SVN: EVIL COMMIT

Subversion is a very useful centralized version control system. Is very convenient for Software development projects as it allows to the developer team work together in the same files at the same time, keep a record of all the changes and eventually return to a previous stored version of the project if somebody did something wrong or decide to do things differently. 

I have been using it for many years now in a professional environment and for over a year in my private projects (I use it even in my private life xD). I use it in conjunction with trac (which is a powerful tool for Project Management). You might think I am a bit crazy (or completely crazy), but when you have a lot on your mind it is worth having some kind of organization method and this has worked for me so far.

Anyway, recently I was working on my project, committed some changes and got this:

marpemar@MARTIN-PC:~$ svn ci -m "generate_training_samples_from_monocular_images generate color samples"
Sending generate_training_samples_from_monocular_images/main.cpp
Transmitting file data .
Committed revision 666.

Yay! I've reached 666 commits xD To celebrate it I would like to share this video recorded with gource showing the progress and evolution of my private repository until the moment of the evil commit.  Enjoy it!

KINECT: HELLO WORLD

The first shot taken with Microsoft Kinect. Thanks a lot to Fukui-sensei for providing such a nice tool.

SETTLED IN TSUKUBA

Well, it has been almost one week since my wife and I arrived to Japan. We are almost settled so I would like to talk a little bit about the city we are living in: Tsukuba

Tsukuba's flag

The city is known for the location of Tsukuba Science City. A planned city developed around 1960. Inside the "research world" it is usually referred as "the researcher's paradise" and so far it is a more than deserved name. This city has everything a researcher could ever need: research institutions, nice environment and a lot of peaceful places to find inspiration.

This city has a population of about 200.000 inhabitants and I've heard that about 5% of them have a PhD. 

When I have time I will upload more pictures but for now you can see this, it is on my way to the laboratory:

A space rocket! How cool is that? xD

LEAVING FOR TSUKUBA, JAPAN

Dear friends, 

Next Tuesday I leave my home town again to go back to Japan. This time I will join the University of Tsukuba Computer Vision Laboratory to research about topics related with computer vision applied to robotics under the framework of monbukagakusho scholarship.

I will keep you informed about the new challenges found on the way :)

THE COST OF GOOGLE'S BUCKMINSTERFULLERENE

Today Google is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the finding of the Buckminsterfullerene. And to celebrate it, they decided to make a funny and entertaining interactive logo (also known as "doodle").

They changed one of the "o" from "Google" by a  Buckminsterfullerene that you can move with your mouse. It is really entertaining, so entertaining that I found myself playing with it for over 2 minutes.

Then it came to my mind... what if I am at work and I loose that time playing with google's logo? 

Let's make some numbers: Google receives about 8.172.420 visits per day. Consider that the half of that visits come from people at work: 4.086.210 visits per day at work. 

From that amount of visits per day from work, let's say that the mean time spent playing with the logo is about 1 minute (there is people that procrastinates more than other :P). 

If the mean salary for a worker is 20€ per hour, that means that he earns 0,33€ per minute.

Now the compute is easy:  4.086.210 visits per day * 0.33€ per visit = 1.362.070€

So thanks to Google and the procrastination will of the workers the total cost of the buckminsterfullerene's celebration could be 1,3 Million euro.

Of course I'm just kidding ;)

HELLO WORLD!

This is the first post in this blog. You see, I have always been an enthusiast of robotics, computers and technology and I always wanted to share that enthusiasm with the rest of the world.

Recently I rescued a robot that I built five years ago (2005). While restoring the robot it came to my mind that this could be the motivation I needed to start a blog, describe the project as it grows and talk a little bit about things related to the world of robotics, computer vision, artificial intelligence and technology.

So, here it is. If you'd like to, you are more than welcome to come and visit this site anytime.