Gee, Think.

So now it’s been about four weeks since I’ve been commuting with the Dell E1405. I’m really liking it. It’s not too heavy to carry around.  It’s not that light either, but it’s okay. The screen is big enough and that helps me avoid bad posture and eye strain on the train. I am able to actually get work done during the commute. The train ride is just long enough to allow me to edit some photos, write up a proposal, compose a blog post, or just arrange music on my ipod. Using my laptop on the train has given me an extra 90 mins a day or productivity. During this time I’m able to make progress toward my professional goals and it feels great. I am enjoying mobile productivity so much that I’m now going to look into mobile internet access for my laptop. Currently I’m thinking of getting hooked up via a verizon motorola Q phone. The Q phone looks really cool. It’s so thin and seems to have a decent screen size. It also has a qwerty keyboard which is a must for me now. I want all my letters to have their own keys! But the phone is not the real issue, I
just want to get my latop online during my commute.
I’ll write a review of that process as well.

Today I realized that wordpress is an actual application. I’m starting
to get more excited about the value of my blog because I can see that
wordpress has an excellent search function that returns entries sorted
by date. For instance I can search for the name of my favorite place
and se how many times I’ve mentioned it. Since I usually accompany my
posts with pictures this doubles as a picture search as well. Quite
handy.
The search feature is going to be even cooler wheni have my posts fully
tagged. I find the list of tags on the side panel of my blog intrigues
readers and even myself. I see the categories and wonder what I’ve
written on that topic. That sounds runny when the timeline of a blog is
only a couple months, but if the blog extends over a couple years just
think of how useful that would be. You’l never be able to remember the
names of the entrires you wrote about one particular subject. A search
function, however, will allow you some real insight to your writing
patterns, topics of interest, etc. I’m looking forward to it!
What if the categories (tags) were presented in a cloud similar to the
del.icio.us website? I would like to have a couple extra visualization
features on my blog. It would be cool to have a dynamic title line
composed of the three most numerous categories. It would also be cool
to see the most recently used categories distinguished by a distinct
font, color, or other stlye. I would like some way to visualize the
most used and most recent categories. Hey, it’s possible that someone
has even written a plugin that does something like this. Have you?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Diamond tracks
Originally uploaded by Luke Sharrett.

I just installed ruby on rails on my g4 laptop. It was pretty painless. The most complicated part was figuring out that I needed to upgrade the version of ruby that was pre installed by apple. Rails doesn’t work with ruby 1.6.8, so I upgraded to ruby 1.8.2. then I downloaded MySQL and MySQL Administrator. I read a little tutorial at [http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/01/20/rails.html?page=2] and 5 mins later I was looking at a rails welcome screen. Yea! I can’t wait to experiment with this stuff. I’d like to make the wine recommending Expert System available on the internet. That could be a good exercise with databases, ruby on rails, and CLIPS. Now I’m happy. I’ve got a good project to take on!

Templo Zulai
Originally uploaded by Malu Green!.

Monday I leave for New Jersey. This is a big, much anticipated, and welcome change. I really can’t wait. So what professional endeavors await me in New Jersey? First on the list is a software development job. I’m experienced in Java (and other languages) and looking for immediate employment around Plainfeild,NJ or Manhattan, NYC.

I’ll be continuing my work with Artificial Intelligence after the move. I just completed the underlying “infrastructure” of a Learning Classifier System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_classifier_system). My implementation learns to recommend wine based on the type of meal, and a user’s preference for red or white wine. This problem-space is very limited and basic, but the great part is that making the system more complex will not be nearly as difficult as making the basic system. I plan to launch my own website as soon as I have internet service in Jersey. I’ll be posting the Learning Classifier code there. The next step in my Artificial Intelligence work are to build a Case Based Reasoning System. After that I’ll be designing some sort of final project. The plans for the final project are far to sparse to write about now.

And… as usual I need to extend my energy in several directions at once. I’d really like to successfully install Ruby on Rails on my mac mini. My goal with Ruby is just to get a basic “hello world” program running. I’m thinking of a personal project to work on that will combine some of my favorite web technologies. So far I’m thinking it will be some kind of mash up of Ruby on Rails, Geographic Markup Language, and the Google MAPS API. I can’t say exactly why, but Location Based Services (LBS) really intrigue me, and I’d love to work on a Location Based Services application.

optimism
Originally uploaded by _rebekka.

I have just about finished my Learning Classifier System writing in the CLIPS (http://www.ghg.net/clips/CLIPS.html) programming language. It has been a really fun experience. Tedious at times, yes, but definitely satisfying to know that’s I’ve implemented the first basic steps of machine learning. Today I’m going to be commenting the code extensively, and providing a small report on my work.

I plan to make the system available somewhere on the internet, but I’m not sure where yet. My own webserver will be moving shortly, so it’s time to find some new space.

Artificial Intelligence has been the most interesting technology as of late for science fiction. A lot of people I know are worried about the EVENTUALITY of sentient computers. They are also worried about computers ability to learn new and unpredictable rules about their environment.

I would worry about such things, but I think that’s like worrying about the tides of the ocean. I see it as a certainty that Artificial Intelligence research and development will progress. Who knows how it will affect our daily lives, but I think it will in the next 10 years for certain. I’ll be writing more on this topic to elaborate on why I think this way.

Wireless/Mindless Internet Point
Originally uploaded by NaOH.

Today I looked at a lot of things. I read blogs for about 2 hours, skimming through many different topics. I covered:
- How to write effective comments
- The Mumbai Floods
- The Engadget Feed
- The Cisco Router Flaw controversy
- a new comic released under the creative commons license

but I’ll just write about the middle two because I’m pressed for time. I’ve really got to get to work on my Learning Classifier System.

I don’t have any pithy conclusions to draw from my morning’s browsing, but I do generally like what I see on the internet. Skimming through engadget is fun because I feel like I’m getting a daily snapshot of the state of the art of technology. They survey so many different devices, but also keep me abreast of company rumors or plans. I highly recommend their feed to anyone interested in technology. www.engadget.com

I really enjoyed the article about Mike Lynn, Internet Security Systems, and Cisco Systems. It seems that he was caught in the middle of a corporate battle. It’s a perfect example of the old proverb “When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers”. He was told by his employer ISS to investigate a security flaw reported by Cisco. This led Mike to find a critical flaw in the Cisco Router’s operating system. It seems that once Internet Security Systems had this information from Mike, they wanted to use him as a pawn in their plan to hurt Cisco. The tale gets better from there. Any researcher would enjoy this article. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68365,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2

Vision Plate PCMCIA Module
Originally uploaded by garrettwilkin.

Hello and Good Morning!

Today this is my job. Research what kind of component we can install in the PCMCIA module of the Hitachi ie VisionPlate. We have to make sure that the card will be supported by midori linux. Also, it must be compatible with this hardware. And we got to load right driver.

It seems like we can use another Hitachi Product, PCM-MHD-H-G2, PCM-MHD-H-G4. These are compact flash CF+ PCMCIA 2.1 compliant cards with 4.3 - 7.2 MB/s.

hiedra_
Originally uploaded by aletheia.

Interesting photo no?

It makes me think of how the natural order of nature has influence technology and design.

RackComputer
Originally uploaded by garrettwilkin.

This is the station I use for my live linux testing, and also for testing programs that involve interaction amoung peers. Its a pretty nice configuration that allows for quick restarts and easy hardware access. Much fun for the tech enthusiast such as myself.