I’m halfway through with finals. My stats final was take-home (?) with “collaboration encouraged” (?!?) – oh well, at least it was easy. Electronics I was a really bear, probably the worst final I’ve ever taken. It was 14 pages long (according to the prof, I was too worried to actually finish the thing that I didn’t stop and count). I studied for about 24+ hours in the 48 hours leading up to the exam, so I was pretty much set with my double-sided four formula sheets in size 6 font. The exam was still really difficult, although several problems were very similar to homework problems. Some of it was multiple choice, but hard multiple choice, meaning stuff we were supposed to somehow get through ESP or something. The good thing is I did finish it, except the bonus problem, which had two circuits with about a dozen transistors in them each. One was a half adder, I think. I do feel pretty good about the exam, although I’m not sure if I’ll get a 98% on the final after the curve. That’s what I need to get an A in the class….eeep!
Well today I finished up my site to about the level it was before with two layers deep. I sure hope this all works on the Linux server otherwise I just wasted a lot of time. It should, I’ve tested txt2tags before. Today I spent some time working on Gamblore’s motors, but the joystick I was using to control it was pretty messed up. So Daniel is going to get another joystick to test with and I’ll resume experimentation tomorrow. Other than that, not much except the normal “end of the semester madness.” Lots of exams coming up, but I’m not too worried. I’m more worried about all my grad and fellowship apps that I’m trying to get done.
It seems I only get to do updates to my site now-a-days on holidays. Speaking of which, I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving! We ate lots of chocolate chip cookies. My Mom, who is allergic to wheat, even made a separate batch out of rice flour. We also made a few cookies with only butterscotch chips for my Dad and Grandpa, who get migraines from chocolate. This Thanksgiving, I am quite thankful that I am not allergic to either chocolate or flour: bring on the cookies!
Is it just me, or do other people really dislike some aspects of PHP? The whole “if you mistype a variable, the compiler doesn’t tell you” is pretty annoying. Sure, it’s fine if PHP allows me to set a variable on the fly, but not when I’m getting it! It’s always going to be blank. Oh well, go figure… On the plus side, I re-did my website again to incorporate txt2tags. As a side note, I should really count up the number of times I’ve started this website from scratch. Maybe that’s why nothing ever gets accomplished. Anyhow, txt2tags is a pretty nifty program, although really slow because it’s written in Python. I’m also going Web 2.0 with AJAX. OK, so not really, but I’m using two IFRAMEs so I can dynamically write stuff to the server and load it back into a new IFRAME. The poor man’s way to do AJAX.
It’s the third week of school and I’m still fighting the enevitable “school schedule”, aka sleep 5-6 hours a night, do homework until 2 AM in the morning, work crazy hours, and get nothing done at robotics. I have a pile of homework in nearly every class, a pile of papers to read for my thesis/work, and an infinite amount of work I could be doing for robotics. To top it off, I have to worry about the GRE and my grad applications. Ahhh!!! Oh well…such is life.
I finally got around to updating my website. Today, while accompanying my parents on vacation going shopping in North Carolina, I reworked a lot of the scripts that manage this site. Now I can build a website two levels deep instead of just one. That means that now I can build a more complex site at least. Three levels will come later, but at the current time, I think I need to expand the site because at the moment it seems to have nearly nothing on it. Also, I got rid of the left navigation bar on pages that don’t need it. I’m not sure if I like that, I typically like consistency when I design something, but if the page doesn’t use it, it does open up some extra space. So it’s a trade off.
After 4 hours of working on it, I finally got my Ubuntu linux to load Hamachi on bootup, auto log me in, and then connect to my Synergy network. For my own benefit, I am going to document how I accomplished this:
briancbecker@bcb-hpdino:~$ sudo nano /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom
and then add the following under the daemon section:
[daemon] AutomaticLoginEnable=true AutomaticLogin=briancbecker TimedLoginEnable=true TimedLogin=briancbecker TimedLoginDelay=1
Where briancbecker is the user you want to auto login. As for Hamachi, I’m assuming you got it installed, setup, connected to the network, etc. To start hamachi on bootup, you will have needed to edit your sudoer’s file like:
briancbecker@bcb-hpdino:~$ export EDITOR=nano && sudo visudo
and add the following line at the end of the file
briancbecker ALL=NOPASSWD:/sbin/tuncfg
(replacing briancbecker with your name again)
Now you can execute tuncfg (part of the Hamachi package) without having to enter your sudo password. I also assume you’ve gotten synergy set up as well. To make all this stuff start at log in, add these lines:
# Start Hamachi and then Synergy sudo /sbin/tuncfg /usr/bin/hamachi stop /usr/bin/hamachi start /usr/bin/hamachi go-online BCBAPT /usr/bin/synergyc 5.24.207.192
BCBAPT is the Hamachi network you want to join on bootup and the 5.24.207.192 is the Hamachi IP (or static IP if you prefer) of the synergy server. These lines go in:
briancbecker@bcb-hpdino:~$ sudo nano /etc/gdm/Init/Default
before the line:
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/Xmodmap
and
briancbecker@bcb-hpdino:~$ sudo nano /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default
before the line:
XSETROOT=`gdmwhich xsetroot`
And there you have it. Hamachi should start up, GDM should auto log you into your Linux box, and then synergy should connect to your Hamachi server. Works for me under Xubuntu 6.06 running IceWM.
Well today I put up a Paris & Europe page. It’s my diary and picture blog dealy thingie. I’ll post new stuff as I get time to write it up and get the pictures slapped up.
Today is the big day: Christina and I leave for NCUR (National Conference for Undergraduate Research) in Asheville, N.C. (I sure hope there isn’t an Ashville, N.C. because that’s what a lot of my paperwork says on it). After running around campus between something like 6-7 departments, we finally got SGA to fund our registration, BHC to fund our hotel, OUR to fund our plane ticket, CE to processes the paperwork, and Dr. Gonzalez to pay for misc stuff. The whole getting to Asheville was somewhat of a pain. We had to buy our own tickets and I managed to get my ticket return date the first of May, which is totally wrong…Asheville is great, but not 3 weeks great. Luckily, I was able to swap it out. Max, Christina’s husband, kindly took us to the airport. We got there about 40 minutes before takeoff and the e-ticket machine refused to give us tickets because we were too late. So we called a Delta representative and apparently their new rule is if you check baggage, you have to do so 45 minutes before the flight. Since neither of us were checking any, they gave us our tickets (relief).
The plane ride was good; when we got there we got a ride to our hotel through the airport shuttles. Our van dropped a couple off at the Biltmore Inn (which was really really fancy) and then dropped us of. Of course, the first thing we check is Internet (yeah, I know, very nerdy). No internet, and no breakfast. But we did get an efficiency (I guess the Extended Stay Inn expects you to stay for an “extended” period of time ;-)) The shuttle to take us to UNC was slotted for 7:30 AM, so we decided to go find some breakfast so we didn’t have to get up extra early to go to Waffle House or something. It was 10:30 by now, so every normal store had closed. However, the guy at the counter said that Super Walmart was only a mile down the road. About 2 miles later and a couple times getting lost, we finally spotted Walmart. Unfortunately, this was Super “Fort” Wal-mart. It had a moat…well, OK, really it was the Swananoa River, but it sure looked like a moat. And the entrance was way around the other side, so about another half mile later, we finally dragged into Walmart. We got some stuff for breakfast and some fruit and stuff. On the way out, we saw a little path and thought it might be faster than the other way. It lead through a little park and then dead ended. So around 1:30 AM in the morning, we finally got back to the hotel.
Wow, I can’t believe it’s been almost 6 months since I last updated this site. This semester has been a killer. I haven’t had a lot of difficult work to do, but there has been so much of it that I don’t have much time for anything else. I finally got around to putting some a basic version of this site up. I’m now using a completely different approach. I’ve tried the straight HTML by hand, my own Content Management System (CMS), a professional CMS, doing it all via PHP, using an HTML editor, and now I’m trying something completely different. Use a set of metadata files to generate a set of HTML files for this site. This has several advantages. First, it’s all under my control, but a lot of the work is automated. All the navigation links and everything are generated automatically, which saves a ton of work. Also, I can customize the metadata with my own embelishments, further easing the pain. Finally, because I have to generate HTML files from the metadata files each time I make a change, it makes it easy to back up. Everytime I generate a new HTML file, I simply back up the old one in a zip file. Also, being a programmer, I like the concept of “Compile” and “Build.” So I log onto the admin side of this site and click the “Build” button and all updates are posted to the site.
Silly hurricanes. 8 in 14 months. Hurricane Wilma, the most intense hurricane ever recorded – in late October? Tropical Storm Alpha? You just gotta be kidding me that we ran out of names and have to start using the Greek alphabet. Those math equations will never be the same for some, I suspect. Back to Hurricane Wilma. Stats: Cat 3, moving about 20 mph, swiping across Florida 100 miles south of Orlando. So not much here except lots of rain and wind. I wake up at like 10:30 AM (hey, got the day off from school, might as well abuse it, right?), and it’s blowing like anything outside. Looking at the weather, I see that we are getting tropical force winds and the temperature outside is 63 degrees. What? Hurricanes and the first cold front of the year in the same day? What wacky weather we Floridian’s must put up with. <Sigh> At least it blew out quickly, by 1 PM the sun came out, the sky was blue, and it was a very cool blustery fall day. And no, I’m not interested in “Beta” testing any hurricane related software or hardware or anything, thank you very much!
Let’s see if this works.
It is always interesting to see how the worst hack imaginable can sometimes actually get the job done remarkably well. Last night, in a 4 hour PHP coding stint, I wrote a small script to read in a schedule text file, parse it, and display the items, timeframes, people working on tasks, notes, and percent completed to display it on the robotics website. It’s gotta be the worst PHP you’ve ever seen, but looking at the webpage, you wouldn’t guess that.
Or take my C++ plugins project. In C++, you can’t have a function pointer that takes variable arguments. So unless you resort to assembly language, you have to have one function pointer for each number of parameters. One for a function with no parameters, another for a function with one parameter, and so forth. So if you want to support up to 20 parameters, you have to have 20 different function pointers, the only difference being the number of parameters they take. But to further complicate things, there are different calling conventions. So you have 20 for the C calling convention and then another 20 for the standard calling convention. It’s got to be some of the hackiest C++ code I’ve written, but it’s the only way and it accomplishes the goals so I can’t complain too much.
Yeah, so the package that I ordered on August 2 finally came today. The funny thing is they said it shipped twice, although I only got a tracking number on the second go-around. Smelled sort of fishy to me. Anyhow, I got this letter from the president saying they were moving to a new warehouse and shipments had been delayed. No kidding! Over a month and a half is a little extreme. Oh well, good thing I didn’t need it, right?
I think I’ve got the incurable disease known as “absent minded professor” The sad part is I’m still a student! I breezed into my apartment tonight around 9 PM, changed my cloths, grabbed my PDA and keys…wait…where did my keys go? In the span of 5 minutes, I had lost my keys. Of course, I could just go out without my keys (suitemates might go out and lock the door after them), so I had to find my keys. After a couple minutes of looking around, I gave in and started cleaning my room, hoping to find my keys in the process. 15 minutes later I was starting to get worried. 30 minutes later I was getting very worried. Then I found them: in my nightstand drawer. Go figure. What a poor pathetic example for a human this Brian is!
Wow, my Computer System Design professor has got to be the laziest professor I’ve ever run across. He is supposed to teach us about this little microcontroller chip, but what he does is copy and paste stuff from the 500 page reference manual, put it on his website, and then read it to us. And since he just copy & pasted, he would have to pause ever 10 minutes and go “wait, what does that do”, and then he would look it up in the book, and read what it does from the book. Arg! We graduated from 2nd grade, we all know how to read! Teach us something!
This Labor Day weekend was our annual Tarpon Springs trip. It was a lot of fun. It started out with miles of clogged highways going 3.5 mph. However, we looked on the bright side: we were not fleeing from a hurricane. We went fishing, but didn’t really catch that much (OK, so my Dad caught a 3 inch trout, somehow I don’t think that counts). But we ate lots of Greek food and walked the sponge docks and shops, which was lots of fun. All in all, it was a great relaxing time.
First day of the fall semester. Hurrah! Unforunately, I was lazy so I didn’t check when my classes where going to be until last night. Uh, oh, the site was down. Oh well, I can check it in the morning, right? Well it was up this morning, but very, very slow. 10 minutes later I had my class schedule. First class at 12:30. OK, so I get there around 11 AM and then do some computer work until class. When I get to UCF, that plan completely failed. My suitemate described it best: UCF looked like an ant pile that had just been stomped. I spent 30 minutes trying to find a parking spot in 2 garages and 2 parking lots. Finally I went and parked in research park (hehe, didn’t realize that sort of goes together) and walked to campus. I can book about 4 mph, and I had 50 minutes to cover about 2 miles so I figured I was fine. And I was, but I arrived nearly completely soaked. Great start to the semester, huh? Anyhow, Enrique was kind enough to drive me back to my car after class.
My computer is dying. First my mouse wires came loose. I tried to epoxy them together, but it doesn’t work quite right. Then my AC adapter began to die, and my harddrive went on the fritz. Finally, my AC adapter gave up the ghost. Luckily, I was in the process of backing up my data when I discovered my harddrive, so I didn’t lose anything. I did a chkdsk and it repaired some bad sectors, so I guess we’ll see how long it lasts. Now I have a single 2:22 hour charge to last me until Thursday when my new AC adapter arrives.
Today I am testing the feasibility of swapping over from Typo3 to Nvu as the backend for this site. Typo3 is really grand, except for it is really pretty complicated and I don’t want to spend more time figuring out how to fix the things I don’t like about this site. Besides, Nvu has spell check!
Haven’t been updating my site very much lately, but I have a good reason. All of us at UCF Robotics have been cramming like mad to get our robot ready. Tuesday Tim & Daniel left for Michigan via a van, taking with them our two robots. The rest of us fly out today to join up with them. Then we spend a few days training and getting ready, and then Monday we compete. We fly home that night, and then I leave for my study abroad in France Wednesday. So I just realized that in the span of 7 days, I’m going to be on 6 different airplanes, and knowing how competition normally goes, with very very little sleep. It’ll be fun! 😉
Oh, and over to the left is the robot I’ve been working on (not by myself, of course!). It is named Calculon (after some Futurama show or something of the sort). Apparently the verb Calcular in Spanish means to calculate, but in slang, Calculo means something along the lines of “big but” (I’m putting it nicely). We were told that by some Spanish speaking people. But this is America! We speak English (well sort of, maybe it’s Americanise). Anyhow, we hope our “big but” robot will do well. We’d be very happy if we got top 10 in all 3 sub-competitions (autonomous, navigation, and design). Wish us luck!
Whahooooooowwwwww!!!!! I am sooooo happy! In the wee hours of the morning today, I wrapped up the Calculon’s (that’s the name of our robot) vision system for UCF Robotics! And on top of that, I got a little video that shows “what” Calculon sees (3.2 MB)! We have some videos we recorded of Calculon going around on a little obstacle course (remote control). I ran that through the vision system and saved each frame to a BMP. The vision system averaged about 13 FPS on 360×240 resolution (half NTSC), which is really good. So about a thousand images were generated and then I ran them through a BMP -> AVI converter. I also ran it through Windows Media Encoder to compress it. But man, after 8 months of solid development, it is finally coming together! A good thing too, since competition is about 3 weeks away 😉 Still, I was soooo completely stoked!
Just for those who might not know, Calculon is a wheelchair based autonomous robot. That means that while we can use a wireless joystick to drive it, the goal is for it to be able to drive itself and navigate through an outdoors obstacle course. The obstacle course contains stuff like construction cones, 5 gallon white buckets, spray painted lines, and other stuff. So a vision system is crucial if Calculon is to see buckets and lines and then avoid them (like an intelligent robot). We treat the video as a bunch of frames coming in and process each one individually. Without going into too much detail (I’ll leave that for later), the vision system looks for buckets and orange cones. If it sees one, it colors it yellow so you know what it is looking at. A blue box is also drawn around it so it doesn’t interfere with the line finding. The line finding looks for lines in the rest of the image. If it finds them, it draws over them with red. Super cool, huh?
OK, so my wacky parents decided this afternoon to just hop in their car and come visit me…without letting me know in advance. The emailed me on their way saying they were coming. Unfortunately, I was down at the library picking up some new books and then went to Robotics. About 4ish I decided…well, I haven’t checked my email today yet, I might as well go delete some more spam. So I went and checked my email and was like: “Delete. Delete. Delete. Oh, Urgent – Sunday, what’s this? My parents are doing what!” So I hastily emailed them back and it turns out they were just heading back out of town after trying to track me down. So we met up and ate supper and had a good time. I got to give them a tour of the robotics lab, which was nice, too. Oh, and the aerial robotics team did their first test. It is candidate for America’s Funniest Home Videos. I’ll see if I can get a copy and post it tomorrow, it’s hilariously depressing.
Today my sister graduates with an AA from IRCC weeks before she graduates from high school. Yep, you heard right, she is graduating from a community college (or junior college as my grandparents like to call it) before high school. How does this magic work? It involves a lot of work and a good school that allows you to dual enroll (both high school and college). If you dual enroll enough, you complete your AA degree. And to top it off, the college graduation is before high school graduate, so you wind up with an AA degree before you have your high school diploma! My thought always was: why bother with high school if you already have your AA? 😉 Anyhow, I’m very proud of her, even if she sweated out those last two math courses (actually I don’t know if she sweated it out, but her family sure did!) Anyhow, congrats!
A word of warning: when learning a new language, never ever assume anything! Today for work I was trying to integrate a Flash frontend and Java backend using XMLSockets. Another coworker had been working on an XMLSocket’s server in Java and had some XMLSocket code working in Flash (basically a chat-like program). Also, the Java backend was setup to work with the XMLSocket’s program, so I was pretty much set to go. Of course, I had never worked with Flash before and had very little Java experience. So it was a frustrating experience. I had defined a communication structure between the client/server, but for some reason sections of the data was disappearing. I tracked it down to the function and then finally tracked it down to a single for loop. I almost went crazy trying to figure out why a single for loop would cause data to disappear. Then I had this realization: maybe my “i” variable was global! Sure enough, change the variable to “j” and bam, it works. Goes to show that even when you create a variable in a local function, it’s not really global. Lesson learned: never assume anything about a new langauge!
Wahoo! 3 finals down, 1 to go… Now if only that last one wasn’t the hardest. On the up side I found this really cool MIDI player called Timidity++ that uses software rendering to produce awesome sounds even if your audio card isn’t top of the line. Download it and a 100 MB SoundFont file and you’ve just updated your MIDIs a notch. Now if only singing synthesis would get far enough a long…