Rest of my week in Paris

I worked hard during my week in Paris at the lab with a young colleague on some new ideas for accessing the social presence of people interacting with an artificial agent.  When I left the lab each evening, I went off to do whatever else seemed interesting.  On Tuesday, I went chocolate shopping.  Parisians now produce really outstanding chocolate, and my favorite shop is Un Dimanche a Paris.  I went there to get chocolate for family and some friends.  I also went to the grocery store to get some breakfast yogurt since I have a fridge in my hotel.   I also had dinner at a creperie as I love crepes!

On Thursday night (my last evening in Paris) even though it was raining cats and dogs, I took the subway and then walked 2 blocks to the Musee D'Orsay, which is probably my favorite museum in all of Paris.  It is dedicated to 19th century art, especially that of the Impressionists.  They had a special exhibit on Impressionist painting and their representation of Paris fashions of the time.  They coupled a marvelous collection of paintings from the MO and borrowed from other museums (including Boston's Museum of Fine Arts) to show Impressionist examples of Parisian dress with actual dresses, and some men's fashions of the times.  It was wonderful to see the physical versions of what was painted in 2D.  Of course some of the dresses were for women with 16" waists, but some obviously had belonged to older women who were not so svelt.  I did not take photos as the exhibit was very crowded, but here is one of the paintings from the exhibit.  You can find more and rather nice online version of the exhibit at: http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/events/exhibitions/in-the-musee-dorsay/exhibitions-in-the-musee-dorsay/article/limpressionnisme-et-la-mode-30634.html?tx_ttnews[backPid]=254&cHash=91636ff9e2



It was a wonderful way to end my stay!

Islamic Art Exhibit at the Louvre

On Friday night I went to the Louvre.  Evenings are better times to go there since there are a LOT fewer people than on weekends, and since my days are spent in a research lab, Friday was a good time to go.

The Louvre has a special exhibit on Islamic Art from the 7th century on.  Much of what was displayed was, happily for me, tiles and pottery!  There were so many pieces of pottery that I couldn't take photos of all of them.  Ditto for tiles.  But it was a marvelous visit.  I may even go back this Wednesday when the Louvre has late night hours again.  One of the things I learned is that Islamic art does not forbid human shapes.  As you will see in the photos at the website below, on one of the tile sets, there is a human face.  And there are lots of animals represented in the files and pottery.

Here's a favorite photo I took, but you can find more, complete with plaques that tell their origins and materials, at the following website:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/candysidner/sets/72157631774457394/

Stay in Paris

I arrived in Paris on Thursday evening, October 11. The photo below was actually taken today (Sunday), but it's kind of a cliche for Paris, so here it is!

I walk to work from my hotel because it's only 12 minutes down the street!  I spent Friday at the research lab with my colleagues.  Several of us went out to lunch at a typical small truly old fashioned French restaurant, and then I worked til early evening.  I raced back to my hotel, which is really tiny apartments (I have a kitchette, which is great for breakfast and suppers).  I ate a bit of dinner and then went off to the Louvre, which has Friday evening hours til 9:45 pm.  I will write a separate entry on that visit as I have tons of photos of the Islamic pottery and tiles I took (there was a special exhibit on Islamic art).

My weekend has also been taken up with art exhibits, one at the Palais Luxembourg on the Modern Art Club based in La Havre in the early 1900s (I have more photos from there) and a visit to the Rodin museum today.  I also have a few photos because you cannot take photos except in the garden and it rained cats and dogs today so while I toured the garden it was hard to take photos in the wet and the cold.

Last night was a special treat.  I have tried to get opera tickets many times, but usually that's impossible.  However, before I left this time for Europe, I managed to get a ticket.  The opera was the Marriage of Figaro (sung in Italian with French subtitles above the stage).  I had a wonderful seat on the main floor towards the back, and because the seating is well sloped, I could see everything easily.
The opera was standard full length of 3.75 hours including .5 hour intermission!

The opera was well done;  the sets and costumes were not as elaborate as I saw with the Met or with the opera in Sidney, but still very nicely done with one scene where the stage went back 20 feet to accommodate the actors and dancers.  The singers were very good.  And it's an opera for which I know many of the arias, both solo and duets.  Since the opera was in Italian, and the translation was to French,  I didn't understand much of it, but enough that I could follow (and I read through the story of the opera before I went).  That was useful because Marriage of Figaro is opera buffa with lots of people hiding in closets, masquerading as other people, etc.  All in all it was a wonderful evening.  My hotel is on a Metro line that goes straight to the Opera Bastille in 10 minutes time, so I was home by 11:35 despite the long performance.

A robotics conference

I wanted to say a bit about the robotics conference I attended, IROS 2012.

 

  I saw lots of robots moving about the floor, some small, some as tall as met and looking sort of human like.  A former colleague from Mitsubishi lab showed me a video of his "little" round robots that change colors and form into groups to represent an image (like a fish swimming in the sea).  They act like a small animation!

   An aerial robot that won a best paper award for the technical institute in Zurich.  Below is my robot which I discussed in my paper.




I heard two general talks, one about the nuclear disaster in Japan, and one about robots in medicine that others may find interesting.  Robots turned out to be very useful in the Tokyo nuclear plant that had meltdowns after the tsunami.  They are being used to provide video data to humans who are safely away, to do some cleanup of debris from roof damage and the like.  No one ever planned to use robots this way, but luckily some robots can operate in high radiation circumstances (again they weren't designed with that in mind--it's just lucky.)  The robots are mostly American, which is very embarassing to the Japanese robotics community (but personally I don't think they should have been embarassed--it was just luck that someone had the right stuff).  But what shocked me was how long it will be before the plant is safe.  At present there is still high radiation leakage in one direction from the plant to an area of 8 km near the plant.  And it will be 30 years before they can fully repair the broken tanks, with the assumption that they can do new research needed on how to use robots to actually fix the facility (it will not be possible for humans to ever enter it).  That talk made it clear to me that nuclear plants must be designed to have a way to use robots to make repairs in the case of meltdowns.  Meltdowns will happen and robots are the only safe way to do it!

The second talk was about robots in medicine.  As I already knew, robots in surgery in the world are very valuable tools.  They can do all kinds of cuts very precisely, as well as clamp off in tricky spots.  Mostly the robots are just robot arms and they are controlled by surgeons.  But as time goes by, they will do some things without surgeons directing them completely.  Other uses of robots are small pills that you swallow that can search for polyps and cancers in the intestines (that is already a reality, which I did not know).    The hope is that they will eventually have tiny legs, so that they can swim and crawl in various parts of the stomach and intestines.  And eventually to have a tiny knife so that doctors can make cuts without opening the body.  Other uses of very small cutting tools will make it possible to do scarless surgery.  So there will be robots in the body probably before there are really useful ones (other than vacuum cleaner robots) in our houses. 

Of course conferences aren't all talks. I met a number of my colleagues from around the world in the hallways, and had dinner with a few of them.  That part is of course great fun!