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Life Lessons

 

Robots For Home Motion & Planning

Why aren’t there more robots in homes? This a surprising complex question — and our homes are surprisingly complex places. A big part of the reason autonomous systems are thriving on warehouse and factory floors first is the relative ease of navigating a structured environment. Sure, most systems still require a space be mapped prior to getting to work, but once that’s in place there tends to be little in the way of variation.

Homes, on the other hand, are kind of a nightmare. Not only do they vary dramatically from unit to unit, they’re full of unfriendly obstacles and tend to be fairly dynamic, as furniture is moved around or things are left on the floor. Vacuums are the most prevalent robots in the home, and they’re still being refined after decades on the market.

This week, researchers at MIT CSAIL are showcasing PIGINet (Plans, Images, Goal, and Initial facts), which is designed to bring task and motion planning to home robotic systems. The neural network is designed to help streamline their ability to create plans of action in different environments.

MIT explains PIGINet thusly:
[I]t employs a transformer encoder, a versatile and state-of-the-art model designed to operate on data sequences. The input sequence, in this case, is information about which task plan it is considering, images of the environment, and symbolic encodings of the initial state and the desired goal. The encoder combines the task plans, image, and text to generate a prediction regarding the feasibility of the selected task plan.

The system is largely focused on kitchen-based activities at present. It draws on simulated home environments to build plans that require interactions with various different elements of the environment, like counters, cabinets, the fridge, sinks, etc. The researchers say that in simpler scenarios, PIGINet was able to reduce planning time by 80%. For more complex situations, that number was generally around 20-50%.

The team suggests that houses are just the start.  READ MORE...

Leadership

 

Our Purpose

Philosophers have been dealing with this question for thousands of years and have never really come up with a definitive answer:  What is our purpose here on earth?

Our purpose is to DIE...  we are born, we grow up and spend a lifetime learning, then we DIE.  It does not matter how much we have learned or how much money we have earned, we still DIE.  It does not matter if we are rich or poor, black or white, yellow or brown, we still DIE.  All of us have that one purpose in common.

But, for some, we need to explore all sorts of alternative like:

• we have a religious purpose
• we have an achievement purpose
• we have a knowledge purpose
• we have a contributory purpose
• we have a legacy purpose
• we have a power/control purpose
• we have a family purpose
• we have a happiness purpose

And...  all of those are true, valid pursuits, but in the end we all DIE.

Each and every purpose is different, and uniquely suited to our own personality and internal motivation.  Some of us strive hard towards our purpose while others just let the purpose flow naturally, allowing it to twist and turn in a variety of directions based upon influences and an interaction of forces, both expected and unexpected.   However, in the end we all DIE.

Personally, I am interested in why we only live 80-100 years.  Seems rather pointless when one thinks of eternity.  It would seem more plausible for us to live 500 years or a thousand years or more.  Why were our bodies not constructed to live a longer life?

 

Biden

 

NASA's Humanoid Robot

NASA’s Valkyrie humanoid robot is heading to Australia from its home base at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for extensive testing. The move is part of a reimbursable Space Act Agreement with Woodside Energy in Perth, Western Australia.

This is according to a press release by NASA published on Thursday.

Woodside Energy will test the machine’s software and provide data and feedback to NASA particularly as it relates to developing remote mobile dexterous manipulation capabilities to accommodate remote caretaking of uncrewed and offshore energy facilities.

“Valkyrie will advance robotic remote operations capabilities which have potential to improve the efficiency of Woodside’s offshore and remote operations while also increasing safety for both its personnel and the environment. In addition, the new capabilities may have applications for NASA’s Artemis missions and for other Earth-based robotics objectives,” said the NASA statement.

NASA hopes that the tests conducted in Woodside’s facilities will teach the agency how to better design robots for work in dirty and hazardous conditions like those found on the Moon and other planets.

Some activities to be undertaken by the robot include inspection and maintenance of infrastructure and plants that leverage resources and materials to produce new items. These activities could one day enable astronauts to live off the land in space.

“We are pleased to be starting the next phase of development and testing of advanced robotic systems that have the potential to positively impact life on Earth by allowing safer operations in hazardous environments,” said Shaun Azimi, lead of the dexterous robotics team at NASA Johnson.  READ MORE...

The Shift

 

Janis Joplin

 

Hotter Then The Sun

A groundbreaking nuclear fusion rocket could slash the time it takes astronauts to travel to Mars in half.

Pulsar Fusion has started construction on what it claims is the largest practical nuclear fusion rocket engine ever built. The exhaust speeds from the new rocket could reach over 500,000 miles per hour.

“Humanity has a huge need for faster propulsion in our growing space economy, and fusion offers 1,000 times the power of the conventional ion thrusters currently used in orbit,” Richard Dinan, the CEO of Pulsar Fusion, said in a statement. 

“In short, if humans can achieve fusion for energy, then fusion propulsion in space is inevitable. We believe that fusion propulsion will be demonstrated in space decades before we can harness fusion for energy on Earth.”

The key to fusion power is building sustained heat. Pulsar Fusion’s new direct fusion drive (DFD) rocket engine will hopefully reach several hundred million degrees, creating temperatures hotter than the Sun.

Engineers are building the engine in a test facility in Bletchley, England. The fusion reactor generates energy, creating a plasma of electrically charged particles. Those energetic particles are converted to thrust using a rotating magnetic field.

But confining the super-hot plasma with an electromagnetic field is a huge challenge. To better understand the complex plasma, the company is using AI machine learning to study data from the PFRC-2 fusion reactor. 

The simulations will assess the performance of nuclear fusion plasma for propulsion as it exits a rocket engine emitting exhaust particles at hundreds of miles per second.  READ MORE...

Smarter

 

As We Grow Older

It is inevitable whether we like it or not that as we grow older, we find ourselves learning a few things that we did not know or realize when we were young.  It does not take a college degree to learn these life lessons and in some cases a college degree could prevent you from learning these lessons sooner.

Here are the lessons that I have learned:

First - DON'T TRUST ANYONE

This may seem like it is fundamentally flawed in logic, but I assure you it is true.  You should not trust your parents, your spouse(s), your children, your friends, your employers, your minister/priest, your political leaders, the judicial systems, local businesses, and especially the government.

Money and Greed are the foundation of this as well as the fact that everyone lies and they must continue lying to protect the first lie.  No one is honest anymore, as they are more concerned about SELF than others.

Second - YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU DO

Throughout my entire life, I have heard others, including myself, blaming someone else for the choices and mistakes that we made...  and, that is simply wrong.  Someone may make us mad so much so that we seek revenge, but the other person did not make us seek revenge, we made that choice ourselves.

Third - WE DON'T ALWAYS LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES

I remember people telling me over and over again not to worry about making mistakes because I will learn from them and end up becoming better than I was before making that mistake.  That is simply not true.  We are not always better and we do not always learn as many of us make the same mistake over and over again.  See #1

Fourth - DON'T BECOME WHAT OTHER WANT YOU TO BECOME

All too often, I see both males and females, becoming what their parents wanted them to become and then becoming what their spouses wanted them to become, and worst of all becoming what their employers or religious leaders wanted them to become.  They were miserable all their lives, because they failed to pursue what they wanted to become.

There are all sorts of psychological issues surrounding why people do this and they are different for each person, so the quicker you understand this and can make changes, the better off you will be.

Fifth - START PLANNING FOR RETIREMENT AFTER HIGH SCHOOL

One of the flaws of our K-12 education system and mainly in high school, is the fact that we do not prepare students for LIFE...  giving them the financial skills or the technical skills that they will need to maintain their homes, especially in the area of retirement planning.

If given the knowledge and skills, a high school graduate could easily retire on $500,000 to $1,000,000 at the age of 58 without going to college or even acquiring technical skills as a blue collar worker.   All that is needed is saving $2.50 each day.

Threads

 

A Quantum Enigma

Scientists have discovered that tantalum, a superconducting metal, significantly improves the performance of qubits in quantum computers. By using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, they found that the tantalum oxide layer on qubits was non-uniform, prompting further investigations on how to modify these interfaces to boost overall device performance.





Researchers decode the chemical profile of tantalum surface oxides to enhance understanding of loss mechanisms and to boost the performance of qubits.

Whether it’s baking a cake, constructing a building, or creating a quantum device, the caliber of the finished product is greatly influenced by the components or fundamental materials used. In their pursuit to enhance the performance of superconducting qubits, which form the bedrock of quantum computers, scientists have been probing different foundational materials aiming to extend the coherent lifetimes of these qubits.

Coherence time serves as a metric to determine the duration a qubit can preserve quantum data, making it a key performance indicator. A recent revelation by researchers showed that the use of tantalum in superconducting qubits enhances their functionality. However, the underlying reasons remained unknown – until now.


Scientists from the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), and Princeton University investigated the fundamental reasons that these qubits perform better by decoding the chemical profile of tantalum.


The results of this work, which were recently published in the journal Advanced Science, will provide key knowledge for designing even better qubits in the future. CFN and NSLS-II are U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facilities at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. C2QA is a Brookhaven-led national quantum information science research center, of which Princeton University is a key partner.     READ MORE...

Taking the Census

 

Wisdom

 

130 Countries Leave US Dollar

If the soon-to-be-released BRICS currency is considered a threat to the U.S. dollar, then the CBDC could be its death knell. Out of 195 countries in the world, 130 nations are moving towards building their Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). 

Therefore, 98% of the world is looking to launch their respective CBDC currency making it easier to settle cross-border transactions.

Among the 130 countries, a dozen nations have reached advanced phases and are moving towards launching their digital currency assets.

A total of 11 countries, including many Caribbean nations and Nigeria have already launched their CBDC pilot program. A report from the Washington D.C.-based think tank Atlantic Council shows that only 35 countries considered CBDC in 2020. 

The dramatic rise is putting the U.S. dollar in jeopardy as countries could end reliance on the greenback and consider CBDCs.

The BRICS alliance is looking to challenge the U.S. dollar’s global reserve status by launching a new currency for cross-border transactions. The next summit will be held in South Africa in August and the bloc will decide the formation of a currency.

If the BRICS currency strengthens itself in the global markets, more countries could flock toward it for international trade deals. Also, if the BRICS currency gains support in the markets, the U.S. dollar could be on the path of decline.

Therefore, both the yet-to-be-launched BRICS currency and the CBDC digital assets could pose a threat to the U.S. dollar. The greenback stands at a pivotal point in time where its prospects remain on the razor’s edge for survival.  READ MORE...

Thief

 

On Gender Identity

"Lola" is a song written by Ray Davies and performed by English rock band the Kinks on their 1970 album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. The song details a romantic encounter between a young man and a possible trans woman or cross-dresser, whom he meets in a club in Soho, London. In the song, the narrator describes his confusion towards Lola, who "walked like a woman but talked like a man".

The song was released as a single in the United Kingdom on 12 June 1970, while in the United States it was released on 28 June 1970. Commercially, "Lola" reached number two on the UK Singles Chart[6] and number nine on the Billboard Hot 100.The   track has since become one of the Kinks' most popular songs, later being ranked number 422 on "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and was re-ranked at 386 on the 2021 list. "Lola" was also ranked number 473 on the "NME's 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time" list.

What I find amazing is that this is 1970, a good 40-50 years before the LGBTQ+ became hot to trot in American culture...   so, what does this mean?

It means that there were trans and gay people around long before it became popular, and nobody paid any attention to them because they kept their mouths shut.  

Nowadays, they want to be accepted and recognized as a viable member of American Society and while that is a noble cause and the liberal government is supporting their movement, the general public does not think too much of them...  which is somewhat of an understatement after BUD LIGHT crashed and burned.

If you visit the TUMBLR site, you can find all kinds of photos and vids of gay people, trans people, and those who want to have the attributes of both a male and a female.

Trans people are still born as biological males and females...  and if the males want to cut off their penises and be more like a girl...  why not let them do it?  Once the damn thing is off, they cannot put it back on...  even if they change their minds.4

• Should trans females be allowed the use a female restroom?
• Should trans females be allowed to compete in female sports?
• Will we ever find a way that will allow trans females to give birth?

Females are females and males are males.  And, no matter how hard you work at trying to change that, it will not be changed.  You can create fake penises and you can create fake breasts...  but FAKE IS FAKE.

HOWEVER... if doing this makes them happy, then why not let them proceed.  There is no need for the government to get involved and there is no need for children to question their gender identity because some liberal thinks they should.  We set ages for children to reach before they can be treated as adults...  those ages should be kept in place...  with the understanding that there is always an exception to the rule.

Moving Sky