Summer School

I enrolled for a summer class today. CSC 698: Research In Computer Science. Luckily, I have a research assistantship that the course is being modeled after; meaning that I get academic credit for what I do at work. I'm looking forward to it but I'm not quite ready to start. Finals were last week and a week off would be nice but I need to meet with my advisors sometime this week and discuss goals and possible approaches that I should take to achieve those goals. So, in order to look good, it would be great if I can come in to the meeting with some work and results done. We'll see. I'll take today off and do some work tomorrow (keep in mind that the job doesn't start until June 5 and the class until June 12).

Ubuntu's Add Applications Program

  This is the screenshot from when I installed Rhythmbox and Eric Python IDE. As you can see just point - click - done. However, Rhythmbox sucks (or at least did for me); so, also using Ubuntu's Add Applications Program I unselected Rhythmbox and select XMMS instead. I've been listening to mp3s and streaming music for the past hour. 

Virtualization

The ACM Virtualization presentation (08 Mar 06) really impressed me. I went to vmware.com to download the server software and immediately got distracted by the Virtual Application challenge. $200,000 is one hell of a distraction. Anyway, I ended up downloading the VMware-player and the sample Browser Application. The sample Browser Application is only a 250 MB zip file that contains an Ubuntu disto with Firefox setup ready to go. Installation, execution, installing XMMS and Eric Python IDE, and downloading some MP3s took less than 45 minutes. This is with me playing around while doing this. This FUCKING Rocks! Thanks for answering all the questions I asked you since I came in to Kirk’s presentation late. To everyone reading this download & install VMware-player (28 MB) and the sample Browser Application (250 MB). Very cool shit. Browsed and Created in Browser-Appliance-1.0.0, VMware-player

If I were rich...

I think I'll start a "If I were rich..." theme. Anytime something really cool (but expensive) catches my attention I'll make a "If I were rich..." post. The SkyScout which you can read about at www.celestron.com is so cool. Just read this, "Aim it at any heavenly body, and the GPS receiver and three-axis position sensor identifies stars, planets, and constellations by voice or text." Sah-weeet! However, at four hundred dollars I'll just print out a star chart and wing it.

Building a Better Battery

I have a box of used alkaline batteries at home. I can't convince myself to throw them away since they are still holding 2/3 of a full charge. This is all the fault of my digital camera which takes four batteries at a time and only uses 1/3 of the batteries' charge before deciding that it needs more power. Luckily, I bought a wireless mouse several months ago and it will happily accept a 2/3 charged battery and drain it down to 1/3 of a charge before needing a replacement (and this takes a long time). In the March 2006, issue of Wired there is an article about the M1 battery. It is made by DeWalt (Black & Decker) and it is suppose to have double the power density, five times the peak energy, and a shorter recharging time than a Li-ion battery of the same size. Li-ion batteries are suppose to kick the crap out of alkaline batteries. So, that being said, where is my double-A M1 battery?

A Comment on my Blog

Today I received an email informing me that someone had posted a comment on my blog. Really I only created a blog to see how Google's recommended blogging site worked. So, this peeked my curiosity and I Googled my name. Holy crap! My Blog profile is the third (second unique) site listed. Well, this is no good. I'm a teaching assistant, how long will it be until one of my student's Googles my name and starts reading the things I write here? Maybe a worse possibility, my advisor sees the site. Hmmm... Can't complain about the thesis project, my students, or my job. I should have took the advise that I read about blogging - Don't Use Your Name!

Finding My Thesis and Stanley, the robotic SUV

Over the winter break my advisor gave me a list of several things to work on, and top on that list was find a thesis topic. I haven't really been actively doing that. Instead I have been insulating the pipes in my house but in my attempts to procrastate I have been reading Wired magazine. The January issue has an article about "Stanford's souped-up Volkswagen blasted through the Mojave Desert, blew away the competition, and won Darpa's $2 million Grand Challenge." You can find it online at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/stanley.html Good article and definately a must read for anyone working with robotics and|or considering working with robotics. Makes me want to do research in the field. But I'm attending a university that has very little money for this type of thing and the best the AI classes have are some Logo Mindstorm bricks that are at least five years old. Would trying to work with robotics in this environment really mean that I won't get any meaningful experience and my thesis starves to death from lack of realistic data?! Probably.

First Night 2006

Christy and I went to the fireworks display at Springfield's First Night 2006 celebration. It was a nice way to bring in the new year.

Google's Picasa

I downloaded Picasa just a few hours ago and have been messing around with it while surfing and posting. It is awesome! Very easy to use and very fast. Sure, it can't even compare to what a good graphic designer* can do with Photoshop (or Gimp) to improve an image. But I'm no graphic designer. I strongly recommend this software.

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* I served with a graphic artist, Kussman, in the Army. He can do some very cool things. For example, after my last deployment I went to Scotland, and took a lot of pictures with my digital camera. Well, one picture I took with very low battery power had the bottom third damaged. Kussman was able to make it look perfect; I still wonder how he did it.