Computing – Page 6 – Brock at Cliff Cottage

2018-08-112019-08-05

Ethan & Ethel 04: Computer Control Basics

In the last post, Ethan & Ethel had to do a lot of work, to keep track of their heating costs.

Time used = Time turned off – Time turned on. Example: 17h05m – 15h31m = 94m

They wrote down the time they turned on their heater, and then the time when they turned it off. They then subtract the “on” time from the “off” time to find the number of minutes the heater was on. This had to be repeated for every visit to the workshop with heat on. At the end of the month, they had to add all of these minutes together to find their monthly usage. What a boring job, and so unnecessary when a computer can do it, automatically! All that is needed is a few lines of code. Code that has already been written, and is waiting to be reused.

Workshop computer control means that computing equipment is running hardware and software that senses and activates workshop activities.

Stop the Press!

This post was originally written 2018-03-02. It is now 2018-08-11, more than five months later. Reviewing it at the time I was dissatisfied with the previous paragraph, that continued with, “a Raspberry Pi single-board computer will be used to run Home-Assistant software. The raspberry pi will be connected to two different Arduino micro-controllers using USB cables.”

The problem, both then and now, is that while the above solution would work, it is not optimal. Why should one use three components, when one should do? Ideally, a single microprocessor should be able to run 1) home automation software, in this case Home-Assistant; 2) connect to analogue sensors and have analogue input data converted to digital data; 3) connect digitally to relays to trigger activators; 4) communicate with other components on the local area network using wires (Ethernet); 5) receive electrical power over those same wires.

The best way forward to gain an understanding of workshop problems is to pretend that the ideal solution exists, a fantasy Unicorn IoT (Internet of Things) microcontroller.

Home-Assistant

If Ethan and/or Ethel are to work in a computer controlled workshop, one of the first things they need to control is the workshop computer. It should be designed in such a way that it can respond to their needs turning on and off lights, heat, tools, etc.

While a Raspberry Pi (and its clones and near relatives) is capable of running this software, an Arduino microcontroller is not.

Sensors

In a workshop there can be a large number of different sensors measuring all sorts of things. There can also be a large number of actuators using the same data. For example, both a heater and a vent may use data from a room temperature sensor, but in different ways. The heater may be activated if the work space is too cold. Once it gets hot enough it will shut off. If the temperature continues to rise, then a different actuator, the vent will be activated, but only if the outside temperature is lower than the inside temperature. To determine that, there needs to be a second temperature sensor, this one measuring the outside air.

A sensor is any device that measures a physical quantity. Temperature sensors can be found not only in the workshop space, but also inside machines. This Wikipedia article lists sensors by sensor type: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sensors

Some of the other sensors in a workshop include: humidity, measuring water vapour in the air; infra red, detecting body heat; light, measuring light levels; smoke, detecting fires. Those are sensors that can be used anywhere in a house. There can be some sensors that are specific to a workshop: wood moisture content and dust particles in air.

Having so many sensors can be a major distraction, so from now on the focus will be on just one, a LM35 temperature sensor.

LM35 Temperature sensor

Several companies make temperature sensors, but Texas Instruments makes one that is world famous, the LM35. It costs about $1.50.

While information about the LM35 is available in a data sheet that contains more than enough information about every aspect of the sensor, most people don’t need to read it. Why? Because all of the engineering work has been done before. Since Ethan and Ethel will be using an Arduino, they just need to know how to connect a LM35 with an Arduino. Then they have to find a (free) program that uses the LM35, and upload it onto the Arduino. With a little practice, anyone can get a sensor working on an Arduino in about five minutes.

The LM35 is cool. The main reason is shown in this graph. Most sensors express themselves as a voltage that varies smoothly with the quantity being measured. On a graph this makes a straight line. The LM35 is exceptional, because at 0°C output voltage is 0V. Every 1°C up or down adds (with positive temperatures) or subtracts (with negative temperatures) precisely 10 mV. At 100°C, the output voltage is exactly 1V. The LM35 is also very flexible regarding input voltage. It can use anything from 4V to 20V.

LM35 graph — This may be the first time in your life where you see a graph that is actually useful! This shows the output voltage of a LM35 temperature sensor for temperatures that range from -50° C to +150° C.

ADC

Computers use digital data, and can’t normally read voltages directly. On micro-controllers there are Analog to Digital Converters (ADC) that automatically change an input voltage into a digital value. On the Arduino Uno, there are six analog pins that can read voltages from 0 V to 5 V (or 0 mV to 5 000 mV). This means that up to six different sensors can be connected to an Arduino board. There are ways to add more, if needed. Each sensor then has its voltage converted into a digital values between 0 and 1023. These analog pins have a sensitivity of 4.9 mV. So a voltage from 0 to 4.8 mV will be given a value of 0. From 4.9 mV to 9.8 mV they will be a value of 1. This will continue right up to 4 995.1 mV to 5.0 mV, where they will be given a value of 1023.

It takes about 100 µs (100 microseconds or 0.0001 s) to read an analog input. The maximum reading rate is 10 000 times a second. Usually, reading a temperature once a second is good enough. In fact, in some circumstances reading it every five minutes or every hour would make better sense, especially if all this data has to be stored.

Arduinos have ADC units, Raspberry Pis do not.

Relays

Microcontrollers do not respond well to large currents, and will be permanently damaged if connected to too many volts, amps or watts. If one wants to turn on an electric heater to warm up a space, this is typically done by a relay. A Relay is an electrically operated switch. When an electromagnet is activated with a low voltage, typically 5 V, it makes or breaks a high voltage circuit.

Many microcontrollers have supplementary boards that attach directly to pins on their main boards. Both the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino have them. On a Raspberry Pi they are called Hats (Hardware Attatched on Top). On the Arduino they are called shields. The Raspberry Pi hats allow the main board to identify a connected hat and automatically configure the pins.

A Seeed Relay Shield V 2.0. It allows a single Arduino to control up to 4 relays. (Photo: Seeed)

Communication

For automation systems, wired communication is preferred. The most common form of wired communication is the Ethernet, developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in 1973-4 and used ever since. Most people would be advised to use CAT 6A cable, for workshop automation.

In the future, almost every significant power tool in a workshop will be connected to the local area network, including dust collection and air filtering equipment. Even in home workshops, various variants of CNC (computer numeric controlled) equipment will be taken into use, including 3D printers and laser cutters.

Microprocessors in the 1970 would process data in a single program that ran continuously. In the 21st century, not so much. The reason for this is that each sensor (and each actuator) is treated as a separate object. Sensors publish data, about a specific state, and actuators subscribe to the data they need to make decisions about how they will operate. To do this they use a publish-subscribe protocol called MQTT. It has been around sine 1999.

Sensor actuator — Home Assistant uses a MQTT broker that allows sensors to publish and actuators to subscribe. With this information, a heater can be turned on and off as required.

PoE (Power over Ethernet)

Power over Ethernet allows electrical power to be sent over the same Ethernet cable used to send and receive data to a device. This simplifies life considerably. There are no batteries to change or high-voltage power cables to install. The main challenge is that only a few microcontrollers are capable of utilizing this feature. Using a Hat or shield with PoE connectivity is another possibility.

2018-08-01

Kanban

The myth of Kanban is set in the late 1940s, when Toyota began to optimize inventory levels. Several authors describe this as an engineering process. It isn’t, but myths are not invented to tell truths, but to elevate the mundane into eloquent and compelling stories. In this myth, Toyota’s goal was to align inventory levels with the actual consumption of materials. To communicate capacity levels in real-time on the factory floor (and to suppliers), workers would pass a card, or kanban, between teams. When a bin of materials used on the production line was emptied, a kanban was passed to the warehouse describing the material and its quanity. The warehouse would then send a replacement to the factory floor, and their own kanban to their supplier. The supplier would then ship a bin of material to the warehouse. While the physical cards may have disappeared, Just In Time (JIT) remains at its heart of modern manufacturing.

Kanban moved from esoteric knowledge about Japanese business practices, to myth in 2010, when David Anderson wrote Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business. The book is only incidentally about Kanban. It is more about the evolution of a software development approach at Microsoft in 2004, to a better approach at the Bill Gates owned digital image business, Corbis, in 2006-7, designated Kanban. About the same time there were several others who were name-dropping Kanban, and suggesting variations of it as a form of lean production, especially for software.

The key point with Kanban is that it works in organizations engaged in processing, either in terms of products or services. It is less applicable in organizations working on projects.

Service organizations, can establish teams to supply these services, using JIT principles. This requires them to match the quantity of Work In Progress (WIP) to the team’s capacity. This provides greater flexibity, faster output, clearer focus and increased transparency. Teams can implement virtual kanban methodology.

In Japanese, kanban translates as visual signal. For kanban teams, every work item is represented as a separate card on the board.A kanban board is a tool used to visualize work and to optimize work flow across a team. Virtual boards are preferred to physical boards because they are trackable and accessibile at every workstation. They visualize work. Workflow is standardized. Blockers and dependencies are depicted, allowing them to be resolved. Three work phases are typically shown on a kanban board: To Do, In Progress and Done. Since the cards and boards are virtual, the unique needs of any team can be mapped to reflect team size, structure and objectives.

Truthing is at the heart of kanban. Full transparency about work and capacity issues is required. Work is represented as a card on a kanban board to allow team members to track work progress visually. Cards provide critical information about a particular work item, including the name of the person responsible for that item, a brief description and a time estimate to completion. Virtual cards can have documents attached to them, including text, spreadsheets and images. All team members have equal access to every work item, including – but not restricted to – blockers and dependencies.

An important management task is to (re)prioritize work in the backlog. This does not disrupt team efforts because changes outside current work items don’t impact the team. Keeping the most important work items on top of the backlog, ensures a team is delivering maximum value. A kanban team focuses on active works in progress. Once a team completes a work item, they select the next work item off the top of their backlog.

Cycle time is the time it takes for a unit of work to travel through the team’s workflow–from the moment work starts to the moment it ships. This metric can provide insights into delivery times for future work.

When a single person holds a skill set, that skill set can potentially becomes a workflow bottleneck. Overlapping skill sets eliminates that potential bottleneck and may reduce cycle times. Best practices, encourage team members to share skills and to spread knowledge. Shared skill sets mean that team members can enrich their work, which may further reduce cycle time. In kanban, work completion is a team responsibility.

A kanban feature is to set a limit on the number of works in progress. Control charts and cumulative flow diagrams provide a visual mechanism for teams to see change. A control chart shows the cycle time for each work item, as well as a rolling average. A cumulative flow diagram shows the number of work items in each state. Combined, these allow a team to spot bottlenecks and blockages.

My interest in Kanban is tied to my son, Alasdair’s use of it for process management with the Council for Religious and Life Stance Communities Bergen (Samarbeidsrådet for tros- og livssynssamfunn Bergen, STLB). See: https://www.stlb.no/english/ . It is available as an app for Nextcloud, Deck. See: https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/deck . This will be installed on our upcoming server, tentatively named Qayqayt.

2018-07-29

Arduino Revisited

I started to write this post on 2017 November 22. The original title was MKR: Arduino Revisited. Two hundred and fifty days should be long enough to write any post, but this one has defied me.

An Arduino MKR 1000, the most basic board in this new Arduino family. In November, I expected to be buying several of them for a home automation project. (Photo: Arduino.cc)

Soon, it will be ten years since I started using and teaching Arduino. In November, I was looking forward to the new series of Arduinos, the MKR (Maker) series, a small form factor microcomputer with a number of outputs and headers (electrical pin connectors), a battery management system and USB, that could be useful for building home automation room control units, small enough to fit inside almost anything, such as a light switch box inside a wall.

Each room in our house would have its own personal microprocessor. Some rooms, such as the workshop might have several. Each microprocessor would then connects to multiple sensors that would measure/ detect things like temperature, humidity, light and motion inside that room. Analogue data would be converted inside the microprocessor to digital data, then sent onwards to a central controller, located somewhere in the house. If specific conditions were met, the controller will initiate an action, sending a message to either the same or another microprocessor, and ordering it to activate an activator (as they are called) such as opening a vent or turning on a light. These microprocessors would be fried if they received power exceeding a few milliwatts, so they use relays to indirectly switch on components that can consume up to 2 500 Watts.

There are just two problems with microprocessors like this. First, they should not use wireless communication (including but not limited to WiFi, Bluetooth or radio), but should be wired. Second, they should not use batteries or mains current as a power source.

Both of these problems can be resolved using Ethernet, which is network cabling technology, initially developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) between 1973 and 1974. For most home automation circuits there is no great urgency to turn on or off an activator. A millisecond or two will not make much of a difference, so there is no need for gigabit per second Ethernet. Megabit per second is good enough. Batteries and mains current can be eliminated by sending electrical power through the Ethernet cable.

At the moment, I have lost my enthusiasm for Arduino MKR boards, and am looking for a replacement. Why? It all has to do with open-source, or lack thereof, if not in practice, at least in spirit.

Arduino, despite its open-source claims, has not always been transparent. The following is a summary of some of the Arduino disputes, taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino

In 2008, the five cofounders of the Arduino project created a company, Arduino LLC to hold the trademarks associated with Arduino. They transfered ownership of the Arduino brand to the newly formed company. The same year one of the five cofounders, Gianluca Martino through his company, Smart Projects, registered the Arduino trademark in Italy and kept this a secret from the other cofounders for about two years. Later, negotiations with Gianluca to bring the trademark under control of the original Arduino company failed. In 2014, Smart Projects began refusing to pay royalties. It then renamed itself Arduino SRL and created the website arduino.org, copying the graphics and layout of the original arduino.cc. In January 2015, Arduino LLC filed a lawsuit against Arduino SRL. In May 2015, Arduino LLC created the worldwide trademark Genuino, used as brand name outside the United States. In 2016, Arduino LLC and Arduino SRL merged into Arduino AG. In 2017 BCMI, founded by four of the five original founders (with the initials representing those of their respective last names) acquired Arduino AG and all the Arduino trademarks.

In July 2017, Massimo Banzi announced that the Arduino Foundation would be “a new beginning for Arduino. ” That same month, former CEO Federico Musto allegedly removed many open source licenses, schematics and code from the Arduino website. See: https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/26/ceo-controversy-mars-arduinos-open-future/

Currently, I have been unable to find any further information about an Arduino foundation, and any new start. Instead, I find in May 2018, Arduino announcing the sale of engineering kits to encourage the use of Arduino at university level. Unfortunately, the kits require the use of Mathlab and Simulink, closed-source and expensive software packages from MathWorks, despite open-source alternatives, such as R. Admittedly, the kits contain a one year licence for the software. See: https://blog.arduino.cc/2018/05/12/arduino-goes-to-college-with-the-new-arduino-engineering-kit/

Back in 2013, Massimo Banzi was more enthusiastic about open-source hardware, as he explained in an Arstechnica interview. See: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/arduino-creator-explains-why-open-source-matters-in-hardware-too/

Here are some quotes from the article: As an open source electronic prototyping platform, Arduino releases all of its hardware design files under a Creative Commons license, and the software needed to run Arduino systems is released under an open source software license. Why is openness important in hardware? Because open hardware platforms become the platform where people start to develop their own products. For us, it’s important that people can prototype on the BeagleBone [a similar product] or the Arduino, and if they decide to make a product out of it, they can go and buy the processors and use our design as a starting point and make their own product out of it. … With the Raspberry Pi you cannot even buy the processor…. Raspberry Pi is a PC designed for people to learn how to program. But we [Arduino] are a completely different philosophy. We believe in a full platform, so when we produce a piece of hardware, we also produce documentation and a development environment that fits all together with hardware.

Even the Arduino website has changed its language. Before it might have distinguished between an original board and a clone, emphasizing the open source nature of boards. Now this nuance is missing entirely, it states: “If you are wondering if your Arduino board is authentic you can learn how to spot a counterfeit board here [with link].” See: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Products

While I live in hope that Arduino will reform, I don’t want to financially support it any more. What I want is an open-source board with its own Ethernet connectivity. They did have one, but retired it without a direct replacement. Currently, this feature seems to be unavailable from Arduino. They are undoubtedly too busy developing boards that connect an assortment of proprietary communications technology.

The Arduino Ethernet with PoE (Power over Ethernet), an almost ideal solution, except that it has been retired. (Photo: Arduino.cc)

I have considered using other boards, even Italian ones, such as the Fishino, but they also lack Ethernet connectivity: https://www.fishino.it/home.html

The board that seems to offer the most promise comes from DF Robot: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1286.html

DF Robot W5500 Board with PoE, available at a price of USD 45 or less. (Photo: DF Robot)

Their W5500 Ethernet with PoE board is based on the ATmega32u4 in an Arduino Leonardo package with a W5500 Ethernet chip . The latter is TCP/IP hardwired for embedded systems, although not gigabit enabled. The board is compatible with most Arduino shields and sensors. Version 2.0 has an upgraded PoE power regulation circuit, which makes PoE power more reliable.

The main difference between a Uno and a Leonardo package is that the latter uses a more sophisticated chip, an ATmega32U4 chip. It shares the same form factor and I/O placement (analog, PWM, I²C pins in the same place) as the Uno, which means that it can use the same shields, which are additional boards that sit on top of the Arduino, and connect directly to the pins below.

A Seeed relay shield, showing the pins that allow it to be directly connected to most Arduino boards. Yes, Seeed is spelled with 3 e’s. (Photo: Seeedstudio.com)

A relay shield provides several, typically four, switches that can control high current loads. They can be wired as NO (Normally Open) or NC (Normally Closed) circuits. These are important, because most electrical equipment cannot be controlled directly by a microprocessor’s pins. Relays are useful for switching AC appliances such as fans, lights, motors as well as high current DC solenoids.

DF Robots, an alternative to Arduino. (Illustration: DF Robots)

The fact that the DF Robots W5500 board is open-source, means that everyone is permitted to make their own boards from scratch, if they should want. Most of the time, this is not an economic choice.

2018-07-15

Open Source Mapping

[osm_map_v3 map_center=”63.5409,10.7749″ zoom=”8″ width=”100%” height=”450″ map_border=”thin solid red” post_markers=”1″]

An embedded map of Trondheim Fjord, Norway, showing the location of Cliff Cottage. It was made using an OSM (OpenStreetMap) plugin, in the WordPress program, used to make this weblog.

While I might have included a screen shot or image to display a map, a more flexible approach is to embed one. This requires adding a mapping plugin to the WordPress program that I currently use. Since there are so many plugins available, I have to decide which one to use. I’m using one that is open source to make a policy statement!

It all started with this item in /. ( https://slashdot.org/ )

Background theory: A factoid from Economics 101 – perfect competition leads to Pareto optimality, which is just a fancy way of saying that businesses that compete will stagnate. There is no way for any of them to make any profits. Ultimately, a little mistake will lead to bankruptcy. So businesses will do almost anything to avoid competition. They want monopolies or, if that isn’t possible, a large market share, so they can charge whatever consumers will pay, to make lots of money.

Background event: As explained in the /. article, on 2018-07-16, the free ride of using Google Maps’ application programming interface (API) is over. Google is going to make it more difficult and expensive to use its API. The good news (for Google) is that they should be able to extract more revenue from users. The bad news (for organizations and people using these APIs) is that custom maps will be less sustainable or even unfeasible for organizations that made them. See: https://developers.google.com/maps/billing/important-updates

When a company makes programs that are high quality and free, people will use them. Google Maps is no exception. Thus, the most popular WordPress mapping plugins are (with the number of active installations in parentheses, from largest to smallest): WP Google Maps (400 000+ ); Google Maps Widget (100 000+); MapPress Easy Google Maps (100 000+); WP Google Map Plugin (100 000+); Google Maps plugin by Intergeo (60 000+); Snazzy Maps (60 000+); Google Maps Easy (40 000+); Simple Map (40 000+). All of these plugins relate to Google Maps. It is only when one gets to Leaflet Map Marker (30 000+) that an alternative to Google Maps can be found that works with OpenStreetMaps and Bing Maps, as well as Google Maps.

Consequences: People who need a map, but don’t know how to program, and don’t have a budget to pay for a customized solution, have been able to make maps using Google (or equivalent) APIs. Google’s actions are part of a trend away from easy access to free mapping tools. Fewer companies are offering free accounts and there are fewer alternatives to Google.

Open source API choices to replace Google Maps APIs include Leaflet and OpenLayers.

Leaflet is an open-source JavaScript library for desktop and mobile platform interactive maps. The API code is small, 38 kB, but has most mapping features needed by developers. It can be extended with plugins. Its focus is on the optimal performance of basic mapping features, rather than on an extensive features rich environment. See: https://leafletjs.com

In contrast OpenLayers is much more extensive, and larger (10 MB) requiring greater insight. See: http://openlayers.org

Mapzen, often cited as a third open soure tool that ran on OpenStreetMaps, shut down its operations at the beginning of 2018.

For me, open source matters, so I chose to add on OSM – OpenStreetMaps, as a plugin. It took a couple of minutes to download the plugin, and up to several seconds to activate it. Here is the entire procedure:

Select Generate: OSM shortcode

Select the OSM control theme of your choice

Adjust the map and click into the map to generate the OSM shortcode

Copy (Ctrl+C) the generated shortcode and paste (Ctrl+V) it into your article or page.

Notes: The generator was located immediately below the WordPress text frame; Once the map was pasted into the text, the preview button had to be pressed to show the map. The only thing left to do is to publish the post!

2018-07-022018-07-01

Artificial General Intelligences

From a previous post …

haves will indirectly control artificial intelligence agents, while the majority have nots will be required to obey the whims of these agents, and their overlord handlers.

Post-modern bread and circus equivalents will pacify the great unwashed. If that doesn’t work even more direct, negative action will be taken.

Neural networks will live a life of their own, so it may not be possible for even the “haves” to exercise direct control over these agents. However, one proposed approach is to frame control, with an AI agent constitution, based on Isaac Asimov’s (1920-1992), Three Laws of Robotics.

In this post, these and other robotic laws will be examined and commented upon.

Sawyer (left) & Baxter (right) are collaborative robots. Just the sort of creatures that might end up in a dispute with living humans. (Photo: Jeff Green/ Rethink Robotics, 2015 CC-BY-SA-4.0)

Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics were proposed in a 1942 short story Runaround. According to Asimov they had their origin in a meeting between himself and John W. Campbell on 1940-12-23.

The Three Laws are:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Normality 2020

Voice activated actuators wait patiently to serve you. Invisible logistic trails ensure an orange (Citrus × sinensis) is peeled, split into boats, if that is your preference, and placed in front of you on a dish of your own choosing, when you demand it.

Your own speech controls your digital assistants, not only commercial varieties such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google’s Assistant, but also open source Lucida (formerly Sirius), Abot, Jarvis and Jasper.

On a clear day, the sun shines, oranges are peeled and served, and there is no need to reflect on the laws of robotics underpinning digital assistants.

A snake in the garden of Eden

I have nothing against snakes, personally, but use the term to describe an unwelcome intruder into Eden, subsonic commands hidden in music, videos, or even white noise. This is done by using software to cancel out the sound that the speech recognition system was supposed to hear and replacing it with sound at subsonic frequencies that would be transcribed differently. Instead of an orange, an apple (Malus pumila) is peeled, sliced and served on a dish of someone else’s choice. A humorous change in the eyes of many, but in our family, some people are allergic to apples. Other substitutions can be more serious, even deadly. There can be significant security risks. It is at this stage that laws of robotics, or their AI equivalent, need to be applied.

One challenge with these three laws, is the assumption that all human actions are legitimate. What happens if a human wants to harm another human? With these laws, it would be impossible for a robot to intervene on behalf of the person being harmed. So, it will undoubtedly not go many milliseconds before some enterprising hacker ensures that these three laws are voided.

Asimov was well aware of this shortcoming, which he would have undoubtedly described as a feature. He has referenced Arthur Hugh Clough’s (1819-1861) satirical poem on the ten commandments, The Latest Decalogue, as its inspiration: “Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive officiously to keep alive:”

Asimov introduced a zeroth law in Foundation & Earth (1986) but it seems of limited use in conflict situations:

0. A robot may not injure humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

In western films, the cliché is that the good guys always wear white Stetson hats! In real life, it is more difficult to distinguish good people from evil doers, or white hackers from black hackers.

These laws have been modified many times, by Asimov as well as others. One extreme is represented by Jack Williamson’s (1908-2006) novelette With Folded Hands (1947), rewritten as the novel The Humanoids (1949), deals with robot servants whose prime directive is “To Serve and Obey, And Guard Men From Harm.” The Williamson robots take the robotic laws to the extreme, by protecting humans from everything, including unhappiness, stress, unhealthy lifestyle and all potentially dangerous actions. All humans may do is to sit with folded hands.

Some feel three laws are insufficient.

The Lyuben Dilov (1927-2008) novel, Icarus’s Way (alternative title, The Trip of Icarus) (1974) added:

4. A robot must establish its identity as a robot in all cases.

This law appears to have been violated in the celebrated Google Duplex restaurant reservation (2018-05-17): https://mashable.com/2018/05/17/google-duplex-dinner-reservation/#X7ChNbJ3baqw

Harry Harrison (1925-2012) also produced a fourth law, found in the short story, The Fourth Law of Robotics, in the tribute anthology Foundation’s Friends (1989):

4. A robot must reproduce. As long as such reproduction does not interfere with the First or Second or Third Law.

Reproduction, here, is asexual but sensational. Why not a fourth law requiring a robot to maintain itself, by undertaking necessary hardware and software repairs? There are robots who can and do reproduce themselves, the most famous being RepRap, a low-cost, self-replicating 3D printer, initially made at the University of Bath in 2005: http://www.reprap.org/

Nikola Kesarovski (c. 1935-2007) published the book The Fifth Law of Robotics (1983):

5. A robot must know that it is a robot.

I am not quite sure why. Is it so that it knows that it isn’t human? Should it know that it is a particular type of robot? For example, a vacuum robot, rather than a lawn mowing robot.

Roger MacBride Allen (1957-) wrote a trilogy set within Asimov’s fictional universe. Caliban (1993), Inferno (1994) and Utopia (1996) are each prefixed with “Isaac Asimov’s”. Here, there are four New Laws, which treat robots as partners rather than slaves to humanity.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must cooperate with human beings except where such actions would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence.
4. A robot may do whatever it likes as long as this does not conflict with the first three laws.

Discussion

The various robotic laws are very vague, with concepts such as human and robot undefined. This can give rise to people or equipment being regarded as something other than what they are, such as cyborg or actuator, respectively, in an attempt to avoid following the laws. Ambiguity is a literary device that is masterly exploited by Asimov, and other science fiction authors.

Another challenge with the Asimov approach, is that it is only concerned about the adversarial relationship between two groups – robots and people. Nothing else matters. Robots do not seem to have any ethical obligations with respect to the environment, for example.

Even if the laws were amended or expanded to take other aspects of the world into consideration, these laws would still not work. The only reason for positing laws is to have them fail, in interesting ways. It is not the laws, but the storytelling that is important. The lesson to be learned is that it is not possible to restrict ethics to a set of a few simple rules. If one does, the entire system will at some point fall apart.

In many science fiction worlds, robots only have mental capabilities that are less than, or equal to, their human controllers, for lack of a better word. What happens when artificial intelligence advances beyond human levels? Superintelligence is a key challenge, a situation in which artificial intelligence, or machine intelligence to distinguish it from organic intelligence, will require more advanced ethical considerations, than those that can be stated in a literary work.

Deontology judges the morality of an action based on rules. It is a field I know almost nothing about, except that it is regarded by many professional philosophers as a dead end.

Perhaps it should be stated here and now that robots are another dead end. The future belongs not to robots but to Artificial General Intelligences (AGI). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence These are machines with consciousness, intuitive, flexible and adaptive, even in terms of ethics. Like humans, AGIs do not rely on rote knowledge of rules, ethical or otherwise, but use them – if at all – as guidelines to nudge ethical instincts and intuitions. It is a situation highly dependent on the environment people and AGIs are brought up in.

As an ethical amateur, I am attracted more to virtue-ethics than deontology. It is in the discussion of virtues, individually and collectively, that one can relate to behaviour that is beneficial, as well as that which is less so.

Rosalind Hursthouse writes in https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/ethics-virtue/ :

A virtue such as honesty or generosity is not just a tendency to do what is honest or generous, nor is it to be helpfully specified as a “desirable” or “morally valuable” character trait. It is, indeed a character trait—that is, a disposition which is well entrenched in its possessor, something that, as we say “goes all the way down”, unlike a habit such as being a tea-drinker—but the disposition in question, far from being a single track disposition to do honest actions, or even honest actions for certain reasons, is multi-track. It is concerned with many other actions as well, with emotions and emotional reactions, choices, values, desires, perceptions, attitudes, interests, expectations and sensibilities. To possess a virtue is to be a certain sort of person with a certain complex mindset. (Hence the extreme recklessness of attributing a virtue on the basis of a single action.)

Yes, this is a difficult act for a machine to follow, but absolutely essential if one is to have autonomous cars, autonomous surgeons and other tools that will interact intimately with humans.

The one recent book on ethics that I have enjoyed the most is After Virtue, by Alasdair MacIntyre. But that is another story …

Notes

I taught Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Nord-Trøndelag Regional College from 1988 to 1991. My focus was on expert systems.
I do not normally enjoy reading science fiction. However, I do find it rewarding to read about the topic.
Currently, my main interest in AI relates to robotics in general, and assistive devices in particular. However, I also see a need to look beyond the present to a future where machines acquire a form of consciousness.
Personally, if I needed extensive care in the future, I would prefer that care given to me by a robot rather than a human.

2018-07-012018-06-30

Retrograde

Retrograde is an informal project for family and friends to test RetroShare, a friend-to-friend (F2F) network communication and file sharing system, to see if it can replace other social media platforms. Mega-corporate social media incessantly use surveillance trackers, and manipulate users for commercial, political and even more fundamental ideological purposes.

If you know me personally, you may participate in this project!

The key dates of the project are all the first day of the following months in 2018.

July: Official announcement of project, with a request for participants. If you want to participate, please send an email to brock at mclellan dot no, with Retrograde as subject. Nothing more is needed. The official deadline is 2018-07-14 23:59, Central European Summer Time (CEST). For people living on the West Coast of North America, the deadline is 14:59 or 2:59 PM, Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). Unofficially? Well, why don’t you send it now, so you don’t forget? But your request will be considered by a living human being, with long experience dealing with procrastinators!

August: Notification of selected participants. Participants will receive detailed instructions on how to download and install RetroShare, including creation of private and public keys needed to operate the system. Back channels (email) will be used for this purpose. You may want to have a few close friends and/or family members install RetroShare on their computers.

September. Trial operation. During this time you will be able to communicate with friends and family who have RetroShare, and send communication similar to that you would do on Facebook, but without Facebook being in control. Hopefully, during the month you will learn new features of RetroShare that improve the quality of your on-line life. Every few days, you will receive a new message (on RetroShare) suggesting new ways of communicating, building your skills (and confidence) as a RetroShare user.

October. You will be asked some questions about your experiences using RetroShare in September, and particularly about problems you encountered (and your solutions). The official deadline to reply will be Sunday, 2018-10-14 23:59, Central European Summer Time (CEST). For people living on the West Coast of North America, the deadline is 14:59 or 2:59 PM, Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). Note: This date is before the “fall back” to standard time.

November. An anonymized report on the trial operation will be sent to participants, a less detailed weblog post will follow. It will now be up to each participant to decide if they want to keep using RetroShare actively, to keep it passively on their machine, or deactivate it and remove it.

Why Retrograde?

In the final hours of preparing this post, I received a copy of a report from the Norwegian Consumer Council, titled Deceived by Design. It states,

“In this report, we analyze a sample of settings in Facebook, Google and Windows 10, and show how default settings and dark patterns, techniques and features of interface design meant to manipulate users, are used to nudge users towards privacy intrusive options. The findings include privacy intrusive default settings, misleading wording, giving users an illusion of control, hiding away privacy friendly choices, take-it-or-leave-it choices, and choice architectures where choosing the privacy friendly option requires more effort for the users.” (p. 3)

Yes, social media, including Facebook and Google, but also Microsoft with Windows 10, has gotten out of hand. I would like people to participate in a cyberspace where fundamental rights, including the right to privacy, dominate. At the same time, I want people to use dignity and respect in their dealings with each other, online as well as offline. Project Retrograde is an initial effort to provide such a forum.

About RetroShare

RetroShare is an open source, non-intrusive communication platform, with official and unofficial versions available for devices (usually computers) running the following operating systems:

Windows: XP, Vista, 7, 10.

Apple: MacOS.

Linux: Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, Arch, Fedora, Gentoo, , Raspberry Pi, Mageia, CentOS, OpenSUSE.

FreeBSD

Android: Only a partial implementation.

There does not seem to be a distribution for iPhone, but this may be in part because Apple is not particularly open to products outside their very commercial ecosystem. One inexpensive solution for people trapped in an Apple environment, is to buy a raspberry pi, and to use it as a RetroShare server. People in this situation can contact me for details, as I will be implementing RetroShare on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+. A Mac computer, running any modern version of macOS can also be used.

RetroShare works as a communication platform, when it is based on real-life acquaintanceships of “trusted” people in a network. Add only people to the network you know and trust. In 2012, a German Court issued an injunction against a user of RetroShare for sharing copyrighted music files. The user had added an anti-piracy monitoring company as a friend, which allowed him to be “caught”.

Unless you tell someone, it will be very difficult for other people to know that you are running RetroShare.

I will only be adding people to my network that I know personally, even if the last time we met physically was over fifty years ago. I still know them, and trust them. On the other hand, there may be people I have regular contact with, but where, for one reason or another, there is a shortage of trust. With people in this category, I will certainly avoid mentioning anything about RetroShare. My estimate is that, fully populated, my RetroShare contact list will include about 100 people.

One challenge with using Facebook is that they categorize everyone as a friend, while I use much more selective nuances. The several hundred people I am Facebook-friends with include: friends (a core group of about 10 people, most of whom I have known for 30 years or more), close family (which may relate to my adoptive or biological family), not-so-close family, neighbours, co-religionists, former colleagues, former pupils, former prison inmates I have taught, other prison inmates, members of environmental and other organizations, random acquaintances, and people who claim to know me that I can’t even recall vaguely. I habitually turn down friend requests from unknown twenty-something year old women, who include a lot of photos of themselves but little real information, so they are not even included on the list of Facebook-friend categories.

Some of the communication services provided by RetroShare include : private chats, a private mailing system, public and private multi-user chat lobbies, a forum system, an auto-download file distribution system similar to RSS feeds, a link posting system, VoIP calls, Video calls, Tor and I2P support. Admittedly, some of these are not fully developed, and are in Beta testing. During the trial period, a large number of these will be used (or at least proposed used) to see how they function, and if these would be appropriate for continued use.

RetroShare creates encrypted connections to your friends, which reduces the likelihood of surveillance. Retroshare is decentralized. There are no central servers that can retain copies of cleartext (unencrypted) data. Because of this, there is no fear that they will shut down or change their terms of services. RetroShare is independent of government and corporate systems.

For further information see:

https://fil.forbrukerradet.no/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2018-06-27-deceived-by-design-final.pdf

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RetroShare

Official Retroshare website: http://www.retroshare.net/

Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zVVxtwEdps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zVVxtwEdps&t=301s

(At the time of writing 2018-06-29 at 09:00 this video had 4 857 views, and was one of the most popular RetroShare videos.)

2018-06-25

Smart-home Abuse

Smart-home technology has become a new arena for abusers to harass their victims. It is a new form of domestic guerrilla warfare. Abusers use smartphone apps connected to internet-enabled devices to remotely control everyday objects in the victim’s residence. Some modes of operation are passive, simply allowing the abuser to watch and/or listen. Other modes display power, and are intended to invoke fear. Both forms are a crime against the victim, and cannot be tolerated.

The abuser may or may not be resident, or in or out of an ongoing relationship with the victim. It is particularly in situations where the abuser and the victim are living together, that smart-home devices can be problematic, and difficult to handle. This post is a warning to potential victims, that smart-home devices may not be as innocent as they look.

Google Home, with an Android smartphone, one of a growing number of smart-home devices (Photo: Bence Boros on Unsplash)

Devices acquired by an abuser, and installed in a victim’s residence, often remain controlled by the abuser, even after a relationship has ended. Smart-home devices are weapons of choice for many abusers. There is often asymmetrical insight into these devices in a relationship. Victims typically lack the technological skills necessary to set up, and modify smart-home devices. This asymmetry, gives power to the abuser. Devices that can be used include cameras. loudspeakers, lights, remotely operated doors and thermostats.

Many smart-home devices are inexpensive and easy to install, as long as one knows what one is doing. Typically, only one person in a relationship – often a male – installs and programs, even operates, the technology. This person has an overview of the technology that the other person in the relationship lacks. The abuser may have exclusive knowledge of user names and passwords, which gives that person the power to compromise the other person in the relationship, typically a woman. For example, the abuser may have exclusive use of a controlling app on his telephone.

Domestic abuse is not uncommon. In a 2010 CDC report, one in three women and one in four men have been victims of physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner. See: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_report2010-a.pdf

What can be done?

First, both partners should work together and decide which smart-home devices should be installed. If there is no agreement, then it can’t be installed. Once installed, both partners must then have any apps used to control the devices.

Second, all smart-home device installations must be fully documented, and accessible to both partners in the relationship. Part of that documentation includes full discloser as to device names and passwords. However, it should also include wiring and other diagrams.

Third, as part of a legal written agreement between (former) partners, the partner leaving the residence must agree to remove all user names, passwords and other data associated with smart-home devices from all of his devices, including but not limited to phones, computers and tablets.

Fourth, any unusual device behaviour must be assumed to be enemy action, and both parties must agree that it be treated that way. Potential abusive behaviour includes: changing thermostats to uncomfortably high or low temperatures; playing music when the victim is sleeping; flashing lights at inappropriate times or preventing lights to turn on when they are required; posting photos/ videos/ sound recordings on social media, taken by remote cameras/ microphones; inappropriate door locking behaviour, such as preventing the victim from entering the residence, or allowing anyone free access to the residence, including the abuser.

A word of caution

A major problem arises when a victim removes or deactivates smart-home devices. This can result in the victim feeling inadequate and isolated, but may also result in abuse escalation. In most situations, the abuser will have sufficient control over the situation and devices to know if and when a device has been disabled, which can trigger further violence, physical or emotional.

Any course about smart-home devices should be offered either to women alone, or to couples jointly. Users should be able to understand smart-home device documentation. and be able to disable any devices installed in their residence.

Future courses I offer about smart-home devices will require the participation of both couples in a relationship, or signed note from a female domestic partner for permission to attend. This note must also include an acknowledgement that smart-home devices can be used abusively!

2018-06-242018-06-24

Down to Earth

V1 2018-06-24 18:09; V2 2018-06-24 23:37 Some minor changes, including names/descriptions of courses.

English version, Norwegian version follows

The Intergalactic Rocket Science Academy (IRSA) has hovered over everyone’s heads, in outer space, far too long. Now, it needs your help to launch a one week workshop, Down to Earth.

Target group: Earthlings, especially those with physical or mental health issues. OK, that includes all of them.

Earthling at a café in Prague, Czechia (photo: Anders Nord 2018 in Unsplash)

Principles: Fun First! “If it ain’t fun, it ain’t part of IRSA.”

Location: Space Station Straumen [that is Inderøy’s municipal centre. More specifically, at Hastighet, Inderøys teknogarasje = Velocity, Inderøy’s techno garage, being constructed – at least in theory – as this weblog is being written. It has received a grant of NOK 250 000, about CAD 40 000 to equip a 70m2 former classroom with production machinery, such as 3D printers and a laser cutter, not to mention electronic equipment.]

Arrival Sunday evening; Departure Saturday morning. Information about the specific movement of space shuttles from various planets will be provided later. [Actual dates and years? Petty details like those will be worked out later.]

Groups: There are three groups earthlings can choose between.

Clothing: Functional clothing for everyone [Replaces: Fashionable and functional adaptive clothing for the elderly and disabled.] At the end of the week, each participant will have one garment that they can take with them to their home planet.

Food: Tasty and nutritious food for everyone [Replaces: for the elderly and allergic.] At the end of the week, each participant will have (at least) five recipes they can take home with them. They will also prepare food for the evening meal.

Technology: Home automation for everyone [replaces, for the elderly and disabled.] At the end of the week, each participant will have one device that they can take with them to their home planet. Involves programming, electronics, 3D-printing.

Notes:

Earthlings have lost the ability to photosynthesize, and must “eat”. They gather together for a “meal” several times during an earth day. Earth friendly food will be served, and a food group will be formed in advance to make sure that all participants are able to eat the food served.

Earthlings need to “reflect”, “rest” and “sleep”. These are time periods when they need to be alone. To put it in terms a robot would understand, they need to recharge their batteries.

Remember, Earthlings are primitive. They cannot theorize, practicize and exercise simultaneously, but need separate sessions devoted to each one. They have no capacity for brain to brain communication, but must rely on “speech” (sound making) and “hearing” (sound sensing) for communication. Because of variations in sound sensing capabilities, sound makers have to use artificial amplifiers, especially in the presence of old earthlings.

Earthlings use “breaks” for informal communication, and fluid exchange. Fluid intake of water, coffee or tea is public. Fluid outtake is private, and is undertaken in rooms especially designed for the purpose.

Daily program

Morning meal 9:00 – 10:00.

Theory session: 10:00 – 10:45; break; 11:00 – 11:45; break.

Time for reflection: 12:00 – 13:00.

Common main meal: 13:00 – 14:00.

Practical session: 14:00 – 14:45; break; 15:00 – 15:45; break.

Time for reflection, exercise (walk): 16:00 – 18:00.

Evening meal: 18:00 – 19:00.

Optional cooperative projects: 19:00 – 20:00.

Theory sessions:

First hour

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: Coping with life. Strategies for enhanced survival as an earthling.

Wednesday: Clowning. Expressing emotions without words. Extends over two hours.

Second hour

Separate sessions for each of the groups, every day but Wednesday. Here, theoretical information related to the specific group will be presented.

Practical sessions:

Separate sessions for each of the groups. Here, earthlings will use their hands to make things related to the goals of their specific group.

Exercise sessions:

Walks need to be selected, so that people, either alone or with others can walk sufficiently.

Stop the Press!

While it might be fun to start off with a five-day workshop, the entire event might also turn out to be a catastrophe. Perhaps the correct approach is doing what the IRSA does best: build a three stage workshop rocket!

Y0 (Year Zero)

Stage 1. An experimental session. Each teacher makes a lesson plan for a single 45 minute theory hour, plus a single 45 minute practical hour. These two hours are offered as a separate event.

A teaching session should be more than a single organism, creating sound bytes in front of other organisms. The teacher will have to assess whether materials should be read, before the session starts. If so, what is the teacher going to do if there are students with reading difficulties (hint: make audio files of the materials.) Photographs, illustrations, videos, simulations and demonstrations may all be used to enhance learning.

A quiz at the end of the session, can help determine if participants have learned what has been expected of them. At the end of this event, participants are asked for feedback, about the event they have just attended.

Stage 2. A course over several weeks. The feedback from the experimental session will allow the teacher to make adjustments to the lesson plan for the first session, or scrap it entirely. The teacher can now make continue to make lesson plans for the entire course, along with assorted aids, and to implement them on a weekly basis, making adjustments each week as needed. At the end of the course, participants – once again – are asked for feedback.

Stage 3. A workshop! Now we are back to where we started from, but with one major difference. The teacher has experience and, hopefully, confidence.

Y1 (Year One)

If one decides that the workshop has value for other people than the initial participants, additional workshops can be made. These can be located in different cities and held in different languages.

At the same time, new topics can be developed for different target groups. Three of these groups could be 1) parents, 2) immigrants and 3) youth.

If you would like further information about workshop participation, or if you would like to host a similar workshop on your planet, contact brock at mclellan dot no.

Ned til Jorden: Den norske versjonen/ Down to Earth: The Norwegian version.

Intergalaktisk Rakettvitenskaps Academy (IRVA) har svevet over alles hoder, i det ytre rom, altfor lenge. Nå trenger den din hjelp til å starte en ukes workshop, ned til jorden.

Målgruppe: Jordboerne, spesielt de med fysiske eller psykiske problemer. OK, det inkluderer alle av dem.

Prinsipper: Moro først! “Hvis det ikke er morsomt, er det ikke en del av IRVA.”

Sted: Romstasjon Straumen [det er Inderøys kommunale sentrum. Nærmere bestemt Hastighet, Inderøys teknogarasje konstruert – i det minste teoretisk – da denne bloggen blir skrevet. Det har mottatt en gave på NOK 250 000 for å utstyre et 70m2 tidligere klasserom med produksjonsmaskiner, for eksempel 3D-skrivere og laserkutter, og ikke minst elektronisk utstyr.]

Ankomst søndag kveld; avreise lørdag morgen. Informasjon om de nøyaktige bevegelser av romskip fra de ulike planeter vil bli gitt senere. [Faktiske datoer og år? Små detaljer som disse vil også bli utarbeidet senere.]

Undervisningsgrupper: Det er tre grupper jordboerne kan velge mellom.

Klær: Funksjenelle klær for alle. [Erstatter, Fasjonable og funksjonelle, adaptive klær til eldre og funksjonshemmede.] På slutten av uken vil hver deltaker ha ett plagg som de kan ta med seg til deres hjemme planet.

Mat: Velsmakende og næringsrik mat for alle. [Erstatter, til eldre og allergiskere.] Ved slutten av uken vil hver deltaker ha (minst) fem oppskrifter de kan ta med seg. De vil også tilberede mat til kveldsmåltid.

Teknologi: Hjemmautomatisering for alle [Erstatter, for eldre og funksjonshemmede.] Ved slutten av uken vil hver deltaker ha en enhet som de kan ta med seg til deres hjemmeplan. Involver programmering, elektronikk, 3D-utskrift.

Merknader:

Jordboerne har mistet muligheten til å fotosyntetisere, og må “spise”. De samles sammen for et “måltid” flere ganger i løpet av en jorddag. Jordvennlig mat serveres, og en matvaregruppe vil bli dannet på forhånd for å sikre at alle deltakere kan spise maten.

Jordboerne trenger å “reflektere”, “hvile” og “sove”. Disse er tidsperioder når de trenger å være alene. For å si det som en robot ville forstå, må de lade opp batteriene.

Husk at jordenboerne er primitive. De kan ikke teoretisere, praktisere og trene samtidig, men trenger separate økter viet til hver enkelt aktivitet. De har ingen kapasitet til hjernekommunikasjon, men må stole på “tale” (lydfremstilling) og “hørsel” (lydfølelse) for kommunikasjon. På grunn av variasjoner i lydavkjenningsegenskapene, må lydprodusenter bruke kunstige forsterkere, spesielt i nærvær av gamle jordboerne.

Jordboerne bruker “pauser” for uformell kommunikasjon, og fluidutveksling. Væskeinntak av vann, kaffe eller te er offentlig. Væskeutslipp er privat og foregår i rom spesielt egnet til formålet.

Daglig program

Frokost 9:00 – 10:00.

Teoriøkt: 10:00 – 10:45; pause; 11:00 – 11:45; pause.

Tid for refleksjon: 12:00 – 13:00.

Felles hovedmåltid: 13:00 – 14:00.

Praktiskøkt: 14:00 – 14:45; pause; 15:00 – 15:45; pause.

Tid for refleksjon, mosjon (gange): 16:00 – 18:00.

Kveldsmat: 18:00 – 19:00.

Valgfrie samarbeidsprosjekter: 19:00 – 20:00.

Teori økter:

Første time

Mandag, tirsdag, torsdag, fredag: Løft med livet. Strategier for forbedret overlevelse som jordboende.

Onsdag: Klovne. Å uttrykke følelser uten ord. Strekker seg over to timer.

Andre time

Separate økter for hver av gruppene, hver dag bortsatt fra onsdag. Her vil teoretisk informasjon relatert til den spesifikke gruppen bli presentert.

Praktiske økter:

Separate økter for hver av gruppene. Her vil jordboere bruke hendene til å gjøre ting relatert til målene til deres spesifikke gruppe.

Treningsøkter:

Vandringer må velges, slik at folk, enten alene eller med andre, kan gå tilstrekkelig.

Stopp pressen!

Selv om det kan være morsomt å starte med en fem-dagers verksted, kan hele arrangementet også vise seg å være en katastrofe. Kanskje er riktig tilnærming det som IRVA gjør best: bygge et tre-trinns verkstedrakkett!

Y0 (År Null)

Fase 1. En eksperimentell økt. Hver lærer gjør en leksjon plan for en 45 minutters teori time, pluss en 45 minutters praktisk time. Disse to timene tilbys som et separat arrangement.

En undervisningssesjon bør være mer enn en enkelt organisme som produserer lydbyter foran andre organismer. Læreren må vurdere om materialet skal leses før sesjonen starter. Hvis så, hva skal læreren gjøre hvis det er studenter med lesevansker (hint: lag lydfiler av materialet.) Fotografier, illustrasjoner, videoer, simuleringer og demonstrasjoner kan alle brukes til å forbedre læringen.

En quiz i slutten av sesjonen, kan bidra til å avgjøre om deltakerne har lært hva som er forventet av dem. På slutten av denne hendelsen blir deltakerne bedt om tilbakemelding, om hendelsen de nettopp har deltatt på.

Fase 2. Et kurs over flere uker. Tilbakemeldingen fra eksperimentell økt vil gi læreren mulighet til å gjøre justeringer til leksjonsplanen for den første økten, eller skrap den helt. Læreren kan nå fortsette å lage lektionsplaner for hele kurset, sammen med assisterte hjelpemidler, og å implementere dem på ukentlig basis, foreta justeringer hver uke etter behov. På slutten av kurset blir deltakerne – igjen – bedt om tilbakemelding.

Fase 3. Et verksted! Nå er vi tilbake til hvor vi startet fra, men med en stor forskjell. Læreren har erfaring og, forhåpentligvis, tillit.

Y1 (År Ett)

Hvis man bestemmer seg for at verkstedet har verdi for andre enn de opprinnelige deltakerne, kan det opprettes flere workshops. Disse kan lokaliseres i forskjellige byer og holdes på forskjellige språk.

Samtidig kan nye emner utvikles for ulike målgrupper. Tre av disse gruppene er 1) foreldre, 2) innvandrere og 3) ungdom.

Hvis du vil ha mer informasjon om workshopdeltakelse, eller hvis du ønsker å være vert for et lignende verksted på din planet, ta kontakt med brock på mclellan dot no.

2018-06-21

A Clustered NAS

A minimal storage and backup solution

Thirty-five years of digital data on multiple vintages of media including 8″, 5″ and 3 1/2″ floppy disks, thirty years of music on CDs, and twenty years of films on DVDs, have already met, or will soon meet, their final destiny. All of this data takes a lot of space, and is never used. Why? We own no computer with floppy disk drive, no stereo with CD player, or television with DVD player. In fact, we don’t even own a television or a stereo. While my desktop machine still has a DVD-drive that will play these, all of the other machines in the house lack this capability.

I will not repurchase content in yet another format. I will not subscribe to Spotify or Netflicks to gain access to content already purchased. Most CD and DVD content has been copied to a server, that can be accessed by any machine in our house. This NAS, variously described as network attached storage or a network attached server, also backs up files stored on more personal devices. If a machine suffers disk failure, or theft, documents will still exist on the NAS.

Encryption

Encryption encodes information so only authorized people can access it. It makes content unintelligible to a potential interceptor. Privacy is important, and encryption is one way to ensure private data remains private.

Some terms: plaintext = the intended information; cipher = an encryption algorithm; ciphertext = text generated by a cipher; encryption key = encryption scheme generated by an algorithm.

An authorized recipient can easily decrypt the message with the key provided.

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks, originally Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) is data storage technology formats, allowing several physical disk drives to combine into one or more logical units. It offers data redundancy as well as improved performance. Many users prefer RAID 6. This requires the use of four drives. However, any two of these can fail. A single drive failure results in reduced performance, until the failed drive has been replaced.

That is fine, if the failure is restricted to a single computer. What happens if there is a catastrophic event, destroying the house? The correct answer is, nothing happens, or at least nothing positive, because there is nothing left to rebuild a file system from. If one wants to rebuild these collections, one will have to have a NAS with a distributed file system running simultaneously on multiple servers. This is referred to as a clustered NAS. With a clustered NAS, all files can be accessed from any (and every) cluster node.

The Cloud, of course, can provide backup services, on multiple servers. However, the shutdown of Megaupload.com in 2012, should be reason enough for everyone to avoid relying on cloud services.

Another proposed solution is to rely on family and friends, people you know and trust, to provide these services. I have close family living in four cities in three countries on two continents. This could mean I could then enter into agreement with one or more of these to backup my data in an encrypted format, while I backup theirs. They won’t have meaningful (that is, unencrypted) access to my data, and I won’t have meaningful access to theirs.

An Inexpensive NAS

For about USD 55 or NOK 500, the ODROID-HC1 and ODROID-HC2 can be bought. These are single board computers designed as network attached storage (NAS) servers, so that users can make their own home cloud. This system is useful for a single user, a family or other groups of people. Both hard disk drives and solid state drives can be used. A Western Digital Red 1TB drive costs about USD 65 or NOK 550.

ODROID HC2 (Home Cloud) single board computer, specifically designed to be used as a NAS controller. (Photo: www.hardkernel.com)

ODROID-HC1, with Samsung SSD attached. (photo: www.hardkernel.com)

An ODROID-HC2 with 8GB microSD card for OS installation, a 3 1/2″ hard disk drive, 12V/2A power supply, Ethernet cable, case, Wifi antenna. A router is also needed, but not shown. (photo: www.hardkernel.com)

2018-05-142019-12-30

Technological Risk

Distillation: Technological purchases are risk filled. Sometimes they are successful, other times less so. Two recent purchases have not been successful.

A Laptop

On Wednesday, 2018-05-15, my Asus E402SA laptop will be one year old. As I write this post, I am thankful for a second blissful period, during which the computer has evaded freezing. This normality has lasted now for about two weeks! This happened once before, for about the same duration. Then, just as abruptly as it started, the bliss ended with countless freezes and the machine has to be powered off by holding down the start button for thirty seconds, and restarted, at least once a day. Note: Sadly, just before this post was published, this second period of bliss ended.

This will definitely be the last Windows computer I will buy, in the hopes of converting it to run Linux. I am still tempted to buy a Chromebook, such as an Asus C202S and modify it to a Linux only machine, or buy a machine without operating system, such as a Multicom Talisa or Xishan.

Asus Chromebook C202S, with its big blue bumpers. It can be dropped in its operating position from a height of 1 200 mm and survive, or on edge from a height of 600 mm and survive. It is designed for multiple users in a classroom situation.

In contrast to the E402SA, Trish’s Asus Zenbook UX305C, running Windows 10, was two years old in February 2018. I have not heard a single comment about the machine failing in any way. It seems destined to be of service for a long time.

A Printer

Most printer manufacturers sell their home printers at below cost. The reason is that they hope to earn more money selling ink to consumers. I’ve calculated that it’s actually worth paying more for a printer that uses inexpensive ink.

One instrumental article on printers was written (in Norwegian) 2014-12-04, about 3.5 years ago. http://www.dinside.no/931787/velg-riktig-blekkskriver

It described the Canon Pixma MG-6550 as the best printer in this class for plain writing. It cost approx. NOK 700.

However, for photo use, it described the Epson Expression-Photo XP-760 as the best. It cost approximately NOK 1200. I decided to buy it because it was much faster than Canon for both scanning and writing. In addition, its photo quality was better.

Unfortunately, the Epson is very aggressive in promoting its inks, and does not appreciate people using generic products, despite them being legally allowed. The result has been a sharp decline in printing activity. Epson has also ensured that I will never again buy an Epson product, no matter how good!

Canon Pixma G3500 with Mega-Tanks. (photo: Canon)

My current thinking is to replace the Epson with a Canon G3500 (or equivalent). Using ”MegaTank” technology, Canon’s G series Pixma printers have ink tanks that are refilled from a bottle when they get low. This ensures that print costs are affordable. The down side is that the printer costs NOK 3 400. Because of this high capital cost, the printer will not be replaced immediately: Next year, or the year thereafter, will be soon enough. In the mean time we will save money by not printing anything but the most essential.

A Discussion

Part of the challenge of buying technological products is knowing what to expect. I don’t want vendor lock-in. I want to decide which operating systems, and printing inks, to acquire – and not have either of them determined for me.

Update 2019-12-30

The issues discussed in this post have been dealt with to my satisfaction.

Our current printer is now a Canon i-Sensys MF643 Cdw laser printer. This works adequately, and serves all of our paper printing needs. The Epson printer has been delivered in for recycling, and will never print anything again.

A Canon i-Sensys MF643 Cdw is meeting our paper printing needs.

An Asus Vivobook 14, with an AMD Ryzen-3 processor, has replaced the Asus E402SA, which has been recycled. The Vivobook 14 is running Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia with Cinnamon 4.4.6 desktop. This is not a particularly powerful machine, but it suits my needs.

For one year (2018-11-18 to 2019-11-19) I used an Acer Chromebook 11, which did not suit my personality. It has found a new owner.