Sunday, October 26, 2003
106719481962928994:: 11:00 AM

On Saturday I went to the Seattle Robothon to talk shop with some robot people. Pretty fun. The field is still young enough that individual contributors working in their garages can do significant work. What's also fascinating are the philosophical differences in various approaches to robot design. Some approches focus on meticulous processor-based design, others construct behavior from analog hardware on up, some employ decision trees and neural nets tied to camera-based vision systems, whlie others mimic insects with antennae seeking light and food.

When I did work for the Cornell Robocup team, we were definitely on the meticulous processor design side of the spectrum. Routines were architected at every level down to the most basic elements of motion control. Each level had processors running, which would intepret inputs, generate commands and operate control systems to actuate those commands. Thus, at the Robothon, curiousity drew me toward the robots that were on the other side of the spectrum. In particular I spent some time at the Solarbotics booth, where they had a number of robots which employed simple electical design in conjunction with smart mechanical design in order to locomote in fascinating ways. They had many solar-powered robots featuring hardware-based behaviours which would locomote them toward light. None of these robots had processors, but they could move about and "feed" themselves.

I was also liked how they used smart mechanical design to solve a lot of motion problems which people typically solve with code. One of their walkers has a spring which helps it swing its back legs and it marches forth. This same walker has antenna constructed from a springy coil with a thin radial post. The sping and post touch when the antenna hits something significant. When this happens, the bug backs up and alters its course a bit. You can see a video of that guy here.

They also run a site which applies an OSS philosophy to robotics.

Thursday, October 16, 2003
106633733343502333:: 1:48 PM

Nice. So I downloaded the new iTunes for Windows and started browsing around. Of course upon entry the front page is plastered with top 40 radio, so um -- wack. At least they didn't have Linkin Park on the first page. Phew. Going over to the electronic section, things were ok, lots of mainstream, but what did I expect? I listened to some clips from the recent Cornelius album, which was the highlight of the whole experience. Cool.

Then I foolishly tried using the search feature. I searched for rainer maria, rilo kiley, helio sequence, the black sea, the pilfers, ed rush, freskanova, and freestylers -- all to no avail. Then I searched for "this sucks" which actually returned a lot of results. In the list was DJ Shadow's "Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96" so I previewed it for old times sake. This made me notice that this 40 second song is available for sale for $1. That's stupid. I can hear 30 seconds in the preview, including the main point of the song: HipHop sucks in 96 because "it's the money" which is running everything. Mildly symbolic? I dunno.

Anyway, after that I tried to give it some easier things, like searching for "Rachmaninoff", which returned plenty of results. Good. Oddly though the "most relevant" results were "Rachmaninoff plays Chopin". Uh, how is that more relevant than "Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninoff"? Anyway. iTunes, wake me up when you add like 10 times more music.

Sunday, October 12, 2003
106594657828191555:: 1:16 AM

I took some black and white photos today. Here.

Wednesday, October 08, 2003
106567365870577907:: 9:27 PM

Night spills in like caligraphy ink. Spreading into ancient forms and drenching daytime clouds till they too hold the colors of night. Behind the forms, the symbols of stars emerge. Dots on a page wildly swirling about the galactic core until generations ago, when eyes froze them into meaning. Now they are constellations - carrying our stories and tracing circles around our tiny planet. Night spills across the galaxy, and on other worlds, our sun is their story.