Entries with tag "mit"

I just discovered MIT's OpenCourseWare, which appears to be a repository of the course materials for most or all of MIT's courses, available for free and without registration on the web. I went straight to the Computer Science section and immediately found two courses on Artificial Intelligence (Fall 2002, Spring 2003). They actually appear to be the same course, but taught by two different teachers, and the materials seem pretty different. It will probably be interesting to go through both of them.

This website might be a godsend, since I tend to be pretty good at learning things on my own. Of course it's very helpful to have a knowledgeable professor to explain it and to ask questions of, but I can certainly pick up most of it from the course material alone. It's like it was made specifically for people like me — too lazy do do well enough in school to get into MIT, but willing to do a little extra work to learn some of the stuff anyway :)

Update: Actually, I hadn't seen the XTutor section for each course, which seems to be a full set of recorded audio lectures by the professors, along with matching lecture slides, full transcripts, and lecture handouts. There are also weekly online interactive homework problems. In other words, that's pretty damn close to what I would get by taking the course in person. Now I'm even more excited.

Some kids at MIT are having a Time Traveller Convention this evening. Their intention was for it to become so widely publicized that it would be remembered far into the future, so that if time travel is ever invented, people can travel back in time and attend.

They've specified exact coordinates for the event in latitude, longitude, and time. However, a few things worry me. First of all, they don't specify altitude (i.e. distance from the center of the Earth). Warping in just 50 feet off in either direction could be unpleasant. Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration is that the Earth is travelling at 30 km/sec around the Sun. Being just a few seconds off in your calculations would place you in the bitter cold of space. Even if you do match the speed of the Earth, you need to consider its rotation, and warp in with the right amount of lateral velocity. At the equator, the surface of the Earth revolves at 1670 km/hr. Warping in without matching that speed would send you flying into a wall at around Mach 1.4.

One last concern, as pointed out by a Slashdotter:

Seeing the location depicted so accurately, I have only one fear...

Telefrags.

I think I need this, although it sort of scares me. The guys at MIT came up with Clocky, which is a little clock for people who have trouble waking up. When the alarm clock goes off and the snooze button is pressed, clocky will roll off the bedside table, run away, and hide. Minutes later when the alarm goes off again, the sleeper must get up and look for Clocky. Clocky is kind of like a troublesome pet that you love anyway. Everyday he finds a new hiding spot.

Yes, ingenious, but I don't think I could sleep comfortably with that creepy, furry creature lying in wait next to me, ready to scurry off into a dark corner. It would certainly help to break up the morning routine though.