http://www.dudek.org/blog Gregory Dudek's blog on robotics, science, computing and related topics Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:23:19 -0500 Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:23:19 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss COREBlog 1.2.5.1 dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/238 Natasha (my daughter) was in Europe and was heading home today for the start of classes. Her plane had to turn around, however, because there was a fire on board! All the passengers were OK, but the plane had to dump fuel in the sea and go to Amsterdweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/238 Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:41:36 -0500 Natasha's flight catches fire! dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/237 Computer science is becoming increasing popular again, after a huge upswing in the 1990's, a lull after the dot-com meltdown in 2001 and a gradual growth since then. In the last few years computer science departments all across the US and Canada haveweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/237 Sun, 08 Jan 2012 10:53:07 -0500 Computer Science gets more fashionable dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/236 For a long time I have been using the Zope Photo product to create on-line image sets. I have been managing a branch on my own for Zope2, and realized I should release it since the original branch has become obsolete. The Photo product (i.e. package)weofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/236 Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:39:52 -0500 Update to the Zope Photo Product (v4.0) dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/235 I am buying these books for Christmas (for people who don't read my blog). A bit of classic science fiction, and some contemporary high-rated sports and fitness. With luck, I might get to read some of these on the rebound. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribeweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/235 Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:10:05 -0500 Books I am buying for Christmas dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/234 I the last couple of weeks I became the parent of a new baby. Oddly. there are quite a few other parents. Also, our child has 6 legs, 3 eyes, and aluminum body. We have recently constructed the latest robot in the Aqua family, which has a few new desweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/234 Sun, 13 Nov 2011 13:37:00 -0500 I had a new baby -- only it's not human dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/233 Quote of the day (Montreal graphs): To compare the performance of exploration and validation, both algorithms were tested on a variety of random graphs. The first set of parameterized random graphs was generated by starting with a complete 2D latticeweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/233 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400 Montreal graphs dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/228 Today I have a one-hour talk at the IEEE 9th International Symposium on Robotics and Sensor Environments (ROSE). I talked about our work in underwater robotics (as I often do) and specifically dealt with summarization, terrain identification and a tiweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/228 Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:57:45 -0400 ROSE talk today dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/227 In the not-such-good-news department, the union that represents the clerical and technical staff at McGIll University (MUNACA) have had a strike vote and seem certain to go on a general strike Thursday September 1st at 6am. They seem to be are askingweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/227 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:47:25 -0400 Strike at McGill dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/225 I am lucky enough to work in a milieu where I meet smart teenagers and twenty-somethings all the time, and they are often brilliant. Of course, being relatively young they tend to be relatively short on experience. Most of the time, though, they knowweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/225 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:40:00 -0400 26-year-old touting his age and experience vs 25-year-olds dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/224 We went to see the "Tribute to Nerds" show at the annual Montreal Comedy Festival last night. It was totally sold out. There were some great highlights and I especially liked the spot by Kumail NANJIANI, but a substantial fraction the comedy from sevweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/224 Sun, 31 Jul 2011 18:55:00 -0400 Tribute to Nerds dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/223 Last week I was at the Google Faculty Summit in New York City. It is was interesting how careful the Google people were about avoiding "creepy" applications. They purposely avoid a lot of data cross linking just to be "clean", more so than I had expeweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/223 Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:59:35 -0400 Google Visit, Google Plus impressions and why Google+ beats Facebook dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/222 While flying to Taipei I had a stopover in Hong Kong. I figured I wanted to scoot into town and check it out. The word on the web regarding the feasibility of this, and how long it takes, was inconclusive. Well on the way to Taipei I tried out a pracweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/222 Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:22:54 -0400 Hong Kong quickie visit dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/221 Captain Kirk, sometimes known as William Shatner, will be receiving an an honorary degree from McGill University at the convocation in June. I had heard about this prospect in Senate a while ago, and being sworn to secrecy has been causing me grief eweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/221 Fri, 06 May 2011 14:33:08 -0400 Captain Kirk to get an honorary degree from McGill dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/220 After installing a new Linux system on an old machine, I got: grub: out of disk. Sigh. All I wanted to do today was do some work and some reading. Instead I spent the better part of the day getting an old linux server back on it's feet. Of course, I weofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/220 Sun, 01 May 2011 22:37:28 -0400 What to do when grub says: out of disk. (grub2) dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/219 In the last week there has been a large amount of publicity over the fact that the iPhone keeps a cache of location data. It's been pitched as a shocking revelation and has made the headlines in print media, radio and television. The event that triggweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/219 Sat, 23 Apr 2011 18:43:31 -0400 Misplaced hysteria over misunderstood privacy loss with the iPhone dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/218 The Canadian transition to digital TV is coming. The often repeated statistic is that around the start of 2011 almost one million people depended exclusively on analog TV over the air. Whatever the real number, it discounts people who still use over-weofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/218 Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:01:17 -0500 Canadian transition to digital TV dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/217 I needed to record some screen casts for a presentation we are doing. The best tool I found on the Mac was Snapz Pro from Ambrosia Software, although I did find at last one other good tool if you wan to record a live video feed on top of the screencaweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/217 Sun, 27 Feb 2011 15:00:31 -0500 Tricks for Snapz Pro X dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/216 I installed an SSD (solid state disk) on an Apple computer running OS X recently. In doing this, I only wanted to some a subset of the system to the actual SSD and used symbolic links (ln -s) to connect other files between the disks. In particular, Iweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/216 Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0500 OS X error 8060 on an alias or symbolic link dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/215 Asteroid 2011 CQ1 came very very close to hitting the earth just a few hours after it was discovered on February 4 at 19:39 UT (14:39 EST). It came within a distance of 0.85 Earth radii (5480 km) over the Pacific Ocean. The image shows how severely iweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/215 Sat, 19 Feb 2011 23:13:18 -0500 Very close asteroid approach! dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/214 Tonight will be the second installment of the match on the TV show Jeopardy between past champions Jim Jennings and Brad Rutter, and the IBM computer system called "Watson." Watson is essentially a server room full of of IBM Power7 computers with thoweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/214 Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:00:28 -0500 IBM's Watson the robotic Jeopardy player dudek@cim.mcgill.ca (Gregory B Dudek) http://www.dudek.org/blog/213 Well, I finally put an SSD in a Mac laptop. As expected it runs fast and makes for a nice experience all around. To install, I used a copy program (I recommend either "cp -ar" or "Carbon Copy Cloner") to copy everything over. One big hitch was that Iweofije... http://www.dudek.org/blog/213 Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:56:55 -0500 Installing my SSD