Code With Jim

Not sure where to start writing this topic, but it has been in my head for a while. I will jump around, but all will be related to animated GIF. But basically when it comes to dealing with GIF (animated) using code or programmably, there seems to be no easy way. For example, there is no Python module that deals with Animated GIF elegantly.  I found it really strange. In my previous experience as graphic designer, I have used Photoshop to edit and create animated GIF. Editing GIF is simple enough in Photoshop via the interface and menu. As many years pass by, I tried to challenge myself to try not to rely too much on Photoshop. The truth is I want to be very flexible with my computing habits these days (it needs to be portable) and also I am becoming a little bit more comfortable in programming. So, with open source languages like Python, Processing, or Wolfram Cloud, I supposed I should be able to produce animated GIF quite easily right? Well, not that simple apparent...

Now how did we end up here? Wolfram Mathematica Installation I installed Mathematica on both on Mac and PC, it was a pretty heavy 2.5 GB download and when installation completed, one will end up with 7-8 GB of hard disk space occupied. I installed Mathematica on both on Mac and PC, it was a pretty heavy 2.5 GB download and when installation completed, one will end up with 7-8 GB of hard disk space occupied. And THEN, there is this annoyance where the license can only be activated on 1 machine. Switching from my Windows desktop environment to my MacBookPro, and I got this popup requesting System Transfer for the license. This is a typical commercial app :( Wolfram do feels like a Adobe Photoshop or Autodesk software (Maya, 3dsmax) or big bundled tools packaged. I still have to remind myself all the time that “Wolfram is a paid commercial app” . It brings back my nightmares a bit of having to deal with commercial apps. No matter what, Python and Jupyter migh...

This is going to be a really quick blog post. Fine Tuned "Ada" Edge Detect result. IMAGE & WOLFRAM ALPHA APP Last night, I was again exploring this Wolfram Alpha app on the iPhone, which I paid for extra few dollars to get "Image" upload feature. I am curious about this kind of thing, so I feed in a photo I took the other day of this very vivid photos of rainbow wings on the street: I give extra input "Edge Detect" and naturally Wolfram Alpha app can do the Edge Detect thing. And I also tried "Posterize" filtering. That is pretty impressive because of these things: It supposed to detect the image and predict what the image is, rarely, but sometimes it can give you the right guess. It gives some Mathematical analytic, sometimes it gives back location of the image  It gives you some options of what "filter" you can apply to the image It gives user a very easy way to process INPUT and OUTPUT. Pretty fa...