Tag Archives: computer programming

February 2015 in Review

This blog got 173 hits in February! Pretty cool, considering I really just meant it as a place to collect my own scattered thoughts and refer back to them later. If 173 out of the 6 billion people out there like it, I am flattered. Okay, I understand there may have been a few repeat visitors. Also, judging from the most popular posts, there is one thing I mention occasionally that people really like: robots!

Negative trends and predictions:

  • Fresh Air had an interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction. The idea here is that what humans are doing to other species is equivalent in scope to events that have killed off most life on Earth in the past.
  • The drought in the western U.S. continues to grind on.
  • There are some depressing new books out there about all the bad things that could happen to the world, from nuclear terrorism to pandemics. Also a “financial black hole”, a “major breakdown of the Internet”, “the underpopulation bomb”, the “death of death”, and more!
  • Government fragmentation explains at least part of suburban sprawl and urban decline in U.S. states, with Pennsylvania among the worst.

Positive trends and predictions:

  • Libraries are starting to go high-tech using warehouse robot technology.
  • I had a rambling post on technologies to watch: carbon fiber, the internet of things, self-driving cars and trucks, biotechnology for everything from carbon sequestration to cancer treatment to agriculture, and of course more automation, robots, and artificial intelligence. And yes, Clark W. Griswold’s cereal varnish is a real thing!
  • U.S. utility solar capacity is slowly ramping up.
  • A new study suggests a sudden, catastrophic climate tipping point may not be too likely.
  • Robots can independently develop new drugs.
  • According to Google, self-driving taxis are only 2-5 years away.
  • Complex ecosystems can be designed.
  • Compost toilets may save the world…if we can get over the ick factor and the sawdust problem.
  • There are lots of cheap new options for the aspiring high-tech handymen (and women and children) among us. Even better news, we may have reached the point where if you build a robot with your kid in the basement, and he then tells other kids about it, he might not get beat up on the playground.
  • New York City has some good examples of green stormwater infrastructure integrated in sidewalk and street design.

One thing that strikes me is that we keep hearing about biotechnology, but we haven’t seen big, obvious impacts in most of our daily lives yet. I suspect biotechnology is like computers and robots in the 70s, 80s, and 90s – slow but steady progress was being made in the background, the pressure was building, and then the wave suddenly broke onto the commercial and public consciousness. I suspect biotechnology is the next big wave that is going to break.

DIY programming and robotics stuff

Here’s some programming and robotics stuff that could be useful for education and do-it-yourself projects around the house. Oh, the things I could do if I didn’t have to work for a living…

  • The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It is a capable little device that enables people of all ages to explore computing, and to learn how to program in languages like Scratch and Python. It’s capable of doing everything you’d expect a desktop computer to do, from browsing the internet and playing high-definition video, to making spreadsheets, word-processing, and playing games.

  • Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for anyone making interactive projects.

  • VEX IQ is a robotics platform designed to transform STEM learning for young students and their teachers. Students as young as 8 can jump right in and snap robots together using this intuitive, toolless platform while educators can utilize the free VEX IQ Curriculum to help teach them valuable lessons and skills that are needed in today’s changing world. The VEX IQ Challenge, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, gives students affordable access to the inspiration, excitement and learning that comes from participating in a STEM challenge.

R graph catalog

Here’s a nice catalog of graphs made with R, along with source code for each. Some of the images were broken or missing when I tried it, but hopefully they’ll get that fixed. (By they way, this is my personal experience with interactive “Shiny” apps so far – I love the idea and the look, but there always seems to be something wrong that needs to be fixed, and fixing it takes more time and requires more specialized training than just dealing with plain old code. At first, I thought it might be a productivity enhancer, but instead it’s a drag when your job is not to build cool-looking apps, but to produce useful data analysis results in a reasonable amount of time.)