Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Collection of reflection nebula photos

This post is a collection of reflection nebula photos. There are 8 nebulas listed below alphabetically. Wikipedia says, "...reflection nebula are clouds of interstellar dust which might reflect the light of a nearby star or stars." (Wikipedia: Reflection nebula, 5.1.23 UTC 20:43)

IC 2118
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, NASA



IC 405
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, Hewholooks
License: CC BY-SA 3.0



IC 410
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, CinLiLu
License: CC BY-SA 4.0



IC 417
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, Credit Line and Copyright Adam Block / Mount Lemmon. SkyCenter / University of Arizona
License: CC BY-SA 3.0 US



Messier 78
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, ESO/lgor Chekalin
License: CC BY 4.0



NGC 1788
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, ESO
License: CC BY 4.0



NGC 1977
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, W4sm astro
License: CC BY-SA 4.0



NGC 7129
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, Jschulman555
License: CC BY 3.0

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Barbara Kruger and conceptual art

Barbara Kruger (1945-now) is an American artist best known for her contributions to conceptual art. Wikipedia says,
"Much of Kruger's work pairs found photographs with pithy and assertive text that challenges the viewer..." (Wikipedia: Barbara Kruger, 5.19.23 UTC 7:04, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The rest of this post is some quotes from Kruger.

Conceptual art


"I work with pictures an words because they have the ability to determine who we are, what we want to be and what we become." (Quoted in Guggenheim Museum Collection: A to Z, New York, 2001)

"I think what I'm trying to do is create moments of recognition. To try to detonate some kind of feeling or understanding of lived experience." (AZQuotes.com)

"Direct address has been a consistent tactic in my work, regardless of the medium that I'm working in." (AZQuotes.com)

Annie Leibovitz and reality

Annie Leibovitz (1949-now) is an American photographer best known for portraits. The rest of this post is some quotes from Leibovitz.

1. "I don't try to over-intellectualize my concepts to people. In fact, the ideas I have, if you talk about them, they seem extremely corny and it's only in their execution that people can enjoy them... It's something I've learned to trust: the stupider it is, the better it looks." (AZQuotes.com)

2. "You don't have to sort of enhance reality. There is nothing stranger than truth." (AZQuotes.com)

Jony Ive and simplicity

Jony Ive (1967-now) is a British designer best known for his contributions to the iMac, iPod and iPhone. There are 2 quotes listed below chronologically.

1. "Very often design is the most immediate way of defining what products become in people's minds." (Interview with BBC, 2002)

2. "So much of what we try to do is get to a point where the solution seems inevitable: you know, you think, 'Of course its that way, why would it be any other way?' It looks so obvious, but that sense of inevitability in the solution is really hard to achieve." (Interview with Icon Magazine, 2003)

Steve Wozniak and design

Steve Wozniak (1950-now) is an American inventor best known for co-founding Apple. Wikipedia says,
"In 1975, Wozniak started developing the Apple I into the computer that launched Apple when he and Jobs first began marketing it the following year. He primarily designed the Apple II, introduced in 1977, known as one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers..." (Wikipedia: Steve Wozniak, 5.25.23 UTC 21:39, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The rest of this post is some quotes from Wozniak.

Design


"I went - I had designed - in high school designed hundreds and hundreds of computers over and over and over, so I developed these skills without ever thinking I'd do it in life as a job." (A Chat with Computing Pioneer Steve Wozniak, National Public Radio, 2006)

"You have to seek the simplest implementation of a problem solution in order to know when you've reached your limit in that regard. Then it's easy to make tradeoffs, to back off a little, for performance reasons. You can simplify yet still find other incredible ways to simplify further." (AZQuotes.com)

"I don't believe anything really revolutionary has ever been invented by committee... I'm going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone... Not on a committee. Not on a team." (AZQuotes.com)

"The best things that capture your imagination are the ones you hadn't thought of before and that aren't talked about in the news all the time." (AZQuotes.com)

Collection of Vincent van Gogh quotes


Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

This post is a collection of quotes from Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). There are 10 quotes listed below chronologically.

1. "If one truly loves nature, one finds it everywhere." (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Oct. 1875)

2. "Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire." (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Oct. 1875)

3. "The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too." (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Nov. 1876)

4. "...I cannot help thinking that the best way of knowing God is to love many things. Love this friend, this person, this thing, whatever you like, and you will be on the right road to understanding Him better..." (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Jul. 1880)

5. "I feel a certain calm. There is a safety in the midst of danger. What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Dec. 1881)

6. "Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model." (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Nov. 1882)

7. "Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy." (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Mar. 1884)

8. "Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all." (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Aug. 1888)

9. "I want to paint men and women with that something of the external which the halo used to symbolize, and which we now seek to give by the actual radiance and vibrancy of our colorings." (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Sept. 1888)

10. "...the more I think it over, the move I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people." (Letter to Theo van Gogh, Sept. 1888)

Friedrich Nietzsche and morality

This post is a collection of quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) about morality. There are 16 quotes listed below chronologically.

1. "Art is the supreme task and the truly metaphysical activity in this life." (The Birth of Tragedy, 1872)

2. "There exists in the world a single path along which no one can go except you: whither does it lead? Do not ask, go along it." (Untimely Meditations, 1876)

3. "Every tradition grows ever more venerable - the more remote its origin, the more confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe." (Human, All Too Human, 1878)

4. "Everyone now exclaims loudly against torment inflicted by one person on the body of another... but we are still far from feeling so decisively and with such unanimity in regard to torments of the soul and how dreadful it is to inflict them. Christianity has made use of them on an unheard-of scale and continues to preach this species of torture." (The Dawn, 1881)

5. "In antiquity there still existed actual misfortune, pure innocent misfortune; only in Christendom did everything become punishment, well-deserved punishment." (The Dawn, 1881)

6. "For believe me! The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously!" (The Gay Science, 1882)

7. "I teach you the superman. Man is something to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass man?" (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883-1892)

8. "When power becomes gracious and descends into the visible - such descent I call beauty. And there is nobody from whom I want beauty as much as from you who are powerful: let your kindness be your final self-conquest." (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883-1892)

9. "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." (Beyond Good and Evil, 1886)

10. "What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." (Beyond Good and Evil, 1886)

11. "To be incapable of taking one's enemies, one's accidents, even one's misdeed seriously for very long - that is the sign of strong, full natures in whom there is an excess of the power to form, to mold, to recuperate and to forget." (On the Genealogy of Morality, 1887)

12. "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." (Twilight of the Idols, 1888)

13. "What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome." (The Antichrist, 1888)

14. "How much truth can a certain mind endure, how much truth can it dare? These questions became for me ever more and more the actual test of values." (Ecce Homo, 1888)

15. "Christianity... is neither Apollonian nor Dionysian. It denies all aesthetic values..." (Ecce Homo, 1888)

16. "My formula for the greatness of human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different - not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear what is necessary, still less conceal it... but love it." (Ecce Homo, 1888)

John Stuart Mill and free speech


Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was an English philosopher and economist best known for his contributions to liberalism and social theory. The rest of this post is 4 quotes from Mill about free speech from his essay On Liberty (1859).

1. "The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error." (On Liberty, 1859)

2. "We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still." (On Liberty, 1859)

3. "History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries." (On Liberty, 1859)

4. "The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors." (On Liberty, 1859)

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Diagram of a 4 bit adder

This post is a series of diagrams to show how two 4 bit numbers can be added together. In the 4 bit adder diagram, A and B are added together to get a sum. Number A is a 4 bit number where A = A3, A2, A1, A0. Number B is a 4 bit number where B = B3, B2, B1, B0. The sum is a 4 bit number where Sum = Sum3, Sum2, Sum1, Sum0. The on/off state of each bit is fed into the corresponding half adder or full adder.

In binary numbers, the 0 placeholder equals 1 if on (0 if off), the 1 placeholder equals 2 if on (0 if off), the 2 placeholder equals 4 if on (0 if off), the 3 placeholder equals 8 if on (0 if off). The total of all placeholders added together is the number. For example, the binary number 1101 equals 13: (8 + 4 + 0 + 1 = 13). Another example, the binary number 0110 equals 6: (0 + 4 + 2 + 0 = 6).

For this 4 bit adder, if A = 0101 (5) and B = 0111 (7), then Sum = 1100 (12). Another example, if A = 0100 (4) and B = 1001 (9), then Sum = 1101 (13).

In the diagrams, a dot at an intersection represents a connection. A list of logic gates with inputs and outputs can be found at this link.

4 bit adder



Half adder


XOR inputs / outputs
0, 0 = 0
0, 1 = 1
1, 0 = 1
1, 1 = 0

Full adder



License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Diagram of a saved bit

This post is a diagram showing how a bit can be saved. If the write enable input is on (along with the bit column and bit row), then the saved bit can be changed through the input/output wire. If the read enable input is on (along with the bit column and bit row), then the saved bit can be read through the input/output wire.

In the diagram, the v-shaped intersection represents a transistor; a dot at an intersection represents a connection. A transistor conducts electricity only if the input is turned on. A list of logic gates with inputs and outputs can be found at this link.



License: CC BY-SA 4.0