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A million-dollar pen vs. a pencil

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You know this legend about how NASA spent millions to develop a pen that can write in zero gravity, and the russians have just used a pencil? Well, I was reminded about this by Dejan’s post in response to my post about the Random Gradient Wallpaper Generator.

I used an O(NxN) algorithm to generate a megapixel image that takes up about 5 MB on my desktop.

Dejan generated a 2x2 bitmap that takes up 70 bytes and let Windows stretch it with the exactly same effect. If you read my original post, go read this one, you’ll like it :)

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2009
    Wow, who knew Windows would stretch it so well! Side note - that million dollar pen thing isn't totally true. http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2009
    Thanks for the follow up post Kiril, glad that you liked the idea @fowl, I have no problems on Windows XP. I mentioned in my blog post that the image should be a 24bit bmp file and then Windows stretches the wallpaper properly, maybe try that

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2009
    I'm using a 2x2 24bit bmp, straight from Paint, no less! :) Oddness.