Studying ALife at university
SteveC
unimpressed IMHO (no one knew what boids were) have seen a little of
Bristol. Any experiences? any recomendations?
PS go check my software
--
SteveC
ICQ #14047829
cNOyberdy...@inSPAMame.com - remove NoSpam
http://www.fractalus.com/fracsaver/
Matt Amos
>unimpressed IMHO (no one knew what boids were) have seen a little of
>Bristol. Any experiences? any recomendations?
Yeah, tell me about it. My school is yards from the uni, and Kevin bloody
Warwick can't help himself. He at least is working with NNs now....
I suggest you visit Imperial College's Computing Science dept. They are
doing lots of AI stuff these days and have several groups that I am
interested in (Distributed systems, Neural net architectures, Swarm
dynamics, etc...)
Whats more, they have about 100 workstations, network ports in the Halls and
2 vector processor mainframes. Its so cool!
You never know we might see each other there next year!
Matt.
matt_h...@hotmail.com
>Also check out School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences at the University
of Sussex:
Gary Buckley
get to live in Edinburgh as opposed to Brighton:). I went to UWE Bristol
and got what I wanted from the course, it did take a bit more effort though.
Gary
matt_h...@hotmail.com wrote in message
<35c184cc...@news.cc.ic.ac.uk>...
SteveC
Really what I am looking for is an MIT environment in the UK. ok its
difficult but its much better to go to uni with a load of high bandwidth
people and code and read at 3 in the mornning is it not?
Matt Amos wrote in message <6pr910$pnn$1...@plutonium.btinternet.com>...
>>Living in the uk. have been to the cybernetics dept at Reading but was
>>unimpressed IMHO (no one knew what boids were) have seen a little of
>>Bristol. Any experiences? any recomendations?
>
>Yeah, tell me about it. My school is yards from the uni, and Kevin bloody
>Warwick can't help himself. He at least is working with NNs now....
Another Warwick fan? hehe read his book? Well you are up at 3 in the morning
so thats a good sign. WOAH hang on did you go the the open day at reading?
>I suggest you visit Imperial College's Computing Science dept. They are
>doing lots of AI stuff these days and have several groups that I am
>interested in (Distributed systems, Neural net architectures, Swarm
>dynamics, etc...)
>
>Whats more, they have about 100 workstations, network ports in the Halls
So does Cambridge BTW. Now that would be cool, up at 3 in the morning on
your machine (mac/pc/whatever) with a really *good* net connection at
university with no parents... In your own room. Only a year away...
Matt Amos
>difficult but its much better to go to uni with a load of high bandwidth
>people and code and read at 3 in the mornning is it not?
Whats an MIT-like environment? I am going to London for 4 years, stuff MIT.
>>Yeah, tell me about it. My school is yards from the uni, and Kevin bloody
>>Warwick can't help himself. He at least is working with NNs now....
>
>Another Warwick fan? hehe read his book? Well you are up at 3 in the
morning
>so thats a good sign. WOAH hang on did you go the the open day at reading?
FAN OF WARWICK? I have a signed copy of his book... and i was a fan... until
i READ it! He is full of crap.
I live in Reading I don't need to go to the open day.
>>I suggest you visit Imperial College's Computing Science dept. They are
>>doing lots of AI stuff these days and have several groups that I am
>>interested in (Distributed systems, Neural net architectures, Swarm
>>dynamics, etc...)
>>
>>Whats more, they have about 100 workstations, network ports in the Halls
>
>So does Cambridge BTW. Now that would be cool, up at 3 in the morning on
>your machine (mac/pc/whatever) with a really *good* net connection at
>university with no parents... In your own room. Only a year away...
But Cambridge isnt 5 mins from Hyde Park, 15mins from the centre of London
is it? Cambridge has nothing to London....
Matt.
SteveC
>>Really what I am looking for is an MIT environment in the UK. ok its
>>difficult but its much better to go to uni with a load of high bandwidth
>>people and code and read at 3 in the mornning is it not?
>
>Whats an MIT-like environment? I am going to London for 4 years, stuff MIT.
You don't know? er ok then. Imagine being at university with say a thousand
other people, all of which are more intelligent than you, you work on
interesting stuff 24hrs a day with people that know what you say before you
say it. Sort of like Cambridge but Cambridge is more formal/not as many
smart people.
>>>Yeah, tell me about it. My school is yards from the uni, and Kevin bloody
>>>Warwick can't help himself. He at least is working with NNs now....
>>
>>Another Warwick fan? hehe read his book? Well you are up at 3 in the
>morning
>>so thats a good sign. WOAH hang on did you go the the open day at reading?
>
>FAN OF WARWICK? I have a signed copy of his book... and i was a fan...
until
>i READ it! He is full of crap.
>
>I live in Reading I don't need to go to the open day.
Jeez it was a JOKE! I know the book is bad. But hey we need people like him
to stir stuff up. Can you find "Society of Mind" at your local Library in
the UK? No neither can I.
>>>I suggest you visit Imperial College's Computing Science dept. They are
>>>doing lots of AI stuff these days and have several groups that I am
>>>interested in (Distributed systems, Neural net architectures, Swarm
>>>dynamics, etc...)
>>>
>>>Whats more, they have about 100 workstations, network ports in the Halls
>>
>>So does Cambridge BTW. Now that would be cool, up at 3 in the morning on
>>your machine (mac/pc/whatever) with a really *good* net connection at
>>university with no parents... In your own room. Only a year away...
>
>But Cambridge isnt 5 mins from Hyde Park, 15mins from the centre of London
>is it? Cambridge has nothing to London....
Yeah but I live at the top, just off Baker Street so I know all about that.
Cambridge is 28 minutes by train to Kings Cross. And I mean in 4/5 years
time what would you rather say:
"I have a degree from Imperial"
"I have a degree from Cambridge"
Well I know which one I would like :)
But there is a much more theoretical atmosphere at Cambridge whereas all
these other places are more like "ok great idea. wheres the prototype?" you
know?
Matt Amos
>other people, all of which are more intelligent than you, you work on
>interesting stuff 24hrs a day with people that know what you say before you
>say it. Sort of like Cambridge but Cambridge is more formal/not as many
>smart people.
errmm. Ok, I suppose thats true of Imperial. They only take 2500 students a
year (more than MIT, less than Cambridge). And a lot of goos research goes
on there. From what I saw the atmos was pretty informal, but since it was an
open day that could be contrived.
All I can say is the students said they enjoyed themselves....
>Jeez it was a JOKE! I know the book is bad. But hey we need people like him
>to stir stuff up. Can you find "Society of Mind" at your local Library in
>the UK? No neither can I.
We will never need people like him...
>Cambridge is 28 minutes by train to Kings Cross. And I mean in 4/5 years
>time what would you rather say:
>
>"I have a degree from Imperial"
>"I have a degree from Cambridge"
>
>Well I know which one I would like :)
I would like to say "I have a degree from Imperial", because Cambridge sucks
for Engineers. See Alife is only a hobby for me... I'm gonna study
Aeronautical Engineering, so Imperial is much better for me...
But Imperial is recognised worldwide as being a centre of excellence in
computing... Cambridge's credibility is much more nebulous, having more to
do with the "old boys network" image than actual results.
>But there is a much more theoretical atmosphere at Cambridge whereas all
>these other places are more like "ok great idea. wheres the prototype?" you
>know?
Erm... prototypes for Alife? Anyway the head of computing dept. in Imperial
says that the department there is very geared towards AI and stuff... he
basically told all the hardware driver writers to sod off, as he was more
intersted in the people who were maybe not interested in the interface, more
the structure and procedural programming.
>SteveC
>ICQ #14047829
Matt.
ICQ #594234
Tim Tyler
> Matt Amos wrote in message <6pta7a$5js$1...@plutonium.btinternet.com>...
> >>>Yeah, tell me about it. My school is yards from the uni, and Kevin bloody
> >>>Warwick can't help himself. He at least is working with NNs now....
> >>
> >>Another Warwick fan? hehe read his book? [snip]
> >
> >FAN OF WARWICK? I have a signed copy of his book... and i was a fan...
> >until i READ it! He is full of crap.
>
> I know the book is bad. But hey we need people like him to stir stuff up.
After reading "The March of the Machines" it's difficult to imagine Kevin
stirring up anything much more exciting than a storm in a teacup :-|
Never mind - for mobot fans, Hans Moravec's latest offering should be
out RSN, and from http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/book97/book97.index.html
it looks like it /might/ be OK ;-)
--
__________
|im |yler The Mandala Centre http://www.mandala.co.uk/ t...@cryogen.com
Tim Taylor
> I would like to say "I have a degree from Imperial", because Cambridge sucks
> for Engineers. See Alife is only a hobby for me... I'm gonna study
> Aeronautical Engineering, so Imperial is much better for me...
A word of warning... Kevin Warwick graduated from Imperial!!
But seriously, if aeronautical engineering is your thing,
and you are also interested in a-life, I'd say that Imperial
was definitely the best place to be (my brother did the
aero degree there and really enjoyed it).
For A-life, Sussex and Edinburgh are the two best places
to be. I personally did an MSc in AI at Edinburgh some years
ago, and am currently doing an PhD in A-life there. I like
the academic atmosphere in the department (AI) (much more
so than at Cambridge where I did my first degree) - plus
the fact that Edinburgh is also a great place to live.
But there are quite a few other places around the UK where
you can do good A-life work (Birmingham, Manchester, UWE
spring to mind, and there are others as well).
> But Imperial is recognised worldwide as being a centre of excellence in
> computing... Cambridge's credibility is much more nebulous, having more to
> do with the "old boys network" image than actual results.
Hmm.. I think this view of Cambridge isn't exactly accurate.After all, there
have been more Nobel prize winners just from
Trinity College than from the whole of France (at least that's
what people say!). I haven't visited MIT, but from what I hear,
the atmosphere in Cambridge (or Oxford) is probably the closest
you'll get in the UK to it. But as I said, whether you find that
sort of atmosphere the most productive is very much down to the
individual, I think.
Good luck!
Tim
______________________________________________________________
Tim Taylor, http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/daidb/people/homes/timt/
Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh
tel:0131-650-3084, fax:0131-650-6899 email:ti...@dai.ed.ac.uk
Keith Wiley
> to be. I personally did an MSc in AI at Edinburgh some years
> ago, and am currently doing an PhD in A-life there. I like
> the academic atmosphere in the department (AI) (much more
> so than at Cambridge where I did my first degree) - plus
> the fact that Edinburgh is also a great place to live.
> But there are quite a few other places around the UK where
> you can do good A-life work (Birmingham, Manchester, UWE
> spring to mind, and there are others as well).
I've been considering Sussex myself. Do you know much about them? Would you
reccomend it?
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Keith Wiley * * * * * *
Email: kwi...@tigr.org *** ** * * ** *
WWW: http://www.tigr.org/~kwiley/ * ** ** ***
SteveC
Keith Wiley wrote in message <35C85782...@tigr.org>...
>> For A-life, Sussex and Edinburgh are the two best places
>> to be. I personally did an MSc in AI at Edinburgh some years
>> ago, and am currently doing an PhD in A-life there. I like
>> the academic atmosphere in the department (AI) (much more
>> so than at Cambridge where I did my first degree) - plus
>> the fact that Edinburgh is also a great place to live.
>> But there are quite a few other places around the UK where
>> you can do good A-life work (Birmingham, Manchester, UWE
>> spring to mind, and there are others as well).
>
>I've been considering Sussex myself. Do you know much about them? Would
you
>reccomend it?
looks good but come to Imperial and me and matt and we can start an ALife
lab! (even though you are a Mac dude I will let you off so long as you see
the light some time soon) (only j/k I have a Newton)
Chris Gordon-Smith
wrote:
>> For A-life, Sussex and Edinburgh are the two best places
>> to be. I personally did an MSc in AI at Edinburgh some years
>> ago, and am currently doing an PhD in A-life there. I like
>> the academic atmosphere in the department (AI) (much more
>> so than at Cambridge where I did my first degree) - plus
>> the fact that Edinburgh is also a great place to live.
>> But there are quite a few other places around the UK where
>> you can do good A-life work (Birmingham, Manchester, UWE
>> spring to mind, and there are others as well).
>
>I've been considering Sussex myself. Do you know much about them? Would you
>reccomend it?
>
The Sussex Web site looks extremely interesting to me.
I did an MSc in Astronomy in the Seventies and had a great time.
Obviously that's a long time ago, and a different department. However,
I would summarise my general impression of Sussex, then and now, as:-
* Academically on a par with the best universities in the UK
* Open to new ideas, not steeped in tradition, and generally not
'stuffy'
* Interdisciplinary in its approach (esp. in the case of
Alife/Complexity)
I would add to this that Brighton is a terrific place to live. Its one
of the few seaside resorts in the UK that doesn't go to sleep in the
winter. Plenty of gigs / nightlife. The town also has an air of the
eccentric and offbeat about it; take a look at a picture of Brighton
Pavilion. Its both oddball and majestic - it sets the atmosphere for
the whole town.
Chris Gordon-Smith
London UK