Today's Quote

"We built a radio just like the books specify,
but it did not play music...

[Only later did we learn that] the music was in the waves,
not in the radio."

-Zor and YenDor, R.U.R. (Dr. Rosalind Picard)

It is unscientific to believe in humans...

Found a wonderful dialog that Dr. Picard presented at MIT in 1997. If you have 10 minutes to spare, check it out :)

Machines That Can Deny Their Maker

Rosalind W. Picard

The following dialogue was presented as part of the lecture "Toward Machines That Can Deny Their Maker," given at the MIT Course "God and Computers" by Rosalind W. Picard during the fall semester 1997.
 
The dialogue was inspired, in part, by the 1921 play of Karel Capek, entitled "R.U.R.," which stands for Rossum's Universal Robots. This play is where the word robot originated, from the Czech "robotit," which means "to drudge." In R.U.R., humans have figured out the secret to making robots that are emotional and alive. However, the robots can only live for 20 years. Afterward, they expire (die.)
 
The robots in this dialogue share the following features with those in R.U.R.: They are affective computers, with an extensive set of emotional abilities. They do not know how to make themselves, nor do they know how to prolong their existence beyond 20 years. They do not have the "secret recipe" that is what gave them life. But, they have the desire to find it.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes...

Mucking about on Youtube is simply fun :)

Was searching for Bill Gates keynote at the CES this year (since they can't webcast it properly for non-windows browsers). Just wanted to witness the awful catastrophe I thought this keynote was with my own eyes.

Finally found all the parts of Mr. Gates keynote and forced myself to watch most of it ( Part 1 and onward). When comparing this keynote to the one held by Steve Jobs earlier this year at WWDC 2007 and last years WWDC 2006, it was simply dreadful. While Apple's CEO talked in moderation with lots of visual aids and actually demo'ed the technology and enhancements that he was talking about, microsoft's CEO talked in (at times) excruciating length about how their new flagship OS, Windows Vista, provided "interconnected device experience", how "intuitive and simple" their UI and navigation and how innovative the infrastructure is (honestly, what does that mean? and why do the users care?). Why not simply show it? Lengthy dictator-like sermons get tired really fast. Since it's so simple and intuitive, show it.. the users should get it right away right?!

It was simply sad to watch, how should the users trust Windows Vista enough to use if the developer, microsoft, is to afraid to show and demo its features live? Simply sad...

Also a historical stroll through bright and dark times at Apple watch these videos:
1983 Apple Keynote-The "1984" Ad Introduction
Macworld Boston 1997-The Microsoft Deal
Apple WWDC 2006-Windows Vista Copies Mac OS X
The Boston 97 event was just excruciating to watch, although Mr. Jobs rightly pointed out that "For Apple to win, Microsoft doesn't have to loose". I however had a hard time not laughing out loud when Jobs announced that "The era of setting this up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over as far as I'm concerned" especially after watching the third video in the list. It's good to know that Apple and Microsoft (and others) are still competing, keeps us all healthy :)



The bottom-line, I honestly don't think I'd accept a job offering at microsoft at this point. I however would love the opportunity to work with Apple.

What closed the deal and finally won me over? It's the 15 minute long commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005. This is a man I want my work to impress. If you only watch one video, watch that one.

Rotating a matrix CW/CCW in Python

Just for those of you who are wondering, like I was :)

import sys, os

def rotate( indata, height, width, rotate_ccw ):
 outdata = []
 for col in range( width ):
     newrow = []
     for row in range( height ):
         if( rotate_ccw ):
             newrow.append( indata[row][(width-1)-col])
         else:
             newrow.append( indata[(height-1)-row][col])
     outdata.append( newrow )
 return outdata

#Test the rotation
test = [[1, 2, 3],
     [4, 5, 6],
     [7, 8, 9]]
  
print test
print "Rotate CW"
rotated = rotate(test, 3, 3, False )
print rotated
print "Rotate CCW"
print rotate(rotated, 3, 3, True )

In under 15 minutes, hurray for Python!

I am the ROBOT!

For those of you who might be interested, I've finally posted the first (bare bones) version of my new pet-project project web page.


Visit: Rob the Robot Project Page

I still have to update the already completed phase pages (phase0 and phase1) with images, blueprints and code but all in good time :)

Meanwhile, happy new year!
I've got a good feeling about 2007... It's gonna be great :D