[Don Patrick]

I've been toying with my first robot arm. Freddy mentioned it was Frankenstein's 200th anniversary, so here's a re-enactment of a famous scene that apparently was never in the book.

[Freddy]

I like it 

That's a nice piece of kit too 

[Don Patrick]

Yes, it's a pretty nifty thing. It's called the Velleman KSR10 or OWI 535, they sell for less than $100, but it's also a tad imprecise, and it can only lift 100 grams. But I can work with that. I'll hook it up to my AI and then it'll be voice commandable too.

[unreality]

Nice. I kind of like the 100g limit. That might prevent some rogue AI from trying to kill your cat or something lol. At $100 it's a good deal.

[Don Patrick]

With anything less than an industrial grade robot arm, it's more likely a cat would destroy the arm than vice versa. For the time being, the only effect of tying it into AI motion detection is that the arm rotates out of bounds and obliviously wrecks its own cogwheels.

Just wait till I mount lasers on it.

[infurl]

If it's industrial robots with lasers that you want, there's this that I posted the other day.

http://aidreams.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=13034.msg52065#msg52065

[Freddy]

Just realised we passed the 13 year birthday mark on the 17th 

[LOCKSUIT]

Freddy?

13th anniversary?

runnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

:P

[Art]

I'm trying to manage all these dates I keep in my head! I'm gonna need to get a computer...Oh...wait.

Yeah! It's been a great journey and here's hoping the road ahead is filled with smooth roads, blue skies and a gentle breeze at our backs.

(What? - Oh yeah...those voices in my head said to wish for no potholes nor speedbumps either!)  Happy Trails and Congrats to Dreams and Freddy for steering in a positive direction! Last of all the wonderful members and the diversity we share! They all help make our site unique, interesting and thought-provoking.
Sail on!

[squarebear]

Awesome work. 13 years in internet time is the equivalent of 100 years the real world, as things move so fast on the net. So great to see this place still alive and well.

[Freddy]

Thanks folks

I've been watching the World Cup (Soccer) over the past couple of weeks, it's been entertaining from surprise results and some great Oscar performances as usual.

England played Belgium tonight, but lost although they were through to the final 16 anyway - would have been nice to see the win and top spot of the group, but maybe it's a blessing in disguise.

Very hot here too (for the UK), up to 30C in some places 

[Korrelan]

I believe the correct description for the heat in the UK at the moment is ‘stupid hot’ lol.

I was stuck in traffic near Nottingham yesterday and my air con failed… 35 deg in the car… I started writing my will out on the back of a beer mat… stupid hot lol.

We are used to overcast, rainy, misty, and foggy days, I do enjoy a good moan about the weather… It’ll be hosepipe bans next.

 

[Art]

hosepipe? Is that like our Watering hoses or outside faucets for watering, here in the USA?

Whatever it is I'm pretty sure you can't put tobacco in it and smoke it!

[Korrelan]

Outside faucets?... Garden tap you mean?  Watering hoses? Oh! we call them pen*ses...  hehe.

Given enough Rum I'll put tobacco in anything and try to smoke it... you can't beat the rich invigorating effects of nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), and polycyclic organic matter, and last but not least dioxins... omg yeah... dioxins.

 

Ed: Speaking of dioxins… that word always reminds me of my A level chemistry teacher Mr. Nailor (RIP).  Our first class was in lab8, twenty or so desks scared from numerous chemical experiments, each desk had a double gas tap for Bunsen burners etc.

Once we had all found our stools we sat talking… making the usual exited racket…

Mr. Nailor proceeded to light the gas tap on his desk… whoosh… three foot flame… silence.

Just in case anyone was wondering what a lit gas tap looks like… now you don’t have too… My name is Mr. Nailor…

He was as a most excellent teacher.

 

[ivan.moony]

I'm experimenting with P = NP question.

I'm trying to provide a way to construct any NP solution in P complexity time. A hint is to be able to construct a NP universe in a special way, so that browsing any of many (one at the same time) satisfactory solution falls into P time. An approach I'm investigating is gradually narrowing further solution segments regarding to former solution segment input.

For example, if we are solving Sudoku, we enter the first number, and the rest of possible set of next numbers narrows down. Then we pick the next number from that set, while further rest of possible set of next numbers narrows down even more. The process in the case of Sudoku should fall in linear time complexity, which would be an amazing achievement, as they say.

Something similar could be happening with SAT solvers. It is generally known that any NP problem could be reduced to SAT solving problem (I have some doubts on this, but I need to check it more thoroughly). If I manage to reduce SAT solving to linear time complexity... they say it would change the world as we know it.

But I still suspect that some NP problems would be out of my reach, as they need to compare all the possible results before picking up an optimal solution (like solving traveling salesman problem). What I'm trying to achieve is to pick one solution out of exponential number of elements, in linear time.

I tried to back up with my inventions, but the freaking Universe is pushing me further against my will. I just hope it knows what it's doing.