Anthony M Harrison

The player/stage — CommonReality bridge is coming along nicely. I was able to start on it yesterday (finally my machine is on the network), and quickly got CR controlling very basic things. Today I got the execution and threading done so that sensors can be processed in parallel. Hell, I’ve even got a test model that is attending to the objects that its seeing in the environment. Very cool.

There do appear to be a handful of issues with respect to the generation of unique simulation objects, but it shouldn’t be too challenging to resolve. Tomorrow I should be able to start considering how to make it all work with the dissertation model.

I have to say this has gone much easier than expected. I do, however, have to figure out a more robust way to handle token/type/value relationships. While I could use the blobfinder and just assign each element to a unique channel (ugh), I think a better route would be to use the fiducial simulator which can give me an identifier and an orientation. This should just be as easy as building another ISensorProcessor (much like the one for blobs) - but I’m afraid I may have to use some ghettotastic sensor fusion to get this to work.

I’m thinking I’ll turn this process into a multi-part article for jactr. Speaking of which, I really ought to get the install instructions uploaded..

So, I couldn’t help it. I upgraded to Leopard. Overall, I have to agree with the major consensus: very solid, not a huge leap, but definitely worth the upgrade. Time Machine more than pays for the upgrade.

One problem though. I’d gotten Player/Stage set up for the modeling but that was on Tiger, so it’s now broken. Even worse, the install of the developer tools got screwed up somehow, so now I can’t even reinstall the MacPorts without first reinstalling the developer tools. Hopefully it will be resolved this evening.

knock on wood.

Things have been quiet as I have been getting acclimated to the new job at NRL. Due to some snafu, after two weeks I still don’t have a computer. While it had been ordered by my boss a month before I arrived, procurement didn’t order it until a week after I’d arrived. Supposedly it has been delivered, and so now it is “days, not weeks” until I will have it.

Anyway, a plan of attack has been assembled for the next few months. The first order of business is to get the long awaited Player/Stage simulator up and running so that ACT-R/S can actually operate within a dynamic spatial environment.

Up next will be building a model of someone else’s data and then migrating some preexisting robotic models to use ACT-R/S. Basically these first few months are slated for engineering problems as well as getting my feet wet with the current work of the others in the lab. This is fine by me, as the subsequent research path still needs to be considered in greater depth.

The spare time will also be filled with getting the jACT-R site back up and running with documentation and examples. The code base also needs some updating to handle the latest changes to Eclipse and its new execution environment (for macs).

Now that I’m back in the flow, look for weekly updates both here and at jACT-R.