HELLO WORLD (SLYT) "Lego felt tip 110" printer connected to an Apple Mac. This is not a kit you can buy and does not use mindstorms. I designed/built/coded it all from scratch including analog motor electronics, sensors and printer driver, the USB interface uses a "wiring" board.
posted by grumblebee
on Jun 2, 2010 -
42 comments
"This is the story of when I re-wrote the Lotus Notes Formula Engine.... So here was I was, offered this position that I clearly wasn't qualified for. I had no experience with language runtimes or compilers, I knew very little about C and didn't know anything about C++, I had never dealt with platform byte ordering and packing and all the other issues associated with writing something for eight different operating systems, I had never even used proper version control. But none of that mattered to me. It seemed to me like an amazing opportunity and I would be doing exactly the kind of stuff I enjoy most..."
posted by grumblebee
on Nov 24, 2007 -
64 comments
"How I Became A Programmer" veers between linear biography and brain dump. The piece meanders through its theme, stopping along the way to flirt with word origins, family politics, the senior prom, Japan, airlines and military recruitment. Reading it, I felt trapped inside inside an extremely quirky -- yet recognizable (in a too-close-for-comfort way) -- mind. About half the time I yearned to tell him that he needs an editor; the other half, I was grateful that he didn't have one. Mostly, I'm amazed he HAD a date to the senior prom!
posted by grumblebee
on Aug 18, 2007 -
52 comments
Jeff Hawkins, co-founder of
Palm and Handspring, has started a new company, called
Numenta, to test his
controversial theory of intelligence. Whether you find his theory plausible or not, his
book, "
On Intelligence" is fascinating. Numenta is attempting to build A.I.s using Hawkins' theory as a backbone. They've developed a software engine and a
Python-based API, which they've made public (
as free downloads), so that hackers can start playing. They've also released
manuals,
a whitepaper (pdf) and videos [
1] [
2]. (At about 30:18 into the first video, Hawkins demonstrates, with screenshots, the first app which uses his system.)
posted by grumblebee
on Apr 4, 2007 -
22 comments
