secondsuitor

After starting to read that article last night about calculus, I decided to actually learn it this time. Whipped up the first video on MIT’s OpenCourseware and stayed getting my lecture on. I think I’ve finally aged enough, and have real goals enough, to see me through filling out my education.

Bonus points for Zeno.

Can You Solve the UK Intelligence Agency’s Christmas Puzzle? http://gizmodo.com/can-you-solve-the-uk-intelligence-agencys-christmas-puz-1747265899

I ended up with a stack of paper that would be dope to make beer bottle boxes with. I think I might be able to get a four pack in there. So, killing time waiting for a bus after work, I start googling those dimensions. It turns out that people only list off the volume, which is clearly printed on the label, often stamped in the glass, and in the freaking name;12oz bottle of beer. I’ll have to measure a bottle when I get home and start doing some maths and engineering.

A couple of days ago, while on my morning commute, I read this article on artificial intelligence on hackaday. This inspired me to codify my own thoughts on the definition of intelligence. I sincerely believe that intelligence is rarely measurable as a number but more like a topographical map where each person’s map I had the same average height. The Wif and I are almost polar opposites in all intelligences. I can read fast, she can read right, I can intrinsically understand systems, she intrinsically understands people. When I look at the debates surrounding artificial intelligence, it always comes back to motive.
I take no issue with the challenges of designing artificial intelligence. There are serious obstacles to be overcome that we, as a species, have made progress on. The issue I have is why. I, as an intelligent being, need no one to tell me how to think. My thought is an extension of my desires. I read to learn. I play video games as a challenge to boredom. I explore the world around me to find new things. I help others for gratitude.
If I think of myself as a machine, which I do, then I’m a series of stimuli coming in and being compared against a value table. With a neutral position being infinite balance of the values, for the classical students humours, the change in these values in moderation provides subtle motive. If I were to can these humours, I could build a state machine for the state of the machine. By adjusting these humours, much as I used to do by manipulating Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs (true story), I should be able to have a robot living for itself and gaining it’s own unique intelligence.
While Nigel may never win at Jeopardy, I’d be pretty okay with him writing me a poem.

Note to self, I like the use of humours, I’ll have to mange them that in the code. Ideally come up with good names for them.

After a delicious Secondsgiving, I wandered to the den while the Wif worked on her paper. Soon growing tired of having, I hooked up the Beaglebone and started toying with it. I now have it sharing internet across the USB cable, and now working on getting the support software I want installed. I probably should look into a new memory card for it. That should be on my grocery list.
To get back to Nigel, what I was dividing on mostly was hooking up a USB camera I have. This will be his eye. For some sick reason, I kind of want to have him blogging about his own creation. Totes gonna break some 7th dimension.

Sewing machine threaded. Boom.
Good pairs of trousers hemmed. Boom.
Linux installed. Boom.
Games installed. Boom.
Scratching post half ways done. Boom?
Christmas lights up. Badly. Boom.
Beer brewing. Boom.

But in all seriousness, I got a lot of stuff doing or done. Some of these things being better living things for the Wif and I (lights, games, and scratching post), while some are intermediary steps to other challenges (beer, sewing and Linux). In all, I felt really productive this weekend. Oddly, it’s all thanks to beer. I told myself that I was brewing on Friday. This had the step of adding in data logging. While I thought to do a quick test of the sensor package the night (or morning) before, I didn’t want to find my soldering iron to get that properly hooked up. Unfortunately, when I went to find my soldering iron, it was nowhere to be found. This meant I had to start exploring the Den of Inequity, and a projing I did.
I still have a lot to do. I need to clean more. I need to figure out printing, which I think means I need to find the IP address. I also need to figure out how get my computer to stop doing network something fierce.
It wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t hard.

A couple of days ago Microsoft became even more adamant that I really need to upgrade to 10. This time it was a pop up telling me blah blah blah now or later?
I, silly enough, skipped reading all the words and slipped the later button, because I had things to do. But, in a pique of annoyance realizedthat Microsoft considers later as we’re totally doing this and not sarcastic totally doing this later. I obviously killed all downloads and clicked all decline buttons.
See, the thing is, Windows 10 is having some gaming issues. I only have Windows for gaming. At some future point I should definitely consider upgrading. Hell, I got the Wif to, mainly because 8 was such a dog.
The sad thing is, while they’re being ham-fisted about 10, they’re also finally embracing open source and makers. It feels like half the company is on a completely different memo program.
Well, I now have Mint installed, running some updates,  pushing some tests, and boom. That Window is broken and won’t be opening again.

I drove today for various and sundry reasons. Flipping the radio I heard the last minute of The Pixies’ Where Is My Mind. That’s cranking time. Always has been, always will. It’s the only song that works perfect no matter what my internal dialogue is. It just has to be loud. Gotta get the Wif better speakers for her car.