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"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." –John 16:33

Category: Technology Page 6 of 9

GaugeCam LIVES!

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On Thursday, March 19, 2015

In Technology

I received a call from my buddy Francois at NCSU in Raleigh a couple of days ago. It turns out that the GaugeCam project to perform automatic water height measurement with cameras in streams, lakes and other water bodies continues to garner interest. Francois has talked to lots of people who have had very limited success at finding systems that work to do this well, including the two biggest commercial providers in the industry. So, I spent a couple of evenings dusting off the software, upgrading the libraries and creating a new build with functionality we had developed, but never made available. We have decided to work on it again and have some new ideas about what we want to do.

I have written a blog post over at the GaugeCam blog that describes our next steps to accommodate this renewed interest.

Betty Blonde #282 – 08/17/2009
Betty Blonde #282
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Cheap clean water in arid place — Thank you Israel

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On Tuesday, March 3, 2015

In Politics, Technology

Cheap desalinization has been one of the holy grails of engineering for a long time. There are others like cheap, lightweight and (truly) efficient batteries, safe and efficient cold fusion, etc., etc. This article about how Israel does amazing things to desalinate water at a huge scale and a low price. Here is a quote from the article about where they are with their efforts:

The new plant in Israel, called Sorek, was finished in late 2013 but is just now ramping up to its full capacity; it will produce 627,000 cubic meters of water daily, providing evidence that such large desalination facilities are practical. Indeed, desalinated seawater is now a mainstay of the Israeli water supply. Whereas in 2004 the country relied entirely on groundwater and rain, it now has four seawater desalination plants running; Sorek is the largest. Those plants account for 40 percent of Israel’s water supply. By 2016, when additional plants will be running, some 50 percent of the country’s water is expected to come from desalination.

This could have huge ramifications for the whole world. Imagine if the African and Australian continents could get cheap, fresh water to areas where it was never before available. What about desalination and pumping of water to the arid parts of Mexico and even to Arizona from the Gulf of California. It is a big deal.

Betty Blonde #270 – 07/31/2009
Betty Blonde #270
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Interventions, Selfies and Fitbits

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On Friday, December 26, 2014

In Health, Technology

Dad gets a Fitbit for Christmas and takes a selfieI thought I was just getting a gift, but it turned out to be a full-blown intervention. That thing on my wrist in the picture to the right is something called a Fitbit Charge. I was told it was not the one with the heart rate monitor in it, because that one does not come out for another month or so. I was told I am entirely too fat. I would have argued with them, but they were right. I have never been this big before in my life. They said they got this for me to help me assure I do not eat too much.

So I plugged the thing in to charge last night and set it up when I got up this morning. The Fitbit is that watch on my wrist–pretty fashionable. One thing I did figure out was that doing a selfie can be pretty complicated if you want to show off your new watch at the same time. It is a fun little device. I need to figure out how I am going to report my journey on the blog after I figure out whether I can stick with it.

I am an Industrial Engineer. Industrial engineers are numbers guys. My whole work life is centered around numbers and measuring things. I do not know how I am going to do with this Fitbit, but I will no longer have the excuse that I do not know where I am calorie-wise at any given time. It keeps track of how many steps you take and whether or not you are going up or down stairs. I am amazed at its accuracy. The reality is that it does not have to be perfect. All it really needs is to be close. You have to enter the food you eat so they can account for those calories, but they make that easy for you, too.

I have only had the thing on for a few hours, but every time I go up the stairs it adds another floor to how many flights of stairs I have walked. Whenever I walk, it adds up steps. Based on my weight, goals and how aggressive I want to be, it builds a dial on both my computer and on my phone that shows me how the amount of calories of have consumed stack up against how many calories I have expended for the day. The idea is to end up with the dial indicator in the green at the end of the day. If you do that day in and day out, you will hit your goal in the specified amount of time. I like it and gong to try to make it work.

So far today, I have had an Egg McMuffin, a meduim diet coke and four and a half cups of coffee. I have not done any exercise other than going down to the kitchen from the bonus room to feed the cats and get more coffee. Here is the dial for my current status:

Fitbit dial

Update:  The watch vibrates when I receive a phone call. How cool is that?

Makers: The difference between inventors and scientists

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On Thursday, November 6, 2014

In Education, Science, Technology

An article titled Is School Overrated? High School “Dropout” Makes Affordable 3D Printer in Forbes got me to thinking about a vigorous discussion we have at my work on a fairly regular basis. We are (currently) an intellectual property company made up mostly of engineers and scientists. It is fascinating the technical/professional divide in the company, and it is a pretty big divide, is not your standard scientist vs. engineer divide. Everyone kind of agrees the divide is between those who “work from first principles” and use intuition and those who take a more empirical approach, performing a few experiments and take some measurements before choosing a path to make improvements and innovations. Of course, both groups follow both paths to a certain extent, but the intuitionists (if that is a word) tend to start with a single approach then tinker and tinker until something works while the scientists tend to identify the theoretical possibilities and plan experiments to figure out which one is best and to identify unknown problems.

Virtually everyone on the team that does invention has at least a Masters degree and most have PhD’s. We all, pretty much, get the math in the areas in which we work. It would be my contention that people with formal education in the science can become good tinkerers AND good scientists while those who do not have the formal education at a high level struggle when it comes to science and tend to relegate themselves to tinkering. People who want to learn undergraduate level math can do that without ever going to college through use of things like Khan Academy and other online tools. It is possible to get additional, graduate level math skills out of books, but it gets much harder. To be an Olympic class judo player, one needs to practice with other Olympic class judo players and train under Olympic class coaches.

I think we need both scientists and tinkerers, but as our understanding of physics, chemistry, biology and other highly technical areas of science gets more complex, it will be harder to compete without engagement with the best thinkers in any given field. The example above is about someone who is finding innovative ways to combine and use technology that has already been invented. Inventing something new requires much deeper knowledge than the skills required to create the things described in the article. The “maker” in the article is working with people from MIT who have deep technical skills and formal knowledge, so maybe he will someday move from tinkering to science.

Betty Blonde #205 – 04/29/2009
Betty Blonde #205
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Losing faith in Elon Musk: True artificial intelligence is not happening any time soon

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On Tuesday, October 28, 2014

In Christianity, Technology

Christian and I have an ongoing discussion about the current state of artificial intelligence. Some of it is in the context of the second beast of Revelations 13:15 that is given power to speak by the first beast. We make no claims about what all that means, but use it as a point of reference for discussions about the current state of artificial intelligence, consciousness and the mind-brain problem. We do not believe artificial intelligence is anywhere close to enabling the “person-hood” of inanimate objects.

I said all that to say we think that even though Elon Musk is an amazing business man and promoter, he has some pretty unrealistic ideas about artificial intelligence. Here is a quote from an article at CNet where he waxes apocalyptic on the subject:

“If I were to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that,” he said, referring to artificial intelligence. “I’m increasingly inclined to thing there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.”

This is not to say something like this could not happen someday. We know it happened at least once with humans. That being said, science has no idea at all about what consciousness even is. When we understand that, maybe I will start worrying about this a little more.

New Samsung Note 4 Case by

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On Saturday, October 25, 2014

In Technology

AMURE Samsung Galaxy Note 4 caseMy new Evecase Galaxy Note 4 Case, ARMURE Dual Layer Ultra Rugged Case with Kick-Stand for Samsung Galaxy Note 4 SM-N910S/SM-N910C arrived in the mail today. I bought it from Amazon for $5.97 which included shipping. It is a bigger version of the one I had for my Samsung Galaxy S3 and it is awesome. I had to read my book on the plane (horrors) WITHOUT a kick-stand. I had been bumped to first class and I had to lean forward while I ate my quiche breakfast. Even though had two very good books, it definitely detracted from the experience. I LOVE the solid feel of the case, the color (I am secure enough in my manliness to pull off a color like this), and especially the best kick-stand in the business. The price was pretty impressive, too.

Trying to figure out information theory

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On Sunday, October 12, 2014

In Science, Technology

An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and NoiseI usually wimp out when it comes to learning hard mathematical stuff like what is required to have a working understanding of Information Theory. In this case, though, I am glad I let Christian convince me to give it a shot because it appears to be fundamental to things like how the brain works, intelligent design, statistical inference, cryptography, quantum computing and a ton of other stuff related to my work and/or are my avocational interests. I looked around for a decent introductory book that did not get so bogged down in the math that the big picture did not emerge. John R. Pierce’s book An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise seemed to be an almost universal choice to meet this criteria.

I am half way through the first chapter of the book. It has become abundantly clear that a full understanding of Information Theory is not really possible without an engagement with the math at a deep level. Nevertheless, a review at Amazon made the following observation about the book that makes me think I am on the right path. I might need to read one or more additional books to arrive at the working understanding I want, but this will definitely get me started at a level that does not discourage me from taking the next steps. Here is an excerpt from the review:

The book is geared towards non-mathematicians, but it is not just a tour. Pierce tackles the main ideas just not all the techniques and special cases. Perfect for: anyone in science, linguistics, or engineering.

Another thing that is abundantly clear is that Christian, in his current position with his current major professor and research sponsor, has an exceptional opportunity to get a strong grounding in the area of Information Theory and that such a grounding will serve him very well whether in whatever technical research pursuit he chooses when he finishes this degree. His first research project is the solution of a difficult problem that engages specifically with the material about which I am reading, but with mathematical rigor beyond the scope of the book.

If the material is not too tedious for a general blog like this, I plan to write about it more because it is so interesting. I am early in the book and engaged with topic of entropy as it is used in the field of Information Theory. Entropy has a very specific definition in this context and is different from entropy as that word is used in thermodynamics or statistical mechanics. The bigger deal for me is that I can see it has important ramifications for even the work I do in my day job.

Betty Blonde #183 – 03/30/2009
Betty Blonde #183
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Tom Cornsweet

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On Monday, September 29, 2014

In Science, Technology, Work

Dr. Tom CornsweetThe chief scientist at my current job is a really nice guy named Tom Cornsweet who has spent a very long career studying human vision and developing tools to measure and analyze it. You can see his Wikipedia page here and a visual effect named after him called the Cornsweet Illusion here. A couple of days ago he lent me the seminal text book he wrote titled Visual Perception. The copyright date was 1970 and Tom says that, of course, technology and understanding have moved on since then, but it still provides a pretty good description of what we know about how people see. I am really looking forward to reading it. Visual Perception by Tom CornsweetI work closely with Tom as part of a team that is implementing his “vision” of an instrument to help ophthalmologists and optometrists do their work better. It is a joy to work with him and I am learning a lot about how humans do the things I have spent my career trying to do inside computers.

Betty Blonde #173 – 03/16/2009
Betty Blonde #173
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Holy Cow! The kids’ buddy makes the news. NCSU does it again.

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On Tuesday, August 26, 2014

In culture, Technology

The kid's friend is the second from the leftI am starting to believe Kelly’s and Christian’s hyperbole–North Carolina State University might be the best undergraduate institution in the world. Leave to the Chicks on the Right to give it just the right spin in this article on their website. Four guys at NCSU invented a fingernail polish that changes color when it comes into contact with what is commonly known as a “date rape drug.” Kelly and Christian have a good friend with whom they hung out every day in the NCSU undergraduate math lounge.  How cool is that, NCSU has an undergraduate math lounge. This buddy’s brother is also a friend of the kids and the second guy from the right in the photo that accompanies this post.

Betty Blonde #158 – 02/23/2009
Betty Blonde #158
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Charles Arntzen of Arizona State University

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On Wednesday, August 6, 2014

In Technology

A professor at Christian’s school, Arizona State University, has been in the news because his research allowed the development of a drug to combat Ebola. Here and here are a couple of articles about what he did. There is no cure for Ebola, but all indications are that the first human patients given the drug, two Americans in Liberia, are improving. The concept is fascinating.

About the drug, Dr. Arntzen said, “Each antibody has the ability to bond to an Ebola virus and inactivate it. Once you get an antibody stuck to a virus, your body recognizes it and stops the virus from doing any more damage.”

This is just another feather in Arizona State’s cap in its current rise up the ranks of world class research universities.

Betty Blonde #145 – 02/04/2009
Betty Blonde #145
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Back to work on GaugeCam

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On Wednesday, May 28, 2014

In Software, Technology


I have finally gotten a chance to spend an hour or two on GaugeCam.  I really did not have the time, but was so burnt out on everything else, I took a little time after dinner last night and fixed a few things.  Here is the blog post for the latest update.  The video shows what I did.  It used to take three or four clicks of the mouse to calibrate the water level measurement system.  Now it only takes one.  You can see it in the video above.

I have decided I am going to spend some more time on this over the next few months until Lorena and I have had a chance to figure out what we will do next. More and more people are getting interested in it and we keep thinking of new things to improve. It should be fun.

Betty Blonde #120 – 12/31/2008
Betty Blonde #120
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Blogging from the airplane

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On Tuesday, February 18, 2014

In Technology

I bought access to the internet on the flight from Charlotte to Phoenix today.  This is a novelty for me.  It is actually not too bad.  I needed to download some files so I could work on the airplane.  It is, of course, way to expensive, but every now and then it will almost certainly be worth it.

Even more three wheel cars

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On Saturday, February 8, 2014

In Technology

Day 901 of 1000

Who would have ever guessed.  Three-wheeled madness is coming out of the woodwork.  Gene is actually working (on an extended schedule) on a building a three wheeler.  See his blog on his effort here.  He even provides a page that holds a bunch of links on the history of three-wheelers here.  Actually, that whole website is very interesting.  I just know I am going to get enticed into buying an Elio.  The thing that gives me pause, though, is this youtube video from Trisha:

Betty Blonde #65 – 10/15/2008
Betty Blonde #65
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Elio Motors

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On Thursday, February 6, 2014

In Technology

Day 899 of 1000

Late last year on my way home from Arizona, I went to the wrong gate by accident and set by a nice fellow with whom I struck up a conversation.  I almost missed my plane, but had a fascinating discussion about a new company that had been started to build a new kind of inexpensive 2-seat, 3-wheel car.  He was one of the V.P.’s of the company and explained it all in some detail.  The name of the company is Elio Motors.  They have identified a manufacturing facility in Louisiana and are scheduled to start delivering cars in 2015.  Because it is a three wheel vehicle, they have done a lot of work to assure and to demonstrate its safety.  They expect it to receive a 5-star safety rating.  It gets 84 miles per gallon with an 8 gallon tank–over 600 miles on a tank of gas is pretty amazing.  It is not a speed burner, but it goes 0-60 in 9.6 seconds so it is at least respectable.  The retail price is low enough, $6800, that I am very tempted to get one for going to work.  It looks pretty nice, too.
Elio 3-wheel car

Betty Blonde #63 – 10/13/2008
Betty Blonde #63
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It is easy to forget that I am not that smart

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On Friday, January 24, 2014

In Technology

Day 885 of 1000

I have been reminded the last couple that it is hard to learn new stuff.  The sad part is I am trying to learn a bunch of old stuff and it is still hard.  At work, we use a Linux server with a Wiki, a file server, and a bunch of other handy tools to communicate with each other, share files, record stuff in a common place we might easily forget, etc., etc.  I decided I should do this at home now that the kids are about to head out so we can have a common place for stuff we want to share.  The process of installing this stuff is currently owning me.  I am going to do this, but it might kill me in the process.

Betty Blonde #51 – 09/25/2008
Betty Blonde #51
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A very interesting patent blog

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On Monday, January 13, 2014

In Blogging, Technology

Day 874 of 1000
Betty Blonde #40 – 09/10/2008
Betty Blonde #40
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I have been pretty disdainful of practices in the patent world over the past few years, but my buddy Brad pointed me to a blog by his patent attorney/Chemical Engineer cousin that I plan to visit daily.  I have already wasted too much time there. It is very, very interesting and often hilarious.

Big Data, Quantum Computing breakthrough

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On Thursday, December 12, 2013

In Technology

Day 843 of 1000
Betty Blonde #22 – 08/15/2008
Betty Blonde #22
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IBM made a big breakthrough that could have a big impact on the cost and performance of “Big Data” systems.  The breakthrough has to do with something called Quantum Computing that allows for much faster processing than with certain classes of problems.  Big Data is an area where Kelly and Christian will probably both work.  The breakthrough is the ability to demonstrate Bose-Einstein Condensation at room temperature.  I am sure we are quite a ways from use of the techonology in the wild, but it will make Statisticians with Big Data skills more employable before too long.

Christian is doing the same stuff as me

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On Wednesday, November 6, 2013

In Education, Software, Technology

Day 807 of 1000

Position probability mapAmazingly, Christian uses many of the same algorithms for his undergraduate research as I do for my day job. Christian created the image to the left. It is a normalized correlation response map used in the process of finding a pattern in an image. His work is very technical–some of the elements of his research requires deeper math skills than I normally use. It has been fun watching the work move forward.

Huge milestone at work

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On Tuesday, October 8, 2013

In Technology, Work

Day 778 of 1000

Today we captured the first recognizable images of the retina of an eye at work.  We have been working on it for almost a year.  After work, one of the other engineers and I went out for a steak to celebrate.  On the drive back to the Westin (not a fan), I saw a sign on the side of the said “No cruising” as in Cruising the Gut, like on Willamette Street in Eugene or Sandy Boulevard in Portland or Main Street on virtually any small town in America back in the 60’s.  What a perfect time for an American Graffiti moment.

Swirl: An interactive learning environment for R

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On Monday, September 30, 2013

In Software, Technology

Day 770 of 1000

There is a post over at the Simply Statistics blog that talks about an interactive programming environment for the R statistical programming language called swirl.  I have decided to download this when I am back in my Hotel room tonight (I am working in Prescott, AZ this week) and report what I find.  It is amazing how important statistics has become in the work I do in machine vision.  The last four jobs (including this one) is loaded with it.  I just sent a set of data off to members of our team in Australia and China because we do not have anyone here yet who can handle it.  I suspect, I will be hiring a data science consultant to pick up some small projects, soon, but believe we will be hiring a fulltime data scientist within two or three years just to consume the data we produce in my group.  I need to start studying R and Weka to get enough knowledge to hire well.  I would like to learn SAS and JMP, too.  Kelly says JMP is not so expensive, so we might start with that.  Fortunately, I have some data scientist friends who are capable of helping me.

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