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For a more traditional start, I'd suggest AI: A Modern Approach (by Russell & Norvig). It's a classic, it's (fairly) easy to read, and technical universities and most larger libraries should have at least one copy.

Who said that complex behaviour cannot be simplified to search, planning, and classification? Doesn't multi-agent interaction boil down to a search for actions that produce competitive/mutually-beneficial/self-serving reward (utility)?

Yes, some (small) parts of AI research have gone down the "just an algorithm" path in pursuit of a best solution for very specific problems, but you should not be so quick to write off even those advances which only seem to improve on relatively "simple" tasks. If you can represent a complex problem in a simple fashion, then even incremental improvements can produce large quality/efficiency improvements.

If you're looking for AI disciplines producing work with layman-notable results that are not as clearly search- or planning-based, natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision have both been quite hot over the past five years. Chris Bishop's latest book is a great read for a quick jump-in to the technical underpinnings of a number of the big-press projects today, and for "pretty picture" motivation you may want to look at something like this.

Nitpicks: it's k-means, and A* is a heuristic search algorithm. Yes, IAAAIR (I Am An AI Researcher).

The promises of Minsky et al. never materialized simply because the early researchers into strong A.I. (which was then simply called "A.I.") didn't know what they were doing and had not even the beginning of a handle on what problems they were trying to solve.

In 1972, Hubert Dreyfus debunked the field's efforts as misguided from the start, and in the couple of decades since he was shown to be absolutely right...

If you follow TFA links (which includes the sneaky commission referral from newatlantis), it leads to a book on Amazon called "The 4 Hour Workweek".

If you travel that link and read the first review, it includes some very accurate information about this global outsourcing issue we're all facing as we try to cram even more work into a finite span of time:

"Finally, throughout the book Mr. Ferris keeps referring to the New Rich. Despite all his attempts at creating a new paradigm, it appears that the only difference between the New Rich and the Old Rich is that the old rich are capitalists that actually produce things that society needs, such as railroads and software, while the new rich sell things like unregulated nutritional supplements."

Well put.

Clearly after being quite competitive with Silicon Valley in the '70s, Mass. has fallen far behind its rival in terms of the number and quality of startup companies, at least in the IT sector.

Anna Lee Saxenian got a lot of it right in her book comparing Route 128 with SV. Her main thesis was that eastern Mass. companies tended to have an NIH, all-encompassing, soup-to-nuts mentality (Apollo Computer, and Ken Olsen's DEC were prime examples), whereas SV has more of a ecosystem where engineers, capital, and ideas flow relatively freely between companies.

Of course, this handicap is not unique to Massachusetts. For example, Microsoft is known to have been strongly influenced by DEC - in fact the Windows NT project was seeded by top engineers from the VAX project.

Make your own for a grand. Was in last month's Make Magazine from O'Rielly. All you have to do is write the software and add another camera to make it a trinocular. Same setup from the magazine would get you more than half way there.

There are lots of little things with wiring that can have serious consequences.

No, there really aren't. There are a few little things and a few big things, and very few of them are arcane. Electrical systems in a typical residence are neither rocket science nor magic. A relatively good primer for residential electrical systems for a typical homeowner would be B&D Complete Guide to Home Wiring.

Where to put the ground? Please not too near a metal anything especially pipe. Why? It'll accelerate corrosion. Possibly greatly. You can screw up your neighborhood's cable this way too.

Please, please tell me you're not an electrician, nor are studying to become one. Either you WAY oversimplified to the point of making your statement meaningless or you know nothing about the ways galvanic reactions are mitigated in residential wiring. Any text on residential wiring will mention the problems and the very simple ways to avoid them ever becoming an issue.

You're right though, there are fire risks if you don't take any care with your wiring practices. Good wiring practices are amazingly simple to learn. That said, most homeowners I'm aware of who undertake electrical work for themselves do not ever bother to do so.

virtual impossibility of knowing all the minutia of one's own particular circumstance

This statement is a crock. Residential wiring is pretty straightforward for anyone willing to crack any number of simplified wiring books. Solar systems are relatively straightforward as well. I'm honestly not sure why the submitter believes that any number of other project descriptions could not be adapted to a solar shed, unless they plan on tying it into something else at a later date.

However, and it's a big one, solar intertie systems can be enormously complicated. If the submitter is planning on later tying the solar system in a shed to one in a house, said person is going about things bass-ackwards. An intertie needs to be planned from the ground up, or the likelihood of large (and costly) problems shoots through the roof.

Many things need to be answered right from the start. Am I installing a system tied to the power grid? A backup system not tied to the grid? Are there going to be batteries involved? Do I plan to convert to AC, and if so do I need clean sine-wave power? Can my charge controller handle the potential expansion of solar panels? Can additional inverters and/or charge controllers be added to the system without a great deal of hassle should the initially chosen models not handle panel additions? Am I just planning to run dedicated DC lighting circuits? These answers should take into account future plans to expand the system, as picking one particular route and then later making substantial changes to the upgrade path can dramatically increase equipment expenses.

Depending on the complexity of the situation and whether the DIYer actually intends to acquire the knowledge necessary to execute high-quality, functionally correct work, professional help may or may not be necessary.

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman. Read it. Seriously, if you are at all interested in physics, it's a great ride. I understood more about the way the world worked after reading that single book than after all the populist literature of both Hawkings or Greene.

Too bad Feynman died before he could do a book on QCD.

A big part of why Bill Gates and Microsoft succeeded is that he ran it as a business, and was willing to look at what business models other companies had been successful with. The one thing that has probably killed more high-tech companies than anything else is the firm belief that what they are doing is so new that they can't possibly learn any events from the past.

Someone earlier mentioned Rick Chapman's book In Search of Stupidity - in the introduction, he talks about how Intel stumbled so badly with the initial Pentium simply because they hadn't learned the lesson that Johnson & Johnson learned a few years earlier during the Tylenol/cyanide scare.

Actually, there's an entertaining book called In Search of Stupidity that makes the same claim as Bill Gates.

Tech Companies succeed not by maximizing excellence (the book is a response to In Search of Excellence) but by minimizing stupidity.

Actually, there's an entertaining book called In Search of Stupidity that makes the same claim as Bill Gates.

Tech Companies succeed not by maximizing excellence (the book is a response to In Search of Excellence) but by minimizing stupidity.

The Evil Genius book series is fantastic!! I took a class in college (Build your Evil Robot Army) that was designed around this book. It teaches the basic concepts of circuits, digital logic, computer programming, and robotics. It isn't really a kit, but it includes parts lists for everything needed. When I completed the course (we did about 45~50 experiments from the book, approx part cost was 150 bux) I had enough knowledge that I was bored outa mind in a Fundamentals of Electronics course I took at a different college. IF you are looking for a good start I highly suggest checking out this book, it is funny, smart, very informative, and well rounded. Oh it also makes you do all the math involved. I also suggest getting a bread board and learning to solder (its not hard at all, don't buy a cold heat gun, they suck), always test your circuits before you solder them or else you get the fun task of removing solder. http://www.amazon.com/123-Robotics-Experiments-Evil-Genius/dp/0071413588

I agree completely with parent. A few additional thoughts:

Although I second the suggestion to get a book, I'd also suggest the following website: All About Circuits. It's basically a short textbook, online. It has some nice intuitive explanations.

As for books... My top choice would be Hambley's Electronics. It's a complete, correct, and accessible introduction to the subject. It's a great book. The Art of Electronics is also very good.

I also completely agree with the suggestion to get a solderless breadboard. That's the way to have fun with this stuff. You can always build a soldered, "final" circuit later (which is fun in its own way), but I have to admit that that's more of an exercise in fabrication than it is a good way to explore electronics.

For me, the crucial central component of a lab bench is an oscilloscope, and that will be the hardest thing to get inexpensively. Digital scopes are wonderful! I haven't investigated this thoroughly, but you might go with a USB "oscilloscope" that uses a laptop/PC for its interface, as these tend to be cheaper.

Finally, there's the question of "what circuits should I build?" Personally, I always found op-amp circuits to be a lot of fun, and I think audio circuits are often a good choice as they are interesting and practical, give a good way to experiment with filters and many other analog signal processing circuits, and yet are low-enough frequency that the parasitics are negligible (i.e., the schematic is an accurate representation of what you've built).

As a side note, although the 741 is an armored tank and as cheap as dirt, my personal favorite op-amp is the LM6132. They're more expensive, but man are they beautiful! :-) (Seriously though, just buy 741s unless you're running off batteries or really need something faster.)

Oh! And while we're on the subject of buying things: The place to look is Digikey. You need to lump together orders to save on shipping, but it is almost always the best choice for buying chips.

I agree completely with parent. A few additional thoughts:

Although I second the suggestion to get a book, I'd also suggest the following website: All About Circuits. It's basically a short textbook, online. It has some nice intuitive explanations.

As for books... My top choice would be Hambley's Electronics. It's a complete, correct, and accessible introduction to the subject. It's a great book. The Art of Electronics is also very good.

I also completely agree with the suggestion to get a solderless breadboard. That's the way to have fun with this stuff. You can always build a soldered, "final" circuit later (which is fun in its own way), but I have to admit that that's more of an exercise in fabrication than it is a good way to explore electronics.

For me, the crucial central component of a lab bench is an oscilloscope, and that will be the hardest thing to get inexpensively. Digital scopes are wonderful! I haven't investigated this thoroughly, but you might go with a USB "oscilloscope" that uses a laptop/PC for its interface, as these tend to be cheaper.

Finally, there's the question of "what circuits should I build?" Personally, I always found op-amp circuits to be a lot of fun, and I think audio circuits are often a good choice as they are interesting and practical, give a good way to experiment with filters and many other analog signal processing circuits, and yet are low-enough frequency that the parasitics are negligible (i.e., the schematic is an accurate representation of what you've built).

As a side note, although the 741 is an armored tank and as cheap as dirt, my personal favorite op-amp is the LM6132. They're more expensive, but man are they beautiful! :-) (Seriously though, just buy 741s unless you're running off batteries or really need something faster.)

Oh! And while we're on the subject of buying things: The place to look is Digikey. You need to lump together orders to save on shipping, but it is almost always the best choice for buying chips.

I can't recommend The Art Of Electronics enough, personally. It's written for non-electronics technically-inclined people who want/need to learn electronics, and it does a damned good job of it. It's the actual textbook they use for electronics courses at Harvard, how could you possibly ask for more?

When I wanted to get into robotics, I just dove right in. Bought some books on electronics and started buying tools and components.

For components, there are a lot of options. Check out E-bay and any of the many electronics surplus suppliers on the internet. For specific components, Mouser and Digi-Key tend to be excellent.

I'd recommend buying some of the mix packs of things like resistors, capacitors, ICs, etc. You can usually get variety packs of them pretty cheap.

As for books, Horowitz' The Art of Electronics is generally considered the bible, and for good reason. Any other basic book on electronics (Idiot's Guide type stuff is good) help as a second point of view, particularly if one description doesn't make sense to you, perhaps the way another author phrases it will.

As for projects, the if you don't have any ideas of your own, there are plenty of internet sites with ideas and schematics. There are several volumes of The Encyclopedia of Electronic Circuits, as well, which tend to have a variety of cool little projects. Buy a few breadboards or wirewrap boards and start building... I find breadboards to be pretty good for doing small projects.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the "Art of Electronics" books.....

The Art of Electronics (Hardcover)
by Paul Horowitz (Author), Winfield Hill (Author)

They (might) be becoming slightly dated at this point, but (AFAIK) they're the books used by one of the MIT electronics courses.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213974698&sr=8-1

You'd want the lab manual as well...

http://www.amazon.com/Laboratory-Manual-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521285100/ref=sid_dp_dp

I found both books at the local Barnes and Nobles. (And I don't recall paying quite so much for them a year ago.)

Read the sections your interested in, and just "do it".

David

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the "Art of Electronics" books.....

The Art of Electronics (Hardcover)
by Paul Horowitz (Author), Winfield Hill (Author)

They (might) be becoming slightly dated at this point, but (AFAIK) they're the books used by one of the MIT electronics courses.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213974698&sr=8-1

You'd want the lab manual as well...

http://www.amazon.com/Laboratory-Manual-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521285100/ref=sid_dp_dp

I found both books at the local Barnes and Nobles. (And I don't recall paying quite so much for them a year ago.)

Read the sections your interested in, and just "do it".

David

I also enjoyed those radioshack books, but got a little bored. I picked up a book by the name of "JunkBots, Bugbots, and Bots on Wheels" and it resparked my interest in electronics :)

You are an adult, and can buy your own parts, so have no need for kits.

All you need to get started is this book - it is basically the de-facto standard for learning electronics.

"Getting Started in Electronics" - Forest M Mims III

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Electronics-Forrest-Mims/dp/0945053282/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213973092&sr=8-1

This book is basically the bible for newcomers to electronics. Buy it, you will not be disappointed. He starts off with the simple, progresses to the relatively complex, and explains all the principles along the way. Every project comes with a complete parts listing, and lots of diagrams and illistrations to help along the way. Also there is some great reference pages included that I STILL refer to occasionally.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/explorer/0521370957/2/ref=pd_lpo_ase/104-7876853-6599140? buy generic components

Electronics Learning Lab Designed by Forrest Mims and sold by radio shack.

You could also do with picking up his Getting Started in Electronics book. It is like a field journal for electrical theory, very fun read.

Hope that points you in the right direction.

-Scott

Freud hasn't been throughly debunked. That's crazy talk, and not supported by actual science by noncrazy people.

I'm not so sure about that. I think John McCrone is on the right track toward debunking Freud.

Nuclear plants have been around for 60 years, and there are only a few hundred. In that time, there have been a number of disasters, and a much larger number of near disasters. Nuclear plants are complicated, and multiple systems can and have failed. Low-level releases have occurred. Every time some know-it-all asshole says it can't possibly happen to the "new" stuff, real engineers should be shaking their heads. It can ALWAYS happen. If you deny that, you instantly show yourself to be either foolish or hopelessly naive.

It's nonsense to talk about Yucca mountain, or anywhere else. The only structures humans have built that lasted thousands of years have been simple piles of rocks like the pyramids. We have no experience building complex systems for the long term, and no way to guarantee a stable society that will maintain them.

The estimates of plant safety that do exist in the industry are based on a lot of handwaving. But let's be practical. The real measure of safety is that no one is stupid enough to ensure them except the government. By Murphy's law, of course one will go some day, and every insurance company knows it. Whether by human design, or stupidity. And you cannot possibly guarantee it won't happen. Charles Officer, a geologist, can give you an idea of one potential issue among many http://www.amazon.com/Big-One-Earthquake-America-Science/dp/B000A176Y2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213915580&sr=1-1

If nothing else, a nuclear plant near a center of population is a huge potential dispersal hazard which anyone with a sequence of attacks can defeat. If the terrorists on 9/11 had dropped both planes on the reactor building at Indian Point, all of the New York metro area would be unlivable. The containment building is designed to withstand a SINGLE airplane crash. Granted, that would have been technically tough to achieve. But what about a few dozen GPS-based cruise missiles in a sequence? This kind of thing is going to happen some day.

The new gen IV plants are clever, but not clever enough. They do solve a lot of the mechanical issues, but there is still massive environmental damage from mining, and all the activities that go into making the fuel along the chain, leaking poison into the ecosystem at ever turn. The bottom line is, there is only one sensible reason to have nuclear power, and that is if you have nano technology that can "filter feed" radioactive isotopes out of materials. I welcome anyone who wants to slurp U235, Radium, etc out of area where homes are being built to lower the Radon count in people's houses, and even then, the concentrated radio-isotopes should be generating power far away. Having said that, there is far more than 1,000 years of Thorium at current levels if you breed fuel. It's just a very stupid idea to do so.

On the other hand, coal is a worse radiological hazard than current nuclear plants, it's just that it is slowly raising the background level of contaminants rather than a single disaster. It's only recently that we finally are forcing all coal plants to filter their output. There are Mercury advisories on fish in 49 states. And an unbelievable amount of Uranium and Thorium is released. In fact, in this admittedly slanted pro nuclear article, there is more energy in the discarded Uranium and Thorium than in all the coal that has been burned. The article is: http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

The sensible thing to do, which seems fairly close at hand, is to massively build out wind, wave, and distributed solar, as it doesn't matter what technology you use to generate power, having a distributed grid is a worthwhile endeavor for civil defense.

Then, fusion

You need to inform yourself about the dangers of geothermal. Watch this documentary

Nuclear isn't an option by itself.

Estimates for how much coal and uranium the planet would need to sustain itself do not successfully go passed the end of the century. The more conservative exercises place global uranium depletion between the years 2040 and 2050.

(Sources)
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/secondpage.html
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=340148&area=/insight/insight__economy__business/
http://www.amazon.com/End-Oil-Edge-Perilous-World/dp/0618562117/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1213899543&sr=11-1

In my opinion, nothing less than a major, unified effort between several historically autonomous government departments (Department of Energy, Department Of Interior, Department of Agriculture) would be successful in mitigating any damage inflicted by Peak Oil. In the US, we've grown to rely on cheap oil, and merely replacing/offsetting that dependence with another limited resource won't solve the problem.

Call me jaded, but when McCain says he wants to do this with public money, I just see another Neocon Republican initiative to pat themselves and their friends on the back of their bank accounts. I don't see in him the ability to help solve the problem, I just see another reactionary who will blame Iran or Saudi Arabia or whoever for increased oil prices and wield the increasingly imperialistic US Military against it.

-ds

http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Corps-Counterinsurgency-Field-Manual/dp/0226841510

From his republican values Washington derived his abhorrence of kingship, even for himself. The writer Garry Wills called him "a virtuoso of resignations." He gave up power not once but twice - at the end of the revolutionary war, when he resigned his military commission and returned to Mount Vernon, and again at the end of his second term as president, when he refused entreaties to seek a third term. In doing so, he set a standard for American presidents that lasted until the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose taste for power was stronger than the 150 years of precedent set by Washington.

Give the last word to Washington's great adversary, King George III. The king asked his American painter, Benjamin West, what Washington would do after winning independence. West replied, "They say he will return to his farm."

"If he does that," the incredulous monarch said, "he will be the greatest man in the world."

From his republican values Washington derived his abhorrence of kingship, even for himself. The writer Garry Wills called him "a virtuoso of resignations." He gave up power not once but twice - at the end of the revolutionary war, when he resigned his military commission and returned to Mount Vernon, and again at the end of his second term as president, when he refused entreaties to seek a third term. In doing so, he set a standard for American presidents that lasted until the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose taste for power was stronger than the 150 years of precedent set by Washington.

Give the last word to Washington's great adversary, King George III. The king asked his American painter, Benjamin West, what Washington would do after winning independence. West replied, "They say he will return to his farm."

"If he does that," the incredulous monarch said, "he will be the greatest man in the world."

From his republican values Washington derived his abhorrence of kingship, even for himself. The writer Garry Wills called him "a virtuoso of resignations." He gave up power not once but twice - at the end of the revolutionary war, when he resigned his military commission and returned to Mount Vernon, and again at the end of his second term as president, when he refused entreaties to seek a third term. In doing so, he set a standard for American presidents that lasted until the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose taste for power was stronger than the 150 years of precedent set by Washington.

Give the last word to Washington's great adversary, King George III. The king asked his American painter, Benjamin West, what Washington would do after winning independence. West replied, "They say he will return to his farm."

"If he does that," the incredulous monarch said, "he will be the greatest man in the world."

This is a wise observation: for a particularly detailed account of one such person, read Richard Rhodes' Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb . It prominently features Edward Teller, who was the driving force behind the hydrogen bomb even when many of the other Manhattan project scientists, and most notably Oppenheimer, had lost their zeal for weaponry and their certainty that we are the good guys, as the GP argues.

Note too that I pitched a theory as to why this is a problem in another comment.

Read this book. Then read it again. One of the best books written on the subject in recent years. I think it's been updated recently, so you may want to get that one, but this version is excellent.

This is a standard field manual that has been used for special forces training for almost two decades. I read it on a lunch break nearly five years ago while attached a unit that wasn't even special forces. It's also posted on the internet:

Here: http://www.counterinsurgency.org/doctrine/31-20-3/31-20-3.htm
Here: http://www.geocities.com/tominelpaso/armymanual.htm
oh and on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/FM-31-20-Operational-Techniques-Department/dp/1581605463/

Also, Anyone who is familiar with the School of the Americas, the United States history of engaging in false-flag terrorism, or the CIA's cocaine trafficking business should not find any of it a surprise.

Do you mean 'like it was in 1914 and 1939'? As in when the world wars started as opposed to when the US decided to join in?

Well, you have to remember that there was a lot of anti-war sentiment in the US despite the looming danger at the time, and it almost kept us out (until it was too late) .... kind of like today.

But don't worry, anti-war sentiment in the US is growing stronger, and it seems unlikely that we will involve ourselves as the coming European crisis plays itself out, regardless of the consequences. It will be interesting to see where it begins. Maybe it already has as there are already refugees.

Holland?
Amsterdam and Rotterdam are expected to be in about 2015 the first large majority-Muslim cities. Europe or Eurabia?

UK?
Muslim Britain is becoming one big no-go area

Trouble in Londonistan

France?
Muslims are waging civil war against us, claims police union

Why 112 cars are burning every day

Elsewhere?
Where did they all go? Who are they training and leading?

Since that's a play-by-play example of the manual in question, in action.

No it doesn't...

It is hard to compare directly, but let's try.

Vista Home Premium (it has media center functionality): In China (according to Microsoft), 899 yuan ( http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=953 )

In USA: 239.95 usd ( http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/homepremium/default.mspx ).

Asking google for the conversion:

899 Chinese yuan = 130.628296 U.S. dollars

So, a product produced in the US costs 1/2 in a foreign country. Am I allowed to now purchase Chinese product and sell in the US? To find out if this is worth it, let's get a retail (not msrp) price on Windows Vista Home Premium. Amazon lists some prices (no, we don't want the "upgrade" edition):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013O54OE/ref=dp_cp_ob_title_1

This prices at 209.99 usd (although it claims msrp is 269.99).

All told, the Chinese version is considerably less expensive.

Well, to be fair, the particular manual WikiLeaks posted was restricted on 5 DEC 2003 to Army personnel only. So, while it's not classified, it's not generally meant for public consumption. That doesn't mean you can't find it with a little searching.

What is currently available on Amazon's website is the Operational Techniques (link) Manual. This is more of a "what sf does" type of book. The WikiLeaks article links to a TTP which is like a "HOW TO" manual. And in reality, while it's no secret what SF or any other type of Army unit does, specific TTP are sensitive because they have pretty specific guidelines and checklists on how certain tasks are accomplished.

They're not classified, but they're also not something an Army unit would necessarily want widely distributed.

Oh, and for people complaining about the format of the manual - this is what Army manuals look like. They have lousy formatting, and it's pretty common to find typos and other errors.

WikiLeaks didn't really scoop anything, so it's not some sort of coup.

It's $10.20 (paper back) on Amazon.

or you can get it on line from the us army at Us.army.mil.
see FMI 3-07.22

The FAS has the 2004-2006 version posted here

No story. move along.

...or I could order one on amazon and save myself the expensive airline ticket :-P. My dad used to use one of these for his late-night french roast cuppa' (note: his roast preference, not mine).

I've heard lots of good things about the Aero Press (already mentioned downthread) which I hope to try next.

I'm currently using a cafetiere and I've still yet to try the Aero press, but so far, I think I prefer the Moka.

...or I could order one on amazon and save myself the expensive airline ticket :-P. My dad used to use one of these for his late-night french roast cuppa' (note: his roast preference, not mine).

I've heard lots of good things about the Aero Press (already mentioned downthread) which I hope to try next.

I'm currently using a cafetiere and I've still yet to try the Aero press, but so far, I think I prefer the Moka.

Was it "Object Oriented Software Construction"?
http://www.amazon.com/Object-Oriented-Software-Construction-Prentice-Hall-International/dp/0136291554

... and the rest Dependency Inversion Principle? Liskov Substitution Principle? Single Responsibility Principle?

About half of this book is pretty good:

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Patterns-Practices-Robert-Martin/dp/0131857258

The best bits cover design principles which I've not really seen covered elsewhere, and then cover component design. Anyone seen anything as good (or better) elsewhere?

Meh.

The OS/360 project was hilariously late and expensive, but the lessons learned are still valid today.

(Not saying this article will become a classic or anything)

You could try Trustworthy Systems by Bernstein. I own the book, but never actually read it because the lectures from Bernstein's associates at Stevens Institute of Technology did a sufficient job to explain the examples and concepts in the book.

Another favorite of mine is the work of Nancy Levenson and her students at MIT.

I wasn't going to comment because I thought it was obvious, but it looks like most people are answering some other question than the one you asked... You asked about design principles and people are giving you process answers. (Hm... but then you muddled things with XP as a non-example.)

I would start with Parnas. His papers on principles of modularity are the foundation for OOP. Keywords to search for on: coupling/cohesion, cross-cutting concerns, stable interfaces, encapsulation, fan-in and fan-out, architecture, frameworks.

A meta-point though is that software design is a huge area. You need to get much more narrow. Your advisor should provide guidance on how broad to start, how quickly to narrow, and what path to take to get there.

I'd recommend the book Object Thinking. The methods can be applied to any programming language. I'd also recommend that anyone working on the project have a strong background in computer science and experience to go with it.

Last semester we had software architecture and design and we used Software Architecture in Practice as reference. I found it pretty good and I'm sure it'll hold lots of information relevant to PhD students, too.

True, but the issue is that this is exactly how bad data gets started. A slight misquote, and you have a false statistic that means something completely different from the actual data.

"Damned Lies and Statistics" is an excellent book on the topic, with some amusing examples.