Operation Essex - G+ Community Archive

A Programmer's Guide to ADA So, I've been talking about this project for so long now that I'm sure some of you feel like I'm making it up. For those who don't know about it, here are two links I'd posted... wow, ages ago: https://plus.google.com/+CherieBrush/posts/5fUX9KRLmM2 https://plus.google.com/+CherieBrush/posts/hp3qD5aEX9i Anyway, a discussion in hangouts the other day (and my general interest in AI) made me really want to get back to this and at the very least get it ready to show. I'll skip the massive disclaimer since enough people have seen it now and no one has reported any explosions, but definitely consider this a preview release. I finished fixing the obvious issues about 10m before I posted it. And the massive disclaimer is still on the site for your reading pleasure. ;-) That said, the other features are coded (but hidden), they just need testing. So assuming I don't go all, "Oooh, shiny!" yet again, I'm hoping to have this...

Ingress Story-Related Posts An Unofficial Ingress Investigation Resource I'm very happy to announce that a site I've been working on for what feels like forever is finally ready for testing and use. I started this site for myself as a way to go month-by-month and see all of the posts from the Niantic Project website on a single page, so I could much more easily catch up on the story. No trying to figure out what was new day-to-day, no clicking to access the information, just pages where I could scroll down and easily read/watch/listen to the releases. I believe I posted a link to an early version here once before. But a lot has happened since the NP website went offline, and I find that keeping up with all of the story-related G+ posts is nearly impossible. As is scrolling back to view old posts. With some, like the Niantic Project posts, I can only scroll back a few months before hanging or crashing my browser. I wanted to make sure those old posts weren't lost forever, so...

A new way of looking at the Niantic Project website As part of working on the ADA (for programmers) project, the first thing we needed to do was collect any information about her that we could, starting from the beginning. Trying to go through all of that info started getting... tedious. Early on after I'd joined Essex and started looking over the info from the original website, I found code in the HTML source that I could use to display the info in a way that would be much easier to navigate than the board itself. I started work on it back then and got it functional, but when I realized it would be incredibly useful now, I decided to go back and "finish" it. I put that in quotes because given that I do it for a living, it's nowhere near what I'd consider a "finished" website. But it's readable, and it makes going through the info SO much faster. ADA project aside, it's a really fast way to go through and look for anything. Or like my friend is d...

A Programmer's Guide to ADA: Update For anyone who's interested in this project, I just wanted to let you know that it's not dead. If you know me, you know I'm constantly talking about work exploding, but I really need to start saving that for times like now when I'm pulling 14-16h days... I've only barely been following anything Ingress-related for weeks. (For that matter, I've only barely been sleeping the past couple of weeks...) That said, we are making progress. I have a friend helping me and once we came up with a plan on how best to present the research (in an interactive way, not just as a static data dump), we've finally gotten to the point of info gathering. ANY links to docs/audio/videos with even the slightest hint about how ADA was created or functions would be appreciated. (Melissa L., I'm half-looking at you, although I already have a bunch of your links from previous discussions because you are awesome that way. :-)) Anything from inf...

Somewhere a while back I remember a discussion about what fonts were used in the various Ingress docs. Does anyone have a list of those?

This question was prompted by my earlier post about looking at ADA from a programmer's point of view, but it's really more of a general one. What's a good way to organize collaborative research projects? I've tried Google Docs, Evernote, various other things. I've had wiki software work well for some projects, horribly for others. I recently searched online for suggestions from people working on PhD research projects and if I were to tally all the suggestions, note cards would likely win. :-) I've seen so many collaborative projects start and then fade, and I don't think it's due so much to lack of interest as lack of a good way to organize and communicate information and ideas. This isn't Ingress-specific, it could apply to nearly any field of research, and I know there are some VERY experienced people on here. What have you found works well?

A Programmer's Guide to ADA? With the recent discussions about ADA, and AIs in general, involving philosophical, ethical, and other topics, my mind has been thinking of ADA more and more related to my expertise: programming. Not to say I don't plan to stay involved with the other discussions, but I'd like to focus on ADA from a purely technical angle. What went into ADA's development? How did the program evolve from what it was to what it is now? How do the various parts of ADA's systems interact? What does ADA use for storage of information? I want to understand how ADA functions as a computer program.   Notice I'm trying to avoid pronouns here, although that will eventually get clunky. Right now I'm just trying to underscore that, to me, ADA is an "it" that is programmed to mimic a "she." It helps stick to this concept of ADA being a computer program operating purely based on code and data analysis, not some type of being with traits su...