Artificial neural networks are kinda nifty. To learn more about them, I thought I’d try playing with one. Here’s a couple of the places I tried: Blackjack with Reinforcement Learning and Java Mouse Neuron Test.

The first site uses an ANN to learn how to play Blackjack. You can start by playing alongside the computer in real time. The computer plays randomly at this point. If you want the computer to start playing better, the computer needs some alone time to get to learn the rules a little better. I set it to a 1000 learning episodes of 100 games each. As you run through the training you can watch the computers win average improving. It steadily goes from about 30%, which is about what you get playing randomly – to 40%. It then sits around 40% slowly improving. It’s impossible for the computer to really get above 50% since the game’s odds are weighted in favor of the dealer (the applet doesn’t account for pushes or splits).

It’s interesting how with just a few training episodes the computer can start really playing a better game. It’s hard to observe the overall difference playing as hands as slowly as a human needs to, but you can see the computer making more informed decisions after the training. ANNs are kind of nifty like that.

I decided to try to improve the training. I experimented with different values for winning and losing weights. Trying to find the right balance of reward/punishment to encourage learning in the quickest manner possible. I found weighting a win heavier than a loss was a quick way to favor learning, since losing is expected over 50% of the time any way. Weighting the wins too heavily did cause a lot more oscillation however, since the network started to think it understood what was going on just because of a chance win more often.

The other ANN I played with didn’t have any sort of training whatsoever. The associated paper discusses designing a neural net that learns more like a person and less like a computer with the hand of god involvement you’ll typically see. In the real world, there’s not someone to tell you every time whether you responded correctly or not, so the network was designed to learn in whichever way it desired, without a person telling it whether its actions were correct or not. I was able with a few tries to get the mouse to start to circle the goal without any sort of training whatsoever. I’d like to play around with this idea further – no training ANNs…

Artificial Life is an interesting concept. The idea is to make computer programs that model life in interesting ways and study them with the hopes of learning more about the process of evolution itself. For example, some A-Life programs start with a single creature programmed to learn about its environment and adapt. These creatures soon develop complex strategies that were not originally programmed. This is the case in the classic example of Animats.

The other possibility for A-Life programs is simulating entire ecosystems of artificial life. These I find more interesting, because they more often include genetic components and simulate natural selection. One such simulation is Noble Ape. I downloaded it and gave it a whirl. (Download Noble Ape Here.)

It includes all sorts of features, including weather simulation, random maps, senses for the simulated monkeys, etc. It even shows a simulation of their brain. The program even allows for scripting the monkeys to give them certain characteristics. All in all, it’s pretty fascinating watching the monkeys roam around trying to learn stuff.

The interface is kind of a pain to learn to use. The monkeys have several variables that define their overall behavior – including energy levels, fear, desire, along with location. These are presented in a sort of nonsensical array of gauges that don’t really make sense at first. It takes a little bit of practice, but it becomes easier to understand what is going on and you begin to see how their programming is really affecting their behavior.

A-Life doesn’t just focus on such complicated models though, it can also deal with simpler models. Lotus Artificial Life has some such examples. From the simple rules of the automata they have created, complex shapes and self replicating automata will form. This kind of study focuses more than the previously discussed examples on the effects of evolution.

Of course, my other friend Tom decided that there must be a solution out there somewhere and did some googling. He found this little gem:

getdropbox.com

I don’t really have to much need for such a program, but I decided to download it anyway. I must say it is rather nifty. After installing the program and registering it to your account, you are given a folder that represents your Dropbox. It acts just like any other folder in your filesystem except for one very important rule – in the background the Dropbox program is constantly checking for updates to the folder and updating as necessary. After syncing with the online storage, any other computers running dropbox and set up for the same account will see and automatically download changes.

But that’s not all! Since it all works by syncing remotely, you also have the option of logging in through the web interface to download files you might need without having to install the program on another computer. It also can help you undelete or roll back changes.

But wait, there’s more! Not only can you log in and get access to your files, but you can also put files into the public folder in the dropbox and share them with friends via a link. Or you can put the files in your photos folder and create a gallery that can be viewed in slideshow form.

And that’s not all! You can also invite users to share folders in your dropbox. Then any of them can make changes and everyone will be able to see the changes instantly. That’s really sweet for collaboration on a group project.

So, if you’ve ever been wishing for an easier way to keep files in sync between multiple computers or for a way to instantly share some of those files with friends without having to upload to something like flickr, look into dropbox. While it’s in beta, you’re limited to a free 2GB storage limit. They have plans to offer a paid 50GB storage limit down the line, once testing is complete.

MarsEdit meets my needs pretty well. It allows me to save drafts locally and work on them when I don’t have an internet connection. It also allows me to drag and drop pictures into my posts with no additional work. I can literally drag a picture from wikipedia and drop it into the edit box, having it come out as it did in my previous post for Cog Sci. It handles all of the uploading and resizing automagically.

MarsEdit certainly isn’t the only desktop blogging application. I’ve tried a few others before. Mainly Ecto, and a bit of Blogo. I feel MarsEdit has the cleanest, most useful interface I’ve encountered though.

It does come with the unfortunate price tag of $29, which seems a little steep for the amount of use I personally will get out of it. (Seeing as my blog only stays active about one month a year.) I’m not sure if I’ll find myself buying the full version when my trial expires, but if I don’t, I think I’ll have a hard time replacing it. Bottom line, if you need to make posts to a blog on a Mac, wish to avoid using the web interface, and are willing to pay some money, MarsEdit is definitely a worthwhile tool.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the nifty Flickr integration, which doesn’t affect me a whole lot, since I rarely post to flickr, but it can upload your images to your Flickr account before dropping them into your post.

 Yes, you read that right. I care so much for your well-being that I installed a Microsoft product on my computer. Now, when you come up to me and ask me “I was thinking about getting Vista, what do you think?” I can respond without simply making broad generalizations about how Microsoft steals everything from Apple, always writes insecure stuff, and Windows generally needs to be avoided, especially if the version hasn’t been baptized in the fire of a thousand hackers and virus writers.

 Now, instead of making all of those somewhat lame generalizations, I can give you my true opinion: “Meh.” That’s right. “Meh.”

What exactly does “Meh.” mean though? Granted, I’ve only had Vista for a few weeks, now, but that’s long enough to see what issues I have with it. To be honest, I haven’t had as many as I expected to have. I would have loved to have been able to say, “Yeah, Vista sucks more than I possibly could have imagined,” but that’s just not true. Vista does have its weak spots though.

 The first thing one might notice is that trying to use an account with limited access and keeping an admin account separate is annoying. For security purposes, it is a good idea to not constantly be logged in as an administrator, because then you aren’t able to do things that might break your computer. Microsoft has taken a step in the right direction for this too. In XP, it was so painful to do things the right way that you just made your main user an administrator. Now, with Vista, you can actually be a limited user without feeling crippled. The unfortunate side effect is the constant nagging and asking for the admin password for all sorts of tasks, which can get old pretty fast, but doesn’t happen enough to make it unusable.

This stricter control on access rights can cause some issues with programs not ready for it though. I’ve personally had trouble uninstalling a botched installation of Firefox. It will tell me to input my admin password to continue uninstallation, and then tell me that I don’t have permissions because I need to put in the administrator password.

 Some other things that bother me are more cosmetic. For example, the start menu has a button that should shut down my computer, but instead the button puts it in sleep mode, which leaves my computer on. There seems to be no easy way to make this button act as I think it should though. Another thing that bothers me is that when I have two monitors plugged in, Windows can’t figure out how to put a different background on each monitor. This is a purely cosmetic matter, and won’t affect many people, but the fact that they completely overlooked this (something that’s so trivial to accomplish in the Mac universe) makes Vista seem just a tad unfinished.

There are a few other details that aren’t so much annoying as different from XP. The file structure is a tiny bit different, and many things have been moved around or changed a bit. These aren’t bad, it just takes a while to get used to.

In the end it’s not the big things, but the smaller things that make me displeased with Vista. Over all, it’s quite usable, even a bit more usable than XP, which is good, since that means they’re making progress. It’s still a Microsoft product though, and it certainly has its own flaws.

It was at this point in the post that I stopped working on it and played more video games for a week straight. A firm example of how much I like my new computer and all the games I can play on it. I’ve decided it is in my best interest to leave it off while I finish this post.

Back to how cool my setup is: I’ve got it set up for dual monitor support. I can drag windows back and forth between two monitors. Add the power of synergy, which allows my mouse to drag over onto my Mac whenever it wants, and I have three screens sitting next to each other controlled with one mouse and keyboard. It’s really nifty.

I decided to install Vista, the latest offering from Microsoft, since I have a free copy from my school. I’m overall somewhat disappointed in it, considering how long it took them to release it, but that’s another post in the making.

Uh, oh, power’s back on. Suppose I’ll just have to get back to playing Supreme Commander.

Ruby on Rails is a web application framework. This doesn’t mean anything to 66.7% of my viewers. Both of those viewers are shaking their heads saying, ÒDamn, we need to get David a girl.Ó

But the other 33.3% Ñ I know what he’s thinking Ñ ÒWhat’s Ruby on Rails, and where do I get me some of that action?Ó Not to worry Mr. 1/3, Ruby on Rails is easy to make friends with. All you need is a good web server with Ruby on Rails installed, then you’re all set to go.

Actually, you don’t need to know much about Ruby to get onto the Rails bandwagon. For me, it was love at first sight/tutorial. With a few simple commands, on can create a decent little application. It makes a lot of stuff that I hated about programming with PHP easy.

The beauty of the Rails framework is that it assumes a lot of things for you, like how to connect to and interact with a database. As long as you follow the guidelines, half of the code is typed for you before you even start, meaning you can work on the actually important stuff.

So check it out, if you’re into that sort of thing.

He reasoned that perhaps he was just artistic enough to not need one. At the time, I must admit I took it as arrogance. He seemed a bit smug about it. (But I know the internet doesn’t always convey intention as well as it should, and this was probably one of those times.)

After thinking, I’ve decided it was actually more likely na•vety than arrogance. Hopefully I haven’t seriously offended this person by bringing all this up, as he’s one of the three readers of this site, but I’m going to explain why I feel that way and why I think every good designer (or even one who just wants to mess around sometimes) can and should try to learn from books.

The first major point for reading from books applies just as well to taking design classes or something like that Ñ learning the vocabulary. It doesn’t seem important, but it’s tremendously powerful. One designer’s work I read recently, The NonÐDesigner’s Design Book (Robin Williams), explained it best with a story.

ÒMany years ago I received a tree identification book for Christmas. [...] The first tree in the book was the Joshua tree because it only took two clues to identify it. Now the Joshua tree is a really weirdÐlooking tree and I looked at that picture and said to myself, ‘Oh, we don’t have that kind of tree in Northern California.’

Ò[...] So I took my book and went outside. Four of those homes had Joshua trees in the front yard. I had lived in that house for thirteen years, and I had never seen a Joshua tree.Ó

She goes on to explain that if you can name it, you can control it, especially in design. And she’s not just blowing hot air either. In the last three weeks since reading that book I’ve become a noticeably more confident and able designer, mainly because I can now look and say stuff like, ÒOh, that’s missing a strong alignment to really tie the piece together.Ó

Now, I’m not saying you can’t be artistic without knowing terms, I’m saying that if you know the terms it can help you be even more artistic. It can help you stop playing the Òhit and miss until you get it to look rightÓ game. Why do you think art class often has large portions devoted to looking at different periods and styles of art? This is one of the major reasons I recommend looking into a design book or two if you want to put together anything that could benefit.

The other major reason why I believe it never hurts to pick up a design book is that it’s just a huge collection of (hopefully) great work to get inspired by. Even if you are somehow born with a complete ability to innately know every design principle and apply it, you’re still likely to be inspired by other people’s work.

If you’re going to try to tell me you don’t need design principles or inspiration, I’m going to have to call bullshit. There’s no way any artist could go through life without inspiration and a good sense of how to compose their art pieces (often derived by studying others’ work). So Ñ if you want to design a school newsletter, a multiÐmillion dollar print campaign, or anything in between Ñ pick up a book, if you haven’t already, and it will be of some help.

I know I’m getting all apocalyptic, but it’s true. There are certain things that signify a transition in one’s life. Sometimes, there’s no going back Ð like when you flunk out of school and become a checker at the grocery store or when you invade Iraq. I believe I’ve reached that point in nerdery. (Yes, nerdery is today’s word of the day. Use it in a conversation, impress your friends with your knowledge of fake words,)

So, I was sitting there starting to get to work on my programming assignment. It’s an easy assignment, just some basic stuff on multithreading. It may sound intimidating to the non-programmers out there, but it’s not that hard if you already know all of the other programming stuff you’re assumed to have learned before this class. In any case, I realized, as is often the case, that I didn’t want to do my assignment today when I could do it an hour before it was due Friday. What kind of sense does that make? You know how it is.

“Oh, I could do part of this assignment that is worth 90% of my grade and involves a lot of time and effort today, or I could put the entire assignment off until the end of the semester and require 2 days, a straight jacket, and hourly injections of caffeine (later Meth). The later option doesn’t sound so pleasant, but that’s way in the future. I might get hit by a car next week and die. I’d much rather die knowing I played 8 more hours of <insert favorite video game/real life activity here> than working on the assignment.” But then you don’t get hit by a car and die and so end up with the whole end of semester mess.

Now, typically this is my method for doing any assignment, but the video game tends to vary. Tonight, I played “Learn Assembly Code”. Yes. I was teaching myself assembly code. For those non-semi-nerds in the room, that’s bad. I was teaching myself how to program in one of the most painful languages possible. To understand why, look at this code:

000001010011100110101010101011111

# This code will add 1 and 1 together or something else useless.

And that’s simplified assembly, known as machine code. Real assembly has more numbers and letters too.

Now, I’ll give you a second to read the first part about avoiding homework to do something fun and the second part about teaching myself assembly again. Now note that assembly is not part of my curriculum, I was doing this for fun. Yes. Fun. And thus dies the small part of my soul I had left, leaving me able to take my true form as a Level 0xf0 Nerd with preferred skills in magic.

Media

Harry Potter is evil. Well, yes, the mass commercialization is disturbing, and the writing isnÕt my favorite, but IÕm talking about true evil here Ð the fact that J.K. Rowling is Satan incarnate trying to take our children with her down to hell. Do I sound a bit crazy? At least IÕm not serious. My stepfather, on the other hand, is quite serious about Harry Potter being evil. When watched the first Harry Potter movie, The SorcererÕs Stone, as a family one Thanksgiving, he swore that he felt the evil entering our household.

Mind you, this same man bought my mother Predator for a gift to go with our new DVD player. (Side note for those that donÕt know: Predator was a crappy eighties alien film starring Schwarzenegger and lots of blood.) No evil was felt from this movie, though he did throw it out after watching it once or twice. I guess thatÕs beside the point though, because a little violence and some skinning of humans is always less evil than kids in robes who learn to be friends and say ÒmagicÓ words at school.

Of course, Rick has always had a knack for finding the evil that other people arenÕt righteous enough to find. In our house, we were greatly blessed to have his enlightening view on every form of media. While not exactly what he said, roughly translated, the religi-babble always came out Òthat stuff is of the devil!Ó Rock music Ð ÒOf the devil!Ó TV Ð ÒOf the devil!Ó Internet Ð ÒOf the devil!Ó

Rick made his point very clear one time my cousin was unrighteous enough to play his punk rock while in RickÕs presence. He sat my cousin down and started talking to him about how this kind of music drives out the Holy Spirit. I walked away at that point, because I didnÕt want to get tangled in that kind of discussion. All I know is that when I came down an hour later, Rick was wrapping up his sermon with a seminary video that showed a bunch of dirty people destroying a perfectly clean house while telling my cousin, ÒThis is how I feel when you play your music in my house.Ó

IÕve had my own discussions with Rick on the subject of music as well. One time, he told me that I was not allowed to listen to the Lord of the Rings Soundtrack on Sunday, because it brought in the Òwrong kind of spiritÓ. When I objected, he simply went to prove the undeniable logic behind his reasoning. Classical music thatÕs played when Sauron is on screen represents Sauron, and since Sauron is evil, the music represents evil, thus, the classical music must be evil and is certainly not appropriate listening for Sunday.

Speaking of Sunday, letÕs not forget about TV. Our family is not allowed to watch TV on Sundays because it brings in all sorts of evil. TV on Sundays is apparently more evil than every other day of the week. While I can see his appeal that it makes Sunday less peaceful, heÕs got a very holier-than-thou attitude about it all. When the whole Janet Jackson Super Bowl half-time wardrobe malfunction scandal occurred, he proudly declared to everyone that our family didnÕt watch TV on Sunday, and that it was obviously a sign of GodÕs approval that we didnÕt have to experience the evil of a womanÕs nipple being flashed on television.

There is, in fact, very little media Rick does approve of, unless of course, he likes it himself. If I was on the internet too much, heÕd prove the evils of the internet by talking about how much pornography there was. If I played video games at my friends, I was in the wrong because these video games involved hurting other people. And music? Oh yes, Satan was talking to me there Ð just listen to the song backwards. ThereÕs no winning against a fanatic.