it again? (Yes, actually.) Is the test mostly B.S.? Or is there a “there” there, to paraphrase what someone once said?

This is fascinating, awe-inspiring, humbling (because damn, guy has brain horsepower), and more than a little worrying all at once!

For the record, the “program” was a 9×9 pixel (I think) RAW image file. This file format, not to be confused with “camera RAW” files, was implemented by Adobe to allow for image transfer between systems, and it supports all the cool features one expects from Photoshop. You can read up on the file format here.

Assuming absolutely no compression of data, the maximum size of the file is probably the number of pixels multiplied by 32 bits/pixel. Oh, the header probably adds a tiny bit more to the file size, but not that much. The final size of the “program” here was probably on the order of 324 bytes.

One wonders what else one could code with just a wee small image, no bigger (in fact, smaller) than an icon (.ICO) file? The network security guy that I share brain-space with is…worried.

[singlepic id=905 w=159 h=99 float=center]

For an example, the above is the ULTIMA4.COM file from the legally available download of Ultima 4, converted to an image by Hexplorer. Of course, it’s also been compressed as a JPG, so I wouldn’t go trying to write yourself a version of the file using this as a template. Still…it goes to show that other executables can in fact be represented as an arrangement of pixels.

Airbus A380 vs. Canadair CRJ-700

Actually, the Canadair takes the hit pretty well.

Name worth remembering: Matthew Abate

Here’s the skinny on the guy:

“That’s a different world,” replied Capt. Johnson, who is on his third combat tour. “In the States, a bad day for a guy on his way to the office is a flat tire. A bad day out here is a double amputee. The public pays attention to Charlie Sheen. No one’s heard of Sgt. Abate.”

Sgt. Matthew Abate is the Third Platoon’s hero. When a patrol hit a minefield in late October, Sgt. Abate had left his safe position and run to apply tourniquets and carry out the screaming, grievously wounded men. He was killed in action five weeks later, but only the platoon remembers his name.

Whatever your particular position on the war in Afghanistan or the US military in general, I hope you can agree that the above is genuine heroism in its finest form. I don’t know if Sgt. Abate has been nominated for a Medal of Honor, though I do rather hope so.

This girl is going places.

Only Vader manages to stay in character during the whole scene; his comment as he turns away is, I think, “All too easy.”

Tonight’s post brought to you by the ol’ fairway: