aShademan

Thought-Control of Machines

2009-07-23T11:14:00.002-04:00

IEEE Spectrum reports on a new advancement in Brain-Machine Interfaces. [Read the news article].Dr. Carmena's research team at UC Berkeley have decoded the monkey's brain activity to directly control a cursor on the screen. The new decoder paradigm seems to be independent of the brain activity with which the monkey limbs are controlled and has no relationship to actual movements of the monkey’s

ThinkPad T400

2009-01-23T09:03:00.013-05:00

As I was looking for a laptop with the right balance of performance, mobility, and price that works best for my needs, I narrowed down my search to a display size of 13.3" or 14.1", +256MB graphics adaptor, and a low/medium voltage Intel Core 2 Duo with +1066 MT/s, +6MB L2-cache, and +2.5GHz clock rate.The list of Intel Core 2 CPUs Reliability of a manufacturer plays an important in my decision

How highspeed is your high-speed?

2009-01-23T08:44:00.007-05:00

Have you ever wondered how fast your Internet really works? There's an answer to that, beyond the claims of your ISP. Alternatively, you can tune in to bandwidthstats.com and get your hostname, IP address, and some other info, then click on Test Internet Speed.My current bandwidth meter reads 1.19 Mbps, "which means you can download at 152.38 KB/sec. from our server." What are your numbers?

Coffee Chat: Robot Learning

2009-01-20T23:06:00.005-05:00

School life is more interesting than ever. With no courses or TA duties, I have full luxury to learn new trends in robot learning. Amir massoud gave a talk on his ICRA 2009 paper in our group meeting today. Afterwards, we headed to SUB (the Student Union's Building @ Univ. of Alberta) for a coffee and a nice chat about robot learning, visual servoing, parametric vs. non-parametric, and

Current trends in Robotic Visual Servoing

2008-06-23T15:07:00.006-04:00

While I was searching for a sufficiently narrow topic for my thesis research, I thought it would be a good idea to find the current trends in our field by doing a statistical literature exploration. Our field, robotic visual servoing, has an extensive literature starting some 30 years ago with the pioneering work of Shirai and Inoue. Of course there weren't too many researchers working on

Smithsonian National Air and Space Muesum

2008-06-09T16:44:00.004-04:00

One of the highlights of my DC trip, was a 1-day visit to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I watched an IMAX 3D presentation of the International Space Station (Space Station 3D) which was a blast! Seeing the Canadarm2, the Mobile Servicing Module (MSS), and the other Canadian built robotic platforms in 3D action was certainly much more pleasant than reading the technical papers. I

On "The Next Giant Leap for Mankind"

2008-04-14T05:45:00.004-04:00

While I enjoyed reading a recent 60 Minutes' story on "The Next Giant Leap for Mankind", I was amazed at how the American public assesses the contributions of NASA (and other government-based research agencies for that matter) throughout history.The comments section opened my eyes on where the above-average American stands when it comes to mankind's scientific curiosity and quest for finding

I want to be a Mathebotician

2008-04-12T14:19:00.004-04:00

And thus I coin a new word, mathebotics, to refer to the science which utilizes appropriate mathematical techniques to do robotics. Most roboticists (people who do robotics as a hobby or as a profession) are not matheboticians. And that is exactly why robotics has not yet dominated, despite the large-scale efforts of the thousands of roboticists in the world.

On noise, parameter identification, and Jacobian estimation

2008-02-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently, noise benefits system identification. Measurement noise, however, if more than a couple of pixels, ruins the Jacobian estimation. It's not rocket science, it's all obvious. But after artificial generation of all of the visual-motor experiments and verifying the correctness of the Jacobian initialization method, I can sleep better at night. The wrong estimation of the visual-motor

Publish or Perish

2008-01-29T11:19:00.000-05:00

The expression "publish or perish" is familiar for most, and true to some extent in the academia. In the blog world, though, it's not quite true. I hadn't published for a while and guess what? I have not perished -- yet! Maybe that's just because I have written drafts, but they're not publishable in the public domain.Don't let your imagination take you to the wrong place; my unpublished writings

Relatively chill

2008-01-28T11:22:00.000-05:00

When you live in a place with the chance of arctic blasts, you would say -8C is warm, relatively. This morning, the temperature got below -30C and there was a wind chill factor. It felt like -45C and for the first time, I felt what -45C means. It means nothing. You will be under a pile of clothes and you wouldn't even feel it is colder than -20C. Yet, taking off layer after layer when I got to

On becoming a morning person

2007-06-08T11:32:00.000-04:00

Although I slept for a good 7 hours yesterday, I am a bit slow this morning. I feel like I am an addict in a rehab program! Yet, my recent attempt at changing to a morning person is still a success. I slacked off quite a bit yesterday, but at the end of the day the achievements were acceptable. I solved a couple of problems with the code that captures and shows a live feed of our FireWire cameras

Morning Joe vs. Midnight Lord Dracula

2007-06-07T09:22:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't been writing much lately. I have all sorts of excuses: from exams, to pure laziness, to following NBA playoffs, to changing my daily schedule to normal morning hours. And why on earth does it have to do with not writing as frequently as I used to?Because, I have been sleepy during morning hours and tired in the afternoon. I have been working inefficiently during the past month. I

Edmonton is a fun city to live in if YOU are not boring!

2007-04-12T05:40:00.000-04:00

I live and study in the capital of Alberta, the stereotyped not-so-cool-to-live-in Edmonton according to many. If you think Edmonton is boring, I have a little piece of advice for you: a boring person can't be entertained anywhere in the world. So, work on yourself instead of criticizing what the city has to offer!You might suffer from variations of depression if you wait for the good events to

Quotes

2007-04-05T21:10:00.000-04:00

Many good things happen to you when you don't care too much about them. Many good things happen to you when you least expect them.Last term, I had a course with a heavy course work. The competition was tough and the instructor kept mentioning that he will sort the students and mark them based on their rank. If I am not mistaken, he also mentioned that a prefixed percentage of the students will

spring and winter in spring

2007-03-26T15:23:00.000-04:00

10 C , clear sunny sky on March 26, 2007. Almost no winds. Yet, winter is not completely gone. I knew it and the weather news channel just confirmed that. It will go down to -10 in a few days.

Engineering an Empire - The Persians

2007-03-25T19:51:00.000-04:00

While searching for the latest news on how the protests against the movie 300 went, I came across a well-researched documentary on the Persian empire. Well worth watching, if you are curious about ancient history and particularly why some people were concerned about the distorted portrayal of ancient Persia in Miller's graphic novel.Part IPart II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

Plans for stability

2007-03-24T02:44:00.000-04:00

Starting this summer, I will try the 9 am-5 pm schedule for my research work. This should increase my research progress, while leaving me enough time to enjoy the short summer.For now, I am taking two courses and TAing another one, while pushing myself a bit to get some research results. The course work spans over all my time, usually taking a good portion of my weekends. However, during summer I

When in Rome do as Iranians, if you're an Iranian.

2007-03-22T00:33:00.000-04:00

North American male friends rarely shake hand and keep their distance from each other. There are good things to shaking hands daily. For example, when you meet a labmate or a classmate for the first time during the day, you can't neglect him! You have to acknowledge his presence and he would be more than an empty chair sitting next to you. People are distant in this part of the planet and avoid

Playing around with truth

2007-03-18T23:20:00.000-04:00

The sweet truth is that spring is (almost) here in Edmonton, Alberta. The snow is melting and the earth is rejuvenating for two rather short seasons of fertility and prosperity. Winter was surprisingly calm and mild most of the time, but I suspect that she is completely gone. The bare truth is that she comes back once or twice before the end of the April with her famous northern blizzards. The

Self-expectation

2007-03-17T07:49:00.000-04:00

To reach high standards, raise your expectations from yourself. Don't let others expect more from you; that would be counter-productive.Your abilities as a capable and intelligent human being is much more than the limits by which you usually give up trying. Be careful, though. There is a tiny difference between pressuring yourself to the limit, and losing your mental and moral stability. Never

Non-citizenship Requirement for Google Summer of Code

2007-03-14T12:27:00.000-04:00

If you are an open source programmer and you want to send an application to Google Summer of Code, don't be a citizen of Iran, Syria, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea and Myanmar (Burma). Well, you can always code for them for free if you are a citizen of those certain countries. They don't have a problem with you, they have a problem with engaging in commerce with you, if you are a citizen of those

Productivity

2007-01-14T18:02:00.000-05:00

Some belive that productivity has got to do with intelligence. Although it might be true to some extent, I tend to disagree with it as a general rule, because I have seen intelligent people to be less productive than their less intelligent counterparts.Plannig seems to be one of the factors that affects productivity directly. When a person plans things ahead, he/she has a better idea on how and

Starting over

2007-01-13T11:28:00.000-05:00

It's been a week since I got back from my vacation. I haven't been blogging for 5 weeks or so, just to learn that blogger is merged with google and many nice features are added. I always wanted to have labels for my posts, but I was too lazy to move my blog to another blog-server. This changed by blogspot motivated me to start over. I had been rambling too randomly lately. I need to organize my

{usr.local} share

2006-12-05T19:24:00.000-05:00

1C above in December? You've gotta be kidding me, summer is back ;-)

{friends} reunion excitement

2006-11-29T16:21:00.000-05:00

Excitement is when you haven't seen your kewlest buddies for more than three years and you will see them soon.

No 64-bit Flash Player for Linux?

2006-11-23T03:59:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it."When will a 64-bit version of Adobe Flash Player for Linux be available?"The Adobe Flash Player team is working on support for 64-bit platforms as part of our ongoing commitment to the cross-platform compatibility of Adobe Flash Player. We have not yet announced timing or release dates."Let me know if there is a way to get around this.

ده روز پیش تولد آرتین بود

2006-11-21T03:37:00.000-05:00

آرتین عزیزمتولدت مبارکآدادادای

{friends} Farhad

2006-11-20T00:18:00.000-05:00

"The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?"- Henry David Thoreau

{grad.life} idiot

2006-11-04T04:08:00.000-05:00

Fartudo: How would you spend your long weekend?Pisiamo: I will escape to Cuba. You know how cheap "things" are there. And the sun. Man! I have already missed the sun ...Fartudo: Enough! I will laugh back at your stupid plan when you learned that you brought home Hepatit B. Yo ha ha ha. How about you DiMitto? What do you do for the long weekend?DiMitto: I will write a chapter of my thesis.Fartudo:

{quotes.AS} Win big

2006-10-31T20:39:00.000-05:00

If you have no fear of losing, you will win big.

در باب هالووین

2006-10-27T03:51:00.000-04:00

در آخرین روز اکتبر، کدو تنبل هایی که درونشان مانند خریدارانشان خالیست با دنیای معنوی ارتباط برقرار می کنند یا درست تر بگویم تنها در این روز است که دنیای معنوی با دنیای فیزیکی از طریق یک کدو ارتباط برقرار می کندوه چه پر معناست این دنیای غرب

مشق شب

2006-10-20T07:36:00.000-04:00

دنیای برخی آدم ها خیلی کوچک استاین گونه آدم ها جلوتر از نوک بینی خود را نمی بیننداین گونه آدم ها زیاد دوست ندارند و کسی هم زیاد دوستشان نداردچون اصولا کسی را نمی بینند بینی من خیلی بزرگ استوقتی در دبیرستان بودم رتبه اول را از این لحاظ در کلاس داشتمیادم می آید که وقتی سرم را می چرخاندم بینی ام توی صورت بقل دستی ام می خوردولی از مزایای داشتن بینی بزرگ این است که همیشه دنیای بزرگی داشتمحتی آن موقع

آقای خوزه

2006-10-15T03:48:00.000-04:00

آقای خوزه از اهالی سابق و نه چندان شنگول برزیلی است که معتقد است باید خودت را سروته از درخت چنار آویزان کنی تا کتابی را که می خوانی بهتر بفهمیمن آقای خوزه را دوست دارم ولی ایشان مرا دوست ندارند.ایشان اصولا هر کسی را که در مکتب ایشان غیبت کند را دوست ندارد و او را چیزی شبیه اعدام صحرایی می کند.من آقای خوزه را دوست دارم ...آخر داستان رعد برق هولناکی بر سر من فرود خواهد آمد و چشمانم از جمجمه ام به

برنامه روزانه

2006-10-10T02:36:00.000-04:00

هر روز صبح که از خواب برمی خیزم دست و صورتم را می شورم صبحانه می خورم و تا مدرسه می دوم. آخر می دانید، آرزوی من اینست که در مسابقات ماراتن روی سکوی اول به ایستم.در مدرسه تمام فکر و ذکرم اینست که معلم ها از دستم راضی باشند شاید بتوانم مانند جسی اونس، قهرمان المپیک برلین، با بورس ورزشی به دانشگاه معتبری بروم.عصر که به منزل می رسم عصرانه ای میل می کنم و به محل کار پاره وقتم می روم.من نگهبان یک

تمرین

2006-10-09T02:27:00.000-04:00

اول ائل اول اول ال ائل اول اول اول اولدوم دون دون دئم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم دوم اول دون دون دوم دوند.م دوم دوم لدک اوم ادم اغاغاغاغاغاغاغاااغاز غاز غاز غاز غازغازک غاز غاز غاز غازغازک غازغازک شظشظک شظشظک شظشظک شضشضک شضشضک شضشض شضشضک شضشضک ضابغ ضایع ضضاضاضاضاضاضاضاضاضاضاضاضاضایعضبعضبتعضابع ضایع ضایعضایعضایعضیعضایغضایعپعن پهت چت چت چت چت چت چت پت چت جت جب جچ ج

چه روز خوبی خواهد بود

2006-10-08T20:48:00.000-04:00

روزی که همه امتحانهای دنیا تمام شده باشد...روزی که همه ضرب العجل های دنیا بی خیال شده باشند ...روزی که نامه الکترونیکی از کتابخانه دریافت نکرده باشی...بی خود دل خود را خوش نکنچنین روزی نخواهد آمدتمرین امروز:روز روز روز روز روز روز روز روط ر.ز ر.ط روط ر.ز روز ر.ز روز ر.وز روز روز روزروز روز روز روز روز روز روز روز روز رور روز روز روز روز ورز ورز روز روز روز روز روز روز روز روز روز روز روز روز روز

خطاب به لیشام

2006-10-08T02:54:00.000-04:00

ببینید ، این در حقیقت یه ایمیل برای لیشام هازم نپرسید که چرا مستقیم براش ایمیل نزدملیشام ما داریم می آیم ایرانیه برنامه بذار بچه هارو جمع کنیم که ببینیم بعد از ده سال کی داره چه کار می کنه

فارسی

2006-10-07T03:12:00.000-04:00

بالاخره یه وقتی باید شروع کنم به فارسی تایپ کردنچه معنی داره که فقط انگلیسی تایپ کنم؟حدود یه سال پیش شروع کردم ولی اون مشکل برای آرنجم پیش اومد که مجبور شدم کلا تعطیل کنمالان اون مشکل حل شده

{daily.thoughts} Too many (binary)

2006-10-04T03:44:00.000-04:00

Blogger requires 100 clicks to publish. Too many. Flickr requires 11 clicks to login. Too many.What happened to the one-click-away Internet experience? One is One in all bases.

{random.ramblings} Autumn or Fall

2006-10-03T01:59:00.000-04:00

September is gone. So are the green leaves, or yellow ones, or orange ones, or red ones. October is here, without a fest. October is the month of marking and writing. October will go by fast. After October comes November. November is frozen. November is cold. November is when you look at your Persian calendar again to make sure it is stil autumn or fall. But it snows. Therefore, November is the

{linux.fonts.persian} firefox

2006-09-30T00:51:00.000-04:00

Is it me or is it it?اما سوال چیذ دیگدی است!

{stolen.ball} requiem

2006-09-24T16:43:00.000-04:00

Last time I dreamt.It was in my dream.As white and elegant as I remember.I touched it.I smelled it.I wonder.Can the guy who stole it,have a good night sleep?He has departed me fromsomething I liked to play with.And something which was mine.I paid for it. We played with it.He stole it. He is devil.When it was in the game, we had a tie.We lost after he was pushed out of the game.I wait for a

{seasonal.philosophy} freedom

2006-09-19T09:37:00.000-04:00

It is difficult to define something that doesn't exist. How would you define freedom?

{favorite.quotes} 10

2006-09-06T07:17:00.000-04:00

"There are 10 types of people in this world; those who understand binary and those who don't."The above is from an unknown author (perhaps Jill?), I read it at the end of Jill's email today and I thought it was "neat".

{mottos} What's your school's motto?

2006-08-20T21:51:00.000-04:00

I have always wondered what the Latin words one sees around the schools' coat-of-arms mean. Ours at the University of Alberta is "Quaecumque Vera", which means "Whatsoever things are true". I found these and the meaning of other mottos on Wikipedia (see list of mottos). Most of the academic mottos promote finding truth, having wisdom, or being knowledgable. I suspect that having coat-of-arms and

{poetry.amateur} Heaven

2006-08-19T21:13:00.001-04:00

A rainy day,walking under a red umbrellaTowards a local farmers' market ...An hour or so passes,but still no signsof the market or anything elseIs this a Saturday?Or time has frozen,and it's still Friday?Or any other day?Still wandering in the rain,Under a dark red umbrella ...We arrive at a placewith colourful peoplewho do silly thingsand there are other peoplewho laugh at those silly thingsAnd

{opinions.senses} Sense of humor and common sense

2006-08-19T00:17:00.000-04:00

Common sense is inversely proportional to the level of education. The less one stays in school, the more common sense he/she has in daily activities. That's simply because real life is way too different from student life. Common sense is different from logical thinking. Lack of common sense is not necessarily a bad thing. Sense of humor is inversely proportional to cold climates. The colder it

{poetry.amateur} Freedom

2006-08-17T13:37:00.000-04:00

In the woods of regret,I pause, turn, andlook back at my life.What do I see?A failed attemptto find the hidden treasuresof body, mind, and soulInhales are deep 'n heavyHeavier than evercapturing my body.Time has cometo free my body.Two long exhales or three,Lighter gets my body,Lighter again and free.Freedom of bodyBitter sarcasms everydayfreeze my mind.A frozen mind is not freeMelt it down and

{non.academic} why I continue to write

2006-08-15T10:42:00.000-04:00

Recently, I have had a few suggestions to write more about myself rather than my nonsense academic experiences. It's interesting to observe that personal blogs can act as a means of communications to friends and family. When I started to write, I just wanted to practice writing in English as a second language. It turns out that my blog is more of a means of talking to friends and family. I can

{lovable.kidz} Arteen

2006-08-10T07:40:00.000-04:00

This photo is taken a month ago. Arteen is 9 months old now (8 months old in the pic). I have missed you a lot, handsome.

{}

2006-08-08T19:06:00.000-04:00

I haven't been blogging for a good ten days. I have missed you guys, too. Life's been good, I can't complain. Today, we had the first reading group meeting on variational methods in computer vision. Dana, a post doc of our lab, gave an intro to the field and highlighted the differences between snakes (active contour models) and geodesic active contours. I guess next time, Neil and Martin would

{life.academic} Scientific maturity

2006-07-27T18:10:00.000-04:00

For many years, I was a firm believer of the disadvantage of long post-graduate programs, but I think otherwise at the moment. Am I being brain-washed or am I simply getting mature in the graduate school?I believe that a PhD student sould remain in the program until he/she reaches scientific maturity, in a broad sense. One shall not be granted a doctorate until a committee of professors aprove to

{what.is} G-10

2006-07-25T13:18:00.000-04:00

After a conversation on the history of Ontario with Chris, my labmate who is actually from Toronto, Ontario, I felt the need to lookup the word Loaylists in wikipedia. Click after click, I arrived at the Canada Day wiki-page. Canada day is officially the birth date of what we now know as Canada; July the 1st, 1867. At that time, it was called the Dominion day, because it "commemorated the

{logic.modelChecking} CTL

2006-07-24T23:34:00.000-04:00

Here yet another nice introduction to model checking: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/wahl/intro-modelChecking.pdfCTL (Computational Tree Logic) is a branching-time logic. All of our daily actions can actually satisfy a correctness statement in CTL. For example, AG ~(arrogance) means "avoid arrogance";AG (self-esteem) means "maintain self-esteem";EG ~(arrogance) means "try to avoid arrogance";EG (

{science.games} How to solve it

2006-07-20T21:50:00.000-04:00

The puzzle of a ferryman, a goat, a cabbage, and a wolf, can be solved by a symbolic model verifier. You can write the LTL (linear-time temporal logic) specification and the solution can be seen. It's a plannig problem. I have a weird feeling. Someone asked me what I have done over the past week, and I came up with "hey, I learned how to solve the infamous puzzle using NuSMV." He gave me a look,

{daily.observations} Correct English

2006-07-18T18:08:00.000-04:00

I came across the Common Errors in English webpage (http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/), when googled for "English" (in case you were wondering, google is a verb now. http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/google). In fact, that page is ranked first with the google page ranking (TM) system."A clothes dryer makes the clothes drier." That's how you should use DRYER and DRIER! Anyways, this sentence is not

{segway.hack} documentation?

2006-07-13T14:42:00.000-04:00

I don't have a problem if your Segway works on several hacks, just add some comments to rememmber what changes you made to which files. You won't remember it after sometime and I - yes I - have to do many things from the scratch.

{weekly.meetings} moment of zen

2006-07-11T21:43:00.000-04:00

When my advisor was explaining the purpose of some of the group's projects, I couldn't help fantasizing about making the virtual combatics, where a haptic-interfaced tele-combatic is combating against another combatic in a virtual environment visualized by holographic images. The distinction of this system is that you are not limited to some pre-defined characters, but you can insert your

{daily.observations} abbreviations

2006-07-10T15:18:00.000-04:00

It strikes me how abbreviations can have different meanings. When I was at Ryerson University, I learned that the Dept of ECE can be the Department of Early Childhood Education rather than the commonly used Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. They shortened the latter as ELCE! Anyways, it's a hot and pleasant summer in Edmonton and Edmonton Eskimos are playing the Canadian Football

{articles} Yet to be written

2006-07-06T15:21:00.000-04:00

Modeling an infinite system with finite automata: how inaccurate can it be?

{random.ramblings} model checking

2006-06-30T18:27:00.000-04:00

The funny thing is, I don't know what system I am trying to verify. Is it the software of the robot controller, or the robotic manipulation tasks? How is this going to affect the mechanical design of robots? Higher levels of abstraction might be easier to verify, but would they be sufficient to implement a reliable system?

{modelChecking.robotics} Robotic Controllers

2006-06-29T16:48:00.000-04:00

Any developer involved in developing complex interactive systems such as robotic controllers agrees that validation and verification of such systems is a huge contribution. Many developers prefer not to get involved in model checking when developing simple applications, but at some point they will realize that as the size of the project grows it will get more and more difficult to test the system

{discussion.vision} What can a machine see?

2006-05-31T05:04:00.000-04:00

A general question is posed as the topic of this entry. There are different approaches to solve different problems in computer vision. I am specifically curious to know what problems each different approach in computer vision solves and how much a priori information each approach considers. I also like to know how far we are from replicating a biological system, in your opinion. Are we in the

{who.cogSci} Stevan Harnad

2006-05-29T17:14:00.000-04:00

Stevan Harnad is renowned cognitive scientist [wiki] and author of the following article:Harnad, S. (1994) Computation Is Just Interpretable Symbol Manipulation: Cognition Isn't. Special Issue on "What Is Computation" Minds and Machines 4:379-390[Full Text HTML]This post was originally meant to introduce a scientist and one of his works that interested me. Though I am not particularly working on

{life.daily} How to eat muffins

2006-05-28T14:13:00.000-04:00

I have little doubt that the following is the best paper in the field:http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~rahimi/muffins/It's a good read and highly recommended. It also gives you a deep philosophy: "Everybody" can be wrong. And that's the lesson learned today. Do things upside-down (bottom-up, whichever applies), and you may contribute in a field.

{ramblings.life} Creativity

2006-05-26T10:36:00.000-04:00

I reckon that creativity intensifies with solitude. Thoughts won't dig deep when you share, since you share not only your heart, but also your everything else including your limited resources for creativity. Instant creativity (such as this post) are meaningless unless a significant amout of thought is put solely in the creation process. This, of course, applies to anyone with limited resources

Master of Science in Vision and Robotics

2006-05-25T09:04:00.000-04:00

Here is a list of courses that I think would give the right background (mathematics, computer science, mechanics, signal processing) to do good work in computer vision and robotics. Probably good for a 5-year course based master's degree in an EECS department. The more I work in this area, the more I feel that Robotics and Computer Vision is a field by itself and can't fit the traditional EE or

{who.compVis} Joseph Mundy

2006-05-25T08:24:00.000-04:00

Joseph Mundy is a pioneer computer vision scientist, who observed the importance of Algebraic Geomtery in computer vision some 20 years ago. The modern approach to computer vision uses Projective Geometry as the mathematical framework to represent and analyse scenes. Projective Geometry is an established field of Projective Spaces within the Algebraic Geometry community. It appears in graduate

{math.logic} A short note

2006-05-23T20:59:00.000-04:00

It is worth noting that in the Electrical Engineering (EE) curriculum, there is little space left for important topics such as Mathematical Logic. They either assume that EE students are naturally logical or they will never use mathematical logic in their studies.I remember that we had to take propositional and predicate logic in high school (although at that time, I did not know the English

{favorite.quote} do not re-invent the square wheel

2006-05-23T15:23:00.000-04:00

I have heard that getting the Segway robot to work properly (navigation, localization, etc.) may take quite a while. There are others in the department who have spent years on Segway development. My initial reaction when I heard this was, "nice! There is no need to re-invent the wheel." I am not sure how much this could be true and how much different professors are willing to share their students

{robotics.back} After two weeks or so ...

2006-05-21T05:26:00.000-04:00

I guess I have rambled on sports too long and right now my play-off fever seems to be gone. Well, Oilers are winnig the Western Conference Finals and I have been cheering too much with them. It is time to focus back on my stuff.The above pix is the newest member of our lab. Although it is still in the box (as it arrived just last week), it will look more or less the same when put together. It is

{blog.this} CSC meets ATH

2006-05-19T08:56:00.000-04:00

CSC meets ATH Originally uploaded by ashademan.Nice weather in Edmonton these days (except for today which is supposed to rain).BTW, here is the topic in its complete FRM:CSC meets ATHGOD's behind CLDsAZD prays to GODLET this stay LNG!

{sports.hockey} whyld myle!

2006-05-19T06:56:00.000-04:00

Oilers will play the Mighty Ducks tonight in the first game of the conference finals. The party was gross after the win, or so I have heard. There appears to be a titty-cart (the name is self-explanatory) somewhere down n the whyld myle (the so-called Whyte Ave). These people are crazy (in a good sense).

{sports.hockey} Oilers do the impossible!

2006-05-15T00:52:00.000-04:00

It was a nice effort by Oilers to kill the penalties in the first period and come back to the game. They won 6-3 again, and have a chance to close it in on the Sharks on Wed in Rexall place.White Mile is 60 mins away.

{sports.hockey} Oilers-Sharks game 5

2006-05-14T21:54:00.000-04:00

Oilers won game 4 deservingly. The score was 6-3, and Oilers were down 3-2 in the game. Some say, it was a lucky bounce that bought them back the game. I disagree. It's power of will. In 5 minutes, game five starts at SJ. The series is tied at 2 games apiece now, so whichever wins this game five, will be in the control of the series.

{sports.hockey} Oilers win in 3rd OT

2006-05-11T18:17:00.002-04:00

Let me get something straight, here. I wanted to make this blog an all-science blog. I am not quite in the mood to BS for science for now. I might do it some day, as I enjoy scientific BS, no matter what. Wouldn't it be interesting to know that the current technology hype is around game business, but a few years from now no one would be that much interested in it? Sort of like the bio-technology

{sporting.news} 7:45 PM

2006-05-07T07:48:00.000-04:00

A quarter-to-eight PM, is a nostalgic time of the day, when I feel the lack of something essential in me, something that I have been addicted to for many years: the daily dose of 15-minute sporting news! At that time of the day, many Iranian sport-enthusiasts forget about whatever they are doing and tune in to IRIB-3 to listen to the usual pattern of news, starting with the domestic soccer-league

{sports.hockey} No Battle of Alberta

2006-05-04T12:52:00.000-04:00

The title says it all. Calgary Flames lost to Anaheim "Mighty Ducks" in an embarrasing game to be eliminated from the playoffs. What's worse is that the highly anticipated "battle of Alberta" between Oilers and Flames would not happen. The positive side of this would be the fact that Flames fans would be rooting hard for Oilers (at least that's what Keving told me, he for one). Another

{sports.hockey} videos

2006-05-02T17:28:00.000-04:00

I have uploaded some of the Whyte Av street celebrations after Oilers huge win on youtube.com:This one has been viewed 752 times since last night!Crazy fansScreaming girlsHigh Five in Whyte AvI have some more, and I would upload them gradually. I am cheap and my Internet is slow!BTW, Can you see the following video?

{sports.hockey} Go Oilers Go

2006-05-02T05:33:00.000-04:00

Edmonton Oilers made history by eliminating the giant Detroit Red Wings in game 6 of the first round of Stanley Cup playoffs (NHL). They were down 2-0, but magically managed to score four goals in the thrid period to win 4-3. Instantly after the game, Whyte Ave was full of die-hard Oilers fans that were celebrating and high-fiving each other, singing songs, and making all the noise in the world.

{wish.list}

2006-04-30T05:46:00.000-04:00

An external hard drive to back up and organize some files.2GB of memory to help my poor weary laptop.Some miracle to finish the semester.

{april.fool}

2006-04-27T17:29:00.000-04:00

I can't be that stupid, april's over.

{lovable.kids} Desktop Wallpaper

2006-04-25T00:50:00.000-04:00

Arteen's wallpaper for your laptop:

{amateur.poetry} blurred

2006-04-09T09:38:00.000-04:00

Do words such as dactylic or iambic ring a bell for you? How about dactylic hexameter or iambic pentameter?Well, from what I have minimally learned, a dactyl (Greek for finger) in poetry is a metrical foot that sounds like DUM-di-dy, a long syllable followed by two short syllables. An iamb is a metrical foot consisting in a short syllable followed by a long one such as duh-DUH. I guess short and

{lovable.kids} world's youngest tourist

2006-04-09T03:56:00.000-04:00

Arteen, the youngest tourist ever visited Paris, brings smile to the viewers with his cute smile. You made my day young lad!

{empty.thoughts}

2006-04-05T04:57:00.000-04:00

Elegance is the only word in his minimal dictionary.

{dev.tools} Eclipse SDK

2006-03-30T15:05:00.000-05:00

Being in a competitive environment helps you stay competitive. I hate to say this, but I observe the job market as a horrible gigantic monster that eliminates all who don't stay as dark and competitive as the monster wants you to be (is it why the job searching agency is called monster.com?). That's why I endure the cold spring in Edmonton. I have minimal and rather linear understanding of

{dream.job} astronaut

2006-03-28T01:07:00.000-05:00

Moving to University of Alberta got me one step closer to my dream job. Don't take me wrong. Earning a PhD (stands for Piled Higher & Deeper) is not a dream. It's a step. Don't take me wrong again. Being hired as a university professor is also not a dream. It's another step (maybe not!). I always wanted to become an astronaut and explore the unknown. Why, you asking? Donno!Star Trek influence

{computer.games} Sensible Soccer

2006-03-27T03:41:00.000-05:00

Call me old-fashioned. Call me a loser. Call me whatever you want.I have missed playing Sensible Soccer on an Intel 80286 machine.

{daily.howto} How to tell if spring has arrived

2006-03-24T01:27:00.000-05:00

Mathematicians:S={days|days belong to spring}if n(S)<>0 then it is spring. The abstraction is left for the reader as an excercise. We have an empty set in Edmonton.Astro-physisists:If the earth has completed on full turn round the sun, it is spring again. The reference for the start of the spring is its previous year. The first spring we can track, dates back to the big bang when t=0, where t is

{hobbies.robotics} NXT to be released in F'06

2006-03-22T02:20:00.000-05:00

Robotic kits may be a toy for many big kids, but for me they are more. Sort of similar to the map of the treasure island, which is more than just a map or a puzzle. Robotic kits are the guide to a valuable treasure.

{entertainment.movies} Mission Impossible VI opens March 31, 2016

2006-03-21T15:15:00.000-05:00

They have ran out of ideas. It's easier to duplicate good ideas than to generate good new ones. Basic Instinct 2! That's a crazy choice. Do they also refer to the leading roles as Sharon Stone 2 and Michael Douglas 2? Seriously, how far would this movie business go? Imagine 10 years from now. Would you go to watch Mission Impossible VI that features Tom Cruise III?

{annual.report} 365 days ago

2006-03-20T23:41:00.000-05:00

Almost 365 days ago, destiny striked me again. It was written that I get closer to the arctic. A few months after, I tried to change it. It was all written. It's all written, don't you get it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. It's all written. The power of will may not change your destination, but it sure will change the way you want yourself to be in that designated destination. Albeit a bit. I am

{nigtly.zen} geometry

2006-03-19T23:36:00.000-05:00

What is the geometry of a box?What is the geometry of a textured box?What is the geometry of two boxes?What is the geometry of structured scenes?What is the geometry of unstructured scenes?What is the geometry of natural scence images?Once we answer these questions, we would be half-way to completion of the game. The other half is completed when answering questions that only come to existence

{amateur.poetry} Melt away

2006-03-18T16:25:00.000-05:00

I envy the colour green,That mighty and warm colour green.Under the piles of white snow,It's that mighty colour green,-That makes all the difference-That wants to be seen.Winter is arrogant around hereWhy are people so jealous and meanMelt away beautiful white winterMelt away-It's time to turn it all green.Blossoms missing in yer white dressIt's not winter anymore; It's not a wedding.It's just

{human.male} that strange thing

2006-03-16T16:43:00.000-05:00

Femmes have a specific useless kind of it too, but for some valid reasons no one calls it by its real name on them. Beard is certainly much more than just facial hair on male entities. -It can turn into a thermometer in under -20C weather; -It can show that you know a lot (esp. when you scratch it); -It can increase your maturity; yet it can decrease your maturity if you spend more than 46

{lovable.kids} Arteen's look :)

2006-02-13T19:54:00.000-05:00

{daily.humour} The French Kiss

2006-02-13T10:54:00.000-05:00

Why is it difficult for some to set-up a mailing list correctly? A professor asks a few questions from the conference organizers, and the question is sent to the whole group. He has correctly chosen the "Reply to", not the "Reply All" whatever. Why am I in that list anyways?------------Thank you for the email. I have a question regarding the conference: doespaper submission mean giving a talk?

{daily.fun} Free Photo Booth

2006-02-07T13:12:00.000-05:00

This clip's worth the time:Free Photo BoothCheers!