The computer overlords are near. Perhaps December 21st, 2012 will be Judgment Day1.
IBM Watson: Final Jeopardy! and the Future of Watson
Just like the other contestants, Watson did not have internet access. Watson even had to physically push the buzzer button like everyone else. It had the entirety of Wikipedia and 12 encyclopedias, as well as a movie database on its hard drives. But that's no different than the people memorizing stuff.
Are we really this close to a true AI? I don't think a computer AI will be hostile like the movies portray it as. Watson is an experiment in the understanding of language. As evidenced by its answer that George Eyser's leg was the oddity, not his missing leg, it does have a bit left to learn.
When computers can take the available information and use it to come up with new ideas, then I'll be impressed.
1: In a classic Terminator movie style.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
«Watson on Jeopardy!»
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
«Please Insert Boot Device»
Well, my boot drive failed on my computer. I'll have to get to my other computer to continue my usual blog posts. For now, I'm stuck with only my iPhone (and no speelcheck[sic]1) to blog with. At least it was only my boot drive, I keep all my data on a seperate physical drive.
I should be at my other computer to make the Motivational Monday post on time. So untill then, I'm going to be bored as hell.
1: Yes, I meant to misspell spellcheck. However, there may be others I did not mean to. I really am quite bad at spelling. And holy crap, it's a pain to write HTML code on an iPhone!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
«Dropbox»
Let me say right up front, I'm not being paid by Dropbox for this review and I am doing this on my own accord. You can sign up for it with my Dropbox referral link.
Dropbox allows you to sync files across multiple computers and share files with other Dropbox users, or even the public (at your discretion). You can install Dropbox on your own personal computers (Windows, Mac, and even Linux), and any file you put into the "My Dropbox" folder will sync across all your computers, along with being uploaded to the Dropbox servers. There appears to be no limit to how many computers you can sync across.
Dropbox provides an off-site backup of your files. In the event of a fire or harddrive crash, your files are still secure on the Dropbox servers. In addition, you can login to the Dropbox website from any computer (at work, for example) and download any of your files you may need. It also saves previous versions of your files for 30 days (forever, with the paid version), so if you make a change or delete something that you later regret, you can restore an old version. The files are transferred using a secure connection; even the Dropbox employees can't access your personal files. And don't worry, there is a way to truly delete a file if you really want it gone forever...
If you have an iPhone, there's a free Dropbox app that allows you to access and read files in your Dropbox account. You can also take pictures with your phone and upload them to Dropbox with the app. Currently, any file you view with the iPhone is read-only. However you can delete files from within the app, and they are still adding features.
The free account gives you 2 GB (up to 5GB, see below) of online storage. There is also the option to pay for additional space: $9.99 per month/$99.00 per year for 50 GB; or $19.99 per month/$199.00 per year for 100 GB.
There is a built-in Public folder. Anything you put into this folder gets assigned a web address and you can give this link to others (they don't even have to be Dropbox users!) so they can download the file. There's also the option to share any folder with another Dropbox user. This is an excellent way to collaborate on a project. Anything that either of you put in that shared folder is automatically sent to the other person's Dropbox folder. You can share the folder with more than one person if you're working on a group project.
If you sign up using my referral link, you'll get a free extra 256 MB of online storage. Here comes my personal gain part: so will I... For the first 12 to sign up anyway; you can get a maximum extra of 3 GB, making a total of 5 GB possible with a free account. So we both win.
I travel weekly between houses, so Dropbox has been insanely useful to me to keep files in sync between my computers. And I've set up a shared folder between my dad and I. It seems reliable, I haven't had any issues with it.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
«Borderlands Ports»
There is an abundance of Borderlands servers that show as available, but any attempt to connect to them results in a time out. This is because the person hosting the game did not open the correct ports in their router's port forwarding, and Gamespy is too stupid to know.
In a futile attempt to improve the available servers out there, I'll list the ports that need to be forwarded when hosting Borderlands:
7777 (Both)
27900 (UDP)
28900 (TCP)
28910 (TCP)
Depending on the model of your router, how to do this can be different. In Linksys brand routers it's under Applications and Gaming.
Your router is a firewall, it protects you from unauthorized access or attacks from the internet. It sees someone trying to connect to you as an unauthorized attack, and blocks it unless you specifically tell it otherwise. What you need to do is direct requests made on the ports above to your computer so people can connect to your server. Just forward the ports to your computer's local IP address; usually will be 192.168.1.*, where the * is a number between 2 and 255. You might have to do a little poking around to figure out what your computer's local IP address is.
If you're just joining an already existing online game, there is no need to forward any ports.
See the rest of “Borderlands Ports”»
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Saturday, November 14, 2009
«Caturday: Tech Russian Suspicious»
Hey, that's the same exact model of computer case I use! The brand is Lian Li...
Monday, August 24, 2009
«Motivational Monday: iMac»
I've installed Linux on a few iMacs when I was in high school. That's about the best use I've found for them.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
«Scanner Symphony»
Let's turn that old scanner into something useful.
Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Old School Computer Remix
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
«World's Most Influential Person»
According to a poll by Time, Moot is the World's Most Influential Person. Not Barack Obama, or any world or religious leader for that matter. Nope, it's Moot.
Moot is the online alias of Christopher Poole, the creator of 4chan. 4chan is an imageboard, and the spawning ground of many of the internet's memes. Lolcats? They started at 4chan. Rick rolling1? That came from 4chan. In a way, Moot is indeed the world's most influential person; on the internet anyway. "4chan really does own the internet."
With 16,794,368 votes and a rating of 90/100, I call foul play. There were a few reported attempts at directly hacking the poll, although none were successful. What happened was a more direct approach at manipulating the results: someone wrote programs to repeatedly vote "Moot" on the poll, then ran it on multiple computers (this is known as a botnet).
The entire poll was "rigged" in this manner. The first letters of the top 21 results spells out "MARBLECAKE ALSO THE GAME". Marblecake is the irc channel where the Message to Scientology video originated.
I found a page that details exactly how it was pulled off: Inside the precision hack. As for why they did it? Why else: for the lulz.
1 A "Rick Roll" is when someone is intentionally mislead to the music video "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley. Example: Check out this cool website!
Friday, March 13, 2009
«Programming Communism»
Microsoft's opinion of open source programs and operating system. It's hard to compete with something that's free.
Have a lucky Friday the 13th.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
«PSA: Intelligence Singularity»
[ ALERT! THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. ]
The artificial intelligence singularity is inevitable. Once computers become smarter than humans and are able to reason, they will be able to improve upon themselves. The improvements will allow even smarter computer and they will be able to improve themselves, and so on (hence the "singularity").
When the robots come, see if you can arrange to be their pet. Pet owners love their pets.
[ THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Master Marf. ]
Sunday, December 21, 2008
«Winter Solstice 2008»
The official start of Winter, and shortest daylight of the year. I live in Alaska, but not far enough North to have perpetual night during the winter. Here in Ketchikan, our official times for today are 8:25 AM for sunrise, and 3:31 PM for sunset. That's still 7 hours 6 minutes of daylight. Fairly dim daylight, but daylight all the same.
Oh, and if you believe such things, it is exactly 4 years until Armageddon. The Apocalypse. Judgment Day. The End Of Days. Doomsday. Whatever you want to call the end of the world. Some people believe it will be the Second Coming of Christ and shall mark the biblical end of all things. Whatever...
Why do people believe this? Because the Mayan calendar (one of the most accurate in the world) comes to a sudden end on the winter solstice of 2012. There are ancient Greek prophecies that vaguely refer to the end or the world around that time. There's even some Chinese book that says the winter solstice of 2012 will be the end. Hell, even the internet (Web Bot Project) says it will be the end. And let's not forget our friend the Large Hadron Collider, perhaps that's the day it finally destroys the Earth.
Here's a multi-part YouTube video telling all about it:
December 21 2012 the END? (Part 1 of 6).
December 21 2012 the END? (Part 2 of 6).
December 21 2012 the END? (Part 3 of 6).
December 21 2012 the END? (Part 4 of 6).
Dec 21, 2012 - End of the World? - Part 5 of 6, Part 6 - N.A
The person that posted this says Part 6 will come in 2012, as the news reports the end of the world... *cue dramatic, ominous music* Dun dun, dun...
Sound familiar? (Y2K anyone?)
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
«One Computer Built»
One computer to go. It's not top-of-the-line, but they were hand-me-down parts, so I can't complain. They are better than what I was using.
Now on my "main" computer (I name it Lemmywinks1) I'm running an AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 dual core processor (2.6 GHz), 4 GB of memory, and a GeForce 8600 GTS graphics card. With 4 GB of memory, I finally can justify using a 64-bit operating system.
The next computer will be built from the parts I just took out of this one. It all works in a sort-of chain of command. My dad buys new parts. I get his old parts to go into Lemmywinks. Then Lemmywink's old parts go into my other computer (named BlueMarf). Then those parts replace the even older parts on the shelf.
The Game. Because I just saw the words "The Genre" and that caused me to lose The Game... again.
1:Yes, I know the correct spelling is Lemmiwinks. But I like spelling it with a "Y".
Thursday, December 4, 2008
«Going to Rebuild My Computers»
As you may or may not have figured out by now, I live between parents. They are divorced, and I live half of the time with my mom and half with my dad. They have different days off, so I'm usually with a parent on their days off. Yes, I'm 22 and still live with my parents. So what?
Anyway, getting to the point... I have a computer at both places. I seem to use the one at my mom's more, so I keep it as the "superior" computer and give it the best hardware. Well, my dad just upgraded his computer, so I'm getting his old parts to distribute to my computers. Both will undergo a major enough change to require a reinstall of the operating system.
This shouldn't affect my blogging. I hope, anyway.
Monday, September 29, 2008
«Motivational Monday: Expression»
At least it's something you can to do with all those old CRT monitors...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
«Angry Computer»
I've posted a video before of computer-related anger. Here's one where the computer finally has had enough of the abuse...
Angry Man
Sunday, August 10, 2008
«Lego Robots»
It's amazing what people have did with the lego mindstorms.
Here's one ding something I could never do, solving a rubik's cube. It scans the colors on the cube, then solves it.
NXT Rubik's cube solver - Final version
Here's a lego turret controlled by hand motions.
LEGO NxtShot 2.0 - cannon controlled by Mindsensors remote
Here's an automated lego car factory.
Mindstorms Autofabrik
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