To the right side of the blog, there is now an RSS feed widget. The feed for this is generated programatically every day by using a modified spam filter written in Python to gauge my interest in any particular article from about a dozen different sources, and grabbing the 20 “most interesting” articles. Enjoy!
Share knowledge and skills to continue the innovative process both to and from people and communities.
In my work as a software developer, I have found that it is often more important to know where to look for information, rather than having all possibly relevant information memorized. The first step, then, is to allow greater access to information.
At first glance, the internet would be perfect for this. The sum total of humanity’s knowledge, available for the taking, mostly free of charge. However, accessing the internet requires a huge cost in infrastructure. The required infrastructure can be broken down as follows:
A device capable of accessing the internet, usually a computer of some variety
An active network connection
The first requirement can be satisfied by something like the OLPC Project’s XO Laptop. This is a computer which is designed to be used in the middle of nowhere, capable of being powered by a foot-treadle similar to old-fashioned sewing machines. It is capable of surviving shocks and drops that would cause a normal computer to die, as it has no moving parts. It is also capable of both 802.11b/g networking (the type of wireless access many of you no doubt have in your homes) or 802.11s “mesh networking”, to allow users to connect to the internet over much further distances than normal by routing the signal through other connected machines. The laptop is available through a unique “buy one get one” plan, where the only way someone in a developed country such as Canada, the U.S., or most of Europe can buy a machine is by also donating one to a developing country such as most of Africa.
The second requirement, however, is much more difficult to satisfy. The underlying network infrastructure that we all take for granted is horrendously expensive to create and maintain, and most companies aren’t willing or able to dedicate the time and money required to install it in developing countries where the potential subscriber base is low and the income of the average person is lower. The obvious choice is satellite-based communications, with one sat-modem capable of being shared between many XO Laptops, however bandwidth pricing on satellite communications is still very expensive, and very slow especially for a shared connection. This can be ameliorated somewhat with a filtering proxy sitting on the remote end of the connection — a system which strips all images, videos, and other high-bandwidth data out of the connection unless an administrator overrides it, leaving only plain-text which can be easily compressed to minimize data usage. The above setup would allow people to search for things like plans for an artesian well, and only download the diagrams which are actually needed to complete the project.
Global access to information is becoming more and more important as time goes on. Some countries, such as France, have even declared access to the internet a basic human right. Despite this, there are many problems which must be addressed before such access can be made truly universal. This is one solution; what is yours?
Today I purchased a 500w “power assist electric bicycle” online. It essentially looks like a Vespa, and since it qualifies as a “power assist” bicycle in Canada, I don’t need a drivers license for it, and it doesn’t need to be registered! Hooray!!
Just a simple update, I changed the layout of my blog (I think it looks better this way, anyways). Hopefully soon there’ll be a massive update and a new project, but I don’t want to say too much about it right now except that it’ll be a boon for lazy people everywhere.
I’ve started designing and working on a set of miniature modular swarm bots. MEAGan (short for Miniature Expandable Autonomous Golem) will be pretty much like any other design out there, with one difference — instead of each bot having a predefined, specialized purpose, they will all be identical with the exception of “backpack modules” which will work with any bot. This will allow me to save a lot of money on construction — instead of having to build many different bots to cover all posibilities as I come up with them, I’ll only need a half dozen or so.
I have the base-unit design worked out — it’s just a simple microcontroller controlling two servos and an antenna-style bump sensor. Because low cost is one of the reasons for this design, and because the units will be small enough that having load-bearing members isn’t really an issue, I decided to build the chassis out of Mecano and use Lego tank-treads for the drive train (the gearboxes/motors were taken from a WowWee RoboPet that I purchased for $5 from a thrift store — fully functional, except it came with no remote so all it would do is sit there and make noises every once in a while to ensure I knew it was still there). Unfortunately, as I went to the local Big Box of Evilness store (read: Wal-Mart) I came to a somewhat frightening realization — Apparently toys which encourage creativity such as Lego, Mecano, and even building blocks, are no longer considered “popular”, or “cool” enough to sit on a shelf beside the latest flavor of the week. This is of special concern, because my fiance and I have lately spent a lot of time discussing how we are going to raise our as-yet-conceptual children (to anyone who might read this and panic — family members etc. — don’t worry, they are VERY conceptual — we don’t want kids until after Stevie is done her masters, so probably at least six years).
Well, I didn’t get either of the jobs I was hoping for as of my last post — I started working at Startek, a call center which handles support for AT&T Wireless customers in the southern U.S. After I had been there for two weeks, I was offered a job at a contracting firm called Fact Computers, to be a systems administrator for the provincial government. Unfortunately, and for some as-of-yet unknown reason, they decided to call me up the day before I was supposed to start working (after I’d quit my job at Startek, unfortunately) and let me know that they weren’t going to hire me after all. Two weeks of unemployment and frantic job-searching followed. I am now working for Marketel, a company which manufactures and supports autodialers, as a sort of jack-of-all-trades… I work primarily in tech support, but I’m also doing sysadmin and programming as well. The job can be fairly monotonous at times, but my co-workers and supervisors are great — where else would you find a supervisor who, between calls, randomly starts singing things by “They Might Be Giants”?
I’m working on a new version of DanteSL to enable multithreading, since the login process freezing the program temporarily is the biggest problem I can find with it. Motion is going to have to wait, as I haven’t been able to find any functions in the libSecondLife code which would allow me to impliment movement. I’m also working on another version, to be called something entirely different, using AIML as the A.I. engine instead of Dante. The custom AIML interpreter will be closed source, and the overall product will be commercial in nature — essentially, I’ll be providing the bot and custom “scripts” for it as an advertising resource for customers.
I’m getting much closer to actually starting my major robotics project of the year — I was worried about having to pay for custom fabrication on the body, but as it turns out, my brother has just purchased a farm, complete with — oh rapture of raptures — a fully equipped machine shop. He’s going to be selling most of the equipment, to help pay of the mortgage on the farm, but he has decided to keep enough of it around for me to “play” when I go out to visit.
So, I have a 12 page paper to finish for a class in computer ethics, due on Tuesday. I also have to study for my final stats quiz (tomorrow night), and get in applications for the Google Summer of Code (I hope to be employed by either FreeNet or Linden Labs — FreeNet because I’m doing a lot of research into the underlying technology for the aforementioned paper, and Linden Labs because I’m doing a lot of work based around their technology for Dante’s Second Life and for the Mageforge Virtual Sanctum — so I’d be getting paid to do what I am fully prepared to spend most of my free time for the summer doing anyways). There isn’t much hope of me being accepted, as I didn’t bother to do research into the SoC project before now, and the application deadline is April 5 — not enough time to talk to the organizations before I submit my applications. As a result of my classes, I get to miss my friend’s wedding tomorrow night. By the way, if you read this, Congrats Fern and Adrian! I’m also trying to plan around my tax return so I can finish the hardware side of some of the projects I’m working on — wearable computing and robotics. If anyone knows a cheap source for MCQV111AFB ASIC chips, let me know — I have about 40 Kopin 320M lcd panels which I can’t use until I find the chips, and I can’t find the chips for less than $70 a piece. Work on Dante’s Second Life is continuing, but slowly — next update will include either multi-threading or random motion code, as the mood takes me. Anyways, tomorrow is rapidly becoming today, so I should wrap this up.
Ciao!
DanteSL Second Life Learning Chatbot Release 0.1.1.
Features:
This is a quick and dirty release, I only started working on this project yesterday so things like motion and friend requests aren’t currently handled.
Requirements: Second Life account, Active Internet Connection, .NET 2.0 Framework
Known Bugs: Main program freezes when you connect, until the client has fully connected or given up.
Source code and binary files:
http://www.technomagia.tk/projects/dantesl/DanteSL0.1.1-SRC.zip
http://www.technomagia.tk/projects/dantesl/DanteSL0.1.1-BIN.zip
EDIT: I just realized I left out instructions for compiling the source — Source is written in VS2008, not sure if it will work in any earlier version. You must have both Dante (http://www.dantebot.com) and libSecondLife (http://www.libsecondlife.org) installed for the program to compile, and you may have to update the references to reflect the path you have installed it in. Since Dante is written using VB6, I highly doubt it will run under Mono in Linux, although all the C# components should be fine.
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