The main Groupwise servers at our university sometimes have to be rebooted 3 or 4 times a day. The dept I manage of ~500 users runs entirely on Linux on commodity hardware, and I've never had to reboot any of our machines unwillingly (changing harware counts as willingly) in the 16 or so months I've been in the position.
This is not a statement to belittle Novell - if they can make Linux more stable it should benefit everyone in the end. Let's hope their recent commitment to Linux is more like IBM's than Sun's (well, yeah we are, or maybe we arent) or, God forbid, Corel's.
I worked with these at the Florida Film Festival
on
Feral Robot Dogs
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
This project made its debut at the 2003 Florida Film Festival here in Orlando about a month or so ago. I worked on the dogs for a day, helping assemble some of the first prototypes. The dog platform they used was initially a cheap toy (Mega-Byte) that they purchased for about $10. Then, they added particulate sensors which were sensitive to Co2 and other things like gasoline, etc. A new stepper motor assembly replaced the front legs, and a single tail wheel carried the rear. This is the bot you see at the top of the "Smart Mobs" link. The system basically got a variable voltage reading off the particulate sensors, then fed that to a PIC which did a linear variable speed control to the drive motors in the front. Ex: gasoline vapor on the left of the bot would drive the bot forward and to the left.
Modding a single dog took about 2-3hrs per dog, if you count in the soldering and layout of the PCB and the modification of the dog shell.
The purpose of the exhibit was to create a mediagenic event around coordinated releases of the dogs. There's a development here in Orlando called Baldwin Park, which has a bit of notoriety around it for being build on the site of an old Army base. They wanted to draw attention to the repurposing of these dogs and the fact that they could be used to make a statement, rather than trying to expose specific polluters, etc
It was kind of fun working on the dogs, and to see them run. We sent a team out into the field to videotape the dogs in action - supposedly they took it to a Burger King and it just ran into a corner. On a construction work site, one dog caught a whiff of a truck and went rolling after it.;^)
We had fun working on the dogs, but weren't able to spend much time discussion the potential for this kind of renegade modding - in that sense I was a bit disappointed. But the whole sense of modding these dogs is what Slashdot is all about! Unfortunately, they don't run Linux yet...
I've got the same CPU, and until recently had a big roaring PC. Then I got an iBook, and realized just how loud the PC was.
The Zalman flower heatsinks support these processors, and can be used with or without the included 90mm fan. For the 1.47 XP, a strategically placed Panasonic Panaflo case fan is more than sufficient, and keeps the CPU at 107F. Now my main PC makes less noise than the ceiling fan - when the noisy old hard drives I have in it aren't grinding. I've been meaning to replace those with one of the 120gb seagate drives I put into my media box. Pardon me for not having the model number off hand, but it's the one with the fluid bearings.
It is possible to have a powerful PC that doesn't sound like a carrier deck.
- Ghost 7.5 Corp, Part. Mag. 8
- NovaStar Instant Recovery (Clones what Ghost Can't, like Linux boot sectors)
- Modded Win95b floppy from putergeek.com w/ Norton DiskEdit
- Jaguar, Win2kSp3, WinXPSP1a Vol, Redhat 8
- Office XP (Dept Site Lic)
- 3dsMax (Dept Site Lic, network authenticates)
- Knoppix
- CD of Forensic Recovery Tools, SpinRite 5, etc. (For when that drive's been formatted)
- Info for getting online
- iBook, with tcpdump, nessus, ettercap, KisMac, etc(When you gotta get a professor's machine online in some random building)
- Cisco Aironet 340, Linksys 10/100 PC Card
- RJ-45, gotta have the RJ-45
Very worthy to point this out. I'm working on a new lab for a visual effects pipeline. In the arsenal are a handful of dual athlon linux workstations, a terabyte fileserver, and licenses for Maya Unlimited, Shake, and Renderman. We have a bucketload of licenses for the last two, and plans to use them on a 128-node athlon cluster (also running Linux) to experiment with real-time Renderman work, etc.
We are at the stage where the workstations are up and running and we are getting ready to tackle clustering./me thinks Rendezvous enabled Renderman would come in handy! It seems like the best solution I've been able to find for using these types of apps across a cluster is OpenMosix. Anyone have experience with it?
Props to Apple for adding these features for their platform - Just like Final Cut Pro brought Avid-level power to the masses, Shake might be bringing this type of previously studio-tech level compositing to smaller effects houses as well.
Instead he wants to assemble an entire genome, DNA letter by DNA letter, putting together only the genes he wants:
Neck bolt by neck bolt, green skin, flat head with scar on forehead, demeanor not unlike a geek without caffeine, and bring it all to life with a strategic bolt of lightning that hits the castle on top of the old hill....
...Yeah, that's the type of stuff we should be tinkering with!
This patch, along with the fact that MS won't be releasing a patch for that recent gaping hole in NT4, reminds me of a scene...
(Read along in a mock British-imitating-French accent, ala the castle scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail)
Microsoft Engineer: We've got a problem here, chaps!
MS Users (All, Amongst Selves): Well, how about a patch then?
Microsoft Engineer: Uh, we've already got one, you see.
MS User 1: Are you sure he's got one?
MS User 2: He says they've already got one!
Microsoft Engineer: Oh, yes. It's very nice-a.
MS Engineers: [chuckling]
MS Users: Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?
MS Engineer: Of course not! You are clueless types-a!
MS Users: If you will not show us the patch, we shall switch all our systems to Linux!
MS Engineer: You don't frighten us, clueless pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Linux King, you and all your silly open source k-nnnnniggets. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt!
MS User 1: What a strange person.
MS User 2: Now look here, my good man--
MS Engineer: I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
MS Users: Is there someone else up there we could talk to?
MS Engineer: No. Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a!
[sniff]
We have one of their units at work, and have been using it since the fall. It really does work - you're able to point sound at someone 20 feet away, yet the person standing next to them hears nothing. Also, any sound reflecting surface (concrete walls) that the beam is aimed at effectively becomes the sound surface itself. The only downsides to the unit is that bass is nonexistent - high frequencies only. Also, volume is fairly limited, but it works well enough. I believe we paid about $800 for the device, so it's not that terribly expensive.
It's really fun to aim it out the window of our building at passing people below. (God speaking to them, etc)
Well, one could consider that those who apply for these patents on various forms of annoying web advertising could really be held responsible for those. I mean, how many times have you said to yourself, "If could only find the !#@*&er who came up with these things"? Now we have the answer. Anyone want to register the patent for spam?
Doesn't seem to be anything too high tech in this year's Superbowl, unlike the Video Insertion System2 or the spiffy replay rotation thingy EyeVision2 we've had in previous years.
Disney Quest was built in Orlando and Chicago. The one in Chicago has since closed, and plans for ones in Philly and Anaheim were shelved.
Re:For folks near Disney...
on
Robocoaster
·
· Score: 1
The roller coaster simulator at Disney Quest is called "Cyber Space Mountain" and was made by ETC. That model doesn't really do G's, since it stays in place and spins you about a central axis. Their history is in extreme-G flight trainers, and they're the vendors for the new Mission Space ride opening next spring.
That ride takes 10 4-person pods from the Cyber Space mountain and puts them on the arms of a huge centrifuge. ETC was showing off the thing also at the IAAPA convention where the Robocoaster was shown a few weeks ago.
Shown at the IAAPA Convention - w/video
on
Robocoaster
·
· Score: 1
The RoboCoaster was shown at the IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) convention a few weeks ago. Anyone could ride, and experience one of three levels of intensity. It was quite a polished looking bit of metal and motors, but the actual experience consisted of being flailed around like a rag doll. Fun, eh? This year they could actually put people in the thing - last year all they could show off were mannequins riding due to legal reasons. Video can be found here
I too wondered whether the thing has enough ride capacity and draw to make economic sense, but apparently they signed deals for like 10 of the things on the show floor.
Another booth not far away had a model for a giant flower / alien looking ride, about four stories tall, with maybe a dozen of these robocoasters as the "flowers". Guests would board and the entire thing would come alive and thrash them back and forth. I think I'll stick to the traditional roller coasters, thanks.
The Public Anemone was presented at SIGGRAPH '02 in San Antonio, about a month ago - that's where the pictures in the article were taken. The exhibit was in the Emerging Technologies area. I visited the exhibit almost daily (reactive robotics is an area of interest), and spent some time observing both the exhibit and people's reactions.
The Media Lab students explained that it was an experiment in social interaction - but how people react with something that doesn't have a face, or a voice. In a way, it's easier to create a creature that doesn't have to synthesize speech, etc. At the same time, it's much more difficult to elicit a reaction from people when they can't interact the same way that they do with other humans.
The Public Anemone had two main forms of reaction that I could make out - shrinking back from people who reached out toward it, and tracking faces. (With the assistance of dual stereo cameras in the back wall.) The exhibit was more like a terrarium than an aquarium (as the BBC article mentions), but the creature had a silicone skin which allowed it to play in the small pond and waterfall without shorting. During the day cycle, the anemone interacts with guests. During the night mode, the anemone goes to sleep and guests can interact with other fiber-optic anemones (that also shrink away) and drum on gemstones embedded in the surface of the exhibit. The exhibit certainly looked cool, with fiber optics, a soundtrack, and changing colored stones (using ColorKinetics lights), but the interaction left something to be desired. Almost all the people I observed in the exhibit did the typical museum "Oh, that's nice, let's look at it for a few minutes." Almost no-one tried to interact unless prompted to by the media lab representative that was standing there, describing what was going on. Nobody that I saw tried to play with the face tracking abilities of the robot.
Cynthia Brazeal(the person in the second pic) is more commonly known for her work on Cog & Kismet. (Pic)
IMHO, The coolest project in this area is Doc Beardsley, by the Entertainment Technology program at Carnegie Mellon. Here's an article at Discover Magazine. Interaction with Doc emphasizes fun over artificial intelligence.
I have more pics of the Anemone from Siggraph. If anyone wants to post them somewhere where they can stand the slashdotting, send email to mistermund@yahoo.com
Slashdot Mirror
The main Groupwise servers at our university sometimes have to be rebooted 3 or 4 times a day. The dept I manage of ~500 users runs entirely on Linux on commodity hardware, and I've never had to reboot any of our machines unwillingly (changing harware counts as willingly) in the 16 or so months I've been in the position.
This is not a statement to belittle Novell - if they can make Linux more stable it should benefit everyone in the end. Let's hope their recent commitment to Linux is more like IBM's than Sun's (well, yeah we are, or maybe we arent) or, God forbid, Corel's.
This project made its debut at the 2003 Florida Film Festival here in Orlando about a month or so ago. I worked on the dogs for a day, helping assemble some of the first prototypes. The dog platform they used was initially a cheap toy (Mega-Byte) that they purchased for about $10. Then, they added particulate sensors which were sensitive to Co2 and other things like gasoline, etc. A new stepper motor assembly replaced the front legs, and a single tail wheel carried the rear. This is the bot you see at the top of the "Smart Mobs" link. The system basically got a variable voltage reading off the particulate sensors, then fed that to a PIC which did a linear variable speed control to the drive motors in the front. Ex: gasoline vapor on the left of the bot would drive the bot forward and to the left.
;^)
Modding a single dog took about 2-3hrs per dog, if you count in the soldering and layout of the PCB and the modification of the dog shell.
The purpose of the exhibit was to create a mediagenic event around coordinated releases of the dogs. There's a development here in Orlando called Baldwin Park, which has a bit of notoriety around it for being build on the site of an old Army base. They wanted to draw attention to the repurposing of these dogs and the fact that they could be used to make a statement, rather than trying to expose specific polluters, etc
It was kind of fun working on the dogs, and to see them run. We sent a team out into the field to videotape the dogs in action - supposedly they took it to a Burger King and it just ran into a corner. On a construction work site, one dog caught a whiff of a truck and went rolling after it.
We had fun working on the dogs, but weren't able to spend much time discussion the potential for this kind of renegade modding - in that sense I was a bit disappointed. But the whole sense of modding these dogs is what Slashdot is all about! Unfortunately, they don't run Linux yet...
I've got the same CPU, and until recently had a big roaring PC. Then I got an iBook, and realized just how loud the PC was.
The Zalman flower heatsinks support these processors, and can be used with or without the included 90mm fan. For the 1.47 XP, a strategically placed Panasonic Panaflo case fan is more than sufficient, and keeps the CPU at 107F. Now my main PC makes less noise than the ceiling fan - when the noisy old hard drives I have in it aren't grinding. I've been meaning to replace those with one of the 120gb seagate drives I put into my media box. Pardon me for not having the model number off hand, but it's the one with the fluid bearings.
It is possible to have a powerful PC that doesn't sound like a carrier deck.
I'm a SysAdmin at a University
- Ghost 7.5 Corp, Part. Mag. 8
- NovaStar Instant Recovery (Clones what Ghost Can't, like Linux boot sectors)
- Modded Win95b floppy from putergeek.com w/ Norton DiskEdit
- Jaguar, Win2kSp3, WinXPSP1a Vol, Redhat 8
- Office XP (Dept Site Lic)
- 3dsMax (Dept Site Lic, network authenticates)
- Knoppix
- CD of Forensic Recovery Tools, SpinRite 5, etc. (For when that drive's been formatted)
- Info for getting online
- iBook, with tcpdump, nessus, ettercap, KisMac, etc(When you gotta get a professor's machine online in some random building)
- Cisco Aironet 340, Linksys 10/100 PC Card
- RJ-45, gotta have the RJ-45
Point and click clustering, courtesy of Apple.
/me thinks Rendezvous enabled Renderman would come in handy! It seems like the best solution I've been able to find for using these types of apps across a cluster is OpenMosix. Anyone have experience with it?
Very worthy to point this out. I'm working on a new lab for a visual effects pipeline. In the arsenal are a handful of dual athlon linux workstations, a terabyte fileserver, and licenses for Maya Unlimited, Shake, and Renderman. We have a bucketload of licenses for the last two, and plans to use them on a 128-node athlon cluster (also running Linux) to experiment with real-time Renderman work, etc.
We are at the stage where the workstations are up and running and we are getting ready to tackle clustering.
Props to Apple for adding these features for their platform - Just like Final Cut Pro brought Avid-level power to the masses, Shake might be bringing this type of previously studio-tech level compositing to smaller effects houses as well.
Instead he wants to assemble an entire genome, DNA letter by DNA letter, putting together only the genes he wants:
...Yeah, that's the type of stuff we should be tinkering with!
Neck bolt by neck bolt, green skin, flat head with scar on forehead, demeanor not unlike a geek without caffeine, and bring it all to life with a strategic bolt of lightning that hits the castle on top of the old hill....
We contacted the company directly. My boss flew out to California to meet with them and get a demo. Sorry I don't have the details.
We'll be mounting one on a computer controlled servo gimbal this week for automatic pointing of sounds as part of a training simulation.
This patch, along with the fact that MS won't be releasing a patch for that recent gaping hole in NT4, reminds me of a scene...
(Read along in a mock British-imitating-French accent, ala the castle scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail)
Microsoft Engineer: We've got a problem here, chaps!
MS Users (All, Amongst Selves): Well, how about a patch then?
Microsoft Engineer: Uh, we've already got one, you see.
MS User 1: Are you sure he's got one?
MS User 2: He says they've already got one!
Microsoft Engineer: Oh, yes. It's very nice-a.
MS Engineers: [chuckling]
MS Users: Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?
MS Engineer: Of course not! You are clueless types-a!
MS Users: If you will not show us the patch, we shall switch all our systems to Linux!
MS Engineer: You don't frighten us, clueless pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Linux King, you and all your silly open source k-nnnnniggets. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt!
MS User 1: What a strange person.
MS User 2: Now look here, my good man--
MS Engineer: I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
MS Users: Is there someone else up there we could talk to?
MS Engineer: No. Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a! [sniff]
(With aplogies to Monty Python)
Script here.
We have one of their units at work, and have been using it since the fall. It really does work - you're able to point sound at someone 20 feet away, yet the person standing next to them hears nothing. Also, any sound reflecting surface (concrete walls) that the beam is aimed at effectively becomes the sound surface itself. The only downsides to the unit is that bass is nonexistent - high frequencies only. Also, volume is fairly limited, but it works well enough. I believe we paid about $800 for the device, so it's not that terribly expensive.
It's really fun to aim it out the window of our building at passing people below. (God speaking to them, etc)
Well, one could consider that those who apply for these patents on various forms of annoying web advertising could really be held responsible for those. I mean, how many times have you said to yourself, "If could only find the !#@*&er who came up with these things"? Now we have the answer. Anyone want to register the patent for spam?
How about the Samba exploit this week?
'Reckon we're even so far.
"The project will allow mission scientists to use a standard web browser to monitor spacecraft and to swap data with them or their crew."
So what happens when 7337 HaXorz find the conveniently unsercured web interface which lets them control the shuttle robot arm?
So, when do they make a tube amp with Ethernet?
Doesn't seem to be anything too high tech in this year's Superbowl, unlike the Video Insertion System 2 or the spiffy replay rotation thingy EyeVision 2 we've had in previous years.
For the phone phreaker on your list this holiday season.
Disney Quest was built in Orlando and Chicago. The one in Chicago has since closed, and plans for ones in Philly and Anaheim were shelved.
The roller coaster simulator at Disney Quest is called "Cyber Space Mountain" and was made by ETC. That model doesn't really do G's, since it stays in place and spins you about a central axis. Their history is in extreme-G flight trainers, and they're the vendors for the new Mission Space ride opening next spring.
See the "Big MAC" at their website.
That ride takes 10 4-person pods from the Cyber Space mountain and puts them on the arms of a huge centrifuge. ETC was showing off the thing also at the IAAPA convention where the Robocoaster was shown a few weeks ago.
The RoboCoaster was shown at the IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) convention a few weeks ago. Anyone could ride, and experience one of three levels of intensity. It was quite a polished looking bit of metal and motors, but the actual experience consisted of being flailed around like a rag doll. Fun, eh? This year they could actually put people in the thing - last year all they could show off were mannequins riding due to legal reasons. Video can be found here
I too wondered whether the thing has enough ride capacity and draw to make economic sense, but apparently they signed deals for like 10 of the things on the show floor.
Another booth not far away had a model for a giant flower / alien looking ride, about four stories tall, with maybe a dozen of these robocoasters as the "flowers". Guests would board and the entire thing would come alive and thrash them back and forth. I think I'll stick to the traditional roller coasters, thanks.
The Public Anemone was presented at SIGGRAPH '02 in San Antonio, about a month ago - that's where the pictures in the article were taken. The exhibit was in the Emerging Technologies area. I visited the exhibit almost daily (reactive robotics is an area of interest), and spent some time observing both the exhibit and people's reactions.
The Media Lab students explained that it was an experiment in social interaction - but how people react with something that doesn't have a face, or a voice. In a way, it's easier to create a creature that doesn't have to synthesize speech, etc. At the same time, it's much more difficult to elicit a reaction from people when they can't interact the same way that they do with other humans.
The Public Anemone had two main forms of reaction that I could make out - shrinking back from people who reached out toward it, and tracking faces. (With the assistance of dual stereo cameras in the back wall.) The exhibit was more like a terrarium than an aquarium (as the BBC article mentions), but the creature had a silicone skin which allowed it to play in the small pond and waterfall without shorting. During the day cycle, the anemone interacts with guests. During the night mode, the anemone goes to sleep and guests can interact with other fiber-optic anemones (that also shrink away) and drum on gemstones embedded in the surface of the exhibit. The exhibit certainly looked cool, with fiber optics, a soundtrack, and changing colored stones (using ColorKinetics lights), but the interaction left something to be desired. Almost all the people I observed in the exhibit did the typical museum "Oh, that's nice, let's look at it for a few minutes." Almost no-one tried to interact unless prompted to by the media lab representative that was standing there, describing what was going on. Nobody that I saw tried to play with the face tracking abilities of the robot.
Cynthia Brazeal(the person in the second pic) is more commonly known for her work on Cog & Kismet. (Pic)
IMHO, The coolest project in this area is Doc Beardsley, by the Entertainment Technology program at Carnegie Mellon. Here's an article at Discover Magazine. Interaction with Doc emphasizes fun over artificial intelligence.
I have more pics of the Anemone from Siggraph. If anyone wants to post them somewhere where they can stand the slashdotting, send email to mistermund@yahoo.com