On Screen Resolutions

High-end smartphones now have full-HD, 1920x1080 pixel displays. High-end laptops also have full-HD, 1920x1080 pixel displays. The majority of high-end televisions also have full-HD, 1920x1080 pixel displays.

This is patently ridiculous. Packing the same 2.1 million pixels into a 5-inch phone display, 15.6 inch laptop screen, and 60 inch television panel makes absolutely no sense. In fact, the current situation is more a byproduct of coincidence than of a concerted effort between smartphone, laptop, and TV manufactures to "standardize" screen resolutions across devices: five years ago, phones, laptops, and TV's sported completely different screen resolutions. It's almost certain that five years from now, this will again hold true.

Smartphones

More than five years ago, the first-generation iPhone launched with a 3.5 inch, 480x320 resolution screen. The first mainstream Android smartphone arrived more than a year later, but with a noticeably higher-resolution 854x480, 3.7 inch screen. Nothing (screen-resolution wise) really changed until mid-2010, when the 4th generation iPhone doubled the pixel-density of the previous three generations with a 960x640 pixel display. At around the same time, Android smartphone manufacturers began adopting 960x540 as the new standard. This "standard" was short lived: Late 2011 marked the arrival of the first "HD" phone display, a 1280 by 720 pixel matrix aligned on a 4.6 inch screen. Only one year later, the Taiwan-based HTC released the first "full-HD" smartphone with a 5-inch, 1920 by 1080 pixel sceen.

In less than 6 years, smartphone screen resolutions have exploded from the 0.15 megapixel (480 * 320 = 153,600) first generation iPhone screen to the 2.1 megapixel (1920 * 1080 = 2,073,600) HTC "DNA" screen. This ~13-fold increase (which, ostensibly, can be almost exactly modeled by Moore's law over 6 years) in screen resolution has no analogy in the laptop and television markets.

Laptops

Laptops running Windows have boasted a relatively slim gamut of screen resolutions over the past five years. The majority of medium to high-end 13-15 inch laptops contain "HD" 1366x768 screens (a messy widescreen approximation of the more traditional 16:10 aspect ratio, 1280 x 800 resolution). Astonishingly, until perhaps 2011, barely any laptop contained anything higher-resolution than a 1600 x 900 screen. Laptops that did came with a hefty premium: Around $200 to upgrade from 1366 x 768 to a full-HD 1920 x 1080 display on a 15.6 inch laptop. Though computer hardware manufacturers have recently adopted 1920 x 1080 as the new standard for any laptop between 11 and 17 inches, "premium" laptops are still being released with 1600 x 900, or even more egregiously, 1366 x 768 screens.

Unlike the smartphone market, the laptop market has remained relatively stagnant in regards to screen resolution. It is peculiar, especially considering that text and graphics rendered on 15 inch 1366 x 768 displays is noticeably pixelated. Even more paradoxically, laptops marketed as "entertainment hubs", complete with requisite blu-ray drives and advanced sound systems, often didn't even have the hardware to display blu-ray at full resolution.

An explanation may be found by considering the one laptop available today that does take advantage of a high pixel-density display: a 15 inch Macbook Pro (with "retina" display). The 15 inch Macbook Pro, by default, renders text and graphics at 1440 x 900 on a 2880 x 1880 screen. Thus, text and graphics remain the same physical size as they would on a lower resolution 1440 x 900 screen, but contain four times as many pixels and are thus twice as "clear". However, this comes at a cost: All user interface elements (graphics, bitmapped fonts---anything that was initially coded as an array of pixels) must be laboriously redrawn at high resolution. Microsoft hasn't done this to Windows as Apple has with OS X, so the Windows OS rendered at 2880 x 1800 looks ridiculous: mouse pointers, buttons, and text are all minuscule.

To usher in high-resolution laptop screen standards, Windows OS must first be partially rewritten to accomodate higher-resolution graphics, icons, and OS animations.

Televisions

Although the longest extant technology compared with smartphones and computers, television screen resolutions have been consistent. Right now, a high-end television will contain a "Full HD" 1920 x 1080 screen. Even the cheapest and smallest televisions will at least sport an "HD" 1280 x 720 screen. Five years ago, the situation was very similar, although Full HD televisions were more a premium than the norm.

Televisions, unlike computers or smartphones, are limited by availability of content (recorded movies, TV shows, and live broadcasting). Content, in turn, is limited by recording technology and/or storage technology. The least common denominator becomes the limiting factor in TV resolution.

The limiting factor right now isn't display technology nor recording technology--it is storage technology. A digital resolution equivalent of a standard 35mm or IMAX analog film is around 3840 x 2160 pixels (more of a convenient approximation, really, since 3840 x 2160 is just four full-HD televisions joined together.) In fact, digitally animated films are actually rendered at 3840 x 2160 before being printed on to film. However, no good digital medium exists to store 4K (3840 x 2160) videos: An uncompressed 4K movie consists of 24 8-megapixel images displayed consecutively every second for over two hours--too much data to store on a flash drive or even Blu-ray disk. Streaming 4K video is also out of the picture: only a fraction of U.S. households have enough internet bandwidth to flawlessly stream full-HD video, much less 4K.

Nevertheless, the first 4K televisions have arrived on the consumer market, complete, unfortunately, with the exorbitant price tags all-too-familiar to early adopters. While the chicken-or-the-egg problem of no 4K content leads to no 4K televisions leads to no 4K content sorts itself out, early adopters will be able to enjoy, at the very least, crystal clear user-interface graphics on their televisions.

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Smartphone, laptop, and television screens are at varying stages in their evolution. We aren't going to see smartphones with resolutions higher than 1920 x 1080; any further increase in pixel density would be visually imperceptible. The limiting factor wouldn't be screen technology; it would be the perceptibility of the human eye. That's the way it should be for laptops and televisions. We're slowly getting there with the advent of 4K televisions and high-resolution laptops. Perhaps this painfully slow adoption is merely a testament to the evolutionary eons nature took to create the human eye.

On College Essays and Luck

It’s a post-Christmas ritual: the sudden flurry of $75 credit card payments, the uncanny appearance of word processors instead of internet browsers on high school seniors’ computer screens. I’m no exception—like many others, I managed to convince myself that the perfect way to bask in the post-holiday glow would be by touching up college applications.

So on the 28^th of December, 2012, I wasn’t helping my brother take down the Christmas tree. Actually, neither were my parents, nor grandparents. Apparently, one (14 year old) person was adequate for the task of taking down and organizing hundreds of ornaments and collapsing the 5 foot high faux tree. The task of polishing my final college essays, on the other hand, required the expertise of four additional family members.

“What on earth does “my memories are mere wisps” mean?” exclaims my grandfather. “Perhaps you mean ‘my memories are mere figments’.” Well, no; that makes absolutely no sense. Before I can interject, my grandmother offers ‘my memories are mere fragments.’ Maybe “my memories are blurry”, I counteroffer.

After five minutes, we settle on “hazy” memories. I take comfort in the fact that this very word change might, just might shift the 3-month-distant fulcrum to favor acceptance over rejection.

Other edits manage to pass through the quadruple gauntlet of my parents and grandparents without too much trouble. Most edits make sense, but a few are questionable. (My grandfather: “You used a gerund, verb-preposition, and noun, in that order! If your complement sentence isn’t parallel, then nobody knows what the hell you’re talking about!”).

The evening continues a couple keystrokes at a time. The backspace button on my keyboard is having a field day.

I’m lucky to have family members that care. Not everyone has a grandfather that scours his grandson’s essays for misplaced modifiers; not everyone has a grandmother that would take the time to split hairs regarding the usage of “wispy”, “fragmented”, “figmented”, “blurry”, or “hazy” memories. Not everyone has a grandfather in Taiwan meticulously perusing college rankings, computer literacy (hell, English literacy!) be damned.

It’s inevitable: college applications are going to be littered with contrived “lessons learned!”, manufactured emotions, painstakingly crafted “natural sounding” conclusions. For me, reading through my essays is like navigating a swamp of dubiousity. It’s deeper in some parts, sure (“My summer devoted to mentoring impressionable children, in lieu of my original rigorous science and research plan, has spurred me to become a broader-minded and more empathetic person” et cetera et cetera et cetera). There’s cognitive dissonance as my brain tries to superimpose the Kiffa it knows with the Kiffa it produced.

Yet somewhere in this swamp of half-truths, an island rises out, free from linguistic sleights-of-hand. It represents probably the only college essay I’m willing to share. Fittingly, the cooperative nature of the essay editing/writing process helped me realize that this essay, alone, shines through in pure, unabashed honesty.

I'm incredibly lucky.

On the Harvard Application

The regular-decision admit rate for the Harvard class of 2016 was 3.8%. Even amongst the most selective undergraduate admissions departments, this figure stands out: Princeton, for instance, admitted 6% of 2016 regular decision applications, while Yale admitted 5.3%.

I assume that this discrepancy arises from two main factors. The first--Harvard has an inordinately high "yield" rate (proportion of students that enroll when they're admitted)--is just another testament to the prestige of a Harvard education (it is generally accepted that all other things equal, Harvard edges out Yale/Princeton in terms of brand-name recognition). The second factor, however, is more interesting and important to note: The application process for Harvard is far quicker than for Princeton, Yale, MIT, etc.

There is no analogy on the Harvard supplemental application to Yale's "Why Yale?" prompt, Princeton's supplemental essay prompts, or M.I.T.'s not-even-common-application labyrinth of short essays. In the clearly delineated maroon common-app box marked "Optional Information", Harvard College states: "We do not require or expect applicants to submit supplementary materials or additional essays." There is no school-specific prompt: should an ambitious applicant choose to submit an additional essay, he or she is instructed to write about literally anything--even a "list of the books [he or she has] read in the past 12 months." Applying to Harvard, then, couldn't be easier. Any college-aspiring senior will have already completed all sections of the common app, and applying to Harvard would not be more tedious than a few extra clicks on the Common App. 

I'm not going to hypothesize on whether or not Harvard is "artificially" suppressing their admit rate by making the application process so straightforward. I don't even have conclusive evidence for a correlation between ease-of-applying and number of applications received (though it sure seems intuitive!). In my opinion, the important takeaway is this: Apply to Harvard. 

Applying to Harvard College takes an extra twenty minutes and an extra 70 dollars. The former should be inconsequential. As for the latter....think of it as a cover fee for the free shot of adrenalin that will arrive April 1st. If you have any desire whatsoever to attend Harvard, make the brief effort to apply. Worst case you become part of the tradition, part of the mass of seniors that receive the kindly worded, concise rejection letter come April. Best case...

On Chemistry

Twelve months ago, I was a high school Junior, and I thought I had a brilliant idea that would revolutionize the electronics industry.

This brilliant idea hatched as I contemplated how heavy my laptop was. Surely there was some way of making it lighter…

Inspiration hit me without warning: Helium balloons rise. Thus, helium has a certain “negative” weight: let’s say -x pounds per liter. What if we put a torpedo shaped titanium container inside a laptop, and pumped in 100 liters of helium? Gas is compressible, so after sealing the container inside the laptop, our laptop would now weigh 100*x pounds less!

U.S. patent office certificates flashed before my eyes, as did visions of my face on the next issue of ComputerWorld.  But only for a second. I shelved my brainstorm, not out of unfeasibility (or so I thought), but out of laziness.

For the next twelve months I harbored my misguided idea and carried around my five-pound laptop. Well, today (while studying for a chem test) I’ve finally realized the latter isn’t going to become appreciably lighter anytime soon: My computer-moonbelt idea is pure lunacy. Helium doesn’t have negative mass. A balloon rises because helium weighs less than the same amount of air relative to the size of an inflated balloon.

I should probably be more than a little worried for my chemistry gas laws test tomorrow.

On Suicide

L’appel du vide. The literal English translation of this French phrase is “call of the void”, and its connotative definition is the urge to impulsively jump off a high cliff or precipice.

I’ve definitely experienced this before—or at least, entertained the “what if I jumped?” question every time I’m in an applicable situation. When I lean over the edge of the rooftop balcony on a 100-meter high apartment building, unnerving thoughts surface: it would be so easy, effortless even, to hook a leg up on the ledge and just…jump. At the most, it would take two seconds—two seconds of impulsive action. It’s not inconceivable to imagine loosing sanity for two seconds and making such a decision.

Let’s consider the call of the void in a more figurative sense. Instead of standing at the edge of a roof, you are pointing a gun at your head, and your finger is at the trigger. Theoretically, if you’re in good mental health, you’re in no real danger: Pulling a trigger is a conscious act. This time, however, it’s not 2 seconds, but a mere half second of impulsive action that stands between life and death. Would you willingly point a gun at your head, wrap your finger around the trigger, and be certain that logic would prevail over madness without even a half-second gap? Yes? We further truncate this half-second gap. The trigger is now an electronic touch screen, and your finger is hovering half an inch above it. Still no chance of accidentally touching it, but can you say for certain you won’t “accidentally” make the conscious, 200-millesecond split decision to send a bullet through your brain?

I don’t think so.

There’s a simple, sinister “allure” to all-or-nothing, instant death. Compared with jumping off a bridge or overdosing on drugs, there’s no period of time between irreversibly committing to die and actually dying. No time for regret or second-guessing. In our extreme, hypothetical touch-screen-trigger case, the physical act of suicide is equivalent to a fleeting decision (Not so for a drug overdose suicide; there are many chances of “backing out” once one starts the process).

Even if you’re just keeping your finger over the screen for 1 minute, I can imagine the thousands of simple feedback loops consecutively coursing through your brain during that time:

 Just drop your finger—you won’t feel anything.
No.
It’s so easy—just a slight relaxation of your index finger.
No.
You won’t even feel guilty.
No.
You won’t ever know you killed yourself.
No.
By the time you touch the screen, you’re dead—the decision to touch the screen won’t even exist.
No.
You won't know.
No.
You won't ever realize it.
No.
You won't know.
No.
You won't know.
No.


It only takes one yes, one brief lapse of judgement. The imp of the perverse calls from the void.