Comps and Proposal Scheduled

This week I finally got a lot of stuff I have been working on for the past couple months to the next stage.  I finally got comps and dissertation proposal scheduled and my proposal approved by the chair of my committee to be handed out to the rest of my committee.  I am so very excited!

Wild fires and resource allocation

I ran across another interesting paper “Resource Sharing for Control of Wildland Fires“.  They have the problem of resource sharing between different fire stations that need particular resources.

This seems like a job for bounty hunting and raffles!  So, we have the tasks of providing particular resources.  Basically people request for a resource by putting a bounty for providing it.  Urgency of the need is mirrored by the bounty.  Resources that fire stations are not using can be put up to bid on in the Chinese auction and fire stations can use the tickets that they have acquired through going after tasks or received via auction to participate.  By structuring the sharing mechanism in this manner we motivate the fire stations to participate and due to bounty hunting being the mechanism we use to request particular resources the fire stations get what they want when they want it.

A similar problem appears in re-allocating food resources between food banks.  The same formula of bounty and auction style system could be applied.

Alexandria and Resource Allocation for Food Banks

The day before Halloween Les and I went to Alexandria and we did some of the scavenger hunt.  It was a amazing warm weather and there were all of these dogs dressed in costumes.  It was really fun.  We ate at Red Rocks Pizza, which my brother recommended, but we found to be not that great.  However, because we were still hungry after the pizza we ran across this burger joint Burger Fi.  There fries are the best and the milkshakes are so so so thick and delicious and the burger of course was juicy and tasty.

I’m nearly done my dissertation proposal.  So, should get back to working on that…  But before I stop, I found a paper “Challenges in Resource and Cost Allocation” by Toby Walsh published in AAAI just this year.  He claims that food bank distribution of food to people is a challenge problem.  This is awesome!!  I would so very much love to be working on trying to come up with solutions to this problem.  I have experience working in food banks and know the trouble with fair distribution and expiring foods.  Well, ok, back to writing.

Getting married tomorrow!

This is my last night as a bachelor!  Tomorrow I get married to Leslie Ann Brown (soon to be Wicke!).  This past week has gone by lightning fast.  We finished moving all of Leslie’s things and Casey and Louis and Audrey came from Germany.  Wow…  I am so excited!!!  I can’t even write in a coherent order.

So I’ll just list things:

  1. Brother, Stephen Emerick, Stephen Kuhl and Cameron Paterson took me to the Taste of DC Oct. 8th for a bachelor’s party :).  Was a very rainy day but fortunately for us the rain stopped and we were able to still do it.  It was great to see my brother and my friends before I’m married.
  2. I showed Audrey the robots at the lab and she likes them :).  I can’t wait to see her grow up and become a Godly young woman.
  3. I made breaded chicken breast in the wok!! They were delicious.

And so so so very much more I can’t remember right now.  I’m so tired.  I can’t wait for the wedding stuff to be done!

I love you Leslie <3

Update on life

Wow!  This week has been crazy busy.  Last weekend Les and I packed up my stuff from Hildey’s and she had her bridal shower in Hanover.  Then Monday we moved my little stuff into our first apartment and then Tuesday we moved the bigger stuff.  Stephen Kuhl helped with the move both days!  He was a great help.  Steve Aden was an enormous help, he helped move the big stuff with his truck.  He literally came straight from the airport to Hildey’s to help us!  By now Les and I have gotten just about everything of hers moved in except her dresser and one of her bigger book shelves.  Our places is looking nice!

The, yesterday Leslie’s sister, brother-in-law and niece arrived from Germany!  Was so great to finally meet them in person and have dinner with them.  Audrey is so so energetic.  She had only five ours of sleep and was still running all over the house and up and down the steps.  I wish I had that much energy.

This Saturday, if the weather holds up, my friends have put together a bachelor party and we are going in to DC for the Food Fest!

Today, we are planning on getting some of the books onto the shelves and out of the boxes and then run some errands.

I can’t wait until we are married!!  It is so close.  October 15th at 10am it begins and then by noon we should be back to our apartment and married 🙂  Then hopefully things will start to calm down again and I can get more work done.

I am hoping to propose and do my comps in early December so I have an enormous amount of work to do.  Leslie’s freelance stuff seems to have produced a number of leads and given more time after the wedding we hope some of them will pan out!  It is all so very exciting 🙂

Praise God I have a wonderful bride, a caring family and extended family, and great friends.

Bioengineering

So, I was thinking that it would be interesting if we made a uniform harvesting mechanism.  Essentially all produce such as potatoes, corn, tomatoes, grapes, carrots, etc would all be grown in the same manner.  So, like if we modeled it after growing corn you would have a similar plant that would produce a husk and instead of inside being corn you would have carrots and grapes etc.  This way the harvesting would be easier as it is more uniform.  It can be optimized for space so the crop density and yield would be high.  The other nice thing is that it would be able to grow in a variety of climates.  This would solve a lot of problems.

This of course brings with it very very big questions such as biodiversity, aesthetics.  This might be solved by creating new biodiversity by not having it grow exactly the same, but in the general pod like structure.

This also makes me wonder about growing meat and tissue in plants.  Both plants and animals are organic matter.  That is a bit weird, but why can’t we customize the bark or shell of a plant to produce more complex structures?  Essentially bioengineering is awesome and scary and will produce some really cool things hopefully.

These things seem like things we’d like to take with us to other planets.

Smart Apartment Communities

I am getting a new apartment and am going to move-in in October!  This time it is a fancy one, not a basement of a house, but well it is still technically in a basement (subterranean as the apartment office calls it).  It is fancy in that it is part of an apartment complex.  The best part though is that I will be moving in there with my then to be wife, Leslie :).

So, last night Leslie was on her amazon because she was checking the shipping order for one of her friends wedding gift.  I was watching and she accidentally scrolled down too far and I saw what she got me for my Birthday!  She got me a Raspberry Pi 3!  So, it is a bit early for my birthday, but I don’t care.  I’m getting a raspberry pi!!!

This got me thinking of multiple ideas of what to do with it…  From making the whole kitchen into a smart kitchen.  Where we have smart outlets, automatic faucets, lights that turn on when you walk in or off when you leave, and automatic alarms that go off if the oven has been on for longer than you set it for, sound system controller, humidity regulator (since a basement probably will need a dehumidifier), temperature controller. dishwasher monitor, voice controlled kitchen timers…. I mean the list just goes on and on and on!

This got me thinking that apartment complexes would be the ideal candidate to start renovating for smart living spaces!  Essentially a smart community.  They could operate on there own smart/micro grid, have there own micro water plant (because why don’t we operate water and sewer like the micro-grid?  I mean that way the entire water system is not so easily polluted by a single source.  Also, that means a more exact amount of water is able to be cleaned etc.  idk but seems like a cool idea right?), also there would be solar panels installed on all the roofs (or at least those that make sense).  Then they could also renovate the apartments themselves.  Of course the more you pay the more the automation and the higher end the appliances etc are.  Of course you would want the smart house to be easily able to integrate the apartment resident’s devices and personal augmentation.  That way they could add more automation themselves if they desire.

So, that is a lot up front.  But, if the complexes start offering for a significant rent increase the basic smart house, they could start to increase there revenue and start to renovate the communities and start to make there company stand out.  Eventually they would have the dream of my last paragraph.  Of course if they are building a new community they might consider doing this from the start.

So, that was a fun idea I had.  I think that this would be a fun business to get into.  Contracting with apartment companies to renovate their apartment communities.

 

Kung Pow Chicken!

Kung Pow Chicken recipe I learned from Ermo and helped make with Leslie at his and Shu’s place today.  It was soooo sooo delicious!

4 chicken thighs cut into tiny-ish cubes.  Best if thigh is still somewhat frozen.  It is easier to cut.

Mix up the marinade for the chicken.  Some salt, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and corn starch (mixed with a bit of water).  Basically this is done without any measuring.  You do it to how you like it.  So, if you like it salty then more salt and soy sauce.  If you like it a bit bitter have more vinegar.  If you like a bit sweet and salty have more sugar.  Basically you have a bowl and you use a ladle and you pour those ingredients into the ladle and you use that to measure and mix.

Once you get it how you like it mix it into the chicken and let it sit for 20 minutes.

While that is sitting get your spices together.  Numb spice you just buy already and don’t do anything.  The chilli peppers you may have whole and you just use kitchen shears to cut tiny lengths.  Then chop up onion sprouts and a few cloves of garlic to your liking.  Also pour out some peanuts.  Can just use unsalted peanuts from the store.

By now the twenty minutes is probably up and you can heat oil in a wok on high and once the oil is very hot put the cut up chicken into the pan.  Stir vigorously keeping the chicken moving and flipping.  A sort of stir flip motion continuously.  Do this until you start to see the chicken change from pink to white.  Once that happens immediately take the chicken off the heat and put it onto a plate.  You may pour off any of the excess juice to either save or throw away.

Now turn the heat to a medium temperature and add in some oil again.  Let it heat up.  Then add in the numb spice and chili pepper and stir them around until it smells good and the garlic is looking nice.  Then add back in the chicken.  Turn up the heat a bit.  And then add in the onion sprouts and peanuts.  This part you must continue the stir and flip motion vigorously until the chicken is mixed in with the other ingredients and appears to be fully cooked.  Note that this does not take very long.

You can eat this by itself or if you want can serve with some rice.

Also, the cool part about this is that it is highly dependent on what you like and what tastes good to you.  So, there really is no wrong way to make kung pow chicken.  You could add other vegetables if you want or leave out some of the spice if you think it is too spice.

Wedding Prep and Research

Wow!  I’m quite busy.  Leslie and I’ve been putting together a wedding website (here, also she did it all.  All I did was suggest where and put in the map lol).  We have just finished our wedding registry and wow there is a lot you need for a kitchen.  Leslie has made wedding invitations and RSVP cards and cool art to go on them.  So cool!!! Well umm most of that has been what Leslie has been doing…

I’ve been helping some with that.  But I’ve been working on redoing the cloud robotics paper for ICRA and intermittently working on the theory for Bounty Hunting.  And I’m also planning on proposing my thesis and doing my comps this fall.  Along with getting married!

NYC for Agent Mix IJCAI Workshop 2016

Had an amazing first day in New York City.  Took the BoltBus with Leslie at 7am (July 10th).  We went and got pizza for lunch and went to the Met.  To get to the met we took the metro and walked through central park catching Pokemon along the way :).  We explored the Met for a while.  It is huge!!!  We left and grabbed an Uber back to my hotel and I checked in.  We took an Uber then back to the BoltBus stop and Leslie took the bus back to DC.

After she left I tried pizza from two more places.  At the one place I got 2 slices and a coke for $3.  I ate a slice in front of the building and then I folded the other slice up and grabbed my coke and ate, sipped, and walked.  That was so much fun!  Delicious pizza, with amazing surroundings.

Tomorrow at 11am I present at the Agent Mix Workshop a paper Ermo and I did on bounty hunting with task abandonment.  I can’t wait until 11:25 and my presentation is finished and I can have fun again :).

Going to have to figure out what I want to do in the free time!  I’ll post more then!