“We have put together a video of our Milestone 2 run, which we completed this past Monday, June 1, 2009. This particular run had our PR2 alpha robot navigate through eight doors, and plug its power cord into nine outlets. In this video, you can see the various challenges our robot faced, such as a crowded office environment and the abrupt appearance of a human obstacle. We nearly sabotaged the run early on. Folks around the office were eager to track the progress of the robot, so many people ran their own monitoring programs on the PR2. This caused an increase in CPU load, starving the navigation software. Nonetheless, the robot was able to continue with the run, albeit more slowly and cautiously.”
“We are currently developing algorithms that will narrow the learning gap between humans and machines, and enable flight systems to ‘learn’ the way humans do: through practice.
Rather than being programmed with detailed instructions, these flight systems will learn from experience. Like baby birds leaving the nest, they will be clumsy at first. Over time, however, they will become capable of sophisticated, coordinated maneuvers……”
Well I feel completely lost about LOST now! =P This rather famous sci-fi series which managed to get my attention only after its mid 3rd season [due to the first seasons being rather boring in my opinion!], has now reached a place where I can’t stop wondering what in the universe is going to happen next! The series has been extremely exciting during the current season [5th], and the recent 2 hour MIND BLOWING episode has really left me hanging! I just can’t stop speculating! =D Jacob DEAD???? We finally got to see Jacob and he’s dead now? That’s just not happening! And the bomb finally went off! At this point, everything has been annihilated and I haven’t got the slightest idea how the next episode is even going to begin!
Big kudos to the producers and writers, for creating something that really gets under my skin! =)
So on Sunday I was out with my mom for the Mother’s Day, and guess what we did. We went and watched the new Star Trek movie! =) I know, probably not the most typical Mother’s Day activity. 😉 But you have to keep in mind that it’s my mom we’re talking about here, and she’s as big a sci-fi fan as myself. So for us, a new Star Trek movie is considered a major major event! =)
Honestly at first I was worried about getting disappointed. I’ve always been such a huge fan of Star Trek, but the last TV series with Archer didn’t really catch my attention that much. [I have to admit though, the series got much better in the latter seasons, and the very last episode was a master piece.] Also, I have always been a much bigger fan of TNG characters than the original series….. so, altogether I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Well, it turned out that the movie is in fact AWESOME, MARVELOUS, FANTASTIC and I could go on like this forever. =) I can’t put in words how much I enjoyed this movie! I can’t say much since I don’t want to give way spoilers, but I lets just say that this isn’t like any normal prequel. 😉 You think you know what has happened and what will happen? Well, think again. Also, I love the fact that this movie has re-built the main characters of the original series so that on one hand the signature characteristics aren’t lost, and on the other hand there’s much more koolness to them now than there ever was before. The movie has an awesome plot, awesome characters, awesome visuals and basically awesome everything.
And…. uhmmmm……. Spock and Uhura?? How exactly did that happen??? Well that’s certainly cute! =D
Picture of me at the “event”. 😉 Click for higher res.
A friend of mine had posted this video to my twine a while go, and I finally got a chance to watch it. I find it very interesting so I decided to share!
I also checked out the fold.it game mentioned in this video. Quite entertaining! =)
I just have to quickly mention here that I’ve been using Windows Live Writer for a few weeks now, and so far it has managed to impress the universe out of me.
It all started with WLM 9, and all it’s fancy new features. Groups, personalized layouts and everything else new. Since I was impressed with that one, I decided to give Windows Live Mail a try… which turned out to be a total YES. Windows Live Mail is basically Outlook Express evolved! Some great new features and hey, what can I say, I have a weakness for eye candy. 😉
So then I decided to look into the package again, and this time I picked Windows Live Writer for a trial, and I’m certainly glad I did. Blogging made easy! WLR connects to all my blogs on different apps, [including Blogger, WordPress and Serendipity] and makes it much easier to post articles, edit articles and organize my online writing in general. It has quick options for inserting tags, pictures, videos and etc, and interesting enough the publishing takes just about 2 seconds! It’s also very neat that it recognizes my blog template images, so unlike when I’m using the web-based editors, I’m actually writing on my template and not a white empty editor [so I can see what the final result looks like as I’m writing!]. And this is just very few of the cool features it has… there’s much more to be said about WLW. If you’re a blogger reading this, make sure you give it a try! 😉
ASD’s “Metamorphosis” was one of those demos that made us all “think” for a while. Very deep and meaningful, and also very fresh from the design point of view. “More of this please” is definitely something that I was thinking while watching that demo over and over again. Well, I guess somebody heard that, because now we can enjoy some more of that… or perhaps I should say “even better than that”. =) Yesterday I woke up pretty early in the morning to check out ASD’s new demo “Midnight Run”, which happens a sequel to “Metamorphosis”. It’s very interesting that the demo didn’t only bring me back the “Metamorphosis” feeling, but I also experienced a bit of “Lifeforce” feeling too. The visuals of this demo are extremely beautiful, and the music is simply ingenious. As expected there’s a ton of depth of meaning, enough to again keep us all thinking for the days to come. You can download the demo and read the related comments here.
Awwwwwwwwwwwww Wall-e melted meeeee! =) Well, yesterday I finally stole the time to go and watch the Wall-e movie which I had been waiting for…for… forever pretty much! And it was so worth the wait! =) This was probably one of the cutest animated movies that I have EVER seen in my life. Both the main characters, Wall-e and Evaa [Eve], were simply adorable, and the general plot was pretty neat too. I’m not going to say more since I want to avoid spoilers. I can only say this: don’t miss this movie! =) Now I’m going to wait and see if I can get my hands on the toy robot that I’ve been reading about on Gizmodo. 😉
Hey, I'm Aasemoon, and this is my blog which has been around since 1998. Childhood toy project that ended up growing up with me.
You can reach me here:
aasemoon.blue
Zorbas is my kitten. You can see some pictures of him below. =)
