The Final Blog… or is it?

Posted on by

Ok, so I started the year off with  my new degree choice of CSIT/programming concentration. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I am happy with the final result.

I could say without a doubt that my favorite class was CSIT 1110 Intro to Information Technology, taught by my favorite professor Dr. Brown. Coming into class I had a moderate knowledge of modern technology and a basic understanding of the history, but with the way Dr. Brown presented the material and the labs was totally different and more along the lines of what I thought it should be. Hands on and fun, Dr. Brown created his own comic book for this course and it is pretty amazing, the layout, graphics and information as well as design all sync together and it really is enjoyable to learn with this format.

I always thought my ideas about our future were just some dark fantasy aside from movies and books, that resides inside my mind. As I went through this course I discovered a whole world of people who seem to share parallel thoughts and concepts. I am intrigued by the ambitions and drives of some of these often great innovators and desire to be associated with and part of this community.

Everything that was taught has enlightened me to an even further extent. I think one of the most fascinating ideas was the Cellular Automaton. From the first glimpse of the rules and the pattern I begin to work toward a long held personal theory of creating a genetically modifiable evolutionary system based on CA schema’s such as RULE 30 or Game of Life. But my aspirations are to create a living 3d world full of such basic creatures that interact based on their own “genetic code” or rules. I think of my creations as stem cells, they posses all the knowledge of how to react and change their behavior patterns in accordance with the environment that surrounds them. They evolve through a genetic code that would be similar to ours with recessive and dominant traits.

It can be dull to write some codes or create some object. But when you give that object functions and watch it live, react, populate, and die you touch on some subconscious human level the idea of being a god or father to your creations.

All in all, I’ve had a wonderful time in this class and recommend it to anyone, no matter what level of expertise they may possess, I guarantee you will learn something new, or at least think in a new way.

Share This

Virtual Reality

Posted on by

Virtual reality opens up a whole new world of possibilities that have the potential for providing a way to escape from our lives, our bodies, and even the laws that govern our physical universe. There are no limits to what can be achieved in VR, the imagination is infinite. As we find more ways to fully integrate the VR experience with our nervous and sensory systems we may one day live in a virtual environment where we can actually feel and sense objects. If such a system were created then we as humans would no longer have to subject ourselves to adaptation to our physical environment.

It’s not too extreme to imagine that if we create a process that is fully automated as to extract our brains and interface it with a cybernetic construct and we awaken in a new world that is similar in design to ours but maybe with added perks such as a development room to create your own universe, one in which you could literally be god and make anything as real as you desire. A person or Virtual Entity would not be subject to the requirements that we often take for granted in this real world. Such as eating, or finding shelter, could these be programmed instructions. On the outside you would essentially be a brain in a box that is taken care of by internal messages and signals and an outside workforce of robots and automated systems would furnish nutrients and raw materials for our living brains. Procreation could even be possible if we meet a Virtual Entity in the system and have the same relationships as we do know, the outrside workbot would take an empty box from a brain that had ceased to function or if slotts are allowed and provided to adjust for Entity growth could combine our genetic data in-vitro and grow a new human brain and this would be inserted into the system and then it would be as a real child would learn and grow and become an adult Virtual Entity. I have a theory that if we were to get rid of our physical bodies our brains would posses a a substatially greater life expectancy.The body kills our brains with the substances that we intake, and the failure and aging of our organs lead to a lower life expectancy. The world would be a much safer and cleaner place, the world could heal itself because we would no longer be contaminating it with mankind’s’ experiments.

In a virtual world you could swim the deepest oceans, climb the highest mountains, visit extraterrestrial planets, or even explore the boundaries of the universe. All while setting or existing comfortably and safely in your own environment.

 

Share This

Artificial Intelligence

Posted on by

I often wonder what would it be like to have a conversation with an autonomous self aware entity. Would it posses the same feelings or thoughts that I attribute to my own autonomy. Do androids dream of electric sheep?

We search for the reasons why we as humans learn, respond, and cognitively process our existence. We have only begun to uncover the complexities of the human mind and the mechanisms responsible for our consciousness. In doing so we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, but the closer we look ,the spark of life still eludes us.

I think that before we can make an intelligent entity, we have to define what the acceptable parameters of its existence require. If we give something “life” then is it murder to turn it off or treat it in a manner that is foul and detrimental to its freedoms. We as humans have done this to one another for thousands of years,  if we perceive an entity to be artificial or not alive or different we treat it as alien or as property. This is the case for much of mankind. If we were to create an artificial consciousness, by what authority do we have to destroy it. Even if this entity were to become violent or have an agenda that does not include the human race, it has by its own will to survive the right to do so.

Imagine that you woke up one morning and found yourself changed to an abnormal or hideous form, how would you be treated. Those who love you may have compassion for you but as you are forced into the unknown what do you think are the possible outcomes from interacting with others.

I think that if we are going to ever create an intelligence that is not derived naturally from this world, there should be laws and governance over the treatment and subsequent rights and freedoms that said entity would inherit.

Creating expert systems and small scale robots that mimic life or our habituation’s are still based on human input and development. This is slightly different from what I have in mind as to the words artificial intelligence. To me A.I.  should posses the ability to choose to exist or not exist and knowing the consequences of such actions. Be able to make mistakes and learn from them. Draw conclusions based on previous outcomes but have the ability to hope or reason that it may not be so. Create art. Most of these things are what we define as being human, and even if an entity cant completely assimilate itself to our humanity it could inspire us or show us an unkown view of the world though its eyes.

 

 

 

Share This

Robotics

Posted on by

Robotics to me is a serious leap in humankind’s evolutionary progress, here we stand on this forefront of being just as our many so-called gods that we attribute with the creation of life. With this premise in mind a few questions arise as to the future of things to come. What do we define a being alive? In my own mind I attribute being alive as the ability to choose to evolve and to influence the evolutionary chains of a flowing dynamic universe. In doing so the object itself inherits a dynamic, evolutionary, and often symbiotic co-dependent existence of perception precursors. So with this in mind everything evolves and influences other evolutionary chains. Perception precursors  can be defined as a the space created with in the parameters of our mental constructs for in an evolutionary chain for mutations of branches that lead to slightly different outcomes. We as human beings have declared ourselves to be alive, and this coincides with my definition. We create evolutionary sub chains from the very act of deducing a new object form from some normally obscured view of an object that serves a new or better purpose and provides solutions to what hinders our advancement.

I suggest that if we were to fully understand the field of robotics we will forever change our species. “Deus sapiens” – God Wise.  Creatures existing, no longer exhibiting any resemblance to the traditional human’s perceptions, but augmented and even given sentience that have wills, desires, needs, All the things humankind attributes to our humanity. If we had the ability to create life based on robotics, genetics, nanotechnology, and a similar evolutionary process, then where would the value arise in being alive or having something that is alive. At what cost or how far are we willing to go. At this point my inquiries into this are them selves instantiating the perceptual precursors of a solution to the aforementioned problems associated with defining life.

Well I hope you have enjoyed my mental tidbit and a glimpse into a mind of a stranger.

P.S. If you read this you should have the answers!!! If not then Click Here!!!.

 

Share This

Access Denied!!!

Posted on by

Okay so we have all seen the commercials and ads for protecting your identity from theft, basically what this boils to is that all of your information is stored somewhere in some large database and can be tracked and analyzed for any purposes. All this data is just sitting there until something happens that the system has been penetrated and now the perpetrators have everything they need to know about you on some flash drive around thier necks, ready to apply for new credit cards or just ruin anything you may have. The whole problem we face with security rises in the issue of that now matter how extreme the consequences of an action, if someone believes it is thier purpose or it benefits them in someway than they will continue with thier course against the established order. Security measurments are at times adequate enough to protect  a system from being corrupted, but occasionally you get that person who is determined to get through by using aquired knowledge or help from inside positions.

its better to stay off the grid and leave as little a digital footprint as possible, less likley to be spotted for anything you may happen to want to keep private.

Share This

Scratch

Posted on by

I find it interesting when someone creates a game development environment that not only is easy to use, interface, and understand but can look amazing and be enjoyable at the same time. Scratch offers a lot of functionality to the creator and you can almost do anything with it, albeit a few limitations do arise such as screen size and any virtual 3D applications. Scratch provides you with some material to start with, but it also includes a sprite editor so you can create custom objects for use in games or videos or what ever you desire.

I found scratch to be to limited for my ideas, so instead I used Blender 3D. It has the same idea though an environment that can be used for creating games, movies,pictures or what ever you like. Although it takes a lot of time to create a game by yourself modeling, design, story concepts,programming,scripting,texture,and creating the environments. Also the testing for the many possibilities that you game or creation crashes for an unknown or as of yet unencountered action.

Scratch is a cool way for kids to learn programming and to teach them the fundamentals of controlling game objects with scripts and programs.

Share This

HTML Part deux

Posted on by

So now I’m back to talk a little more about HTML and what I have accomplished with it so far. Here is my web page I have designed for this semester, it is simple but I learned a lot from this little bit of code to really understand and create a better page in the future.

http://http://pstcc11.pstcc.edu/~c1110xYY <— have to find my number sorry!

Anyway I don’t really have much left to say about  HTML. It’s a fun language and powerful in the design applications if you fully understand it. Well that’s all for now.

Share This

HTML

Posted on by

Ok so I have tried to learn to code in HTML about 14 years ago and well I had no luck, I even had a book and everything. Just could not connect the dots. Now many years later and after the myspace phase of pimping your page I picked up a little more but nothing useful for full on web page design.

About two years ago I bought a domain name and server space from godaddy.com, and despite any reservations one may have about this company. I have always found them to be extremely helpful and worry free when it comes to hosting my site.

Anyway back to the main point I didn’t know HTML enough to code my pages myself I found a “WYSIWYG” (what you see it what you get) editor to create all of my content. But now since I’ve learned how to create the titles and headers and tables, I think I will implement more of some hand written code into my site.

So learning how to properly create and use HTML was interesting and fun.

 

Share This

Assembly Language Simulator

Posted on by

Honestly, this week I didn’t do much with the ALS, but not because I didn’t understand it or was not interested. I had already learned how to use it and completed the assignment associated with it on the second day of class.

I was at first glance somewhat apprehensive at the thought of using it, but as I read the instructions it dawned on me that this ALS program was similar in a lot of ways to a micro controller, and I found it easy to think in those terms associated with such a device. You have to input your code you want the device to execute and the device contains a memory chip, CPU, and logic areas.

The ALS is a nifty little program used to simulate assembly machine code. Not only does it have enough memory address slots and a simple operation code to run simple programs, but it also has a built in compiler. So you don’t get stuck having to use all those ones and zero’s.

I also had found another simulator that has a slightly larger instruction set and more memory addresses, I wouldn’t say that it is any better just a little different if anyone would like to check it out.

http://www.cse.yorku.ca/~peterc/simulator/simulator.html

Well anyway I enjoyed the learning process of using the ALS and found it interesting to see all those little bits moving through each step and how the registers and memory would change if I had instructed it to.

Ok, well hope you enjoyed this post.

 

Share This

Building my dream computer

Posted on by

Okay so I have a dream, not some great and inspiring dream just one in which I have a really awesome computer system. Now for most people  that meander in their daily lives a mid level system is adequate to meet their needs, usually email and some social networking activities. I myself however understand the capabilities of a computer and the bigger it is usually means two things,  It’s going to cost a lot and its going to be awesome!

I myself don’t do “normal things” on my systems, I do a lot of  projects that require the capability to handle intensive graphics and physics simulations. I’m somewhat into gamming but I have stepped beyond the boundaries of just playing them. I enjoy and actively design and build games. I use mostly open source and free stuff but with a little determination and ingenuity, I have been able to make some impressive leaps as a one man development team. But enough hoopla about me.

My dream system doesn’t really have all those special gadgets and gizmo’s that popular culture desires, just a really great system of the best of all worlds and brands in the industry to make one sleek and powerful machine. The cost on the other hand is an issue but in my own experience I have derived a simple formula that not only gets the best equipment but helps stave the tide of new technology due to Moore’s law and its effects. A moderate computer system runs about $1000 to $1200 dollars and you think that’s wow I just spent that but  in a year or less the capabilities of the new systems have doubled so to keep up with this rate of progression you would literally have to buy new equipment or upgrades every year, so I decided that one should make a single purchase of a about $5000 and get the best that is offered.

And so it begins…..

Well I think I’m going to need a lot of space and medium towers don’t really offer enough room inside for future upgrades or extra modules so I need a monster tower, and if I had to choose it would be this.

$145.72

Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced Full Tower Case with SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

It has a lot of room for anything I may need or want, heck I could probably hide in there.

And now lets fill it up with the goodies.

You think of motherboards and a lot of interesting things come to mind, hopefully you had a lax childhood and what you think doesn’t involve mothers or boards, but hey you never know.

I set my eye on this prize and it just spoke to me, I think you would agree.

$379.99

GIGABYTE G1.Assassin LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Intel Motherboard

Nice huh.

I don’t really know why I like it, It just looks mean and powerful.

Specs:

Support for an Intel® Core™ i7 series processor

6x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 24 GB of system memory

2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16

2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8

Support for 3-Way/2-Way NVIDIA SLI technology and 4-Way/3-Way/2-Way ATI CrossFireX™ technology

Ok so I’ve got the board hmm what next lets populate it with a processor and memory.

I really like the specs for the i7 especially this one.

$1000.00

Intel® Core™ i7-3960X Processor Extreme Edition

Specs:

Intel® Smart Cache 15 MB

Cores 6

Threads 12

Clock Speed 3.3 GHz

Max Memory Size 32 GB

I think this should do nicely.

Well I know that these extreme processors put out a lot of heat so I have something for this.

$94.99

Antec KUHLER H2O 920 Liquid Cooling System

Guaranteed to keep it cool.

Although it is kind of weird to think of liquids in your PC.

Ahh memories.. I mean memory..

This memory module was made for this board and it has cooling fans built onto it so no need to worry with anything else.

$579.99

24GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Sniper Series

Plus Cooling Fan Triple Channel kit

Specs:

24GB

Its fast and spacious.

Comes with its own cooling fan.

Ok so far so good, lets see what about a hard disk.

I’m not really into the old spin up noise my old hard drive makes so maybe a new solid state drive like this is what I would like to put into this system.

$794.99

Samsung 830 SSD 512 GB

Specs:

6Gbps transfer rate

512 GB storage space

No moving parts

Decreased load time

Ok so it all sounds like its going to be great. Speaking of sound I think I’ll add a sound card to up the performance and output on the system. I do like to listen to music and some of the games I play and design require good audio cards in order for you to achieve the full effect or ambiance in the environment.

This is probably the best and most interactive sound card system I have seen.

$163.99

Sound Blaster x-fi titanium fatal1ty champion

Looks like overkill and probably is but remember this thing is going to be a contender with other tech for at least five years.

Specs:

Looks awesome

Lots of digital and audio outputs

Ok so now that we got sound what about video.

I currently have an Nvidia GTX 285 2Gb ram which was the best card you could buy for $800 about three years ago which I can still run Crysis 2 and MW3 at full resolution and all the goodies at max, now they have even better ones like this.

$780.03 x 2

Nvidia GTX 590

Specs:

3Gb on-board ram

Its huge.

Can be combined with another card to double the output potential.

Has 3 DVI outs and HDMI capabilities.

Here’s the kicker though I want two of these. Why you ask, I ask why not.

So I am betting that all these beast modules require a lot of power to operate, well I have that covered with this bad boy here.

$318.00

Thermaltake Toughpower 1350w

It came, It saw , It powered the system…

Specs:

1350 watt

Quiet

So I’m almost finished just one last thing, a DVD drive.

But one that will do Blu-Ray and DVD and Cd and all D’s that are to come.

$128.00

LG GGW-H20L Super Multi Blue – Blu-ray Disc

Burner / HD DVD-ROM Drive w/ Lightscribe

What can I say I think this will do it all.

Specs:

Blu-Ray read/write

HD DVD read/write

Lightscribe- haven’t used it on the one I have but still cool.

Ok so there is the complete PC tower, now all we need is something to display all the pretty graphics and interface on.

$3294.00

Dell 30″ 3008WFP 2560×1600 (max) WS

Well yes that is a bit much but this is my dream system, so don’t crush my dream.

Specs:

Super High Resolution

2560×1600

Wide screen

30 inches

Okay great I can see it, but I need to enter data or WASD  and click my way to glory in some first person shooter.

$128$348.99

Logitech G19 Keyboard Logitech MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse

The keyboard features fully customizable buttons and color customizations for each key,

It also has a color LCD screen on it to display gadgets or game stats, I think It matches the look I’m going for and I like it.

The mouse is a bit pricey but I have a Logitech laser wireless mouse now and I love it.

No cord to get in the way and it is RF and not IR so I can use it anywhere.

It has an 800 dpi resolution so it is really smooth and responsive to the slightest movement.

Great for Photoshop, Gimp, Blender, or sniping.

Grand Total: $8790.72

So well that’s it. Unfortunately at the moment it is only a dream but I will have this some day or what ever is in this range as technology progresses.

All of these items are available at new egg.com and amazon.com.

As far as putting it all together its fairly simple and all of the items come with instructions but a simple rundown will do I guess.

Install motherboard in tower

Hook up tower peripherals

Install power supply

Install CPU

Install CPU cooling system

Install memory and fans

Install GPU’s in PCI slots

Install sound card

Install SSD drive

Recheck all wires and make sure everything is correct

Close case

Hook up monitor

Hook up mouse and keyboard

Power the machine

Install OS

Have fun.

I hope you have enjoyed the long journey I have pulled you through, now go away and have your own dream.

Share This