Matt's Homepage

The nonprofit Mental Health America recently ranked Oregon the worst in the country for mental illness rates and little access to help for it. That study says we have some of the worst rates for homelessness, high school graduations and child abuse. All of which contributes to mental illness.

Sadly, it is not surprising when you see the masses of homeless camps and mentally ill and drug addicted homeless wandering the streets in downtown Portland. The famous movie ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest’ was filmed in Salem Oregon – which some said was one of the big nails in the coffins for state-sponsored mental health services.

Read some of the sad history of Oregon’s Mental Health services here:
http://www.mentalhealthportland.org/about-2/oregons-mental-health-history/

Other sources:

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/oregon-ranks-worst-in-us-for-mental-health-study-says/283-449141620

Saki is a great author – I think he’s due for a re-discovery. He’s a humorist author that wrote around the turn of the century, but his biting wit and description of high society social foibles is timeless. Here’s a clip:

Clovis continued, “My mother is thinking of getting married.”

His host responded, “Again!”

“It’s the first time.”

“Of course, you ought to know. I was under the impression that she’d been married once or twice at least.”

“Three times, to be mathematically exact. I meant that it was the first time she’d thought about getting married; the other times she did it without thinking.

Johan Rijpma created this time-lapse video of clear tape rolls gradually gave in to the forces of gravity. The sounds made as each roll breaks free are wonderfully satisfying.

Tape Generations from johan rijpma on Vimeo.

You might have seen videos or guides online about the propane or MAPP gas gun. It emits a tiny fireball that goes through a tube before diffusing with a loud bang. The man who came up with the idea is Al Stahler, and now he’s taking orders for custom made Plasma Poppers.

Buy one from Al for only $395 (though they’re shockingly easy to make)

Listen to user feedback to discover where there are user pain points; but DON’T listen to their solutions. Look at the deeper truth of what is causing pain and fix that.

 

 

Modern day video games have come a long way from Mario the plumber hopping across the screen. Incredibly intricate environments of games today are part of the lure for new gamers and this experience is brought to life by the characters interacting with the scene. However the illusion of the virtual world is disrupted by unnatural movements of the figures in performing actions such as turning around suddenly or climbing a hill.

To remedy the abrupt movements, [Daniel Holden et. al] recently published a paper (PDF) and a video showing a method to greatly improve the real-time character control mechanism. The proposed system uses a neural network that has been trained using a large data set of walking, jumping and other sequences on various terrains. The key is breaking down the process of bipedal movement and its cyclic behaviour into a series of sub-steps or phases. Each phase translates to a natural posture for the character while moving. The system precomputes the next-phases offline to conserve computational resources at runtime. Then considering user control, previous pose of the character(including joint positions) and terrain geometry, the consequent frame of the animation is computed. The computation is done by a regression network that calculates future position of the joints and a blending function is used for Motion Matching as described in a presentation (PDF) and video by [Simon Clavet].

 

Hike through unique, abandoned train track scenery, tunnels, and trestles just outside of Timber, Oregon. The trailhead GPS Grid Coordinates are 45°42′16.26″N 123°24′40.58″W.

To get to the trailhead (Located in the Tillamook State Forest) from Portland Oregon, take US 26 west for 36 miles to the Timber Junction and then turn left onto Timber Road. Drive 3 miles to the town of Timber and turn right onto Cochran Road. The pavement will end in a half mile. You’ll pass Reeher’s Camp at 5.5 miles; stay left just after that, then go right at a junction at 6.6 miles. At 9.6 miles, go left onto another unsigned road, then at 9.7 take the far-left road at a three-way intersection. Park at 0.1 mile ahead, just before the road crosses the train tracks. There are no facilities on site and there is no trailhead fee required.

More details here.