AI Finis!

Remember when Iris and I signed up for the online AI (Artificial Intelligence) class as a team?

But she quit in frustration during the Bayesian algebra unit?

I carried on alone.

But she wandered by while I was working with the (logic) Truth Tables for a final exam question and asked me to explain the notation.

Then she proceeded to rattle off the correct answers by inspection.

It't not cheating because I would have gotten the correct answers in the end. Truly.

Besides, we signed up as a team.

And, is it fair that a guy who competed in all of the DARPA Grand Challenges (and placed quite highly on some of them) and already has a PhD in robotics is also taking the class?

Yes, the percentage of people in the on-line version of the class that has gotten perfect marks on all the homework assignments and the midterm is double the percentage among the students actually taking the class at Stanford, but what if we disqualify all of the ringers like the one above? From the discussion forums, it appears that quite a few professors are taking the class to learn about e-learning rather than robotics.

Or is it sour grapes because I can do complicated Bayesian statistics calculations but can't subtract 14 from 100 correctly? (I was a math major. We don't use actual numbers after the first year.)

This class was a blast. It took the full 10 hours a week that the teachers estimated we needed to put into it. But, looking back over the homework and exams, I can see how much makes sense to me now. Before the class, I had no clue even how to read the gobbleygook notation.

Serendipitously, I embarked on a new project at work where I can apply some of what I learned. What fun! And I get paid for it.

A big thank-you to instructors Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun and all the IT staff that kept the servers (mostly) running during this record-breaking huge class.

Related Posts:

• Trip report from the DARPA Urban Challenge Semi-Finals
• Trip report from the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab
• Use the search bar for our experiences with Lego and Robotics
• Particularly Robot Sumo
• What Do Automobiles and Spacecraft Have in Common? guest post for the Atlantic Monthly website

And the feathers flew

In 20 consecutive days, I was away for all but a 10 hour stretch and a 36 hour stretch. Within those 46 hours, I unpacked, did laundry, repacked, went to work (and unpacked from my office move in abstentia), and slept a little bit.

It's been hectic. No wonder I came back a little under the weather.

What did I find at home? Not toilet paper. We were running low before I left, but I didn't have time to get any. Do you think the other toilet users in my household would have bought some on their way home from work or school? We don't lack for stores en-route in our high density urban infill neighborhood.

OTOH, Bad Dad helped out on a coworker's field experiment in addition to his regular work and he was a single dad two weeks in a row. Plus, they claim that we haven't truly run out unless ALL bathrooms are out of TP and we have no facial tissues in the house.

When I got home, Bad Dad said that he had to spend Sunday at the office so I had to supervise homework and take care of the home front on my own. I have to admit that the field campaign and single dad trump cards are compelling.

I also discovered that my daughter had only one weekend day left before her end of semester video project was due. She told me that her partner dropped out the prior Wednesday, she wrote her script on Thursday, and it was due on Friday of the following week.

The script had more than half a dozen characters so I asked her who she had lined up as actors and her filming schedule.

You guessed it.

I told her to work those phones double time.

Then she showed me the script with her notes on costumes and wanted me to make them .right now.

In the end, she rounded up two friends who brought their own hats. That pile of cut up brown paper bags on the dining room table turned out to be headdresses (who would have guessed?) and we found all the feathers, fabric, belts, jewelry and pins she needed in my sewing room and closet.

There were feathers flying everywhere downstairs during and after headdress construction, but I have to admit the headdress was very creative. It's pretty cool to come home to a child who sees a grocery sack as an Aztec headdress (with paper curls) and a husband game enough to put it on and read dialogue like he means it.

I was always a method actress anyway. If you play a happy family, you can almost believe it yourself.

Meeting Shams

Yesterday, I took a break from work meetings to lunch with Shams. We did NOT plan to coordinate, but we did. Note that she made her coat, cowl and pants. The only thing I made in the picture is my sweater.

We didn't natter on as much about sewing as I expected. We were both taking a quick break from work and the conversation flowed between Berkeley (which both of us attended), working in tech, raising our daughters and fitting exceptional figures.

What is an exceptional figure? Chances are very good that you have one.

Suppose something is engineered to work for 90% of circumstances, from between the 5th and 95th percentile in some metric. That seems reasonable and your product will work for 90% of the market, right?

Not so fast. Think multi-dimensionally.

(0.9)⁶ = 0.53

In six independent dimensions, nearly half of the potential market will fall outside your engineering specs in at least one dimension.

Ready-to-wear (RTW) clothing manufacturers can't fit everyone. They have to make decisions about who their market is. Consumers have to take RTW items to tailors. Even people who can't sew can become virtual dressmakers by hiring custom clothiers. (I haven't sewn for others for money since my undergrad days, but I do swap favors with friends. Eric's wife gets clothes and I get a place to stay when in their town.)

Look back at the picture at the top of this post. Who is easier to fit?

That's a trick question. Shams' hips are an inch smaller than mine. We are both 5'5" tall, but our torso to leg proportions vary. She has to add inches to bust darts and I have to take them out.

In college, I had a 14" drop between my hip and waist measurements, 39" to 25" . In mid-life, that has decreased to 9-10"; my hips are still 39" but my waist is ~29-30". I can sometimes find RTW pants that fit, but it is still not easy. It was nearly impossible 20 years ago.

We both agreed that we are not fitting experts. But we are experts in fitting our own unique bodies. And we like to think that we fit our own unique personalities, too. ;-)

We had such a good time in our short meeting, I invited Shams to visit me in LA. She's never shopped the LA garment district. That needs to be rectified.

Shams posted her account of our meeting. Go there to see another photo.