He's a Mac, He's a PC, But We're Linux!

Here are some nice Linux advertisements. It is actually a response by Linux Foundation to I'm a Mac' series of advertisements.

What does it mean to be free?
The Origin
Linux Pub
The Future is Open

From Atom to Cosmos

I've recently watched a documentary called Atom by BBC. It has three episodes. In the first one it talks about the discovery of Atom, and development of quantum mechanics. In the second episode it addresses the implications of this discovery and explores things like Big Bang, and rises the questions such as "why are we here?" and "how are we made of these elementary particles?". Finally in the last episode it talks about the matter and antimatter and the idea of parallel universe, Quantum Foam, and etc.

I personally loved it, and I recommend it to anybody who is interested in such scientific documentaries.

All three episodes could be downloaded form Google Video.

Episode 1: The Clash of Titans


Episode 2: The Key to the Cosmos


Episode 3: The Illusion of Reality

From Thesis to Gyoomard!

One of my concerns at the moment is to evaluate some research ideas in order to find the one that interests me the most, and has the potential to be pursued for PhD thesis. one of these ideas which is now becoming more than a research idea is the gyoomard project which is aimed at using evolutionary computing in order to evolve autonomous characters.

Currently we're trying to set up the simulation environment using PhysX and OpenGL. The evolutionary aspects that we're evaluating at the moment is to use Genetic Algorithm to evolve Continuous-Time Recurrent Neural Networks(CTRNN) which forms the controller system for a biped that knows how to walk on a straight line. It is notable that similar projects has been performed on biped walking, but for us it is like a warm-up. We'll be constantly experimenting or own ideas on the aforementioned framework to come up with new ways of creating characters with the capability of learning multiple complex activities.

This is a joint adventure with Amir H. Fassihi.

Read more on the project's blog.

JavaRanch

JavaRanch is a nice online Java Journal. I liked The SCJP Tip Line series.

Summer

Finally done with all the exams :) I'm actually expecting good results for all of them.

One interesting feeling that I have regarding university is that when I'm half way through the semester break I'm looking forward to start a new semester with lots of cool stuff to be learned, I start with excitement, and keep this pleasure close to the end of the semester, but when I get closer to the examination period, despite the initial excitement I count every second before finishing the exams to focus on the interesting items that has filled my wish list throughout the semester!! I'm not sure if everyone is like this, but I think these changes are required.

One thing that I'm about to start is a summer studentship project which is aimed at detecting moving objects in video stream using evolutionary methods(Genetic Programming).

Image from: wikipedia

Virtues and Vices

In the last post I talked about Doctrine of Mean and the idea of seeking a mean between excess and deficiency, vice and virtue. Below is an interesting table which lists the two extremes and the mean for different dispositions and behaviors. It is very interesting and in general it reflects the whole idea behind the Doctrine of Mean, and Aristotelianism view point.

Sphere of action of feeling	Excess	Mean	Deficiency
Fear and Confidence	Rashness	Courage	Cowardice
Pleasure and Pain	Licentiousness	Temperance	Insensibility
Getting and Spending (minor)	Prodigality	Liberality	Illiberality
Getting and Spending (major)	Vulgarity	Magnificence	Pettiness
Honor and Dishonor (minor)	Ambition	Proper Ambition	Unambitiousness
Honor and Dishonor (major)	Vanity	Magnanimity	Pusillanimity
Anger	Irascibility	Patience	Lack of Spirit
Self-expression	Boastfulness	Truthfulness	Understatement
Conversation	Buffoonery	Wittiness	Boorishness
Social Conduct	Obsequiousness or Flattery	Friendliness	Cantankerousness
Shame	Shyness	Modesty	Shamelessness
Indignation	Envy	Righteous indignation	Malicious enjoyment

Source: http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/ethics/characters.html
Image Source: http://qmonkey.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/in-the-garden-of-good-and-evil/

Doctrine of Mean

We're all seeking happiness. Our ultimate goal(Telos) is to live a happy life. The goal of ethics is to determine how best to achive true happiness. So what is happiness itself? Happiness is somethings which stems from living in accordance with appropriate virtues. Now what is virtue? Virtue is a disposition rather than an activity that a person takes when s/he tries to find a balance between excessive and deficient behavior.

One might say that there is no sole prescription for living a happy life, and I personally agree with such a view point, but the points above does not form a particular prescription. The mean that we're talking about is not the same for every person, and might not be the same for a person at different times. So the art in being a virtuous person is to dynamically set this mean. So we need to be constantly evaluating every second that we're living through, this is what true life is. This is what makes it a process rather than a dead entity. Every second of life is a decision about determining where the golden mean lies. I like this way of looking at life because it promotes the rationality of human being, it is this constant rational contemplation that makes us immune from temptations of our animalistic character, and certainly different from other creatures.

This shows that how practical ethics is. I wonder how it is possible to live a happy life with the prescriptions which are written by others who have totally different characteristics. The thing that we do need is a way of critical thinking to be able to determine precisely where these means should be set according to all of various input parameters that we have in a given situation. And interestingly this is what our educational system lacks. There are every details that one could thought of, but there is no room for building proper thinking in the minds of youth.

The last thing that comes to my mind is related to religion. Religion is a set of rules, i.e. its laws which I think are very inflexible(based on the critical thinking that I mentioned above and the number of parameters that we're faced with in every single decision making situation). In this world there are infinite number of possibilities, and I think it is not possible to write a set of comprehensive laws that describes the dos and don'ts in every single instance of actions which is taken by people. The thing that I'm trying to say is that we need something more dynamic in nature like ethics, and ethical thinking in order to form our decisions in real-time. To back this up I'd like to mention “Inquiring murderer” example by Swiss philosopher Benjamin Constant which was stated as a criticism against Kant's Categorical Imperatives.

• Smith asks you where he can find Jones.
• You know that Smith wants to murder Jones.
• You know that Jones is at home.
• Smith is headed in the direction of Jones’s house.

In this case shall we tell the truth? I won't tell the truth, but as far as my understanding I might be prosecuted for such action. It feels like Ture/False, Black/White, zero and one! Ethics is not like this. Where is that Zadeh's fuzzy logic?

This is my personal view point which has been formed based on my personal experience and the readings that I've had so far, and I don't intend to insist on it if someone can rationally criticize it. Remember that my ultimate goal is to live a happy life too. I'm just trying to find out how.

I think I moved away from what I was trying to imply at the outset, anyway I'm satisfied with the flow.

I was inspired by Nicomachean Ethics.