Inside vs. Outside
One definition of whether a point is inside a region is the Jordan Curve Theorem. Essentially, it says that a point is inside a polygon if, for any ray from this point, there is an odd number of crossings of the ray with the polygon's edges (Figure 1). This definition means that some areas which are enclosed by a polygon are not considered inside. The center pentagonal area inside a star is classified as outside because any ray from this area will always intersect an even number of edges.

Point in Polygon Strategies: Determining if a point lies within, or outside a polygon

distcc is a program to distribute builds of C, C , Objective C or Objective C code across several machines on a network. distcc should always generate the same results as a local build, is simple to install and use, and is usually much faster than a local compile.

distcc does not require all machines to share a filesystem, have synchronized clocks, or to have the same libraries or header files installed. They can even have different processors or operating systems, if cross-compilers are installed.

distcc: a fast, free distributed C/C compiler

Plug and Play Wall Display

While interest in large displays is growing rapidly, they are still not common-place. Significant technical knowledge is required to construct and maintain current display wall systems. Our goal is to make large tiled-projector displays essentially ‘plug and play’. We want a design that can be incrementally expanded and reconfigured at will. We want a software environment that is identical to a standard desktop computer, with no need for rendering clusters and special libraries. We have designed a display wall solution that meets our needs. With our Modular Ambient Display (MAD) boxes, a variety of high-resolution large display configurations can be quickly assembled. By integrating interaction hardware into each box, we have created a stand-alone interactive large display component. Our system permits experimentation not only with the wall software, but the physical wall configuration as well.

Plug and Play Wall Display - Innovis Research - EPS

3.0 Encrypted Databases

An enhanced version of SQLite is available (for both versions 2.8 and 3.3) that encrypts its database files to help prevent unauthorized access or modification. The entire database file is encrypted2. To an outside observer, the database file appears to contain white noise. There is nothing2 that identifies the file as an SQLite database.

The enhanced SQLite with encryption support can continue to read and write ordinary unencrypted databases without any performance penalty. You can use the ATTACH SQL command to attach an encrypted database to an unencrypted database or to attach an unencrypted database to an encrypted one. The password to a database can be changed at any time, though doing so is an expensive operation roughly comparable to VACUUM.

The encryption extension descrypts each page of data as it is read from the disk and reencrypts it as modified versions are written back to the disk. But the primary database file and the rollback journal are encrypted. A very fast encryption algorithm is used, but even so it takes time to do all of that encryption and decryption. So when encryption is enabled, there is about a 50% performance loss.

The encrypted database enhancements for SQLite are available in source-code form for a one-time licensing fee of $2000 (US). A technical support contract is also recommended but is not required. There are no per-copy royalties. The one-time fee entitles the licensee to free copies of all future updates to the code. You can purchase a perpetual license to the SQLite Encryption Extension online or call 1.704.948.4565 or write to sqlite_sales@hwaci.com for additional information.

SQLite - Professional Support

Neat effects for javascript widgets.

Combination Effects Demo in scriptaculous wiki

iShowU allows you to capture and record anything you can see on your screen, along with audio from any compatible source. Ever been in the situation where you wanted to show someone what was going on, but couldn't? Either the person is not right next to you, not around, in another country (the list goes on). Now just record what you're doing and what you want to say, and stick it in an email!

Great software. Great support.

iShowU : Screen Video Capture for OS X

I don't maintain focus for more than an hour at a time. In fact, I can't. And being involved in cognitive science research, I can state that for sustained work, neither can anybody else. Yes, once in a while, if your current problem is intensely interesting, you can zone out and work on it for many hours straight. But most work - however interesting it is - isn't able to grab your focus in that manner. To see it from another perspective, a movie is designed to grab your attention, is created by people devoting their lives to grab your attention as effectively as possible and has about every technical means short of drugs available to grab and hold your attention. And yet, few movies are longer than two hours, because people will not be able to hold their focus for much longer than that.

If you try to force yourself by having only your work available and forcing yourself to sit on front of it, all that will happen is that after an hour or two your thoughts will start to drift, you'll get stuck in a rut reiterating old thought processes, and you may even nod off for short periods due to the imposed lack of stimulus variation. In short, "maintaining focus" is a good way to sink your productivity.

Instead, accept that you can't single-mindedly focus on any one thing for more than about 45 minutes to an hour (there's a good reason class time seems to have converged to about 45 minutes the world over). Do one of these things in combination:

* Get up, stretch and move about a bit. Go look out the window, find someone else on a break and shoot the breeze for a few minutes. Leaf through the morning paper, trade magazine, or that 2001 office supplies catalogue you never seem to get around to throw away. Go over to Accounting and ask about that missing trsvel reimbursement. In short, get yourself exposed to some new stimuli so you canh approach the next hour with a fresh mind.

* Have a secondary task you can switch to whenever you get bored with the main one. Maybe now is a good time to answer a few email, or write some documentation (there's always documentation to write). Really the same thing as above - get some new stimuli - but with more of a work focus.

* Set a goal for the day. And when it's done, quit. Sure there's more work to be done - but there's always more work to be done. You can stay 24/7 and there will still be more. Do what you set out to do, then go home. With a definite short-term goal, pacing yourself is easier, and it's much easier to focus on a comprehensible, digestible chunk of work.

Slashdot | How Do You Maintain Your Work Focus?

Nice intor to messing with SQLite, with concise syntax examples.

Zend Technologies - PHP 5 In Depth - SQLite Introduction

A number of sources, most recently ProgrammingOutsideTheCube and the RingerTape page, say that many folk find it takes time to get into a state where work flows. Do you plan to get into flow, does it come upon you more as a kind of inspiration, or is it not necessary for you? Do you use tactics to improve your team's ability to flow? Which particular events disrupt flow the most, and how do you solve them?

For me, flow requires both inspiration and expiration, if that makes sense. I need to get out into green places or seasides to drink in what's around me, and then I can breathe that vitality back into my work. Does this happen similarly for others? I think flow is vital for quality work - what's the best strategy to improve it? -- PeterMerel

Flow as it pertains to them puters.

Mental State Called Flow

QuirksMode.org is the personal and professional site of Peter-Paul Koch, freelance web developer in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It contains more than 150 pages with CSS and JavaScript tips and tricks, and is one of the best sources on the WWW for studying and defeating browser incompatibilities.
It is free of charge and ads, and largely free of copyrights.

I've been living on this site today, trying to write some complex cross-browser event handlers for javascript.

QuirksMode - for all your browser quirks