Lee.org

OK Go – Needing/Getting: a music video made with a car

local version:

Holy crap, look at the amazing world we live in and imagine the mind blowing world we are going to live in.

Short form: Take their free online class and “… in seven weeks you’ll learn how to program all the major systems of a robotic car, by the leader of Google and Stanford’s autonomous driving teams.”

Long form: I got this email from the free Stanford Artificial Intelligence class that I signed up for:

Hi Lee Sonko,

Thank you for your interest in AI Class and congratulations to those who
successfully graduated. We were totally amazed that over 23,000 students
made it all the way to the end in a Stanford graduate-level class.

Due to popular demand, we are teaching a follow-up class: AI for
Robotics at www.udacity.com . Also due to popular demand, we now have
a programming environment, so you can develop and test software. Our
goal is to teach you to program a self-driving car in 7 weeks. This
is a topic very close to my heart, and I am eager to share it with
you. (This class builds on the concepts in ai-class, but ai-class is
NOT required).

We are also launching an introduction to programming class, where
students will learn to program a search engine, without any prior
knowledge of programming. This will be great for students new to
computer science.

We are doing this with a new university: Udacity. In the next months,
we will offer an entire computer science curriculum through Udacity,
and offer certification services so that an entire degree can be obtained
online.

I would love to see you in class again! I would also love if you could
help us spread the word and recruit students. Udacity is an experiment
in democratizing education, in making free education available for
everyone in the world. It can only succeed if you join us and help
spread the word.

Sebastian

Here’s a note from JD and Gil at WhatWillYouLearn.com. I’ll be teaching Beetlebots :-)

Hello there!

We’re very excited to announce the next Workshop Weekend!

• WHAT:  Workshop Weekend #3!
• WHEN:  March 17-18, 2012
• WHERE:  Tech Liminal, Oakland
• Want to teach?  Visit  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/teach
• Suggest a workshop:  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/#suggest

Our next weekend of soldering, programming, building, crafting and exploring is coming up in just six short weeks —  March 17th and 18th at Tech Liminal in Oakland.

 

Interested in teaching?

We just opened teacher registration this week. If you’re interested in teaching, or know someone who might be, send them to our website at  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/

The deadline to sign up is  Wednesday, February 15, just twelve days away! Sign up even if you don’t have a perfect idea for a workshop — we’ll work with you to develop your vision into a great workshop.

 

Want to take workshops?

We’ve got commitments from teachers for a few old favorite workshops — including  Arduino,Sewing with Electronics, and  Electroluminescent Wire Sculpture  — and we’re adding a few new frequently-requested workshops, including  Programming,  Robotics,  Web Development, and  Lockpicking.

If you’d like to see a new workshop, but haven’t told us about it yet, let us know! Fill out our workshop suggestion form:  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/#suggest

We’ll send another email when student registration is open, in about two weeks. In the meantime, be sure to save  March 17-18!

 

Happy 2012, and see you in March!

Cheers,
J.D. and Gil

I just flew back from Boston and boy are my arms tired!

I went to a big reunion at a hotel and had a blast. Moreso, I saw friends I hadn’t seen in 7… 10… 12 years! Thank you Trav, Julie, Luke, Molls, and Adam! And thank you to everyone else who hugged me shouting, “Where have you been! I missed you!”

Luke and I at Dunks* in Woburn Center! That’s a -real- Boston Cream donut in my hand. (We also went to this pretty kick-ass Brazilian meat place)

*Dunkin’ Donuts, our last, best hope for coffee**

** Hat tip to Babylon 5

The coolest thing I’ve seen in a while

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnkMyfQ5YfY

local version:

via Anthony Asterisk and NPR

Update: You should get 3 things out of this post:

1. Cars are dangerous.
2. Motorcycles are 35 times more dangerous than cars per mile driven.
3. There is no riding “safely”. 2/3 of motorcycle deaths are not the motorcyclist’s fault.

So maybe drive a motorcycle as a pleasure-craft or occasional-transportation, but don’t make it your daily vehicle. I love you too much to see you dead like that!

————————————————–

I’ve been thinking about getting rid of my car. I’m going to school so I need to save a bit more; I don’t need my garage for storage any more; so far school has been all accessible by public transit. So I’ve been considering my options.

A friend old me how she loves her motorcycle. She said how it was like a shortcut: you can always find a place to park, they are inexpensive, even insurance is cheap, just $100 per year for her, and they are completely awesome.

I wrote this to her:

I thought about what you said about your motorcycle and how you love it. So I thought I’d give the idea of getting a motorcycle a chance.

And then I read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_safety

What got me was in the first paragraph. Mile for mile, a motorcycle is 35 times more fatal than a car. Now I know that cars are very dangerous, some 40,000 Americans are killed every year. Or as I like to say to people, “Hey, did you hear about the big car crash last week where almost a thousand people were killed? Yeah, it really happened! Well, not all at once, but yeah, almost a thousand Americans were killed in car accidents last week. Yes. Really”

It feels like an acceptable risk to be in a car, I mean, you’ve got to get around somehow. But if everyone rode motorcycles instead of cars (yeah, I know, that’s not realistic), then bikes would kill 1.4 million Americans every year! That’s insane! That’s more deaths than the top 3 killers in America: heart disease, cancer, and stroke COMBINED, almost doubling the number of people that die every year.

And what really bugged me is the Wikipedia article talks about studies that say some 2/3 of fatal crashes are where the car smashed into the bike without even veering; neither the rider or driver saw it coming and the rider had no chance to save themselves. Hurumph.

Sorry, but that’s not for me. I want to go the whole 9 yards, but nope.

Rock on,
Lee

I saw this sign at Cal Academy last month. It completely blows my mind!

Nancy Levine Aquatic Biologist
Sharks are fascinating creatures! Some give live birth, while others lay eggs. The egg cases shown here come from the Academy’s sharks. There is evidence of a different bamboo shark species successfully switching between sexual and asexual reproduction. I am studying whether our species has the same ability.

Just to be clear, she is talking about the possibility of human asexual reproduction!

“Hi, I’m not Johnny Cash”

I saw this sign at 24th St Mission BART Station in November 2011.

He is missed.

If you agree with this note, I encourage you to send BART a message. Contact them.

Dear BART,
Could you please make some way for train riders to better identify the difference between 16th Street Mission Station and 24th Street Mission Station.

Most especially, the signage at these stations cannot be seen from inside the train. This could easily and relatively inexpensively be fixed if you moved the signs so that they are under the lights instead of in the dark where they are now.

The conductors usually announce the names of the stations but a sign is a much more reliable and less stressful way to know where I am.

Here’s an hour-long track of good Christmas music by artists like Paul Simon, Natalie Merchant and others!

All Songs Considered Holiday Music Special 2011

Share and enjoy!