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RobinsonTryonProjectPage
Cool beans!
Here are a bunch of my random ideas. If you feel like implementing any of them, let me know!
Who knows if I'll have the time to help out, but it would be neat to hear what you're doing (especially if you're successful!)
(If you think that I shouldn't implement any of them -- like perhaps the
nanobot toothbrush? or the
flammable hat?, maybe you have some valid points I should hear... so let me know that too).
Test pages/stuff
...just some test pages... nothing to see.. move right along... :-)
- here is your username: TWikiGuest . The thing is, in 'view' mode, it'll probably say TWikiGuest, while in preview mode it will probably say your proper name...
Linux/Free software (mostly Dartmouth-related)
- IMAP BlitzMail client for Linux (hey! we might get this to work-- see BlitzForLinux)
- (DNDLinuxLogin) DND login for linux machines?. (not sure how to do an afs system or whatnot -- but this is probably also going to get implemented! :)
- Quake engine? + moo == interactive 3D environment. My idea is to combine the InteractiveCampusMap (but put into a quake engine) and the DartMOO. I know that this would be a lot of work, but it would be pretty cool. There are some issues, particularly that a moo implements each room as a separate entity, where a quake world is just a bunch of connected rooms? that you can walk between w/o any actual transition....
- DND + wiki == ? It might be useful to have DND-authenticated login to the wiki (that way people don't have to go and create accounts...). neat idea, but pretty low priority, I'd say.
- StewStriker? has actually been working on this on a different TWiki here at Dartmouth... and we didn't even know that another one existed! :) Anyhow, try TwikiAuthenticationViaKerberos.
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NewNodularStructureTool -- a long name for a project (or a few different but similar projects) that Sam and Jared and I have been considering for a few months now. Basically combining database + wiki + some more structure and stuff.
Other Dartmouth Stuff
- NEW: ProposalToUseOpenFileFormats? -- most people in the software industry? agree that open file formats and open protocols? are important to the technology sector. Unfortunately there are a few who are very much against such moves (such as Microsoft?), because they enjoy a monoply on files formats? for a particular type of document.
- For the Bus:
- BusStopShelter? --- we really need some kind of shelter for the bus stop, because it gets so darn cold (20 below in the winter...).
- WirelessCardsOnBuses? -- perhaps even better solution than having bus stop shelters (and much higher GeekFactor?) would be to put small computers with wireless cards? on all of the AdvanceTransit buses. Then we could have a website where the buses could be tracked in real-time (as long as they were within range of an access point? at either Dartmouth college or at DHMC).
This would be especially helpful if the bus was 10-15 minutes late during a snow storm? -- because then people could wait inside until the bus was just approaching DMS or Sudikoff, and only wait 3-5 minutes outside.
- More on buses -- anyone know if you can talk to the buses or the bus dispatcher? using a Ham Radio ? I haven't got my license yet, but it would be neat to be able to call the bus in the morning and see if it was on time or running late... :-)
- Dartmouth should have something like a wiki. The TWiki is cool, but perhaps another wiki tool would be easier for people to use -- so I'm going to look around at other projects:
- phpWiki -- not bad look, has nice feature set and uses php + MySQL?.
- wikiTypeFramework -- tool in php/MySQL for creating wikis, forums, etc... (looks like it has a bit of promise). problems: wiki isn't as fully featured as I'd like, what about full-text search, inline pics and files, etc... (site: http://wtf.peej.co.uk/)
- TWiki -- maybe if we cleaned it up a bit. Want a few different things like auth for DND/LDAP, plus another group of users... Also have a few more things that we want...
- More on the wiki-for-Dartmouth front: I'm working on using WebForms? (docs in TWiki web) to do some categorizing of topics in the web. What I'm trying to do is:
- see if we could use forms to organize data. Basically, my thought is to have a variable (or list of vars) for each page. One (called "categories" or something) would have a comma-separated list of all of the categories for that topic. (e.g. FoodCourt would have the list "Dartmouth, DDS, Food, StudentEmployer".... although there could be more). The TWiki has "parents" which work admirably well, but we could use a similar idea to the "categories" if we wanted more powerful "multiple inheritance? type of arrangement.
- Recycling Robot? -- imagine a robot that could do recycling for us!
- Benefits:
- Recycle everything! Because the robot is processing waste from the trash, everyone's trash gets recycled, not just the stuff that's getting recycled right now. This means that trash from everyone's rooms, trash from elaborate functions (where even aluminum cans? get thrown out), and from around the Green will not go into land fills?.
- Fewer bins. Less work (save time, energy) for the ECO Reps? and the custodians -- if everything goes into one or two bins, then we don't have to worry about separating trash, and don't have to spend time/money on Waste Warriors? and the like.
- Neat project that could tie engineers/computer scientists and ESD/ECO together on our campus.
- Drawbacks:
- Energy -- the robot, land and housing and maintenance costs are probably high -- even if we could use solar power?, how much would it cost to use such a robot?
- Rebuttal :: we might use some energy now, but for a college such as Dartmouth to do investigative work into such a machine is a smart investment? for our future. Not only will it be a cool public relations? thing to make us look ECO friendly?, but this technology could have a real impact in the future. Up-front initial testing? costs can be justified.
- robots (as we learn in Computer Science 44), are very hard to program to think like humans and to do complex tasks?. A few seconds of thought and simple physical actions (i.e. putting stuff in the right bin) can be a very challenging task for the best robots of our time!
- robotic intelligence? aside, once everything is mixed up it's very difficult to separate it to do recycling or composting (imagine trying to sort out food from plastic waste? from motor oil? from... etc...)
- recycling, I've heard, can serve to remind people to think ecologically. In a way, even though recycling certain items may not be energy efficient?, it helps people to consider the act of throwing away stuff. Therefore, my 'recycling robot?' might help people to 'forget' about the world and not make eco friendly? decisions anymore. Although I'm not entirely convinced, it is a very relevant point.
For the Wiki (or whatever it becomes in the future)
- Someone should go around with a digital camera? and take pictures of all of the buildings and items on campus, and then put them on the appropriate nodes of the wiki. Imagine that -- you could just log on to the tool and see what every building or room on the campus looked like!
- "formatted documentation?". As I'm considering putting documentation on a random piece of software into the wiki, wouldn't it be cool if each open source project? (I'm guessing that commercial software? would tell us to f*** off as usual), had some docs that were formatted specially to be uploaded to a knowledge base? ? I mean, the spec could get complicated, but at least it would have a bunch of common fields like:
| Name | |
| License | |
| Install size | |
| dependancies | |
| primary website | |
| docs available where? | |
| lead developers | |
| etc.... | |
So that then you could just put all that into a database, and then could use it for
support questions? when they come in, etc....
(We could perhaps do this using the
Web Forms?...)
- Websites about Websites?. The Internet has lots of pages that cover a wide variety of subjects. Several of the websites are web presence? for an organization or company, but some have no counterpart in the real world?. What about a framework (we could implement it inside the wiki, but it obviously be implemented separately) that could have a node "about a website". Here's how the page could be structured:
- Website Name
- 'About' the website -- neutral description of the purpose of the website, number of readers, etc...
- Related websites/sites w/ similar topics
- competitors (overlap with previous bullet is going to happen)
- People/websites that disagree with this website (and why)
- People/websites that agree with this website (and why)
- (CONT...) so with websites about websites, people could criticize sites that are misleading or are merely trying to hype up a product. (case in point: Website Cool 2 Be Real Dot Com ). Anyhow, just as people can put up anything on the wiki about stuff at Dartmouth (and beyond), using this tool people could criticize or support any website out there.
- For the Wiki: Anonymous Posting?.
- There can be a great benefit to the community if people are able to post information anonymously. Everyone in the world can read the wiki, (and write to it for now..), but if it [the wiki] becomes an important part of computing at Dartmouth?, I think that I'll have to restrict write access to DND/LDAP users. I want people to have a place to post anything that they want, and although non-Dartmouth people might have stuff to say, I'm not sure about their involvement. (perhaps we can work something out). But back to anonymous posting! Is there a way that we can restrict the wiki so that only authorized people? can post, but allow some anonymous posting? I think that the answer is yes, and here's my idea:
- Everyone in the DND can put stuff on the wiki (or similar tool), and they are allowed to post a small number of things "anonymously" each month. Let's say 5 things (to toss out a number). Anonymous postings would be displayed as "User Anonymous", but somewhere in the database (heavily protected) we would store the mapping between the "Real User"->Anonymous Posting.
- The people charged with editing the wiki would review "Anonymous Postings" on a daily basis. If two of them (or whatever rule we pick) agreed that the person was justified in posting anonymously, then the system would
- Give that user another "anon posting" for the month (i.e. Users get to make as many 'justified' anonymous postings? in a month)
- Remove all traces connecting RealUser?->Anonymous Posting, granting real anonymity.
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- Another Big Idea? for the wiki: A website for every class?. Yep -- my goal is to have a website up and running for every class being taught at Dartmouth (spring term? 2003 would be excellent!).
- In order to get that working, it seems like we'd need to have all of the Department pages up and running as well as pages up for the generic classes (like Computer Science 99 or Studio Art 15?), as well as a specific page for a term (like Computer Science 99 Winter 2003?).
- If the class already has a website elsewhere (perhaps on the Math department webserver or on Black Board?), then we can just provide a link to that site. If a website does not exist (and will never exist...), has not been created yet, or if students want to use the wiki for whatever reason (yay! :^), then we can put up more content on the term-specific page.
- It will be interesting for us editors (which hopefully will be the entire community, to some extent) to figure out what content should go on the term-specific pages and what should go on the "general page" -- i.e. for the class in general. Hopefully the flexibility of the wiki will allow open discourse that gives profs lots of feedback and lets students be honest about their experiences in the course. (Should also cross-link this with the SA course-feedback system... :-)
Cooking-related
- cutting boards?. should be able to get bigger cutting boards for less $$.
- online recipe stuff... including glossary, video examples of how to use a knife, cook in different ways, etc...
- I tried to use a turkey baster? to fill huge pasta shells?, but it didn't work (the cheese mixture was too thick). Scooping up the paste and using a spoon to fill the shells goes really slowly. What should I do instead? (Maybe a pastry bag? with a medium round tip would work well....)
- Calendars -- we're choosing a calendar system? for the DLG and I think that it would be really neat to get groups around campus to use calendar systems more (especially when describing weekly meetings and stuff).
- If we could get groups to put content into a calendar, it would be really neat if they could put a tiny PHP script (or XML feed ??) on their website to auto-insert all of the relevant (recent) events that were stored on the calendar. All the content would be stored on the calendar, but they could put it on the webpage by using a script with a small query like "
SELECT title, date, location, blurb FROM organization_events WHERE org_name = DartmouthLinuxGroup AND date > now() AND date < now() + 14 days". (We'd also have a small output function to format each event)
- I'm not sure how hard it would be, but it should definately be doable.
- One potential problem is the speed of dynamic stuff: static pages? are really fast for lots of users. Dynamic pages take a lot more effort to pull all of the information off of the remote server.
Mathematics
- Online tutorial for mathematics that people could step through at their own pace. Would include movies of lectures, 3D interactive items, lots of pictures. Also have powerful AI to generate questions and new problems. Also include chatrooms and online presentations so that 'students' learning at home could interact with other people every week or so. (this idea could be extended to learning just about any subject, but I thought it would be easiest to start out with mathematics).
Random Stuff
- what about a 'free dictionary' online? many people contribute to it, etc... (big problem I see is that most of us are not trained to act as dictionary editors :)
homework
* nothing much, just playing with the idea of keeping information in a wiki-format.
RobinsonTryonHomework
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- Please note that the page above demonstrates quite elegantly how I kind of ramble off into strangeness at time. View at your own risk... :-) --Main.RobinsonTryon
Papers
- IntegratedNetworkSystem --- project for a paper for cs99; includes single sign-on and Email, Chat, and file storage on the network.
RobinsonTryon - 24 Oct 2002