http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-real-skills-video-games-have-secretly-been-teaching-us/
This is articulate and funny.
Friday, November 4, 2011
You're a bad programmer...
http://badprogrammer.infogami.com/
There is much wisdom and a little sarcasm in this article. Must read for people making the transition from amateur to journeyman programmers.
There is much wisdom and a little sarcasm in this article. Must read for people making the transition from amateur to journeyman programmers.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
PETMAN chassi
http://articles.boston.com/2011-10-31/business/30342672_1_marc-raibert-robotic-aircraft-bigdog
This is a fun looking bit of gear. Still looks a bit rigid and I notice there is no head assembly so the balance system will need to be set up for that. Seems a little strange to build all that without a head.
Am I just being petty focusing on the rigid body issue? Seriously this is some nice work.
http://inhabitat.com/petman-the-anthropomorphic-robot-designed-to-test-chemical-protection-clothing/
This is a fun looking bit of gear. Still looks a bit rigid and I notice there is no head assembly so the balance system will need to be set up for that. Seems a little strange to build all that without a head.
Am I just being petty focusing on the rigid body issue? Seriously this is some nice work.
http://inhabitat.com/petman-the-anthropomorphic-robot-designed-to-test-chemical-protection-clothing/
Monday, October 24, 2011
Compiler as API
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/hh500769
Rosylyn project.... Sort into "Things I have wanted to waste time, which I don't have, on..." category. Now if only they would do it for the VC++ compiler.
Rosylyn project...
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Building Ember Media Manager from Source pt1
I have been having a look at Ember Media Manager and got bored/curious enough to try to build it from source. After crashing into various instructions on both the origional Ember Media Manager project and the Ember Media Manager - R project. I have pulled down the source from both and tried to build it using VB.NET 2008 and VB.net 2010 Express.
I'm currently focusing on the Emm-r project.
The first error is in the various solution files. There is one that seems to be openable via vb.net 2008 but it does not inlcude all the sub projects correctly as the paths have changed. This is easily corrected by adding "\trunk" into the paths, tweaking a couple of project names and adding some projects taht were not present at all.
The second solution file is openable in VB.net 2010 but as I only have the Express version.... (this becomes a problem in the next step)
Building with VB2010Express
The next set of errors are in the form of:
rem SVN Revision -> Version Number
echo %ProgramFiles% | find /i "(x86)"
if errorlevel 1 (
set ToolExec="C:\EmberR\trunk\SubWCRev.exe"
) else (
set ToolExec="C:\EmberR\trunk\SubWCRev64.exe"
)
%ToolExec% "C:\EmberR\trunk\EmberAPI\\" "C:\EmberR\trunk\EmberAPI\My Project\AssemblyInfo.temp" "C:\EmberR\trunk\EmberAPI\My Project\AssemblyInfo.vb" exited with with code -1073741515.
These errors are to do with the pre-build events in each project. The build events use the SubWCRev.exe programs to include the Subversion Working Copy number in the AssemblyInfo.vb file. The problem is that the version of SubWCRev.exe (or SubWCRev64.exe) included in the project is either incomplete (missing libapr_tsvn.dll) the are no longer current with the current version of Subversion.
One solution is to remove the explicit path and allow the command to search the path for the program and find it in the c:\program files\TortoiseSVN\bin\ directory (in my case). The other option is the do away with the inclusion of the subversion working copy number in the AssemblyInfo.vb and delete the pre-build event script all toghether. Either or... but the question is how to do this and stay current with the project source. Anyway... getting it to build is step 1.
As VB.net 2010 Express edition does not allow access to the pre-build or post-build steps. Which since they are broken, does not let you fix them.
Build with VB2008Pro
So, my method is to open the 2008 solution file, fix the paths to the sub projects, then fix the pre-build scripts. If I build at this stage I get 867 errors due to all sorts of shit.
So open the 2010 solution file and build using 2010. This seems to build OK, but trying to run the program and its still in a tangle due to not running in a useful working directory with the resources.
Building with VB2010Pro
However, building on my work machine with VB2010 pro works first time (after upgrading the solution file)
I'm currently focusing on the Emm-r project.
The first error is in the various solution files. There is one that seems to be openable via vb.net 2008 but it does not inlcude all the sub projects correctly as the paths have changed. This is easily corrected by adding "\trunk" into the paths, tweaking a couple of project names and adding some projects taht were not present at all.
The second solution file is openable in VB.net 2010 but as I only have the Express version.... (this becomes a problem in the next step)
Building with VB2010Express
The next set of errors are in the form of:
rem SVN Revision -> Version Number
echo %ProgramFiles% | find /i "(x86)"
if errorlevel 1 (
set ToolExec="C:\EmberR\trunk\SubWCRev.exe"
) else (
set ToolExec="C:\EmberR\trunk\SubWCRev64.exe"
)
%ToolExec% "C:\EmberR\trunk\EmberAPI\\" "C:\EmberR\trunk\EmberAPI\My Project\AssemblyInfo.temp" "C:\EmberR\trunk\EmberAPI\My Project\AssemblyInfo.vb" exited with with code -1073741515.
These errors are to do with the pre-build events in each project. The build events use the SubWCRev.exe programs to include the Subversion Working Copy number in the AssemblyInfo.vb file. The problem is that the version of SubWCRev.exe (or SubWCRev64.exe) included in the project is either incomplete (missing libapr_tsvn.dll) the are no longer current with the current version of Subversion.
One solution is to remove the explicit path and allow the command to search the path for the program and find it in the c:\program files\TortoiseSVN\bin\ directory (in my case). The other option is the do away with the inclusion of the subversion working copy number in the AssemblyInfo.vb and delete the pre-build event script all toghether. Either or... but the question is how to do this and stay current with the project source. Anyway... getting it to build is step 1.
As VB.net 2010 Express edition does not allow access to the pre-build or post-build steps. Which since they are broken, does not let you fix them.
Build with VB2008Pro
So, my method is to open the 2008 solution file, fix the paths to the sub projects, then fix the pre-build scripts. If I build at this stage I get 867 errors due to all sorts of shit.
So open the 2010 solution file and build using 2010. This seems to build OK, but trying to run the program and its still in a tangle due to not running in a useful working directory with the resources.
Building with VB2010Pro
However, building on my work machine with VB2010 pro works first time (after upgrading the solution file)
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Future Gridlock
http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation
This is an interesting rant by Neal Stephenson where he poses the possibility that his society (the US) no longer has the capacity to make big changes.
I would tend to agree and suggest that the problem is that there is too much inertia in the structure of the US. The political and social gridlock has reached a point that there is enough pressure from interested parties to prevent change that its almost impossible to enact large programs of change. Thus stasis. And as we know, a static organism rots.
Other societies have gone through this and if history is anything to learn from its that there is either evolutionary change (slow careful steps) or revolutionary change (rapid and substantial). I have no ability to clearly predict which path or when, but I don't think it takes a genius to realize that there is structural gridlock in most of the so-called "western" nations. If we look to the "so-called" Arab world at the moment, we can see revolutionary change happening after ( in some cases half a century) of static rotting. Their infrastructure, public systems, social orders and classes are all in decay and finally the active parts of their society have "renewed" the system by destroying the existing status quo and remaking their society.
My guess is that the static "western" nations have decades of gridlock to wait out before they reach a stage where revolution can happen. Some more than others. The amount of urban decay and dislocation has already started to play out in Europe in various place but its only small scale. The US is seeing the first widespread protests about its structural problems but their government and ruling elite have the resources to put that down without much effort at the moment.
This is not to say that evolutionary change has completely stopped. Its still happening all over the place in large and small amounts. The point is that the amount of big change has slowed notably and is moving toward and average of 0. As more and more gridlock builds up, and the organism looses the ability to adapt.... the amount of mal-adaption the the environment and consequently the amount of damage sustained just by being in the environment increases. (By environment I mean, social, political, resources, languages etc)
Enough ranting for one day....
This is an interesting rant by Neal Stephenson where he poses the possibility that his society (the US) no longer has the capacity to make big changes.
I would tend to agree and suggest that the problem is that there is too much inertia in the structure of the US. The political and social gridlock has reached a point that there is enough pressure from interested parties to prevent change that its almost impossible to enact large programs of change. Thus stasis. And as we know, a static organism rots.
Other societies have gone through this and if history is anything to learn from its that there is either evolutionary change (slow careful steps) or revolutionary change (rapid and substantial). I have no ability to clearly predict which path or when, but I don't think it takes a genius to realize that there is structural gridlock in most of the so-called "western" nations. If we look to the "so-called" Arab world at the moment, we can see revolutionary change happening after ( in some cases half a century) of static rotting. Their infrastructure, public systems, social orders and classes are all in decay and finally the active parts of their society have "renewed" the system by destroying the existing status quo and remaking their society.
My guess is that the static "western" nations have decades of gridlock to wait out before they reach a stage where revolution can happen. Some more than others. The amount of urban decay and dislocation has already started to play out in Europe in various place but its only small scale. The US is seeing the first widespread protests about its structural problems but their government and ruling elite have the resources to put that down without much effort at the moment.
This is not to say that evolutionary change has completely stopped. Its still happening all over the place in large and small amounts. The point is that the amount of big change has slowed notably and is moving toward and average of 0. As more and more gridlock builds up, and the organism looses the ability to adapt.... the amount of mal-adaption the the environment and consequently the amount of damage sustained just by being in the environment increases. (By environment I mean, social, political, resources, languages etc)
Enough ranting for one day....
Processing Eprime, Superlab and PointLightLab data sets... some notes
After working with dozens of projects over the past few years I have evolved the fastest way to go from an Eprime data set into a usable dataset that is both robust and understandable.
Step 1. Export each participants data file from the native format of the data collection software to CSV formatted text file called P1.txt, P2.txt, P3. txt etc.
(Use the E-Data Aid program File->Export, set it to Excel and export the whole lot.)
(PointLightLab already creates .csv files so this step is already done. Just rename the files to P1.csv, P2.csv etc)
(SuperLab generates text files containing csv data so you are already done. Just rename the files to P1.txt P2.txt etc)
Step 2. Open Excel and create a new file called "My Data Set" or whatever. Drag and drop each of the text files generated in the step above onto Excel. This will open them using the CSV parser automatically rather than having to talk excel through each step. It creates a worksheet named with the file name, which we cunningly set to P1, P2 etc in the step above.
Right click on the worksheet Tab in Excel and select "Move or Copy".
Select the "My Data Set" file in the top drop down list.
Select the position you want the sheet (move to end is the easy choice... but try to get the participants in order. P1, P2 etc)
Now move the sheet.
Rince, repeat for all the participant text files until they are all in the "My Data Set" file.
This is your master data set and you can save it as "My Data Set - Raw.xlsx" if you are disciplined.
Copy this file and call it "My Data Set - Cleaned.xlsx"
Step 3. Record a "Cleaning" Macro for a worksheet to delete all the unwanted columns and bits and neaten it all up.
Step 3a. Record a "Summary" macro to reduce the remaining data on the sheet into some kind of summary. Usually this is dependant upon what the researcher is doing. I often join these two macros together and bind them to a keystroke combination for speed. This allows me to process a worksheet with two keystrokes.
Step 4. Save these macros and run them on all the participant worksheets. This step transforms the raw data to the cleaned data. If you stuff up a worksheet, copy it from the raw file back to the cleaned file using the move/copy command and run the macro again.
Step 5. Create a "Summary" worksheet at the end of the "Cleaned" file. Use the Excel "Indirect" function to pull all the data from the P1,P2, P3 worksheets onto the summary worksheet. This keeps the data live and you can update and replace the worksheets if required.
If you format this with the Participants down the colums and the DV's across the row then you will be able to copy and paste straight into SPSS in a later step.
Step 6. Do rough analysis, make descriptive graphs etc to perform sanity checks, look for weird outliers etc. Plot frequency distributions, check data ranges etc.
Step 7. Go back and fix all the bugs.
Step 8. Move the summary data to SPSS or whatever you destination analysis package is. (I have some quick and dirty ways to create SPSS files as well... but thats another story.)
Step 1. Export each participants data file from the native format of the data collection software to CSV formatted text file called P1.txt, P2.txt, P3. txt etc.
(Use the E-Data Aid program File->Export, set it to Excel and export the whole lot.)
(PointLightLab already creates .csv files so this step is already done. Just rename the files to P1.csv, P2.csv etc)
(SuperLab generates text files containing csv data so you are already done. Just rename the files to P1.txt P2.txt etc)
Step 2. Open Excel and create a new file called "My Data Set" or whatever. Drag and drop each of the text files generated in the step above onto Excel. This will open them using the CSV parser automatically rather than having to talk excel through each step. It creates a worksheet named with the file name, which we cunningly set to P1, P2 etc in the step above.
Right click on the worksheet Tab in Excel and select "Move or Copy".
Select the "My Data Set" file in the top drop down list.
Select the position you want the sheet (move to end is the easy choice... but try to get the participants in order. P1, P2 etc)
Now move the sheet.
Rince, repeat for all the participant text files until they are all in the "My Data Set" file.
This is your master data set and you can save it as "My Data Set - Raw.xlsx" if you are disciplined.
Copy this file and call it "My Data Set - Cleaned.xlsx"
Step 3. Record a "Cleaning" Macro for a worksheet to delete all the unwanted columns and bits and neaten it all up.
Step 3a. Record a "Summary" macro to reduce the remaining data on the sheet into some kind of summary. Usually this is dependant upon what the researcher is doing. I often join these two macros together and bind them to a keystroke combination for speed. This allows me to process a worksheet with two keystrokes.
Step 4. Save these macros and run them on all the participant worksheets. This step transforms the raw data to the cleaned data. If you stuff up a worksheet, copy it from the raw file back to the cleaned file using the move/copy command and run the macro again.
Step 5. Create a "Summary" worksheet at the end of the "Cleaned" file. Use the Excel "Indirect" function to pull all the data from the P1,P2, P3 worksheets onto the summary worksheet. This keeps the data live and you can update and replace the worksheets if required.
If you format this with the Participants down the colums and the DV's across the row then you will be able to copy and paste straight into SPSS in a later step.
Step 6. Do rough analysis, make descriptive graphs etc to perform sanity checks, look for weird outliers etc. Plot frequency distributions, check data ranges etc.
Step 7. Go back and fix all the bugs.
Step 8. Move the summary data to SPSS or whatever you destination analysis package is. (I have some quick and dirty ways to create SPSS files as well... but thats another story.)
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