FAQ and Introduction to the AI lab

Revised February 27, 2007, but not guaranteed to be up to date or complete!

These are general notes to introduce you to the customs of the AI lab.

Location

We're located in the south wing of the 4th floor of the Computer Science and Engineering Building. Research in this wing spans AI, cognitive modeling, machine learning, computer vision, and graphics, although the 'AI lab' refers primarily to the AI/modeling/learning portion (vision and graphics have their own lab). Our weekly group meetings are in 4140, at the end of our hall.

The department used to be located in AP&M on the other end of campus. There the AI lab was an actual lab rather than a collection of offices and researchers.Still, the new space is an improvement.

Email

You can send mail to everyone using the lab by using the email alias ai-users@cs.ucsd.edu.

ai@cs.ucsd.edu

If you sit in the lab or are interested in what's going on in AI at UCSD, you should join the UCSD AI mailing list (ai@cs.ucsd.edu). This is also where the announcements for the weekly AI seminar and other news items of interest to the AI community are sent. [Both the Cognitive Science lists and the COSMAL (COmputational Statistics and MAchine Learning) list may also be of interest, but you'll have to look elsewhere for that information.]

All commands should be sent in the body of an email message to:
mailman@cs.ucsd.edu
(NOT the mailing list ai@cs.ucsd.edu)
To subscribe, send the command "subscribe ai" from the email address you wish to subscribe with.
To UNsubscribe, send the command "unsubscribe ai" from the email address you wish to unsubscribe with.
The command "help" will respond with more information on other commands.
If you wish to subscribe some other email address than the one you are sending the command from, the command is similar:
subscribe ai user@host
where user@host is the email address you wish to subscribe. However, the list currently requires confirmation from the email address being subscribed, so it will send instructions to that email address informing them of the subscription and asking them to confirm by replying with another email. The commands are similar for unsubscription.
To find out who is subscribed to the ai@cs.ucsd.edu mailing list, send the command "list ai". To find out which mailing lists YOU are subscribed to, send the command "lists".

Lab machines

Most of the machines in the lab are maintained by the individual members using them (i.e. dedicated machines). If you don't have a machine, ask around and we'll probably be able to find you one. For AI users needing more power than a desktop machine both the Vision/Graphics group and the IGERT in Vision and Learning in Humans and Machines have additional resources for their members, and FWGrid serves the department as a whole.

Matlab is among the most commonly used pieces of software - the CSE Department has a site license, so contact CSEhelp to get hooked up.

Being "nice"

"Renice"-ing processes

If you are using a shared machine, it is customary in the AI lab to "renice" processes that will take a long time. To do this first type ps to see what processes are running and then type renice . Typically the value of newpriority used is 8 but if you are feeling particularly nice you may use a value of 18.

An example is shown below:

unix% ps
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
27077  p2 S    0:00 -csh
27084  p2 R    0:00 ps
unix% renice 8 <PID>.

Running a process in the background

If you have a long running process, you'll need to run the process in the background so that you can log out without stopping the process from running. There are a couple ways to run a process in the background:

If the process is already running, press Ctrl-Z (it will then be suspended.) Then type "bg".
Run it initially in the background:
```
unix%  &
```
Set up a screen and run it in that. This is the best method, but you do need to make sure you exit your screens and processes or you may get angry emails. See the man pages on screen or ask around

If you run the process in the background you can log out and the process will still be running. When you log in later and want to know if your process has finished, type:

unix% ps aux | grep <yourusername>

for the list of processes running. Example:

corea:~> ps aux |grep kspillma
kspillma 27077  0.8  0.9  1916  1172  p2 S    13:28   0:00 -csh
kspillma 27086  0.0  0.5   988   640  p2 R    13:28   0:00 ps aux
kspillma 27087  0.0  0.2   856   356  p2 S    13:28   0:00 grep kspillma

Telephone

In the old CS building, there was a dedicated phone for the lab. In the new building, the AI 'lab' is spread out over offices in the south wing of the 4th floor. Offices have their own phone numbers.

Cappuccino/Espresso

There is a cappuccino maker in the lab kitchen. There is a can with the prices for espresso, cappuccino, etc on the desk next to the cappuccino maker. There is a small refrigerator next on this desk where the coffee and milk are kept. The beans must be ground first. The cylindrical object next to the cappuccino maker is for grinding the beans and is next to the cappuccino maker. Simply put the beans in and push the button to grind the beans. Note: If you make cappuccino, close the steam valve on the old espresso machine (gently!) when you are done.

There's also a larger machine down in the Grad Lounge on the third floor.