Researchers examined stable isotopes from bone collagen and dental enamel to reconstruct the diets of ancient Mongolians. Findings challenge the popular notion of a completely nomadic prehistoric population, linking grain cultivation with the success of the Xiongnu Empire (c. 200 BCE-150 CE) and showing continual grain consumption during the Mongol Empire of the Khans (c. 1200-1400 CE). (1)
In a lab at Columbia University, engineers have developed a strange yet clever way for robots to feel: Let’s call it the finger of light. It’s got a 3D-printed skeleton embedded with 32 photodiodes and 30 adjacent LEDs, over which is laid a squishy skin of reflective silicone, which keeps the device’s own light in and outside light out. When the robot finger touches an object, its soft exterior deforms, and the photodiodes in the skeleton detect changing light levels from the LEDs. This allows the system to determine where contact is being made with the finger, and the intensity of that pressure. In other words, if you shook this robot’s hand, it wouldn’t feel it, in a traditional sense; it would see it. (1)
Interested in chess programming? You are interested in philosophy too! What is thinking? Can AI be conscious? What does it mean to do something? Can the AI understand that it does play chess? Explore the AI related articles in Harmonia Philosophica and understand why you are already a philosopher!
In the previous episode we set the foundations for starting a chess program. In summary we…
Discussed the pre-requisites for the tutorial
Created the chessboard
Got the first input from the user
Now it is time to start the design of the chess thinking algorithm.
Step 0: Design the main steps on paper
Before making any serious programming attempt, one has to leave the computer and get a piece of paper. There, he can design the algorithm of the program. A good design is invaluable for a good program. There is no need to start writing code without having that design first!
Chess program algorithm outline
One can find above a rough outline of the major steps involved in a chess program algorithm.
Note that this algorithm is an over-simplification, but it will do for now. For example, the algorithm above does not take into account the fact that the thinking of the computer must be conducted in various depths and not only in the initial position. We will elaborate on that in next episodes; for now let us just try to analyze all possible moves in a position and choose the one that leads to the best score.
Free Blogging Advice: Writing is hard. And easy. The goal of the Free Blogging Advice (FBA) series of short articles is to provide some free advice on… blogging! All you have to add is some time and effort. And love. Lots of love.
This question can arise more than once in the beginning of your blogging endeavor and it will also come up later in time after you have established yourself as a known blogger. (or I would better say it SHOULD come up again after you have succeeded as a blogger – more on that later on)
Not being able to answer that simple question usually ends up in full demotivation and eventually to the end of your dream to become a blogger and share your ideas with the world.
But is there a right answer for that question?
Truth be told, there is not.
But there are many wrong ones.
Aristotle once very intuitively said that “the question contains the answer”…
This couldn’t be more applicable here.
Some say they are blogging for their followers…
That is so nice. Except that if you are writing for the ones who read you, then you will inevitably become just a puppet belonging fully to them. A writer does not care about who reads him. He (or she) simply writes whatever is in his head just… because! Creativity is a deeply irrational urge, not a calculative urge to gain more followers or retain the ones you have. Van Gogh only sold one painting while he was alive.
Some say that they are blogging to share knowledge…
Some say they are blogging because of other reasons…
That is the great trap though. That you need a reason to blog.
If blogging does not come from deep inside you, there is no reason you should be doing it in the first place. If you need a reason to blog, then you should stop right now. Because the moment that reason seizes to exist, that will be the moment when everything will look useless and futile. And a true writer never sees his (or her) work as futile or useless! Pure creation is never done under special conditions or within specific context. It just flows out from you.
Search within you.
Imagine yourself after many years blogging.
Having written thousands of posts.
With zero followers.
Zero page views.
Will you be happy?
Will you feel full?
Only you can answer that.
And when you answer this question you will understand.
Why everyone asking “Whom am I writing for?” is simply trying to find a reason not to…
Free Blogging Advice: Writing is hard. And easy. The goal of the Free Blogging Advice (FBA) series of short articles is to provide some free advice on… blogging! All you have to add is some time and effort. And love. Lots of love.
One of the things bloggers find difficult to cope with, is the fact that their site is not perfect.
Most of us are perfectionists, especially when it comes to the child of our creativity. Our site should be flawless, full of perfect articles, with embedded perfect pictures, saying perfect things.
The truth is much more different than that though.
Every human is imperfect. We constantly change and grow, we learn and forget, we are literally a new person every passing second as Harmonia Philosophica has explained more than once in various philosophical contexts.
How do you expect your blog to be perfect?
Being perfect was never the goal in the first place.
The goal is to expose your thoughts to the cosmos. To let out your thoughts and give others the opportunity to get to know them. Perhaps even reply back and establish a community wandering about the same things.
A blog is a window that exposes your soul to the world.
Trying to believe that what others see through that window needs to be perfect is simply a denial of your very nature. No matter how much you try to make things perfect, there will always be things that could be done better, small spelling mistakes, broken links or missing images.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that you must not do your best to have a perfect site. I am just emphasizing the fact that if this is the first and only thing you care about you will indeed have a perfect unpublished site…
Blogging is about letting go.
Blogging is about having fun.
And who can have fun while trying to play everything to perfection?
