Combining Cognits

Book: "Dreaming in Code"

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:34:00 +0000

Cover of "Dreaming in Code", by Scott Rosenberg As I mentioned previously, I have been reading a book on programming called "Dreaming in Code" (by S. Rosenberg, full ref may be found below). Seeing as I've just finished it now, I thought I would share a few brief thoughts on it. In all, I enjoyed reading it. It wasn't what I was expecting, and I read it relatively slowly, over the past month, reading a half-to-full chapter at a time. In all, whilst it is about programming, with a particular emphasis on large projects/programmes, it covers history, basic software engineering concepts, and...

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World's smallest frog discovered

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:31:00 +0000

The story on the BBC News website that the world's smallest frog has been discovered. Really? Wow! Smallest frog? Picture from the BBC News story. /rant No!! Have they taken a measurement and not bothered to look up the standard measurements of other frogs? Are they now certain that there are no more species of frog that could ever be found? Perhaps even they have discovered some theoretical reason why a frog could never possibly be smaller? Maybe I'm being overly pedantic, but surely it should be (along the lines of) "a new species of frog has been discovered, which is now the...

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CFP: AAAI'12 special track on Cognitive Systems

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 02:22:00 +0000

At the 26th AAAI conference this year (in Toronto, Canada) there will be a special track on Cognitive Systems: In an attempt to return to the original goals of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, this special track invites papers in human-level intelligence, integrated intelligent systems, cognitive architectures, situated embodied cognition, and related areas that aim to explain intelligence in computational terms and reproduce a range of human cognitive abilities in computational artifacts. The track will focus on various cognitive capabilities in the context of artificial...

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MATLAB alternatives (free, of course...)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:33:00 +0000

I don't use MATLAB very much at the moment, or even in recent years. Production of a couple of graphs perhaps, maybe a little data processing, but nothing that can't really be done using any other piece of software available to me (MS Excel, LO Calc, or a bit of my own code). I have used MATLAB extensively in the past, mostly Simulink though, for some signal processing and control stuff, so know it can be a very useful tool. However, given my current MATLAB inactivity, and that where I work doesn't have an endless supply of licenses for research (and these are fairly expensive as you may have...

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Software Quality

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:18:00 +0000

I do not regard myself as a software engineer. Sure, I 'do' programming (usually with some C-based language if you're interested), but such programming is to implement some functionality that I want or need for some purpose - to implement a model or a data processing tool for instance - which has been for my own use. As such, there has been minimal effort put into inherent extend-ability or modalarisation of my code. I've always paid relatively good attention to code commenting and some flexibility of use (personal, that is), but that mainly stems from my inability to remember...

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CFP: AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:31:00 +0000

An upcoming event with which I have a minor involvement is the 4th incarnation of the AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy, which is due to take place in Birmingham, U.K., between the 2nd and 6th of July 2012. The AISB convention is this year being held in conjunction with the International Association of Computing And Philosophy (IACAP), and will mark the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing's birthday. There are 16 different symposia at this convention in all, all with varying emphases on the interaction between AI/Computing and Philosophy. For those of bent in that particular...

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Me: films and robots

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:09:00 +0000

My first post in over a year, so lets start with something silly :-) I'm sure that anyone who is working, or has worked, with robots has been influenced in some way (if not inspired) by some depiction in a work of fiction - most likely film - whether they choose to admit it or not (those who don't are probably lying). I'm quite happy to admit to this - and can point to two such robotic intelligent devices. What precisely about them gave rise to this influence I don't know - and I don't really want to deconstruct it in case it turns out to be ridiculous and/or trivial - but here...

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Thesis finally published

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 19:14:00 +0000

I am pleased to say that my thesis has now finally been published and submitted, with my graduation ceremony next week. After that, I will have truly finished the long and arduous road that was my PhD. Since I've stayed in academia (so far at least...) I'm going to engage in a little self-promotion (what's a blog for otherwise?), and give the thesis abstract for those (very few) of you who may be interested. Foundations of a Constructivist Memory-Based approach to Cognitive Robotics: Synthesis of a Theoretical Framework and Application Case Studies Cognitive robotics are applicable to many...

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What's the point of having evidence..

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:04:00 +0000

... if it's not going to be used, or ignored because it doesn't match the current state of public opinion. Sometimes it's frankly just embarrassing... The removal of a few lines from a piece of paper (admittedly legislation) is going to remove the requirement for formal scientific advice in the determination of drug policy in the U.K. (noted though that it doesn't necessarily mean that no scientists will form part of the relevant committee - but it's surely not a good sign: these are politicians we're talking about.) I would have hoped that the change in government might have meant that...

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On Memory, from St. Augustine

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:51:00 +0000

I've been sitting on this quote for a while. I somehow came across it a few years ago (though I can no longer remember how I first found it), and used part of it as the opening quote of my thesis (in that quest to find a really old, obscure, but relevant way of opening the first chapter - I guess as a means of 'showing off' your supposed breadth of research...):"There are all things preserved distinctly and under general heads, each having enetered by its own avenue, as light, and all colors and forms of bodies, by the eyes; by the ears all sorts of sounds; all smells by the avenue of the...

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Robotic companions in the news

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:29:00 +0000

There was a minor flurry of media activity a week or so ago concerning the ALIZ-E project, just after the university put out a press release: -> "Robot Companions to Befriend Sick Kids at European Hospital" in the IEEE Spectrum magazine. -> "Cyber Sensitive: Therapeutic Buddy Bots Get Emotional" in Scientific American. -> And a bit closer to home, is "Robots developed in Plymouth to befriend sick children" on the BBC Devon News website. In a somewhat surreal event, we were also invited for a radio interview, in which our Nao robot was a speaking guest! There seems to be a common picture with...

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ALIZ-E videos and dancing robot

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:02:00 +0000

With my work on the ALIZ-E project, I get to play around (by play, I mean work...) with the Nao humanoid robot (it's a cute little thing). One of things I've been getting it to do recently is dance. Actually, a summer project student did most of the low-level implementation (the time consuming definition of angle joints etc), so I've just been dealing with how to use these behaviours. This video is the first and really simplistic example: The video is actually pretty poor quality, and I've somehow managed to squash the picture (my first awful attempt at a youtube video...), but it shows the...

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What is a PhD?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:24:00 +0000

I like this pictorial description of what a PhD is supposed to be. Not a perfect metaphor (the increasingly important training aspect, for U.K. institutions at least, isn't really incorporated), but it's nice nonetheless. Whilst it could be interpreted as a bit bleak, I would say it puts things into a little perspective :-) -> Combining Cognits - http://paul-baxter.blogspot.com

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Coming to the end of a chapter

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:38:00 +0000

I had my PhD viva last week. Happily, it went quite well, and I passed, with minor corrections to complete. Looking back on the viva, it passed relatively quickly (for the four hours it lasted) considering the building anxiety I felt for the couple of weeks or so beforehand. While I've not finished the PhD yet (the aforementioned corrections), and I've been fortunate enough to find a postdoc before this final milestone, I thought this would be a good opportunity to mention a couple of things that helped me through the process. I would of course appreciate any additions or other feedback on...

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Error bars

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:12:00 +0000

Error bars are a necessary part of science reporting, but (as so eloquently described here) they are often misunderstood and frequently misused (including of course by myself). Whilst there has been much written about it (not to mention the descriptions in actual statistics books...), I came across a short paper on the use of error bars in the field of experimental biology. Eight rules are proposed to help with the use and interpretation of error bars, but they aren't specific to biology, so I thought I'd summarise them: Rule 1:When showing error bars, always describe in the figure legends...

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A slow shift to cloud computing...

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:58:00 +0000

This is my first post in a while, I realise. I can't promise that this is the start of more frequent posting, but can say that I still like the idea of blogging (in preference to all these twitter-like update methods, including facebook updates, which I see as ultimately pointless and a little annoying, except for in very limited contexts), and don't want this little blog to die completely... ...and now moving on. Cloud computing approaches and applications have been around for a while, and are becoming ever more prevalent. It's quite involved, but they are essentially those programmes that...

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Reinforcement Learning illustrated...

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:55:00 +0000

Friends always seems to be on television here, several times a day, every day of the week. Once they reach the end, the whole thing is shown again from the beginning. I was watching an episode this evening, and this little gem of a quote came up: Ross: I'm really impressed that you were able to memorize all this so quickly. Joey: I'm an actor. I can memorize anything. Last week I had to say "Frontal Temporal Zygomatic Craniotomy." Ross: Wow, what does that mean? Joey: No idea. But the guy I said it to dies in the next scene, so I guess it means, you're going to get eaten by a bear. From the...

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Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:09:00 +0000

Happy New Year to all :-) PS I didn't take the photo - I just found it...-> Combining Cognits - http://paul-baxter.blogspot.com

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A brief update - and Twittering

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:56:00 +0000

I've not posted on here for a while now. I'm in the process of writing up my PhD thesis now, and additional writing for this blog is beyond me at the moment. I don't, however, want this blog to die as I wish to continue using it to post notes and thoughts as I (hopefully at least...) begin a career in academia. Incidentally, I have recently given in to a certain amount of hype, and a personal recommendation, and signed up to Twitter (with the alias one_paulie). Now, at this moment in time, I don't see it being a particularly useful tool (or even a very interesting one), but there was one...

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noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:29:00 +0000

Computers are the bane of my existence: the problem is that they do exactly what you tell them to do, not what you want them to do. I've just about 8 hours worth of experimental data... :-( On a more useful note, I should finally be able to get back to posting something more than a rant after this weekend.-> Combining Cognits - http://paul-baxter.blogspot.com

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Kary Mullis: Celebrating the scientific experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:50:00 +0000

Over on TED, I've just watched a talk given by Kary Mullis (a Nobel Prize winner for his invention of the PCR technique) on the history of the scientific experiment. The video was posted only in January, but was apparently filmed It's a fairly rambling talk, but he tells some interesting and funny stories, from history-discussing surfers, to space faring frogs (well, nearly), and seems generally critical of the state of reporting in modern science.-> Combining Cognits - http://paul-baxter.blogspot.com

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Agents or Programs: a definition of "Agent"

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:33:00 +0000

A little while ago, a friend of mine asked me what a robot was. I thought about it for a little while, before coming to the conclusion that there wasn't actually a satisfactory answer: it depends on who you're speaking to and what you're talking about. There's the standard populist view of a robot as being an autonomous mechanical device, often in human or animal form, and then the less interesting definitions which hold robots to be man-made machines for automating some industrial process. None of these definitions are any more correct than the others, they merely serve different purposes in...

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Encephalon #63

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:51:00 +0000

Of Two Minds has just put up the 63rd edition of Encephalon. A nice round-up as usual, with congratulations of course going to Omnibrain on his good fortune... :-p My three highlights as usual: - Brain Blogger brings us a short piece on serotonin: specifically, how the genetic basis of the serotonin system, and the natural variation in the system as a result of individual genetic differences, results in different susceptibilities to anxiety, depression etc. Possibly also responsible for certain differences in personalities (seems sensible to me, but then I imagine that there are many drivers...

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First post of the year

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:21:00 +0000

Already February, and this is the first post of the year on this poor little neglected blog of mine. This blog is an attempt to describe what I think are interesting topics concerned with intelligence and cognition, from theoretical concepts through to practical implementations and experimental results. This isn't tied specifically to humans or animals, indeed, I'm more interested in the more theoretical aspects, and their application to 'artificial' systems. In this regard, I don't know of many other blogs that take this approach, and that's why I'd like to continue posting here, even if...

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TED

noreply@blogger.com (Paul) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:43:00 +0000

Because I'm a complete slacker, I have only just had a proper look at TED, despite many previous recommendations. If anyone's reading this, if you know of any talk/presentation that is particularly good and/or interesting, I'd really like to know about it :-)-> Combining Cognits - http://paul-baxter.blogspot.com

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