simpy
simpy
Watch mshook
* is Unix
Jacob Kaplan-Moss
October 7, 2009
(defprocess root (fuzziness)
(defvariable blobs #’union)
(always
(when (eq (read-sensor ’image) ’black)
(subprocess (measure-blob) :gradient fuzziness)
(setf blobs
(list (get-from-sub (measure-blob) blob)))))
(avoid
(read-sensor ’query)
(let ((q (first (read-sensor ’query))))
(cond
((eq q ’blobs)
(actuate ’response (regional blobs)))
((eq q ’area)
(actuate ’response
(fold #’+ (mapcar #’second
(regional blobs)))))))))
(defprocess measure-blob ()
(defvariable uid #’max :atomic :base 0 :init (random 1))
(defvariable area #’sum :reduction :base 0 :init 1)
(defvariable blob :local)
(always
(setf blob (list uid area))))
Code to find a set of fuzzy blobs and their areas in a binary image. Each contiguous black area of the image runs a connected measure-blob pro- cess that names it and calculates its area. The set of blobs is collected by the root process and made accessible to the user on the response actuator...
When I push [my toaster] lever down, if there's a crumb stuck in the coils, it isn't long before my fragile pre-coffee state is shattered by the piercing siren of my smoke detector. It doesn't know about the toast, but really it should. If it were sociable, as soon as it detected particulate matter in the air, it would query the toaster to see if it had been activated. That would tell it that in all likelihood, it wasn't detecting an unattended, middle-of-the-night fire but instead a benign morning meal. The price of low-power radio networking and the just-minted funding for smart home energy networks makes this sociable smoke-detector scenario entirely within our reach. I want one.
Are there yet ZigBee products on the market?
Yes, there are. Some implement an actual ZigBee stack while others feature a ZigBee ready platform like EmberNet.
Examples in the residential space include Control4 (lighting), Eaton (home automation), Golden Power Manufacturing (sprinklers and thermostats), Hawking Technology (home gateways), Kalirel (heating), Mija (fire extinguishers), Nice (shutters), and TSC Systems (home automation).
Examples in the commercial space include Mija (fire extinguishers), Philips (lighting), Siemens (building automation), and TAC (building automation).
If you've installed the recently released "Service Pack 2" (SP2) for
Windows XP, you have automatically installed a new firewall on your
PC that might be blocking VNC connections. To create an "exception"
for VNC, follow these instructions:
1. Click Start, click Run, type Wscui.cpl, and then click OK to open
Windows Firewall.
2. Click the Exceptions tab, and de-select the "Don't Allow Exceptions"
radio-button.
3. Click Add Port to display the Add a Port dialog box.
4. Enter port number "5900" or whatever port you've got VNC on that
PC to listen on (port number = 5900 + "VNC Display Number").
5. Select the TCP protocol.
6. In the Name field, type "VNC".
7. Click Change Scope to view or to set the scope for the port
exception, and then click OK.
8. Click OK to close the Add a Port dialog box.
That should do it! More info here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=875357#7
Networks of coupled dynamical systems have been used to model ... and many other self-organizing systems. Ordinarily, the connection topology is assumed to be either completely regular or completely random. But many biological, technological and social networks lie somewhere between these two extremes. Here we explore simple models of networks that can be tuned through this middle ground: regular networks 'rewired' to introduce increasing amounts of disorder. We find that these systems can be highly clustered, like regular lattices, yet have small characteristic path lengths, like random graphs. We call them 'small-world' networks, by analogy with the small-world phenomenon (popularly 6 degrees of separation. The neural network of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, the power grid of the western United States, and the collaboration graph of film actors are shown to be small-world networks.
