If I Were: Macy’s/JCPenny
The first way to view the ongoing struggles of department stores like Macy’s, JC Penny, Yonkers, and others is by likening them to their internet adversaries. From this vantage we see their hip, sprawling, prime-retail stores as grossly inefficient warehouses, bleeding margin on customer acquisition: advertising to get people in the door labor: presentation, refolding, […]
debator//debater
A machine to help us communicate… The last time I had free nights and weekends, 2011, our country was growing predictably chipper over the coming election, so I spent some of that free time considering debaterdebator. The idea was simple: build a machine to help us communicate. I wondered whether personal relationships could be leveraged […]
Enable your customers
Here’s one of many articles describing the challenge of maintaining personal privacy amidst the spread of data brokers http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article166488597.html The core and often unacknowledged challenge here is the asymmetry, that people will generally modify their behavior (self-censor in some contexts) according to their surroundings and present purposes. This ability falters when we do not know […]
Solar Trains < Solar Railways
When I first saw the headline “India’s first solar-powered train makes its debut,” I envisioned something that actually grappled with their substantial energy requirements and somehow leveraged their uniquely distributed infrastructure. But, instead, the described pilot project puts solar panels on passenger cabin roofs for climate control. So, small potatoes. But recalling 2014’s Solar (freakin’) […]
#NetNeutrality
As today’s Day of Action on net neutrality draws to a close, I want to post a couple of thoughts from my FCC comment here. First, it’s important to say that net neutrality is not the ideal solution, competition is. We do not enjoy the fruits of competition because of substantially captured agencies like the […]
PhD Defense: Redundant Design and Adaptive Control of an Interleaved Continuum Rigid Manipulator
This past Monday I completed my PhD in Mechanical Engineering, bringing to a close my years as a student and my time at UW-Madison. While I expect to break out parts of my research and dissertation in greater detail in the coming weeks, for now I want to post my dissertation and a recording of […]
A Longer View On Academic Publishing Platforms And Innovation
TLDR: Patentese values superficial bets on the future of technology and society, to the detriment of technology and society. I’ve been watching the relationship between researchers, publishing platforms, and IP evolve with some interest. To choose some examples: Elesiver buying Mendeley Patent Trolls (for instance) IBM Watson’s attempts at culinary creation Paul Allen launching AI2 […]
Getting started in Simbody
[latexpage] I’m testing Simbody for mechanical system modeling, here are some quick notes. VisualStudio 2016 setup I followed the x64 VisualStudio instructions, placing the final installation in C:\Simbody. After creating a new C/C++ Win32 Console Application and a blank source file (to access the C/C++ options), I entered these project properties: Configuration Properties | VC++ […]
PhD Preliminary Examination
I gave my prelim presentation this past January, recapping my work with Prof. Zinn on Interleaved Continuum-Rigid Manipulation. The presentation went well and I enjoyed the audience’s and committee’s questions, most of which centered on things that would be very fun to look at given infinite time. As I hope to graduate soon, I’ll only […]
LED Christmas Lights
For any given product, it is always interesting to see which aspects are improved and which languish. Engadget’s recommendation of the best LED and incandescent Christmas lights highlighted this; the difference between the LED and incandescent strands is almost entirely restricted to the bulb (and associated electronic driver). Looking carefully at the above picture, […]
Gallery