stunning precision

 Seen on Amazon:

Measuring dimensions in hundredths of a proton...

UCNC 2021

UCNC (Unconventional Computation and Natural Computation) 2021 is a hybrid event.  About half of us are attending in person in Espoo (by Helsinki), Finland, the rest zooming in for the presentations.  This is my fist in person conference for two years.  So nice to be able to chat about research to colleagues F2F again!

We are socially distancing in the large lecture hall, except during the photo!

view from a hotel window

And now, after a flight, and a trip from Helsinki airport to the hotel in Espoo (next to Helsinki), here's a much nicer view from a hotel window.

In fact, the view is so nice, it calls out for a walk before dinner.

The quality of the light is gorgeous.  The freshness of the air is amazing.

It's just so great to be somewhere else after all this time.  Being somewhere so beautiful is a marvellous bonus.

Off to find somewhere open for dinner this evening, then the conference starts tomorrow morning.

view from a hotel window

I arrived at Heathrow this evening, ready for my flight to Helsinki tomorrow.  Not only will tomorrow's flight be my first one for two years, today's rail journey was my first trip on any form of public transport since March 2020.  (Some) normality has been restored, although the mask and the proof of vaccination document is new.

Airport hotels do not have good views:

pond work complete

The work on the pond has been completed:  we now have a smaller pond that should be easier to keep full, plus a new bed with an even smaller pond in it!.  The remaining bare areas are part of the conservatory work.  We also have to refill the pond, plant up the new beds, and reintroduction of water lilies into the pond, to do ourselves.

all paths edged

Sunday working!  Very nearly done: all the path edging is complete, some backfilling with subsoil around the perimeter, and the red gravel (to match the house brickwork) has started to be laid.  They are coming again on Tuesday to finish off.  At which point maybe the other guys can put the glass in the conservatory?

Beyond the Babbage engine

Here's our latest paper, our perspective on mechanical computing.  It's not all gears and wheels and steampunk: there are lots of interesting new materials that can be used to build these devices in the small.

Hiromi Yasuda, Philip R. Buskohl, Andrew Gillman, Todd D. Murphey, Susan Stepney, Richard A. Vaia, Jordan R. Raney.  Mechanical computing.  Nature, 598:39–48, 2021. 

Abstract: Mechanical mechanisms have been used to process information for millennia, with famous examples ranging from the Antikythera mechanism of the Ancient Greeks to the analytical machines of Charles Babbage. More recently, electronic forms of computation and information processing have overtaken these mechanical forms, owing to better potential for miniaturization and integration. However, several unconventional computing approaches have recently been introduced, which blend ideas of information processing, materials science and robotics. This has raised the possibility of new mechanical computing systems that augment traditional electronic computing by interacting with and adapting to their environment. Here we discuss the use of mechanical mechanisms, and associated nonlinearities, as a means of processing information, with a view towards a framework in which adaptable materials and structures act as a distributed information processing network, even enabling information processing to be viewed as a material property, alongside traditional material properties such as strength and stiffness. We focus on approaches to abstract digital logic in mechanical systems, discuss how these systems differ from traditional electronic computing, and highlight the challenges and opportunities that they present.

pond edging

 The more substantial edging around the pond is now in place. 

However, today was the scheduled end date!  We have been promised some weekend working to finish the path edging, lay the top dressing of gravel, and tidy up.

relanding

The spaceship returns to its previous loccation, and the pond remains filled with water above the bolt holes through the liner, so the sealing has worked.  Phew.

Also, the small pond in the other half of the area is lined and edged.

This bird has flown

The spaceship has flown away from its base in the pond, to allow the new liner to be laid.  First water achieved.

It hasn't flown very far, however.  Just to the new bit of patio.

Before it can be replaced, the mounting bracket will have to be bolted back onto the concrete base through the liner, and then everything sealed watertight.

more edging

There is more edging around the paths, and more shutterings (ready for pathbuilding) around the pond.

The circular are bottom left is not a rockery (despite currently being a storage site for the rocks removed from the previous pond edge).  It is the space being left for a concrete base for the yet to be implemented telescope dome for the telescope we bought in February last year.

edging

The patio has been further extended, and path edging blocks have been laid.  (The central region will have a higher level patio, level with the conservatory floor, so that we can move our telescopes in and out more easily.)  The digger has returned whence it came.