There was a video I saw recently, in which a shirt is placed on a carefully cut and reattached piece of cardboard. The cardboard folds in the means of the correct way of folding the shirt. With a few deft moves of the cardboard, the shirt is perfectly, professionally folded. This is endlessly repeatable if you have a large pile of shirts.
This could be further automated. Remote manipulators could retrieve a shirt from a pile of clothing, and using a camera, orient it onto the cardboard. Remote manipulators can easily manipulate the cardboard, especially because it is the exact same procedure every time, something robots are inherently good at.
If I replace the cardboard with, say, jointed steel plates, perhaps coated with chrome for that lovely shiny look that people like, I can also throw in an ironing step between the placement and folding steps. The shirts would come out crisp, fresh, and folded. The iron would, upon completion of the placement step, lower into place, and move around the shirt until the camera determines that there are no wrinkles in the shirt, and then withdraw. While not in use, the water lever in the iron would be examined, and if deficient, refilled.
I would like to include a pants-folding machine too, but I worry that machine vision is not yet good enough to distinguish between shirts and pants, and that applying the procedures of one to the other may damage that article of clothing.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Fly Unconcious
Our resident historian proposes a new, more comfortable way to deal with interstate and international travel. You would arrange, at your hotel, where you wanted to go, pack your bags, place them in an area (such as the hotel-room's closet), and go to sleep, perhaps with a sleeping pill to help you sleep.
While you are asleep, you are put into a well-ventilated mailing-tube, taken to the airport, and put onto a plane. The plane flies you to your destination city, where you are quickly hauled to the hotel you specified the previous day. You, still asleep, are unloaded into the bed of the hotel, and your bags loaded into the room's closet. A letter explaining which room you have and welcoming you to the destination city is placed on the room's desk, and your room key is placed next to it.
You wake up, refreshed, in your room in the destination city's hotel. The letter helps orient you, as from your perspective, you have essentially just been teleported. You are ready to conduct the day's business, or go about your day. The pre-made arrangements handled all the payment issues, and the receiving hotel likely has anything you need for the morning, such as breakfast, or a shave and shower.
This would be less expensive than traditional air-travel, as more people could be packed onto a plane, and less of the traditional amenities, like cold drinks, peanuts, and such, would be asked for. In addition, security will be much easier to deal with, both because you are asleep and unable to do anything troublesome, and because you are unlikely to threaten the security of the flight while sealed in a tube. Scanning for trouble-causing items, such as bombs, contraband, and so on, will happen while you are asleep as not to annoy you. Presumably people who attempt to smuggle a bomb into their tube will wake up not at their destination, but in a police station.
The most challenging part of this, as far as I know, will be keeping a plane full of people in mailing tubes ventilated, but probably existing systems, made to pressurize a cabin, can be applied to a hole in each tube, keeping all tubes well oxygenated.
Imagine the convenience, the savings, and the lack of the usual annoyances of travel!
While you are asleep, you are put into a well-ventilated mailing-tube, taken to the airport, and put onto a plane. The plane flies you to your destination city, where you are quickly hauled to the hotel you specified the previous day. You, still asleep, are unloaded into the bed of the hotel, and your bags loaded into the room's closet. A letter explaining which room you have and welcoming you to the destination city is placed on the room's desk, and your room key is placed next to it.
You wake up, refreshed, in your room in the destination city's hotel. The letter helps orient you, as from your perspective, you have essentially just been teleported. You are ready to conduct the day's business, or go about your day. The pre-made arrangements handled all the payment issues, and the receiving hotel likely has anything you need for the morning, such as breakfast, or a shave and shower.
This would be less expensive than traditional air-travel, as more people could be packed onto a plane, and less of the traditional amenities, like cold drinks, peanuts, and such, would be asked for. In addition, security will be much easier to deal with, both because you are asleep and unable to do anything troublesome, and because you are unlikely to threaten the security of the flight while sealed in a tube. Scanning for trouble-causing items, such as bombs, contraband, and so on, will happen while you are asleep as not to annoy you. Presumably people who attempt to smuggle a bomb into their tube will wake up not at their destination, but in a police station.
The most challenging part of this, as far as I know, will be keeping a plane full of people in mailing tubes ventilated, but probably existing systems, made to pressurize a cabin, can be applied to a hole in each tube, keeping all tubes well oxygenated.
Imagine the convenience, the savings, and the lack of the usual annoyances of travel!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Why aren't animals logical?
I had, a few years ago, a conversation online with a person who wanted to know why logical thinking is, at the time being, solely the domain of humans. Wouldn't animals benefit from logical thinking? Wouldn't it keep them alive in the tooth-and-claw world in which they live? Isn't their emotional-responses clearly counter-productive?
No, I argued. In the wild environment, animals do not have a lot of spare time for abstract thinking, nor the deep neurology that us humans possess to do it with. Confronted with a dangerous situation, the emotional response of "BAD THING RUN AWAY!!!" protects an animal far more than the thought of "Hm, that thing may be hazardous to my health, perhaps I should avoid it" proposed by logic.
Logical thinking involves a lot of meta-thought, of slow and considered abstractions, and this is a luxury that a wild animal does not have. That occasionally the "bad thing" turns out to be something completely harmless is no biggie if it protects you from the "bad things" that really are harmful. The cost of running away for no reason far outweighs the risk of becoming lunch because you weren't suspicious enough.
These arguments of course did not satisfy the other person. Surely our hypothetical animal would benefit from logical thought, he proclaimed. Logic would mean fewer false-alarms.
Perhaps, but unlike the "civilized" world we live in, our hypothetical animal is under time pressure. Predators can usually slightly outrun prey. The risk of failure is literally death. Logic would only benefit the animal if it could perform it as fast as emotions, in split seconds. Not even us humans, with our incredibly large and expensive brains, can come to a logical decision in less than a second. My friend has unfortunately anthropomorphized all animal-kind, imposing a framework of human psychology where it does not fit.
The other person unfortunately persisted in proclaiming that logic would benefit animals, so the conversation kind of stopped there. Yes, logic and deep thinking may be our advantage as humans, combined with tool use, but it relies on certain other features of us humans to make it worthwhile. A philosophical rabbit would be falcon-food.
No, I argued. In the wild environment, animals do not have a lot of spare time for abstract thinking, nor the deep neurology that us humans possess to do it with. Confronted with a dangerous situation, the emotional response of "BAD THING RUN AWAY!!!" protects an animal far more than the thought of "Hm, that thing may be hazardous to my health, perhaps I should avoid it" proposed by logic.
Logical thinking involves a lot of meta-thought, of slow and considered abstractions, and this is a luxury that a wild animal does not have. That occasionally the "bad thing" turns out to be something completely harmless is no biggie if it protects you from the "bad things" that really are harmful. The cost of running away for no reason far outweighs the risk of becoming lunch because you weren't suspicious enough.
These arguments of course did not satisfy the other person. Surely our hypothetical animal would benefit from logical thought, he proclaimed. Logic would mean fewer false-alarms.
Perhaps, but unlike the "civilized" world we live in, our hypothetical animal is under time pressure. Predators can usually slightly outrun prey. The risk of failure is literally death. Logic would only benefit the animal if it could perform it as fast as emotions, in split seconds. Not even us humans, with our incredibly large and expensive brains, can come to a logical decision in less than a second. My friend has unfortunately anthropomorphized all animal-kind, imposing a framework of human psychology where it does not fit.
The other person unfortunately persisted in proclaiming that logic would benefit animals, so the conversation kind of stopped there. Yes, logic and deep thinking may be our advantage as humans, combined with tool use, but it relies on certain other features of us humans to make it worthwhile. A philosophical rabbit would be falcon-food.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Perpetual Motion & Other Kookiness
The idea of Perpetual Motion has intrigued ancient engineers and the somewhat insane for centuries. There are many plans, with one thing in common: They don't work. Physics, Thermodynamics, even outright Math is against such a thing.
And yet, so many people even to this day continue to try. A perpetual motion machine would be producing energy from nowhere, a clear advantage in this modern world. Fascinated by the prospect of endless money and fame, people continue to ignore physics and try anyway. And so, physics teacher Donald Simanek has given me hours of entertainment showing off classic and modern perpetual motion machines, along with information as to what part of the machine won't work and why.
If professor Simanek's little museum amuses you, you may also enjoy crank.net, a large showcase of internet counter-factual belief, sorted by degree of madness, from the slightly bizarre and cranky to the outright illucid. I certainly hope I'm merely bizarre. Entries are also classified by topic: Science, Technology, Math, UFOs, Religion, the various Paranormal studies, Prophecies, and Conspiracy. The "about" section describes the classification system.
Happy reading.
And yet, so many people even to this day continue to try. A perpetual motion machine would be producing energy from nowhere, a clear advantage in this modern world. Fascinated by the prospect of endless money and fame, people continue to ignore physics and try anyway. And so, physics teacher Donald Simanek has given me hours of entertainment showing off classic and modern perpetual motion machines, along with information as to what part of the machine won't work and why.
If professor Simanek's little museum amuses you, you may also enjoy crank.net, a large showcase of internet counter-factual belief, sorted by degree of madness, from the slightly bizarre and cranky to the outright illucid. I certainly hope I'm merely bizarre. Entries are also classified by topic: Science, Technology, Math, UFOs, Religion, the various Paranormal studies, Prophecies, and Conspiracy. The "about" section describes the classification system.
Happy reading.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Hack A Day
At Hack a Day, people prepare extremely interesting technology projects. Such as a garbage can that obeys your every whim. (Provided that you speak the same language as the creator, which happens to be Hebrew.) They then go on to create laptops out of Commodore 64s and an n8vem card, which is especially impressive because the card was only built as an embedded computer only.
Or, if you'd rather it all be about you, you can set up a Narci-System to monitor every last thing you do, and report it in a pleasing package.
Check them out, and there will be more insane engineering later.
Or, if you'd rather it all be about you, you can set up a Narci-System to monitor every last thing you do, and report it in a pleasing package.
Check them out, and there will be more insane engineering later.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Virus Battery
When making a battery, the tradition so far has been to use two kinds of metal and an acid to make a current. But at MIT, they're trying a new building material.
Viruses.
Even better: It's cheap, less noxious than traditional batteries, and works great at room temperatures. So a big 'Muhahahaha' for MIT, then.
Viruses.
Even better: It's cheap, less noxious than traditional batteries, and works great at room temperatures. So a big 'Muhahahaha' for MIT, then.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
The Great Masters Were All Insane
Let us think for a moment about the great masters of science. Each of these people worked hard, made the world a better place, and changed our understanding of it forever. They are well respected, totally genius, and were completely out of their minds.
Pythagoras
Pythagoras was a Greek scholar who produced the famous equation, a^2 + b^2 = c^2. His other mathematical works considered the math side of tuning,
Oh, and he started a weird little cult that forbade many mundane things, including eating beans. Seriously. Some of the recordings about his statements on beans are somewhat odd.
Isaac Newton
Everyone knows how Isaac Newton first formulated physics into something universally applicable, co-inventing calculus in order to do it. (Newton invented calculus at the same time as another mathematician, Mr. Leibniz, both independently of each other and for basically the same reasons.) Everyone knows the famous story about how a falling apple gave him the idea to understand gravity not as a "things fall down" force as understood in the past, but to apply it to planetary orbital mechanics as well. And he was a heretical fundamentalist. Wait, what?
Yes, Mr. Newton strongly believed in Arianism, which holds God and Jesus to be separate entities. This in contrast to mainstream Christianity that believes that God and Jesus are part of the same entity, along with a third being. (Trinitarianism.) He also didn't believe in many other features of mainstream Christianity, like immortal souls, the existence of demons including a personal head demon, and Cartesian dualism. Newton had the good sense to realize that most English people at the time, including the king, were Trinitarians, and that he therefore probably shouldn't talk about religion if he didn't want his ass killed. And they would have, too, because Christianity was totally like that back then. We only know this today because he kept multiple diaries of religious philosophy, gematrias, and other kinds of whack-jobbery.
Outside of religion, Newton loved Alchemy, which was already being replaced with modern chemistry as he practiced it. (This was because almost all alchemical assumptions were wrong. Comedicly wrong.) Like most modern nerds, he had a thing for arguments, and would get into arguments over all kinds of crazy things. He's recorded as having stabbed himself in the eye once, although there seems to be disagreement as to if he was doing it to discover how the lens works, or to prove a point about control (internal using his eye muscles, or external using the needle he jabbed into his eye wtf), but in either case, not the kind of thing a normal person does.
Lastly, he is said to have claimed on his deathbead that the thing in his life that he was most proud of was that he was still a virgin after 85 years of life. Modern life would call this loserish, but it was somewhat more respected in the more religious 1700s.
A great documentary of his life was filmed in 2003, "Newton, the Dark Heretic." I especially enjoyed the acting, since they did have actors play the parts of Newton and his various associates. You can see it on youtube in six parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Georg Cantor
Cantor was a brilliant German mathematician, who proved that there is more than one kind of infinite number. For instance, all rational numbers vs. all real numbers. Both are infinite, but there are more real numbers. He also produced "Cantor's Table," the most useless possible half of a table. Also, he was terrified that someone was going to poison him and wouldn't touch food unless his wife ate some first. Wait, what?
Apparently Cantor often fell into depression, and would come out of these depressive moods feeling extra-extra-paranoid. He was quite convinced, as many paranoid people are, that his omnipresent enemies had somehow snuck poison into the food while Mrs. Cantor wasn't looking. To show how ridiculous he was being, Mrs. Cantor would take a bite of everything. When she did not die 15 minutes later, that would be proof enough and he would eat.
Unfortunately, during world war I, Mrs. Cantor died. (The Cantors were not wealthy, because being a teacher pays very very little. She probably couldn't afford the medical bills.) Mr. Cantor was at this point old (71), poor, and still totally crazy. He starved to death in an insane asylum, still refusing to eat on the grounds that the food was poisoned again.
Albert Einstein
Einstein was significantly saner than the people listed above. He reformulated physics as much as Newton, proved E=MC^2 (which was the precursor equation behind the atom bomb and all subsequent nuclear engineering), proved relativity, and has written papers suggesting that zero point energy may be possible.
Einstein was more eccentric than insane. He was said to have a closet full of the exact same copy of his suit just so that he wouldn't have to make the decision each morning. He despised quantum physics with a passion. And though I think his love of mathematical beauty is demented as a loon, the theory is beloved of almost all research scientists out there.
Nikola Tesla
Tesla came from Serbia, and electricity obeyed his every whim, or so it seemed. If you ever use motors, computers, robots, logic gates, vertical takeoff planes, or polyphase anything, you owe him, big time.
When you think of mad scientists, half of what you imagine came from Tesla. He was obsessed with electricity, odd, definitely and obviously had Obsessive-Compulsive disorder. Mr. Tesla insisted on things being in 3s (numerical obsession), was terrified of things being 'dirty' (Mysophobia), and tried really hard not to touch round things directly (which is hard to do as an engineer, also wtf?).
Like Newton, Tesla was a celibate type. Unlike Newton, he claimed the celibacy was what gave him his intellectual powers. Cartoonist Kate Beaton has a hilarious take on this. (Her cartoons are often about the absurder side of historical figures. Also you should read them.)
Tesla's move to America worked out rather poorly for him. Edison ripped him off, people made fun of him, and his pet died. Many of his inventions were impossible to monetize, like radio-transmission of energy. When he died, J. Edgar Hoover promptly stole everything he ever made in the name of national security, which is only being reversed just now. (As of 2007.)
Sigmund Freud
Dr. Freud is an especially interesting case. A medical doctor in his own right, he went on to develop the field of Psychology. Apparently, no one before him thought to study the human mind an how it worked. Although many of his theories were later proven wrong, his work was detailed enough of a starting point. And he was so utterly psychotic that he made the previous four people I discussed look like the very avatars of sanity, as he was the only person I can name with an Oedipus Complex, and he thought it would be a great idea to rape his cousin (although there is no evidence that he actually tried to do this outside his own skull). Wait, what?
Dr. Freud was apparently a whiny, insufferable child. His father hated him and Siggy hated his father right back. Freud got along very well with his female relatives, who were sympathetic to him. This may have messed with his unconscious, significantly. He also lived in Victorian times, which came with some really really strange ideas about women. This may have worsened his already severe psychological problems.
Like many people of his time, Dr. Freud really loved cocaine. We now know that stimulant abuse can lead to the most incredibly weird thinking on the face of the planet, but at the time people only knew that taking cocaine made them feel totally awesome.
One thing he has been proven correct about is his principle of the unconscious, that people are not genuinely aware of many of the operations that go on in their head. Many-an-argument revolves around unconscious assumptions, which can never end because the assumptions are different and unspoken.
In his honor, the phenomenon of parapraxis, in which a person makes a hilarious substitution of words, is colloquially known as the Freudian slip.
Pythagoras
Pythagoras was a Greek scholar who produced the famous equation, a^2 + b^2 = c^2. His other mathematical works considered the math side of tuning,
Oh, and he started a weird little cult that forbade many mundane things, including eating beans. Seriously. Some of the recordings about his statements on beans are somewhat odd.
Isaac Newton
Everyone knows how Isaac Newton first formulated physics into something universally applicable, co-inventing calculus in order to do it. (Newton invented calculus at the same time as another mathematician, Mr. Leibniz, both independently of each other and for basically the same reasons.) Everyone knows the famous story about how a falling apple gave him the idea to understand gravity not as a "things fall down" force as understood in the past, but to apply it to planetary orbital mechanics as well. And he was a heretical fundamentalist. Wait, what?
Yes, Mr. Newton strongly believed in Arianism, which holds God and Jesus to be separate entities. This in contrast to mainstream Christianity that believes that God and Jesus are part of the same entity, along with a third being. (Trinitarianism.) He also didn't believe in many other features of mainstream Christianity, like immortal souls, the existence of demons including a personal head demon, and Cartesian dualism. Newton had the good sense to realize that most English people at the time, including the king, were Trinitarians, and that he therefore probably shouldn't talk about religion if he didn't want his ass killed. And they would have, too, because Christianity was totally like that back then. We only know this today because he kept multiple diaries of religious philosophy, gematrias, and other kinds of whack-jobbery.
Outside of religion, Newton loved Alchemy, which was already being replaced with modern chemistry as he practiced it. (This was because almost all alchemical assumptions were wrong. Comedicly wrong.) Like most modern nerds, he had a thing for arguments, and would get into arguments over all kinds of crazy things. He's recorded as having stabbed himself in the eye once, although there seems to be disagreement as to if he was doing it to discover how the lens works, or to prove a point about control (internal using his eye muscles, or external using the needle he jabbed into his eye wtf), but in either case, not the kind of thing a normal person does.
Lastly, he is said to have claimed on his deathbead that the thing in his life that he was most proud of was that he was still a virgin after 85 years of life. Modern life would call this loserish, but it was somewhat more respected in the more religious 1700s.
A great documentary of his life was filmed in 2003, "Newton, the Dark Heretic." I especially enjoyed the acting, since they did have actors play the parts of Newton and his various associates. You can see it on youtube in six parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Georg Cantor
Cantor was a brilliant German mathematician, who proved that there is more than one kind of infinite number. For instance, all rational numbers vs. all real numbers. Both are infinite, but there are more real numbers. He also produced "Cantor's Table," the most useless possible half of a table. Also, he was terrified that someone was going to poison him and wouldn't touch food unless his wife ate some first. Wait, what?
Apparently Cantor often fell into depression, and would come out of these depressive moods feeling extra-extra-paranoid. He was quite convinced, as many paranoid people are, that his omnipresent enemies had somehow snuck poison into the food while Mrs. Cantor wasn't looking. To show how ridiculous he was being, Mrs. Cantor would take a bite of everything. When she did not die 15 minutes later, that would be proof enough and he would eat.
Unfortunately, during world war I, Mrs. Cantor died. (The Cantors were not wealthy, because being a teacher pays very very little. She probably couldn't afford the medical bills.) Mr. Cantor was at this point old (71), poor, and still totally crazy. He starved to death in an insane asylum, still refusing to eat on the grounds that the food was poisoned again.
Albert Einstein
Einstein was significantly saner than the people listed above. He reformulated physics as much as Newton, proved E=MC^2 (which was the precursor equation behind the atom bomb and all subsequent nuclear engineering), proved relativity, and has written papers suggesting that zero point energy may be possible.
Einstein was more eccentric than insane. He was said to have a closet full of the exact same copy of his suit just so that he wouldn't have to make the decision each morning. He despised quantum physics with a passion. And though I think his love of mathematical beauty is demented as a loon, the theory is beloved of almost all research scientists out there.
Nikola Tesla
Tesla came from Serbia, and electricity obeyed his every whim, or so it seemed. If you ever use motors, computers, robots, logic gates, vertical takeoff planes, or polyphase anything, you owe him, big time.
When you think of mad scientists, half of what you imagine came from Tesla. He was obsessed with electricity, odd, definitely and obviously had Obsessive-Compulsive disorder. Mr. Tesla insisted on things being in 3s (numerical obsession), was terrified of things being 'dirty' (Mysophobia), and tried really hard not to touch round things directly (which is hard to do as an engineer, also wtf?).
Like Newton, Tesla was a celibate type. Unlike Newton, he claimed the celibacy was what gave him his intellectual powers. Cartoonist Kate Beaton has a hilarious take on this. (Her cartoons are often about the absurder side of historical figures. Also you should read them.)
Tesla's move to America worked out rather poorly for him. Edison ripped him off, people made fun of him, and his pet died. Many of his inventions were impossible to monetize, like radio-transmission of energy. When he died, J. Edgar Hoover promptly stole everything he ever made in the name of national security, which is only being reversed just now. (As of 2007.)
Sigmund Freud
Dr. Freud is an especially interesting case. A medical doctor in his own right, he went on to develop the field of Psychology. Apparently, no one before him thought to study the human mind an how it worked. Although many of his theories were later proven wrong, his work was detailed enough of a starting point. And he was so utterly psychotic that he made the previous four people I discussed look like the very avatars of sanity, as he was the only person I can name with an Oedipus Complex, and he thought it would be a great idea to rape his cousin (although there is no evidence that he actually tried to do this outside his own skull). Wait, what?
Dr. Freud was apparently a whiny, insufferable child. His father hated him and Siggy hated his father right back. Freud got along very well with his female relatives, who were sympathetic to him. This may have messed with his unconscious, significantly. He also lived in Victorian times, which came with some really really strange ideas about women. This may have worsened his already severe psychological problems.
Like many people of his time, Dr. Freud really loved cocaine. We now know that stimulant abuse can lead to the most incredibly weird thinking on the face of the planet, but at the time people only knew that taking cocaine made them feel totally awesome.
One thing he has been proven correct about is his principle of the unconscious, that people are not genuinely aware of many of the operations that go on in their head. Many-an-argument revolves around unconscious assumptions, which can never end because the assumptions are different and unspoken.
In his honor, the phenomenon of parapraxis, in which a person makes a hilarious substitution of words, is colloquially known as the Freudian slip.
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