Hello!
My name is Nicholas Cricco, I am a mechanical engineering student at Roger Williams University, where upon graduation I will be joining Electric Boat as a Mechanical Engineer 1. My time at RWU allowed me to gain experience with working in interdisciplinary group projects; as such I researched, developed, and assembled an optical air quality monitor in conjunction with a group of my peers. Following graduation not only will I be working at Electric Boat where I will be working on both Virginia and Columbia class submarines. I plan on attending graduate school for aerospace engineering to follow my passion, and one day do my part in aiding humanities’ reach for the stars.
The Death of Moore’s Law is Upon Us
In recent years computers have gotten faster and faster, and able to complete more and more processes. But why haven’t computer gotten bigger and bigger? Well the answer lies in Moore’s Law which says that the number of transistors on a standard size computer chip will double each year. This is all well and good however, we are quickly approaching the limit of Moore’s Law with transistors being only a few atoms large.
One might ask why dose it matter is transistors are only a few atoms large, just use less atoms. Well weird things happen when you go “too” small electrons start to quantum tunnel through the transistor even if it is switched off. While this dose pose a limit on traditional computers, this dose allow for anew type of computer to be developed, the Quantum Computer, which takes advantage of this tunneling.
While it is possible that Moore’s Law is coming to a close, as we have reached the atomic limit, who’s to say that a new law will arise revolving around quantum computing. Though that is aways in the future as quantum computing is still new, and requires further development in order to available to the consumer market.
Is the World a lie?, Well our Brains Might be to Blame
Do you see the world as it is? Well many would say obliviously , so long as there is light. But What if I told you can only see a small portion of the world at a time; and even that small portion dose not tell the whole story.
One may think that they can see their whole field of view at any given time. But your brain fills in the gaps, such that you can only focus on a small portion of the world. This portion is about the size of your thumb at arms length. But how is it possible that I can “see” more. Well your brain remembers what was there.
Even though your brain only processes a small part of the world at any given time, that small part is not even the whole picture. Well what if I told that you see the world differently than a bee, well that is not to say that you cannot see a flower while a bee can. But you and the bee would see a flower differently. So, if you and a bee see a flower differently, then what dose the flower look like.
That fact that we can be aware of our surrounding at all is what some scientists would call consciousness, and the principle that we cannot see what the world truly is, is the core concept in the PBS Nova Documentary “Your Brain: Perception Deception”. Where the way our brain takes shortcuts based on what we expect the world to look like, in order to allow us to survive. Though now a days we tend to argue over what color a dress is: “Blue & Black or White & Gold”, rather than trying to avoid danger.
The “Size” of an Image, & How to Change it
Ever wonder how big an picture is? Well some people might think about its physial size on a screen. Others might think about its resolution, and some tech savy people may think about the actual file size of the picture. Well for the most part all of these contribute to the “size of an image. Though most importantly is the resolution (number of pixels), and the file size (number of bits).
You would assume that a picture of high resolution would be a larger file size than one of a smaller resolution. But in some cases that would be wrong. While there are more pixels and thus more bits, there could only be 16 colors. This can allow the file to read off what the 16 colors are and index them, rather than reading off the RGB values for each pixel.
Many images you see on say Google, are condensed one way or another so they load quickly, but if you want to see the image at its highest quality you can click on it and go to its webpage. It is this reason that most images are condensed by color indexing, color dithering, or other methods so the image can be loaded faster and appear quickly when surfing the web.
Though dose not come without consequence. The images above show the original image (left), a revision with 16 colors (center), and one with 8 colors (right). Each one being “smaller” than the last but with each reduction in the number of colors, parts of the image start to be lost.
Notice: That for 8 colors the blue ocean was more prominent than the orange sky, so the blue was prioritized. Thus removing the orange from the image.
The Birth of Sora, Video Generating AI
As many people know Chat GPT has taken the world by storm, allowing people for all professions to utilize it as a tool. From college students using it to proofread their papers to software engineers using it to code; and now not only generating images but videos from text.
While this has been in use for the last couple months the quality of these videos have been less than ideal. But now with the release of Sora on the near horizon, people can generate videos from text with relative accuracy.
Sora is different from other models produced in the past; one of the major improvements is that the video has a sense of object permanence. When one part of the frame is covered and then uncovered, the AI model remembers what was there instead of regenerating the uncovered section.
Previous versions of AI models that could generate videos were limited by the amount of computing power they had. Sora has much more computational power, which allows for smoother and more realistic videos. This also helps to cut down on the number of visual artifacts that occur.
With the soon-to-be-released Sora, the world will finally have the ability to generate videos from text with such accuracy that they could be nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. What that really means, we will all find out soon enough.
The Limitations of the Digital World
Ever hear that we live in a digital world, well there are many reasons why we have moved away from analog, in many fields. But analog holds some distinct advantages over digital, which can never be overcome due to the fundamental way digital is defined.
While at first we as a race start with analog systems, problems quickly arose which could not be avoided with analog; as such digital means were invented in order to streamline processes and remove errors which are fundamental to analog. While analog signals are continuous, vs. digital signals which operate in pulses, and at set values.
By operating only at set values digital allows for the removal of error and noise as it occurs, were as in analog any errors introduced cannot be removed. A prime example in the use of analog phones which typically have a lot of static interference. Another down fall of analog not being able to filter out noise is when the signal degrades over time, in order to amplify the signal the noise also gets amplified. However, by using digital any noise or errors introduced can be removed as the signal can be rounded to the nearest value which can be output. This allows for signal to be amplified while removing noise. Thus your cell phone has no static when talking with people, even when talking with people across the globe.
How Dots & Dashes Changed the World
Many people know about the Telegraph, developed by Samuel Morse in 1844. Which can be described as the birth of digital communications. Where as before the installation of the telegraph across the country the pony express was used to carry messages. This not only was unreliable but also slow, at ten day per crossing.
The telegraph allowed for far faster communications, but the telegraph we know today was not the first. Many people were developing similar devices to enable communications digitally. Though these method were rather complicated and rather expensive.
One of the precursors to the telegraph was a device that output beeps corresponding to letters in the alphabet. Where A is one beep and B is two beeps and so on. These lead to uses miscounting the number of beeps. Another device used 26 wires to light up a light for each letter. While this allowed for easy use, the cost to place 26 wires from point A to point B was enormous.
Samuel Morse’s solution was to create a code “Morse Code” this allowed for the use of one wire which carries pulses of electricity, and produced beeps of varying length. Dots and Dashes, which in combination described the letter of the alphabet.
So, by simplifying the device, and relying on the skill of the operator, Samuel Morse was able to develop a simple, cost effective, and easy to use means of communication, that transformed the way people connected with each other in the mid to late 19th century.
The Birth of Computers 2,000 Years ago
Did you know that the oldest computer know to man is over 2,000 years old? Well it is not what we would normally call a computer by todays standards. There’s no screen or keyboard and mouse, but it can predict the future,”Kinda”.
The Antikythera mechanism was made by the ancient Greeks over 2,000 years ago. With the use of a complex system of gears, they were able to predict the position of the planets, and major Steller events at any point in the future.
I mentioned that it is not what we would normally call a computer, as the vast majority of computers in our day-to-day lives are digital, where this computer in old school analog.
While the Antikythera mechanism is a marvel for its time, you would find it to rather inaccurate for predictions far into the future. This is not because its wrong or bad at doing its job, but rather a critical flaw in how analog computers function.
Todays computers run calculations digitally, or using series of ones and zeros called binary. In binary there are only ones and zeros, this allows for precise calculations. Where an analog computer might accomplish these same calculations, the nature of how these are caried out allows for some “error” as gears have travel time, parts wear down, and many other factors that can cause analog computers to produce inaccurate results.
Regardless of the potential inaccuracies that the Antikythera mechanism may have had when it was built, it still is extremely impressive considering it was built in the times of classical Greece.
Paintings Are they Truly Analog??
Digital vs. Analog, It has come to my attention that the line that separates these two different ways of categorizing things can get blurry. Some instances are easy, simply take the alphabet for example. It is digital as there are only a set number of letters. While that might be obvious to some, what about a painting?
While we can see all of the colors in a painting when we look at it. One can argue that there a countable number of colors. Afterall you can see the whole painting; so, why can’t we say it’s digital? Well while we can see the painting ‘now’ we cannot see the painting as it once was, and it is possible that the colors we see now are not the same colors that the painting had when it was created, and there is no way of knowing. Leaving an infinte number of possible colors, which could have been put on the cavas. Thus proving that paintings are analog, though this may come at now suprise to some.
Adaptive Webpages
Ever notice when shopping on Amazon on your phone, tablet, or computer that the layout of products changes ever so slightly? Well, the culprit behind the scenes is Responsive Design. Where the web site knows what platform, you are on and changes layouts of the web page to suite your display. While this might not sound like much, imagine trying to read “Super Tiny” text on your phone, when that same text works just fine on your full-size desktop. Responsive Design makes sure that web pages, work on a whole host of different platforms and displays. So next time you see the “Full Site” option at the bottom of a webpage on your phone you know what it’s from.
Featured Work
What I Do Best
UI/UX Design
Web Design
Brand Identity
Work Experience
January 2020 – Present
Senior Product Designer
Innovative Solutions Co.
June 2017 – December 2019
Product Design Lead
Tech Innovators Inc.
User-Centric Design: Championing a user-centric design approach by conducting user research