The Taste of Metal
Art by Robots for Robots

Public demo on Friday, December 4, 2009 at 5 pm
(performance begins at 5:30)
Gates Hillman Center Room 2109
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA

The Taste of Metal is the first public presentation of The New Artist, a project to develop purely robotic art: art that is made by robots for other robots.

The New Artist takes place at the Robotics Institute and is the result of the collaborative efforts of Ben Brown, Geoff Gordon, Sue Ann Hong, Marek Michalowski, Paul Scerri, Axel Straschnoy, Iheanyi Umez-Eronini and Garth Zeglin. It is produced by Piritta Puhto.

The New Artist has been supported by the Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture (AVEK), National Arts Council (Finland), Uusimaa Arts Council, and Carnegie Mellon’s Collaborative Machining Center and STUDIO for Creative Inquiry.

Amidst all that belly-aching about shortages or conspicuous scarcity or dearths of client work, I did manage to make some email templates (my first ever) for Scout Force lately.  More specifically, for the Michigan State University and Central Michigan University baseball teams.  Sparties… Chips… cold shiver.

In other news, I have upgraded to Windows 7 with relative success.  In a related note, I also deleted all my firefox bookmarks.  Moreover, all my photoshop brushes were destroyed as well.   These events then conspired to fool me into thinking that all these things ought be replaced at once, and to such ends I have spent the last two hours downloading and browsing and browsing and downloading things with names like Free 49 Ultra Butt Grunge Demon Swirl Rust Splatter Brushes CS3+ Super Pack!

Dinamismo da rede entre universidades e empresas é “único no mundo”

Três anos depois da sua criação, o programa Carnegie Mellon Portugal é já considerado um caso de estudo pela universidade norte-americana. Segundo Tim McNulty, vice-presidente das relações governamentais da CMU, é raro encontrar uma iniciativa que agregue educação, investigação e comercialização da tecnologia numa rede tão dinâmica. E isso surpreendeu o responsável norte- -americano, que este mês veio a Portugal participar num workshop sobre transferência de tecnologia organizado pela UTEN Portugal - University Technology Enterprise Network.

“É o único programa deste género no mundo e tem uma intensidade que muitas partes dos Estados Unidos já perderam”, disse ao i Tim McNulty, adiantando que um dos objectivos futuros do programa CMU Portugal é facilitar a entrada de start-ups portuguesas nos Estados Unidos e vice-versa. “Há uma energia tremenda por detrás destas iniciativas, algo que poucas vezes vi noutros países do mundo”, considera o responsável, sublinhando que “o facto de Portugal ter conseguido criar uma rede destas é muito inovador”. Criado em 2006 e financiado pela Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, o programa promove o intercâmbio de 168 alunos entre Portugal e os Estados Unidos e dez projectos de investigação, cujo orçamento é por vezes superior a 500 mil euros.

No entanto, o grande desafio é transformar a investigação em produtos capazes de serem comercializados no mercado. Há alguns anos, Portugal sofria de um fenómeno apelidado de “vale da morte”, já que os grandes projectos de investigação não conseguiam fazer a transição para o circuito comercial. O que os norte-americanos vieram fazer a Portugal, durante o workshop “Experiencing Technology Transfer: Collaborating with Carnegie Mellon”, foi explicar como isso se faz. Tara Branstad, directora do Centro para a Transferência de Tecnologia e Criação de Empresas da CMU, indica que um dos principais factores de sucesso é a política de incentivo à criação de start-ups e spin-offs. “Removemos uma grande barreira ao simplificar o processo de transferência e reduzindo os custos do licenciamento”, indica a responsável, para quem é preciso forçar uma mudança de mentalidades no campus universitário.

“As universidades encaravam a criação de empresas por investigadores como a perda de um activo”, reconhece Tim McNulty. Agora “é preciso encarar essas iniciativas como um ganho líquido para a universidade”, completa Tara Branstad.

É isso que gabinetes de transferência de tecnologia como o do INESC-Porto têm vindo a promover nos últimos anos, com resultados visíveis. O serviço de televisão paga da PT, MEO, é um caso de sucesso de transferência da investigação para o mercado. A PT Inovação foi, aliás, uma das empresas sublinhadas pelos responsáveis da Carnegie Mellon como “exemplar”, num país em que o reforço do investimento em Investigação e Desenvolvimento [I&D] ainda é recente. 

O impacto da crise

As start-ups de base tecnológica viram as suas possibilidades de conseguir capital de risco altamente reduzidas, com a crise de liquidez nos mercados financeiros. Tim McNulty reconhece que a área foi muito afectada nos Estados Unidos, mas garante que “a recessão deu um impulso à inovação” e revela que a crise levou a alterações no modelo de crescimento destas empresas de base tecnológica. “As start-ups estão agora a tentar crescer com base em vendas concretas e não com base no capital de risco”, adianta.

Fonte Jornal i

So I write for the Cut (click the link, the site is awesome!). In the upcoming issue, I had to review the genre called Dubstep, and Between the Buried and Me’s new album, The Great Misdirect.

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Dubstep is a still-growing genre of electronic dance music that incorporates elements of drum and bass in the already-established 2step UK garage sound. Dubstep originated in the UK right around the turn of the millennium, but has grown to encompass the US, Spain, Trinidad, and Finland, among others.

The term “Dubstep” was established as the genre’s name in 2002 when XLR8R Magazine used it in their cover story about Horsepower Productions (a prominent Dubstep band that helped to pioneer the genre). Club Forward>> in London became an influential hub of the Dubstep genre, allowing artists to experiment with different, darker styles of the UK garage sound. FWD>> encouraged this particular new style so much that it became referred to as the “Forward>> sound.”  Since then, clubs in cities across America have started holding weekly “Dubstep” nights, and television shows, movies, and video games have used the Dubstep sound in their soundtracks (some even exclusively).

The Dubstep “sound” is largely instrumental, with a minor key, almost omnipresent sub-bass, and a dark feel. When present, vocals add an atmospheric layer to the music rather than lyrical content. The drum beat, though, is what really characterizes the sound of Dubstep. Sparse rhythmic patterns full of syncopation and triplets abound, usually with a single snare sound on the third beat of each bar. A technique often used in Dubstep that contributes to the sparse feel of the drum track is giving the drums a half-time feel. The bassline and other elements of the song proceed at normal tempo (almost all Dubstep falls between 138-142 beats per minute) and the drums appear to be playing a rhythm at half-tempo. This adds an interesting tension to the music. The song structure typically allows this tension to drop off in a sparse midsection then build up again in a second main part (often including a bass drop). There is also usually an intro and outro on either end of these two main sections.

Dubstep makes pretty good background music for various activities and functions as it’s unlikely to offend anyone, and isn’t going to draw too much attention to itself. However, this isn’t to say that there’s nothing more redeemable about it than its unobtrusiveness. There is clearly an art to crafting this type of music, and there are a lot of subtleties to it that make it interesting. It’s very dark and mellow, and a good thing to just chill to if you’re in ‘one of those moods.’ Some of the more prominent Dubstep artists include Horsepower Productions, Skream, Benga, and Kode9.

Just as the drum and bass style segued into Dubstep, Dubstep is being slowly incorporated into other genres. Hip hop figures are collaborating with drum and bass producers to produce Dubstep-flavored hip hop. Rap groups such as Wu-Tang Clan are releasing albums combining Dubstep beats with remixes of verses from older songs (“Wu-Tang Meets The Indie Culture Vol 2: Enter the Dubstep”). Dubstep is growing at an increasing rate, and is being incorporated into more and more mainstream music – and it will continue to do so.

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With The Great Misdirect, Between the Buried and Me had a lot to live up to. Their previous release, Colors, was named “Best Album of the Year” by Ultimate-Guitar.com, Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater called it his favorite album of the year, and it reached 57^th on the Billboard-200. Colors is my personal favorite album EVER, so I had great expectations for The Great Misdirect.

The first track, “Mirrors” is a mellow intro song with no screaming. At three and a half minutes, it’s the perfect length for radio play, but don’t let that fool you into thinking the rest of the album follows suit. The album’s six tracks quickly fill almost an hour with BTBAM’s unique sonic style.

The first single off the album is the second track, “Obfuscation.” The first time you hear the intro, you feel the need to go back and hear what the heck just happened! The majority of the song continues in this vein, with a really cool bass groove somewhere in the middle that lets you relax a bit and stop thinking quite so hard about actually understanding the music and get lost in the semi-drugged haze of the guitar solo. In this regard, this isn’t the easiest song to get into on the album, but after a few listens it really grows on you.

The third song, “Disease, Injury, Madness” is one of the better songs on the album. About 8 minutes into the song, it builds up into one of the catchiest melodies in BTBAM’s extensive repertoire. AHHH IT’S SO GOOD!!

The intro to “Fossil Genera – a Feed from Cloud Mountain” is very …interesting. It’s really, REALLY hard to describe in words. It’s kind of like… a demented candyland skeleton party polka, straight from the depths of Cloud Mountain’s candy caves. Yeah, sort of like that. But somehow, BTBAM manages to make it work, and it works well. The rest of the song continues in classic BTBAM style, building up then fading smoothly to the clean guitar tones of the fifth song.

“Desert of Song” is the first song in the BTBAM catalog to feature lead guitarist Paul Waggoner on lead vocals. At times, the vocal harmony is reminiscent of Alice in Chains, and the slide guitar playing places you in the middle of nowhere, sitting around a nighttime campfire, surrounded by cacti and coyotes.

The final song has a really long instrumental midsection (which sounds slightly disjointed at times) and almost ends twice before finally fading out with one last note, almost 18 minutes after it began. And yet, somehow, those 18 minutes still don’t quite seem like enough.

We all know first impressions aren’t always the most accurate ones. Though lacking the cohesive, indescribable awesomeness of Colors, The Great Misdirect holds its own in BTBAM’s impressive discography. This is an album that takes a few tries to really absorb, but gets better and better with every listen.

What’s in the eyes for context-awareness?
Andreas Bulling
Nov 13, 2009 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM

Wearable computing is not a new concept, but it can truly be one of the hardest subjects to master in terms of creating a unit that not only produces the required calculations but also something that is comfortable and more importantly, non-intrusive. Andreas Bulling’s work has focused mainly on eye based HCI, more specifically eye movements based on EOG (Electrooculography) technologies. The hope is that not only could this technology be utilized to figure from the context what subsequent eye movement is required, but the reverse in that the context is derived from the eye movements. This is an important topic because eye movements and eye usage is so crucial to not only visual tasks, but physical tasks and cognitive processes.

The limitation of other eye movement systems is that the user is constrained to looking at a monitor in a sitting position. This can provide great abilities because so much can be done on a computer, but there is little to no real world applications that are able to be done. EOG, because they are goggles and can be worn without restricting vision, can increase the range of the experiments and allow for more degrees of freedom including standing, walking, sitting, and other pervasive activities. There were some experiments that were completed sitting down and looking at a computer monitor, to help compare to other eye movement systems. The tasks would range from copying another screen, reading, browsing, watching a video, and typing. The interesting result of this work was that browsing seemed to correlate to most eye movements. This technology seems like a great step forward for not only everyday computer use, but for individuals that are limited in their ability to move or communicate. This could be a great gateway for giving them a well deserved voice.

New image in the panoramas photography contest

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Let the game begin photography picture

Tout avait pourtant pas trop mal commencé. Bon, en dehors du fait que j’ai pas fermé l’oeil de la nuit, j’ai tout de meme debauchée avec une heure d’avance.

Tout ça c’est la faute de mes parents, comme ils ont des problemes de thunes, ils ont squeezés la mutuelle, et du coup moi, il faut que j’aille courir a l’autre bout de la ville pour demander une CMU. Et evidemment sous une pluie battante, tant qu’a faire.

Les 3/4 d’entre vous ne sauront pas ce que representent les distances tout au long de cet article, tant pis.

De la gare à 8h, j’ai pris le 9 pour remonter entierement les boulevards, et comme il etait 8h, bah c’etait blindé de gens, et j’ai atteri a 9h20 au Grand Parc. Forcement, je me suis plantée de deux arrets parce que le plan est super mal foutu, et ensuite j’ai du me perdre 15 bonnes minutes a travers les rues mal indiquées, en quete de l’assurance maladie.

OH! Un batiment super moche! Ca doit etre là. Effectivement c’etait là, sauf que, bien sur, ils sont en travaux depuis hier, et qu’il faut aller jusqu’a Ravesies ( soit environ 4 arrets de bus ) pour trouver un accueil ouvert.

Un quart d’heure supplementaire pour retrouver mon chemin, et me voila trempée jusqu’au genoux, les chaussures couvertes de boue. D’humeur particulierement maussade j’arrive a destination, il est 10h05. La dame a l’accueil m’oblige a prendre un ticket, et au final je bataillerais deux bonnes minutes sur la borne, pour poser mes fesses 10 secondes sur le siege avant qu’elle ne m’apelle. T’aurais pas pu me faire passer directement, non.

Et là, elle me sort toute une liste  de documents a lui fournir, que j’ai par bonheur sur moi, sauf que non, ils font pas de photocopies, il faut que je repasse avec moi meme. Tout ça pour ça.

Je rentre donc par le tram, trempée et grelottante, sauf que non, il faut encore que je retourne a la gare chercher ma paye, parce qu’ils n’ouvrent qu’a 9h30.

Et tout ce detour pour 60 pauvres euros. Bordel de merde.

Je finis donc par rentrer chez moi, il est 11h et j’ai froid.

Tout ceci s’est bien sur deroulé sans casque ni musique, sinon c’est trop facile, et comme un bonheur n’arrive jamais seule, le trajet a entierement été effectué avec une douleur de frottement de jean parce qu’il est vieux et troué. En plus, y’a un moucheron qui s’est suicidé dans mon oeil. Et pour finir, nul besoin de preciser que mon frigo est vide en rentrant, evidemment.

Journée de merde.

practica ne omoara ….. de bine ce am scris cu o zi in urma cateva sfaturi ref. la gripa porcina …ma rog impropriu spus scris,  este un comunicat venit de la CMU -Centru Medical Unirea.  Am RACIT =)) sper sa nu am nimic , sper sa am o simpla raceala dar dupa cum bine stim , asa incepe )

I will live in Pittsburgh for a while. As part of CMU-Portugal PhD program in Technological Change I am expected to take courses, and move my research forward here in Pittsburgh for a period of two years. It is very nice to be in an English speaking environment and the university is, in terms of quality, unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s a privilege to be here.

MOBILE ART && CODE is a symposium on the artistic and tactical potential of mobile, networked and locative media: November 6-8, 2009 at CMU!

MOBILE ART && CODE is a three-day symposium focused on the design of new forms of mobile and locative experiences. FRIDAY and SUNDAY feature hands-on workshops in arts-oriented mobile phone programming (including workshops in creating software for the iPhone, Android, Nokia, SMS text messaging, etc.); interface design for mobile devices; interactive telephony and voice-response systems; and prototyping with the Arduino (a tiny computer which is popular for making interactive objects). SATURDAY is a lecture marathon, featuring a dozen presentations by leading international artists, designers, historians, hackers, entrepreneurs and researchers working in mobile and locative media.

WHO IS IT FOR?
Mobile Art && Code is intended for anyone interested in learning more about developing mobile and locative experiences. Although the events take place at Carnegie Mellon University, you don’t have to be affiliated with CMU to participate. The workshops accommodate participants with a variety of technical skills: some are very introductory, while others are intended for people with a little bit of programming experience

For more information, visit the Mobile Art && Code site.

Today, Sima’s CEO Ilana Diamond participates in Making Sparks 2009. Making Sparks is a unique forum focused on the impact technology has on kids. Hosted by the very hip Pittsburgh non-profit The Sprout Fund, the event consists of panel discussions, breakout sessions in which participants brainstorm collaborative projects, and finally, a presentation from each breakout group.  

 Ilana speaks in the ‘Secrets of Successful Collaboration’ panel with Chris Siefert, Deputy Director of Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh;  Kristin Hughes, Associate Professor of Design at CMU; and Jeremy Resnick, CEO of Propel Schools.

 Sima currently partners with Propel Schools & CMU for a Spark project to create a game prototype that engages young kids and their families in order to encourage math literacy. You can read all about it here:

http://www.popcitymedia.com/forgood/propelschools0916.aspx

Saturday morning.  I have my 1st cup of instant coffee in my Matt Kenseth coffee mug.  And I’m up early so that I can open the on-line streaming of CMU public radio to listen to ECHOES.  CMU broadcasts “Echoes” everything Saturday and Sunday morning from 6 AM to 8 AM.  Nice way to wake up on weekends.

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcmu/ppr/index.shtml

http://www.echoes.org/

It is a bit chilly out, but I rode my bike to the Strathroy Conservation Area this morning.  Bailei ran along beside me.  It was her idea.  She is into this cross country thing right now.  Said she needed the practice.

Spent most of the afternoon working at getting the garage a little more organized.  I have so much “stuf” in there.  And trying to make sense of it all is a daunting task.  Good progress today.  But I still have a ways to go.

My wife and grand-daughter are watching a movie tonight.  I’m listening to WCMU (on-line streaming) and reading my book.  (I bought a book while in the states.   It is OLIVE KITTRIDGE.)

Just had a look at the weather forecast.  Looks like it is going to be another wet, dreay day, rain to start again this afternoon.  But tomorrow the forecast is for a partly sunny day - NO RAIN.  Good day to get out and walk the trails in the mid-afternoon.

My brother is currently doing his masters in Entertainment Technology at CMU. There he’s part of a team creating a Dungeons and Dragons game for the Microsoft Surface. Check out what they have done so far. Enjoy.

Here’s something that drives me crazy: teachers setting idiotic, arbitrary constraints. For example, in this Organizational Behavior class, the exam is taken online, with multiple choice questions set up such that once you’ve answered a question, you can’t go back to it later. The benefit to this, I suppose, is that you can’t use the info in one question to correct a previous answer. But what happens if I’m taking this exam online and I accidentally hit “enter” before I enter my answer? Then I’m penalized because my finger slipped. How is that a measure of my learning?

Argh!

Also: This exam is open-book; we’re allowed to use any reference material (including on the internet) as long as we don’t ask other people. Google gives me most answers just straight up–I often get the answer right from the search results, without even having to click on a link! So it’s perfectly okay to spend zero time studying for this class. I might not get a 100% (especially since I accidentally hit “enter” before I answered that one question…). But I’ll probably get a pretty good grade. Again: how is this a useful measure of what the class has taught me? This is unfair to people who really came to class and worked hard. Of course, the way the class was set up was awful and I object to it, which is another story for another time.

I repeat: Argh!

But I will admit that this class can be very entertaining (if you don’t take social sciences too seriously or if you don’t have some chip on your shoulder about why they aren’t taken more seriously… needless to say, I do take the social sciences seriously and I do have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about why they aren’t taken more seriously). But everyone else thinks the class is wildly entertaining–of course they do! They have never studied psych or sociology, so these findings are absolutely revelatory and titillating for them. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there wishing there was a more advanced class I could take.

Granted, our professor has a sense of humor (often a bit sadistic, but that’s another story). Observe a sample question on this test: Why, according to [professor], doesn’t GM sell crack cocaine?

Answers from which to choose:

• Because it’s illegal
• Because GM’s management has adopted a stakeholder perspective and the broader community is against drugs
• Because pushing drugs isn’t part of GM’s core competency
• Because selling cars is actually more profitable than selling crack

This essay question was fun, though:

The philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, in considering how the most effective leaders are regarded, asked whether it is better for a leader to be loved or feared. Please take a stance on this question and defend your position in under 400 words using concepts from class.

My answer:

If you are a classroom teacher in the South Bronx (which I was), fear tactics won’t get you far. If you are feared, truly feared, students will do the bare minimum. At most they will follow the letter of the law you set. You create seething resentment and even if students don’t rebel in a “big” way, they will do so in passive aggressive ways and undermine your efforts to the best of their abilities. Never underestimate the abilities of peeved people in general and peeved 8^th graders in particular.

On the other hand, if you have earned the love of your students, it’s because you’ve really shown them that they have potential and you can help unlock it. This isn’t easy, but once you prove your worth to them, they love you–you are of value to them. When you set a rule now, students will be more likely to follow the spirit of the law and to encourage peers to do the sane. The group is easier to manage.

An effective leader is one who not only gets the group to a goal, but also gets buy-in from the group and reconciles individual goals with group goals. The feared leader does neither of these two things; the leader who does these things also earns love.

I used the example of a classroom teacher, but these findings work in most groups and organizations; if not student/teacher, then child/parent, or employee/boss, or even peer/peer-leader.

Ultimately it’s more effective to be a loved, rather than feared, leader. But I admit that there is some value to being able to instill some fear into the heart of a misbehaving 8^th grader.

And that’s my little insight into a day in the life of a first-year MBA student as she takes her first ever set of finals at a quant-heavy b school. I have one last exam in about an hour. After that, there is an important matter to which I must attend: a gin & tonic. All the aunties who are reading this: don’t worry; gin sharaab nahin hoti.