More problems added to Homework 1. Socket closed. Due [9/11/2006]

Rao
[Aug 31, 2006]

Recitation of lisp programming

I hope you are all getting well with the lisp programming. In case some
of you need some help to start with lisp, I can hold one recitation
about lisp during my office hours on Sep.6th. Please send me a note and
what you want to know or questions about lisp if your are interested.
I really appreciate it if you title your email as "Lisp Programming".
I'll determine the location later depending on the number of reponses.

Thanks!

-Lei

Readings for the class

Folks:

Someone asked a question regarding readings for the class.
The chapters/sections you should be reading for each class will be maintained at the URL

http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu/cse471/readings-f06.html

You should be consulting it and doing the required readings before the class

rao

--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu

Clarification re: comments about relative importance of ideas..

I got comment (on anonymous mail ) today that said (in part):

---------------------------------------------
Thank you for saying "This is the first non-trivial thing you have learned..."  Explicitly highlighting the paramount ideas is extremely helpful  when learning a new subject.
[..]
====================

At the risk of looking at the gift horse in the mouth let me add a clarification to this person as well as the rest of the class.
Note that what I said about "IDDFS" is that it is the first non-trivial *specific* idea you have learned (check out the recording ;-))
..
The whole discussion on environment and problem types is actually much deeper, but more general (so it is non-trivial *general* thing).

As CS students you are already well-trained to appreciate specific algorithmic ideas ( e.g. IDDFS)--and you will have more than enough opportunities
to exercise that specific form of appreciation as we move forward.

However,  understanding the problem types and connection  to environment properties is something that you might want to learn to appreciate.
You should definitely read chapters 2 and 3 carefully.

cheers
Rao


--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu

(Update!) Recitation Session, Homework 1

Ack, I forgot about Labor Day!

Possible times: Wednesday 9:30-10:30 am, Thursday 6:30-7:30 pm, next week.

Happy Labor Day :)
-Will

On 8/29/06, William Cushing <william.cushing@gmail.com> wrote:
> Homework 1 has either been made available, or will be shortly. If
> there is enough interest, and
> a sufficient lack of scheduling conflicts, I'll hold a session to
> answer specific questions about the assignment, and/or generally
> review the class material up to this point.
>
> For times, I was considering Monday afternoon, 1:00-2:00 pm, and
> Thursday evening, 6:30-7:30 pm (next week). If you are interested,
> send a response to wcushing@asu.edu with the time or times you can
> attend, and any specific questions about the assignment you have.
> If you want to be especially helpful, make the subect line something
> obvious, like "recitation session" or "homework 1".
>
> Do not hit reply; that is, do not send these responses to the whole list.
>
> -Will
>

Recitation Session, Homework 1

Homework 1 has either been made available, or will be shortly. If
there is enough interest, and
a sufficient lack of scheduling conflicts, I'll hold a session to
answer specific questions about the assignment, and/or generally
review the class material up to this point.

For times, I was considering Monday afternoon, 1:00-2:00 pm, and
Thursday evening, 6:30-7:30 pm (next week). If you are interested,
send a response to wcushing@asu.edu with the time or times you can
attend, and any specific questions about the assignment you have.
If you want to be especially helpful, make the subect line something
obvious, like "recitation session" or "homework 1".

Do not hit reply; that is, do not send these responses to the whole list.

-Will

Fwd: Instructional Lab Access

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wayne Woodland <Wayne.Woodland@asu.edu>
Date: Aug 29, 2006 8:14 AM
Subject: Instructional Lab Access
To: cse.fac@asu.edu, cse.fa@asu.edu
Cc: cse.staff@asu.edu

The 2 floor outside double glass doors on the east side of the elevators will be unlocked from 8:00 AM until 5:00 PM for the rest of this week.  This is to give the students who paid a lab fee access to the instructional laboratories.  And it is to give the ETS staff time to process the ISAAC access forms.

 

 

Wayne B. Woodland

Computer Programmer, Principal

Computer Science & Engineering

Brickyard Room 222A

Phone 965-2806  Fax 965-2751

 

--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu

Re: [cse471 Fall 2006 Blog] New comment on [cse471-f06][Announce] Homework 1 Socket opened...

"socket" is just a fancy name for asynchronously the assigned homeworks.

-->I will open the homework socket
--> I will put up questions on the homeworks piecemeal as the topics get covered in the class
-->At some point, I will announce that the homework is now complete and close the "socket"
-->the homework is typically due in the class one week after the socket is closed


Rao

On 8/27/06, Kirk <noreply-comment@blogger.com> wrote:

Kirk has left a new comment on your post " [cse471-f06][Announce] Homework 1 Socket opened..":

Dr Rao, I'm not familiar with the socket system for homework assignments. What is the mechanism for submitting my work?



Posted by Kirk to cse471 Fall 2006 Blog at 8/27/2006 10:59 PM

--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu

Virtual Soldier w/ AI

The University of Iowa is developing a virtual soldier with AI.

From: http://www.digital-humans.org/main.htm

"Santos, an intelligent avatar with realistic biomechanical abilities, functions in a powerful human modeling and simulation environment...Santos was built from the ground up, using state-of-the-art technologies, and continues to grow in dynamic capabilities and intelligent behaviors through integration of AI, design optimization, and physics-based modeling."

A video about Santos, from the Discovery Channel can be found here:

http://www.exn.ca/dailyplanet/view.asp?date=12/2/2005

Sign in problem to post in this blog

Some of you might found that it is a little difficult to post after you accept the invitation sent by Rao. I encountered the same problem as you guys. It just kept asking me to sign in when I want to post a new message.

It seems that this Google account needs some time to update. So just be a little patient. I finally got to post messages after one day or two.


-Lei

The PBS Nova program on Darpa grand challenge

...can be viewed here

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darpa/program.html

[cse471-f06]:Highly recommended free lisp environment for your PC (just stick to this one)

Folks
 
Between my and the TA's lisp resources, I realize that there are too many links to possible lisp interpreters you can use. I would like to make your choice easy by
suggesting that you all use the free "Lisp in a box" implementation (with Clisp module).

I just installed it on my windows XP in under 10min, and was able to
run the project 1 code. It ran flawlessly pretty much out of the box. [it is available for both windows and linux].

The environment--emacs with clisp--is the very best way to use lisp (you will get both the best ever editor in the world and the best ever language in the world; and
to get the recursion going, the best ever editor is actually written in the best-ever language (a variant of it anyways).

Finally there is a great online guide that is written around lisp-in-a-box.

Here are the links in one place:

http://common-lisp.net/project/lispbox/#windows  [downloading emacs interface and clisp together --stick to clisp which is free and I checked to make sure it works]

http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/  (the practical common-lisp book that is written _around_ lisp-in-a-box lisp


Rao

ps: Yay yay to Lei Tang for suggesting it!

--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu

Resources for Lisp

Also available at:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~ltang9/Lisp/Lisp-Resources.htm

Tutorials on Lisp:

Peter Seibel’s “Practical Common lisp” (Online at http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/) (Strongly recommended)

Paul Graham’s “ANSI Common Lisp”

Pascal Costanza's Highly Opinionated Guide to Lisp

http://p-cos.net/lisp/guide.html

David S. Touretzky’s “Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation”

(Online at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/)

Paul Graham’s “On Lisp” (advanced level) (http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html)

Newsgroup: comp.lang.lisp can be accessed using news.asu.edu or Google groups, or several other sites allow posting to and receiving emails from this news group.

Lisp Wiki: www.cliki.net

Lisp hyperspec: http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/Contents.htm

Interpreters:

GNU CLISP (http://clisp.cons.org/) downloadable from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1355

For Linux users, you can download the free version of Allegro CL 5.0 from Rao’s site:

http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu/acl5.tar.gz

(Let me know if you found it doesn’t work)

Editors for programming:

Lisp in a box : http://common-lisp.net/project/lispbox/

This tool combines lisp interpreters together with emacs for lisp programming. Compatible with both Windows and Linux. (Strongly recommended)

Emacs / Xemacs + slime + any lisp interpreter

Please check the following page for the configuration of CLISP + SLIME + Xemacs:

http://www.public.asu.edu/~ltang9/Lisp/xemcas-slime.htm

Useful videos for programming in lisp:

http://bc.tech.coop/blog/050728.html

[cse471-f06][Announce] Homework 1 Socket opened..

Folks
 I posted 5 questions for homework 1. All of them, especially the first four, should be doable given the discussion in today's class.

get busy..

rao


--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu

Fwd: [cse471] Project 1 and Commonlisp interpreters

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Subbarao Kambhampati <rao@asu.edu>
Date: Aug 23, 2006 9:39 AM
Subject: [cse471] Project 1 and Commonlisp interpreters
To: cse471-f06@parichaalak.eas.asu.edu

Hi all:

In case you didn't notice, Assignment 0--a lisp refresher--has been
"assigned" and is due 9/5 in class. This assignment is meant more for
getting you to refresh your lisp skills (and will only have a nominal weight).

Franz Allegro Commonlisp (version 6.0) should be available on your department
course accounts.

Additionally, if you want to do development on your own machines laptops, you
can download a limited version of allegro commonlisp at

http://franz.com/downloads/

(they also allow you to buy a full version for 99$)

Alternatively, you can use GNU CLisp available at
http://clisp.cons.org/
(I haven't used Clisp, but Lei Tang, the TA, says it is quite good)

Please note that with heap-limited free versions, you will not be able
to run most search problems starting project 1..

Rao
[Aug 23, 2006]


From: Bremen < Andrew.Coleson@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: [cse471] Links from first class etc
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 09:21:01 -0700
Message-ID: <1728432b0608230921v67db38b9ta62378fbf3514d3f@mail.gmail.com >

Andrew.Coleson> Dr. Rao,
Andrew.Coleson>
Andrew.Coleson> Do you have a Common LISP interpreter that you recommend we use? I didn't
Andrew.Coleson> see a link for one on your website; it might be a useful addition.
Andrew.Coleson>
Andrew.Coleson> Thanks!
Andrew.Coleson> Andrew Coleson



--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu

Make-up TA office hours tomorrow

I'll hold extra office hours from 10:00am to 12:00pm on Friday (Aug.
25th), as I have been out of town this week.

The location would be BYENG 561AC. Welcome to visit me if you have any
questions.

Note that this is temporary. My regular office hours starting from next
week would be MW 3:30PM-4:30PM. The office is at BYENG 214, which is in
the CSE open lab.

See you.
-Lei

Access to the CSE open lab

Hi, This is the TA for CSE471.

Please send me your* names*, *ASU-ID* and *the first 5 digits* on the
back of your ASU card, so that I can hand in your information to the
front desk to active your access to the CSE open lab.

Please reply to L.Tang@asu.edu (*NOT THE MAILING LIST*) by Monday (Aug.
27th).

Thanks a lot!
-Lei

[cse471-f06] Regarding access to CSE instructional lab on second floor

Some of you have asked what you would need to do to get access to CSE
instructional lab.
I talked to Wayne Woodland and he said that everyone in the class
will be automatically granted
access to the labs (you don't need to do anything). He normally does
this after the first week drop/add.
He says you should expect to be able to access the labs by next Tuesday..

Rao

Interesting AI Related Links?

I found this interesting website: www.ai-junkie.com, the interesting pages to me were about neural networks and genetic algorithms. The nice thing about the page is that it assumes you know very little, but it takes you pretty far in learning something new. Although I wasn't able to get the example code to work.

And if you feel interested in watching a movie, why not check out Blade Runner (1982). It's a Ridley Scott sci-fi film with great special effects based on the story "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", and it deals with some AI questions. There's even a form of the famous "Turing Test" performed in the movie.

And do make sure to read about Alan Turing, since his story is pretty interesting. He had a brilliant mind, but the government persecuted him because he was gay, and (believe it or not) forced him to undergo hormone treatments (which made him develop breasts) or else he would have to go to jail. He ended up committing suicide by eating a cyanide-laced apple... and the world is left to wonder what he might have accomplished later on in life.

I'd love to explore some more interesting AI links, if anyone has any that they'd be willing to share.

Class Mailing List vs. Blog usage guidelines..

Folks:

 I created a blog for the class on an experimental basis. It is linked from the homepage; you also got an invite in mail.

You all have posting/commenting privileges for the blog. 

All the mails I send to the mailing list will automagically be posted to the blog. I suggest that students not send
email directly to the mailing list.

***To keep the traffic on the mailing list low, postings and comments made directly to the blog will not be emailed

Feel free to add your tuppence or comment. Please be polite and considerate.

cheers
Rao

--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu

Links from First class etc.

1. The audio and slides for the first class are now online  (google
  "asu cse471" for homepage   http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu/cse471 )

2. For the next class, make sure to read chapter 2

  (today's lecture was loosely based on Chapter 1)

3. Here are various links from today's class:

   First off, you can find out more about ASU AI group by going to
        www.asu.edu/ai

  "Alan Turing"
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing 
     (not only did Turing not receive any award during his life, he was

      tragically driven to suicide because of the persecution
      inflicted on him by the the narrowminded mores of his society) 

 "Mechanical Turk"
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk

  "Amazon's MTurk"
   http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome 

  "ESP game"
     http://www.espgame.org/
    (a very entertaining talk on Captcha's and ESP games on Google video
      --this was given a couple of weeks at Google
         http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8246463980976635143 )

  "Herbert Simon (nobel prize, ant, bounded rationality..):
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Simon



Rao
[Aug 22, 2006]

--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu

--
Subbarao Kambhampati
http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu