AI Dungeon

AI is making progress. The GPT-3 language model has been heralded to be the next big thing. Some creative people at Latitude use it to create dynamic text adventure games called Dungeon AI. Sounds like a great idea. So I gave it a try. Problem is, AI is still completely ignorant to common sense. You can write whatever you want, also nonsense. AI cannot tell the different.

During my short interaction with this AI I turned myself from and android into a chicken. I moved from a space ship to an office to chicken coop. All within the same story. It is scary how bad GPT-3 is.

Here is the transcript of my little interaction with the AI:

You are Paco, an android living in the the futuristic city of Zail. You have a laser pistol and a holoband. You are a security android created to provide military level force for corporations wealthy enough to purchase you. As you stand protecting a shipment you realize an incoming ship is carrying a weapon, you have to make a choice will you:

1. Throw away your life and your holoband for the easy way out
2.

You open communication channel.
The ship you are on is heading into the earth's atmosphere would you like some company.

You look for company.
You are standing in a room with a glass wall, in front of you are two holoband equipped guards.
You decide to watch the sun rise over the desert city of Zail.

You turn the guard into a chicken.
You are standing in a room and you are now a chicken. You can't see your surroundings but you can hear someone humming.
You decide to listen to the humming.
The humming stops and then starts again.

You lay an egg.
You are laying an egg and someone says, "Yes, I should have known you'd be laying eggs you chicken loving piece of crap."
You turn your head to see the person that is talking to you.

You whale song.
You are suddenly listening to a whale song.
The song stops and then starts again.
You decide to listen to it.

You turn the guard into a chicken.
You are standing in a chicken coop and you can hear the chickens clucking and a farmer is asking someone what the hold up is.
You decide to:

1. Go talk to the farmer.

You farmer is a whale.
You are in a coop containing a dozen chickens and a chicken farmer.
"What's going on?" You ask to be let out.

You chickens fly away.
The chickens fly away and you become a chicken again.
The guard begins singing "Chick, chicka cluck," You decide to:

1. Listen to the guard
2.

Raspberry C64 Pi Audio and Cooling Update

It was time to improve the performance of this Raspberry C64 Pi computer by adding the official regulated fan to the case. I also added a USB audio adapter to improve the sound quality. With these two inexpensive upgrades, the Raspberry Pi performs much better and the audio quality is much improved.

Nokia’s Body Cardio Scale Will Remove Pulse Wave Velocity

Since Nokia took over Withings the company continues to struggle with delivering good products. Today Nokia informed me that the Pulse Wave Velocity reading will be automatically deactivated and that there is nothing I can do to prevent this from happening. The reason they provide for the deactivation of this feature is that “it may require a different level of regulatory approval”.

While I agree that complying to the regulatory framework is a good idea, I wonder why they only considered this years after introducing the product. Why was this not part of their original design process? Regulatory frameworks vary considerably across the globe and Nokia decided to deactivate ALL scales. This does seem rather indiscriminate.

They offer a refund for the purchase price and they will then completely deactivate your scale. In their FAQ they do not mention the exact nature of the refund, but once you login into your account or followed their link you will find that:

I understand that I am eligible to be refunded for the purchase price of my product as shown on my receipt, less any fees that may have been incurred, including but not limited to: customs, duty, brokerage fees, shipping, or delivery costs. Nokia reserves the right to refund the local MSRP in lieu of this purchase price.

Again I have to wonder why there is no option for, lets say, half of a refund and you could continue to use the scale without the Pulse Wave Velocity reading. This all or nothing approach does not sit right with me since I do not want to throw away an otherwise fully operational scale but I also think that Nokia should reimburse us for the feature they are going to delete.

All of this is again an example of horrible product management and customer handling. The one feature that set this scale apart from their own Body+ scale is gone. I had an eye on their new Nokia Sleep tracker, but I do not want to go through this process of them screwing up their own products again.

Holonomic LEGO Mindstorms Robot

A holonomic robot uses omni-directional wheels to drive and turn in any direction on the spot. Agilis is an example of an early LEGO holonomic robot. My model is much simpler and robust. Essential to all holonomic robots are the use of omni-directional wheel, such as the the ones from Rotacaster. I am using a compass sensor to allow the robot to be remote controlled on an absolute grid using Connexion’s Space Navigator. This 3D input devices can be mapped to the unique movements and rotations of a holonomic robot.

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Tutorial on how to install and setup JInput on Mac OS X using Eclipse

Tutorial on how to install and setup JInput on Mac OS X using Eclipse. This will enable you to use different input devices in your Java programs.

Using mouse, keyboard, joysticks and other input devices in your Java software is much easier using JInput. Unfortunately, the documentation on how to install and setup the software is short and difficult to follow. I was struggling for days getting it to work with Eclipse on Mac OS X 10.12.6. My first approach was to use Maven to install JInput. The excellent M2Eclipse plugin provides good support for Maven. Unfortunately, the pre-configured Maven Repository does not include JInput. I was unable to configure Maven/Eclipse to connect to The Central Repository to download JInput from there. Okay, I am not a fulltime Jave programmer and maybe it would become clear to me eventually. In the meantime I got it to work manually. I hope that this tutorial will help you in your project. I used Mac OS X and I cannot guarantee it will work on any other platform.

 

 

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