Past, Present and Future of Robotics

My talk from the Beijing Science Festival

- Past, Present and Future of Robotics.
At the Beijing Science Festival 9/19/2014


 




 http://youtu.be/9CQb59_tHA0

Hacker Dojo Lightning Talks, 2014 06-13

Hacker Dojo Lightning Talks, 2014 06-13

 I am speaking about my Bluetooth chessboard project 20m 30s in.

 

ULN3113

Controlling the World with Your PC - Page 161 

The ULN3113 ULN-3113 Hall effect switch 

Should be Allegro UGN-3113

Cymatic universe

 4 and 1/2 years later serious physicists are considering that maybe our universe is a vibrating superfluid.

Well, I have been thinking about this now for years and I have an alternate theory.
One I call the Cymatic Universe, one that is in a nonlinear medium and behaves like a non Newtonian superfluid that's lossless.

Published on 12/02/2010

Rethinking Quatum physics

Published on 6/30/2014
Have We Been Interpreting Quantum Mechanics Wrong This Whole Time?

Published on 6/24/2014
Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality

Reverse Polish Notation - Spreadsheet Calculator

This is for a job I was interviewing for 2 years back.  
Beautiful piece of code I wrote although I never got the job.



Hello John,

It was really nice to talk to you.
Attached is the coding question we send to everyone.  Feel free to use
whatever languages/tools
you are most comfortable with to solve it.  It is not really intended
to be an embedded exercise per se, but rather a way to see how you
might tackle a simple problem.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Once we cross this stage
I am looking forward to meet you and YYYY our business development
manager will coordinate with you.

Thanks,
XXXX

Spreadsheet Calculator 
A spreadsheet consists of a two-dimensional array of cells, labeled A1, A2, .... Each cell contains either an integer (its value) or an expression. 

Expressions contain integers, cell references, and the operators '+', '-', '*', '/'. Expressions are given in Reverse Polish Notation (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation). Write a program (in Python/C++/Java/C) to read a spreadsheet specification and evaluate the values of all the cells. A spreadsheet is specified as a plain text file:

• Line 1: two integers, defining the width and height of the spreadsheet (n, m) 

• n*m lines each containing an expression which is the value of the corresponding cell (cells enumerated in the order A1, A2, A, B1, ...). 

Your program should output its data in the same format, but each cell should be reduced to a single floating point value.  

Example 
For example, the following spreadsheet: 
2 2
A2
4 5 *
A1 B2 /
3

evaluates to: 
2 2
20
20
6.6666667
3

The above example input visually looks like:

1 2
-------------------------
A | A2 | 4 5 * |
-------------------------
B | A1 B2 / | 3 |
-------------------------

Test Cases
• We provide several example input and output files. • We value elegance, simplicity, and readability in your code 
Comments • All numbers in the input are positive integers, but internal calculations and output should be with floats. You can assume that there are no more than 26 rows (A-Z) in the spreadsheet. • Your program should detect cyclic dependencies in the input data and report these by throwing CircularReferenceException. 
• You may assume that input file is formatted correctly, and all of the expressions are well-formed. 
• Just passing the provided test cases does NOT mean you have a correct implementation.

-------------------

https://github.com/johnsokol/RPN-Spreadsheet-Calculator/

   Attached is a C++ version of the Spreadsheet Calculator.

   input is from Standard in

John

cat test1.in

2 2

A2

4 5 *

A1 B2 /

3

sokol@server:~$ g++ RPNcalc.cpp

sokol@server:~$ ./a.out < test1.in

2 2

20

20

6.66667

3

cat test2.in

3 3

2

3 3 4 + *

A1 B1 +

A2

7

10 C1 /

A1 5 /

B2

3

sokol@server:~$ ./a.out < test2.in

3 3

2

21

23

21

7

25

0.4

7

3

sokol@server:~$ ./a.out < testfail.in

Circular Reference Exception

sokol@server:~$

-------------------

RPNCalc.cpp

-------------------

#include <string>
#include <cctype>
#include <iostream>
#include <map>
#include <sstream>
#include <fstream>
#include <stack>

//  Copyright John L. Sokol - May 21, 2012
//  RPN SpreadSheet Calculator
//
// This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
// modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
// as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
// of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
//

using namespace std;

#define FALSE 0
#define TRUE 1


namespace Error
{

 struct CircularReferenceException
 {
 };

 struct Zero_divide
 {
 };

 struct Unresolved
 {
 };

 struct Table_error
 {
   const char *p;
     Table_error (const char *q)
   {
     p = q;
   }
 };

 struct Syntax_error
 {
   const char *p;
     Syntax_error (const char *q)
   {
     p = q;
   }
 };
}


class spreadsheet
{

 typedef struct
 {
   std::string data;
   double result;
   bool solved;
 } ElementType;

 typedef map < std::string, ElementType > TableType;

 TableType table;
 int x, y;


public:
 int unresolved_elements;
 bool tablefail;

 enum Token_value
 {
   STRING, NUMBER, PRINT, END, ADD = '+', SUB = '-', MUL = '*', DIV = '/'
 };

   spreadsheet ()
 {
 };

 ~spreadsheet ()
 {
 };

 double RPNeval (string expr);

 void load (istream &);

 void solve_pass ();
 void solve ();

 void dumpresults ();
 void dumpmap ();

};



double
spreadsheet::RPNeval (string expr)
{

 double a, b, result;

#define MATH_OPERATION( op ) \
if(mystack.size() < 2) throw Error::Syntax_error("Stack Underrun"); \
a = mystack.top(); mystack.pop(); \
b = mystack.top(); mystack.pop(); \
mystack.push(b op a);

 stringstream input (stringstream::in | stringstream::out);
 string token;

 stack < double >mystack;
 char ch;

 input << expr;

 while (input.get (ch))
   {
     switch (ch)
{
case 0:
 break; // Should never get here

case '\t':
case ' ':
 break;

case ADD:
 MATH_OPERATION (+)break;
case SUB:
 MATH_OPERATION (-)break;
case MUL:
 MATH_OPERATION (*)break;
case DIV:
 if ((mystack.size () >= 2) && (mystack.top () == 0))
   throw Error::Zero_divide ();
 MATH_OPERATION (/)break;

case '0':
case '1':
case '2':
case '3':
case '4':
case '5':
case '6':
case '7':
case '8':
case '9':
 input.putback (ch);
 input >> result;
 mystack.push (result);
 break;

default:
 if (isalpha (ch))
   {
     input.putback (ch);
     input >> token;

     if (table.find (token.c_str ()) != table.end ())
{
 if (table[token.c_str ()].solved == 1)
   {
     mystack.push (table[token.c_str ()].result);
   }
 else
   {
     unresolved_elements++;
     throw Error::Unresolved ();
   }
}
     else
throw Error::Syntax_error ("Invalid CELL");

   }
 else
   throw Error::Syntax_error ("Invalid symbol");
}

   }

 result = mystack.top ();
 mystack.pop ();
 return result;
}


void
spreadsheet::load (istream & input)
{
 char tmpstr[255];
 char element[6];
 int i, j;
 stringstream ss (stringstream::in | stringstream::out);

 unresolved_elements = 0;

 cin.getline (tmpstr, 255);
 ss << tmpstr;
 ss >> x;
 ss >> y;
// Check x & y size and throw exception for too large
 if (x > 26 || y > 100)
   {
     throw Error::Table_error ("exceeded maximum size");
     //     exit(1);
   }

 for (i = 0; i < x; i++)
   for (j = 0; j < y; j++)
     {
sprintf (element, "%c%d", 'A' + i, 1 + j);

cin.getline (tmpstr, 255);
table[element].data = tmpstr;
table[element].result = 0;
table[element].solved = FALSE;
unresolved_elements++;
     }
}


void
spreadsheet::solve_pass ()
{
 TableType::const_iterator iter;

 unresolved_elements = 0;
 tablefail = FALSE;

 for (iter = table.begin (); iter != table.end (); iter++)
   {
     try
     {
if (table[iter->first].solved == FALSE)
 {
   table[iter->first].result = RPNeval (iter->second.data);
   table[iter->first].solved = TRUE;
 }
     }
     catch (Error::Unresolved)
     {
// Don't do anything, will try again next passs.
     }
     catch (Error::Syntax_error e)
     {
cerr << "Syntax Error:" << e.p << "\n";
tablefail = TRUE;
     }
     catch (Error::Zero_divide)
     {
cerr << "Divide by Zero Error" << "\n";
tablefail = TRUE;
     }
   }

}


void
spreadsheet::solve ()
{
 int lastunresolved;

 do
   {
     lastunresolved = unresolved_elements;
     //dumpresults();
     solve_pass ();
   }
 while ((unresolved_elements != 0)
&& (unresolved_elements < lastunresolved) && !tablefail);

 if (unresolved_elements != 0 && !tablefail)
   throw Error::CircularReferenceException ();

 if (tablefail)
   throw Error::Syntax_error ("Unable to resolve table");



}

void
spreadsheet::dumpmap ()
{
 TableType::const_iterator iter;

 for (iter = table.begin (); iter != table.end (); iter++)
   {
     cout << iter->first << " = " << iter->second.data << "\n";

   }
}


void
spreadsheet::dumpresults ()
{
 TableType::const_iterator iter;
 cout << x << " " << y << "\n";

 for (iter = table.begin (); iter != table.end (); iter++)
   {
     //cout << iter->first
     if (table[iter->first].solved)
cout << table[iter->first].result ;
     else
cout << "unresolved ";
     cout << "\n";
   }

}


int
main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
 spreadsheet ss;

 try
 {
   ss.load (cin);
   ss.solve ();

   if (ss.unresolved_elements == 0 && !ss.tablefail)
     ss.dumpresults ();

 }
 catch (Error::CircularReferenceException)
 {
   cerr << "Circular Reference Exception\n";
 }
 catch (Error::Syntax_error e)
 {
   cerr << "Syntax Error:" << e.p << "\n";
 }
 catch (Error::Table_error e)
 {
   cerr << "Table Error:" << e.p << "\n";
 }
 return 0;
}

Old Sun and NASA security badges

Magnetic printer and Magnets that can attract and repel based on distance.

http://www.correlatedmagnetics.com/

memetic monoculture

Great article.  

How Google’s Algorithm Silences Minority Opinion

http://highspeedinternet.com/blog/technology/how-googles-algorithm-silences-minority-opinions

I have been telling people about this for a while, although not so well put.  Google bubble, filter bubble.

Been calling it the googleplex , it's even worse for google employees like being a scientologist. 

They all only see one view point and live in a world with memetic blinders, or a memetic monoculture.

Fwd: Your Bill is Now Available

WTF

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From: Verizon Wireless <VZWMail@ecrmemail.verizonwireless.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 9:43 PM
Subject: Your Bill is Now Available
To: JOHN.SOKOL@gmail.com

Your wireless bill is ready. View Online   Your wireless bill is ready.   The current billing statement for your wireless account is now available in My Verizon. Please note, payments and/or adjustment made to your account since your invoice was generated will not be reflected in the amount shown. In order to view your bill, please sign in to My Verizon. Thank you for choosing Verizon Wireless. Online Bill Summary Account Number: XXXXX9775-00001   Scheduled Automatic Payment: 04/03/2014   Current Balance: $2205.43 Pay Bill | View Online Bill Manage Auto Pay Settings Recommended For You Are you on the right plan? View a personalized plan and device recommendation and explore ways to save on your wireless account. Run Account Analysis Manage Your Account View Usage View & Pay Bill Run Account Analysis Change Features & Services Activate or Switch Device © 2014 Verizon Wireless Verizon Wireless | One Verizon Way | Mail Code: 180WVB | Basking Ridge, NJ 07920 We respect your privacy. Please review our privacy policy for more information about click activity with Verizon Wireless and links included in this email. This email was sent to JOHN.SOKOL@GMAIL.COM; If you are not the intended recipient and feel you have received this email in error; you may unsubscribe or update your email preference from your profile information.

Bitcoin Grant?!?! Secret bitcoin VC angle investors!

 http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/bitcoin_grant/?cid=16278784

Tale of two robotic golf caddy's

Failed:  Shadow Caddy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI6b5fsk8z4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snZnpudOSRg   Shadow Caddy, a better way to go BANKRUPT

Successful:   Caddy trek

http://agoodgolftrek.com/ftr-caddytrek/

How to Build a Universe: Philip K. Dick on Reality, Media Manipulation, and Human Heroism

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/06/how-to-build-a-universe-philip-k-dick/

Dunkin' Donuts - USB charging plugs

I wish more places had this. 

There still is an issue with Data Security using a plug like this though. 

Real Artificial Brains

http://www.artificialbrains.com/darpa-synapse-program

DARPA SyNAPSE Program

The Brain Wall - a neural network visualisation tool built by SyNAPSE researchers at IBM

SyNAPSE is a DARPA-funded program to develop electronic neuromorphic machine technology that scales to biological levels. More simply stated, it is an attempt to build a new kind of computer with similar form and function to the mammalian brain. Such artificial brains would be used to build robots whose intelligence matches that of mice and cats.

SyNAPSE is a backronym standing for Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics. It started in 2008 and as of January 2013 has received $102.6 million in funding. It is scheduled to run until around 2016. The project is primarily contracted to IBM and HRL who in turn subcontract parts of the research to various US universities.

The ultimate aim is to build an electronic microprocessor system that matches a mammalian brain in function, size, and power consumption. It should recreate 10 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses, consume one kilowatt (same as a small electric heater), and occupy less than two liters of space.

Elon Musk Unveils 'Iron Man'-like Design Tech for SpaceX Rockets (Video)

http://www.space.com/22688-elon-musk-iron-man-tech-rockets-video.html

This is the demo leap motion needs to be showing

Collective IQ

http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/collective-iq.html

Doug Engelbart is amazing and well worth studying his work.

I published this in 2009

http://johnsokol.blogspot.com/2009/12/mdbp-device-behavior-protocol.html

Apple the goes off patents it and secretly implements it.

http://news.techeye.net/security/apple-patents-tech-to-let-cops-switch-off-iphone-video-camera-and-wi-fi

Apple patents tech to let cops switch off iPhone video, camera and wi-fi

So they can pummel with impunity

Police forces around the world have had the problem that when their officers get a bit carried away and start pepper spraying tied captives there is someone on hand filming the event on their mobile phones.

While six police lay into prone grannies on the floor with long batons, the pictures can be on the net in seconds, meaning supervisors have to answer embarrassing questions.

But they may not need to fear scrutiny much longer - Apple has patented a piece of technology which would allow government and police to block transmission of information, including video and photographs, whenever they like.

All the coppers have to do is decide that a public gathering or venue is deemed "sensitive", and needs to be "protected from externalities" and Apple will switch off all its gear.

The police can then get on with the very difficult task of kettling protesters without having to worry about a few beating anyone to death.

Apple insists that the affected sites are mostly cinemas, theatres, concert grounds and similar locations, but it does admit that it could be used in "covert police or government operations which may require complete 'blackout' conditions".

According to RT it could also be used to prevent whistleblowers like Edward Snowden from taking pictures and broadcasting them on the interent.

Apple said that the wireless transmission of sensitive information to a remote source is one example of a threat to security.

But it said that this sensitive information could be anything from classified government information to questions or answers to an examination administered in an academic setting.

Apple patented the means to transmit an encoded signal to all wireless devices, commanding them to disable recording functions.

The policies would be activated by GPS, and wi-fi or mobile base-stations, which would ring-fence ("geofence") around a building or a "sensitive area" to prevent phone cameras from taking pictures or recording video.

Odd that the company made famous by its 1984 Big Brother video can't really see what it is doing. Perhaps its own secretive culture and an overzealous security treatment of its staff have fostered sympathy for Big Brother after all.

 

The coolest video project yet.

Hey I'm on TV

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Bay-Area-Boy-Makes-a-Wish-Gets-Robotic-Tour-211421161.html#

Peter is 9, and loves robots. He's also living with adult lymphoma, a lung condition that makes it tough to fight off infection. But he still loves gadgets, and wants to see robots in action. Enter Make-A-Wish and Scott Budman. (Published Friday, June 14, 2013)

Linkbot

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/barobo/linkbot-create-with-robots?ref=live



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