Dinner With The BBTV Team

One of our talented Software Engineer - Miguel (the guy in the right rear of the picture). Decided to leave TandbergTV ("Part of the Ericsson Group"). This was just a celebration in his honor for all the hard work he's done. He's been there from the very start of Zetools (the company I used to work for) and on through with the 3 company acquisitions.

Two people who are not in the picture, but still part of the "Broadband Television Team" are: Joe Franzetta and Brian Ring.

Honerable mentions go to Qing Li and Kelly Taylor who used to be part of the BBTV software engineering team.


Come visit us often for lunch, Miguel...... =)

Thoracentesis

This is the procedure for removing fluid from the pleural space due to a pleural effusion. (I'm beginning to feel like a real doctor, lol)

I just had mine just a few hours ago. After prepping the surface of my back, they injected some numbing medication - lidocaine - in between some ribs where they would insert the catheter. In goes the catheter and ending up in the pleural space. They used an ultrasound machine to know exactly where the catheter is at in any moment. Then they start draining the fluid; first into 4 or 5 test tubes then to a large glass bottle to hold the rest. Total volume of liquid removed? 800ml! Yes, that's almost the same amount in a coke bottle! I could not believe it.

How did it feel? The insertion of the catheter and initial needle poke was NOTHING compared to the pain I felt a few minutes into the fluid being removed. As the fluid is being extracted, it creates a vacuum in the pleural space since there is nothing to replace the space that was being taken up by the fluid. I felt like I couldn't breathe, and felt that my lungs were being sucked in from the inside. That hurt so much, but it really would depend on how much fluid that was removed. It would take a few hours or so till my insides stretch out so that I wouldn't feel any pain.

Next, they're going to analyze the fluid to see what exactly it is and hopefully come up with a diagnosis on what caused this.

800mL! Geeez!


If you want to see what it looks like, click here. This is another guy getting the same procedure.

First Day Of New Treatment

I showed up for my first day of treatment - a phase 2 clinical trial meant for gastric cancer. Its in a pill form - of which I have to take 4 a day everyday for the next month or so.

Since this is a trial, I have to undergo several tests - unrine, blood, blood pressure, EKG, weight, etc... pretty frequently. I also have to keep a small diary of the medications I take, the time and date, and the side effects that happen.

I told my oncologist that I've lately been feeling tired and short of breath so he had be do a chest x-ray just to make sure everything was ok. To my surprise, there was a substantial amount of fluid around my lungs. I'm scheduled to have the fluid removed tomorrow. How you may ask they would do this? With a big long needle, of course! =0(

Stand Up To Cancer

Mark your calendars because this Friday (Sept 5) at 8PM PT/ET there is the "Stand Up To Cancer" 2-hour telethon on all major networks.

Stand Up To Cancer


More than 60 celebrities will participate in Stand Up to Cancer, a live fund- and awareness-raising television special that will air simultaneously on ABC, NBC and CBS.

Jessica Alba, Halle Berry, Jack Black, Sheryl Crow, Ellen DeGeneres, Jennifer Garner, Diane Keaton, Rob Lowe, Sharon Osbourne, Keanu Reeves and Carrie Underwood are among the stars set to appear, it was announced Wednesday.

They'll join previously announced participants including Salma Hayek, Scarlett Johansson, Lance Armstrong, America Ferrera, Meryl Streep, Charlize Theron and Forest Whitaker.

The celebrities, along with network news anchors Katie Couric, Charles Gibson and Brian Williams, will deliver an evening of "edutainment," said executive producer Laura Ziskin, a cancer survivor who helped establish the event and the nonprofit group behind it.

Confessions on...

...cheating the system.

It has been a very long and important interest of mine to experiment with and to create an artificial intelligence. I remember way back when I was about 14 or so I created a very primitive simulation of A.I. All it did was transform the input into a question. So for example if you gave the stimulus request of "I love to run", it might provide the response of "Why do you love to run?" Or if given "Are you a human or a computer", it might respond with "Why do you think I'm a human or a computer". Of course, this technique does not work in all instances. But it does the trick a good portion of the time.

Alan Turing, a leading computer scientist in his day (some say he actually created the discipline), poised a question that went something like this: "if you are, as a human, unable to determine if you are chatting online with another person or with a machine, and if you really were chatting with a machine, would that machine be then said to have consciousness and to think?" So called is the test named after him - the "Turing Test" (all computer science grads know what this is; if you are one and didn't know, shame on you). A machine is said to pass the Turing test (to have intelligence) if it can fool a human into thinking it was another human just by chatting with him/her. So in a way, he began the foundations of Artificial Intelligence.

Combining my interest in online gaming, specifically FFXI, AI, and my somewhat lazy nature, I decided to create a "bot" that would do the dull and repetitious tasks in the game. I made a bot that would kill mobs (monsters) to gain experience points as a way of "leveling up." I actually started botting in the game 2 years ago but interest dropped and then there was cancer. I've recently gotten back into it and the game as a way to keep myself busy.

Just recently I've made another bot that would transport players to other parts of the virtual world - for in-game money in exchange. A big problem to this type of bot is that it requires a lot of interaction with other players. People consider it cheating and is against the terms-of-use agreement of the game. If you're caught you could be reported to a GM (Game Master - law enforcers in the game world; in FFXI, they are hired by the company) and could possibly have the ban hammer dropped on you. So, it should be quite obvious to have a need of a good AI. Enter the world of online chatbots - bots available online for your chatting amusements (did you know that there is a "God" bot? Truly makes for some interesting confessions I would think). One of the most famous chatbot is ALICE. It has won the Loebner Prize several times over in the past and developed by Dr. Wallace who also developed AIML (dialect of XML containing LOTS of stimulus-response pairs). A site which hosts AIML files and makes available a web-service for processing chat requests, Pandorabots.com, was the key to my FFXI AI bot. A lot of time was spent on modifying the default set of chat requests and responses to contour to the lingo of the game. But not only that, the default set simulates an intelligent robot - and I wanted a simulation of an intelligent person. So if you were to ask it "Are you a real person?", it would respond with "No, I'm a real robot." This actually did happen in-game during testing of my bot. Fortunately for me, the other player thought it was being sarcastic and she responded with "was just checking sorry." I thought that was VERY funny. LOL. I keep modifying the AIML files whenever an inappropriate response is given. It's getting "smarter."

As far as I know, I'm the first person to integrate an external AI entity pretending to be a real person in an online virtual game that interacts with other online players (and that works decently). Most (if not all) of the bots in existence do not interact with other players; in fact, they avoid other players to avoid from getting caught. I eventually plan to confess my botting to a popular FFXI site, just hoping to get famous...or infamous (LOL) before I die. I hope word would then spread to other gaming sites that things like this is possible and is happening. I totally understand that dispersing this knowledge would initially have severe in-game social and financial consequences as more and more people would be doing this (can you say inflation?). How cool would it be to be the one responsible for single-handedly simultaneously crashing the financial markets of multiple virtual worlds?!?! My account would probably be canceled. And I imagine this idea would spread to other games. So I have to apologize to some friends and a cousin of mine who already play another MMORPG - "sorry to ruin the game for ya." LOL.

But seriously, I think it is a good thing in the long run. I believe it will spur innovations in online gaming AI and the AI community in general. Imagine playing an online game with a bunch of intelligent bots and not even know it! I predict that this will become reality in the not-too-distant future. It's like THE classic sci-fi film "Bladerunner" but in a virtual game world. Instead of the 'bladerunners,' you got the GMs to worry about. How would you be able to tell the bots apart from the real thing?

Go ahead and ponder on this for a moment. In the mean time, I'll continue on making virtual money while I sleep. LOL.

Now this is the ultimate application of the Turing test!


If you want to chat with my bot, you can go here. Go wild! =)

... be forewarned, the site keeps a log of your chatting!! And I can see them (but not from who, though)! LOL.



Edit: Ok, someone beat me to it: http://sl-devcorner.blogspot.com/2007/04/second-life-alice-bot-chat.html. Oh well.

Fun And Amusement

For a break from the regular news...

I was just watching the History channel just this morning and they had a piece on the evolution of the digestive system. How interesting, I thought. But what really knocked my socks off (if I had them on to begin with), was a machine that emulated the digestion process of a human - from start to, uh, ... end. They call it 'cloaca' and is considered (really) as a piece of art. So of course I just had to research more about this machine on google, just for the "how do they do it" answer, of course. LOL.

I came upon a website - I kid you not - www.poopreport.com. Boy did I get a laugh out of that. What was even better was their article of cloaca. The author is funny as he is articulate. A must read. =). Also read the comments - they're hilarious as heck.

Next, I came upon a you-tube video. Now this REALLY takes the cake. LOL. It sure made my day.

I hope you had a good laugh. I sure did.

New Treatment Protocol

I had two options for treatment: go on a phase 2 clinical study of a drug, or more chemo. My Onc recommended the phase 2 clinical trial (it was his study). He said that if that did not work that I can continue on with chemo but that I just couldn't take the clinical drug later on if I decide on not doing it now.

The drug doesn't have a name but has a code of GSk1363089 (XL880) - administered orally to subjects with metastatic gastric cancer. It is designed to inhibit the growth of blood vessels in tumors. It is hoped that by limiting the tumor's blood supply, we can limit the growth of the cancer cells. It is not approved by the FDA.

So that's it. I have to take this drug once a day for 2 months. They say it will have limited side affects (mainly tiredness and diarrhea). If this does not work then I go back on chemo (although a different one).