r3dux.org

Just doing the Stanford AI class unit 20 (Robotics II) where Sebastian’s talking about Monte Carlo localisation when we got to this quiz and I burst out laughing…

If you actually watch the videos (part 1, part 2, part 3) then it all does make sense and isn’t too difficult to get your head around – I just thought it was funny that he’s asking “Do you understand what I’ve just told you?” =D

SPOILER-ALERT: The correct answer is “yes”! Lol! I don’t think I’ll get into too much trouble w/ the honour code for that =P

Things have been a bit quiet on the r3dux.org front of late, but it’s not been because I’ve been getting my Starcraft on or navel-gazing too much. Instead, I’ve been jumping through all kinds of administrative hoops, filling out forms, having interviews, and trying to get into a Ph.D by Research program – and guess what? It is ON!! =D

So, I’m now officially a Ph.D undergrad – but what the hell does this really mean?

Well, for the work, it means that I’m going to spend at least the next three years working on putting together a kitchen-sink approach to getting user input (as in “everything but the kitchen sink”) – so we’re looking at arm/hand/finger movement and gesture recognition, voice recognition, head tracking, eye tracking, all with (at first) just a monitor/webcam/gloves, but hopefully moving on to 3D data-glasses as things get closer to completion.

For me personally, it means that I’m going to be busy. Really busy. For the next 3 years. And that for the second and third year I’m only going to be able to work one day a week teaching, as I’m going to be expected to put in a minimum of 32 hours per week researching, performing literature review, writing code, and getting my 3D on. Really, I’m trying to do the first year part-time (so I can still work, and ya know, pay my rent, eat etc.), but get it done within a full-time schedule, so it’s all going to be a bit hectic.

I’ve got to say I’m really looking forward to it all though… I mean, come on! Three year research project trying to push past the bleeding-edge (or at least incorporate the bleeding-edge) into something that’s never been done before? That’s exciting and terrifying stuff! =D It’s going to be an incredible amount of work, but I think it’ll be worth it, and it’s something I can check off my life-list so when it comes the time to weigh up what you’ve done with your life, I’ll feel (rightly or wrongly) that I’ve made some kind of contribution to society and to humanity, and that’ll be good enough for me.

But these are early days yet, there are papers to be read, APIs & middleware to research, and heavy-duty textbooks to fight through (such as the delightfully titled: Interactive Elastic Two-Layer Soft Body Simulation with OpenGL: Design and Development of an OpenGL-based Framework for Dynamic Deformation of Uniform Elastic Two-Layer Objects – no, really – it’s on my reading list!).

So wish me well – I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need it!

I recently used this text in a class on creative and critical thinking, and found that I rather liked what Sir Murdoch had to say, and how he went about saying it, so thought I’d share…

Often, in the course of my regrettably miscellaneous reading, I become conscious of a mysterious force, a sinister influence, a hidden and hostile something, for which writers are always trying to find a name and never quite succeeding, and with which, whether they can name it or not, they are always in conflict. It is the enemy, not only of literature, but of all the other arts as well; it is, in fact, the enemy of civilisation. According to my reading of history, this something has worked so consistently against the healthy development of the race, has been so consistently a clog on all progress towards the bettering of the world, that I feel perfectly justified in calling it a disease. If the doctors fail to agree upon its name, its causes, its symptoms, and its treatment – well, it is not the only ailment of which that can be said. Let us, provisionally, call it respectability…

Respectability has many virtues, but they are the meaner virtues, the timid virtues, caution, prudence, docility, tameness, discretion. All the brave, adventurous virtues are regarded by this dingy goddess as silly or dangerous, or both. Proposals for reform are not blocked by the bad people, but by the dull. Those who think our present economic conditions unsatisfactory sometimes think they are opposed by a gang of scoundrels so depraved that they really wish to keep us all poor. There is no such gang. There are not enough scoundrels to go round; the vast majority of mankind are kindly and well meaning. The persons we have to face are the dull, the stodgy, the unimaginative, the ancestor-worshippers, too timid to think for themselves, the persons who look at any suggestion of change with the expression of cows looking at a passing train. My own hope is still in education, in spite of many disillusionments. My hope is that some day teachers will impress upon their pupils the solemn duty of not accepting ready-made the beliefs of others, of not swallowing them unquestioningly as a child might swallow a pill given it by its mother. One had to put one’s beliefs on a foundation of sincerity before they are worthy to be called beliefs at all; and my hope is that some day education will train children for the real duty of life, which is to think for oneself and to act for oneself, and not to be one of the lifeless automata which make up the serried ranks of respectability.

Well put, no? After reading this, the students were asked to put forward arguments either for or against the following statement:

Education helps individuals grow and has a civilising and humanising influence on society as a whole.

So, what do you think?