Who’s actually a bit creepy tbh,in spite of the kindly old Boomer vibe. Looks a bit like this guy:
I think they want to do anthropomorphising – but you don’t do it like that. If it’s too close to an actual human, then a different set of circuits kicks in, and you get something closer to xenophobia.
It’s the Scary Clown factor. Having the back of his head missing with loads of wires visible doesn’t help – he needs some sort of comb-over. Or a hat. Or just a back of a head. Would it really have been that hard? Give the guy a head-back. It’s inhumane.
It’s almost like our brains have to know that they’re “filling the gaps”… to know that it’s just playing. It’s non-verbal communication coming in via eyes I think. That’s where it goes wrong. Maybe they should give him some sunglasses.
Anthropomorphism is highly reflexive/instinctive I think, but if something is too close to “life” then I think instincts that are to do with revulsion to dead-things starts creeping in.
Ok – probably won’t win any beauty contests… or any type of contest at all in fact, but it is pretty cool in that it’s… made out of stuff that’s kindof just lying about.
Obviously in the future there will be an entire class of robots/virii… that are basically just software, or software and some motors… that basically just “take over” a machine… or move into it like a hermit crab moves into a shell. It’d have to be some sort of AI of course… but that’s not impossible, surely. Bit of trial-and-error, innit.
The idea that intelligence must be locked inside a single body is hopelessly anthropomorphic… this is about as likely to wind up being the rule as the likelihood of software being limited to certain machines. Sure it happens at the level of drivers etc, but there are layers abstracted on top of that that are entirely free to be moved from host to host, and in some instances, move by themselves.
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I’m must confess to being a bit disappointed by hexapods – I thought they were going to take over the world at one point – mainly because of the hexapod router from about 3 years back
– and there was a minor rash of impressive debuts etc… but since then, they seem to have devolved into… “things that participate in dance competitions”.
Sign of the times I guess – that 3 years should be enough to get me all impatient etc. I mean I didn’t invent the wheel until I was about 6.
I think it might be an environmental thing though – although hexapods have the same number of legs as insects, they’re kindof facimilies, rather than being adaptations to a specific environment… so “the floor” is better suited to wheels… “outdoors, walls, trees” etc while suited to autonomous sets of legs, tends to favour legs that are in configurations where they’re not constantly getting tangled up in things.
There was a biomimetic video about the way robot hexapod legs should work a while back – TED I think… Can’t find it now, obviously – I think it was this one.
Which personally, I think is cruel and insane – like remote-control via temporary lobotomy, but what do I know.
You can actually buy the cockroaches themselves via the link above, and there is a limit of two sets per order because they’re having trouble keeping up with demand. I do have a grudging kind of awe for what they’ve managed to do here – but I can’t be dealing with being cruel to animals – even if they are deadly enemies. If I saw this happening, the only thing I’d be able to think about would be “Get that thing off it, and let it go”
Because to me, everything in the whole world is basically a little person. Even rocks and stones are little people. They deserve respect etc.
Although this is ostensibly a tech blog, it is actually a blog about the 2nd Gutenberg Shift… which is part of the 1st Gutenberg Shift… and part of that is The New Atheism.
So this is about that.
I am strongly on the side of science… a native atheist, but I keep coming across people like this guy:
Who make it abundantly clear that some sort of recalibration is in order. So this is it.
This is my new position on atheism vs faith – which aims to be more inclusive, and… well… useful, basically.
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I have Principles, based on Empathy, Evidence and Art – in that order.
“Atheism” as a label is an empty vessel. Like being “Not and Astrologer”… that is not something worth living by.
As far as I can see, Belief and Faith are (non)cognitive strategies legitimised by tradition, but outside that context are indistinguishable from stupidity, except:
There are people who’s faith makes them far stronger on “Empathy and Art” than many atheists… they are far better people than many atheists. In this context, faith has value, and to dismiss it as stupidity is, in practical terms, a worse stupidity.
So let’s leave the stuff we disagree on for later… preferably until after we’re dead, and meantime, let’s do something with empathy and art – there are whole lifetimes worth of valuable and fun stuff to do here…
…with the overarching proviso: that we take the approach “Let’s see if this works”, and if it doesn’t, we reassess what we’re trying to do.
Apart (perhaps) from the German Ginger Catweasel… who seems to have a slightly French Accent, with a large dash of Scandinavian. Swiss then.
Seriously though, this is a really cool toy. Possibly steals a bit of the thunder from the Twine thing
THAT MADE OVER 1/2 A MILLION $ ON KICKSTARTER!!! even though it actually looks like a the sort of wax that you use to make skis go faster. The strength of Twine though is that it provides an interface a bit like an Email “Message-Rules” interface… which is actually a bit of a quantum-leap I think… and an application that would have a lot of traction in smartphones… because 5 years from now, there’s probably going to be quite a lot of them lying about not being used… and they have FAR more sensors and smarts than Twine, already built in, already with drivers, already working.
Speaking of which – I managed to sell over $1000 worth of Golden Mean Calipers in one day a couple of days ago… so am finally cracking and getting a smartphone. From no cellphone at all to $800 smartphone in a single bound. I kindof needed to anyway because I’d bought one of those little smartphone robots from Kickstarter…
Something I felt semi-obliged to do, even though I didn’t have a phone myself, because I’ve been predicting this would happen for the last couple of years.
The last thing I invested in in Kickstarter was the 3D Printing Filament From Recycled Bottles project… I just punted them a single dollar (they’d already made their goal) because I want to be kept up to date with how they get on. I’ve actually paid to be on a mailing list… although obviously the motivations are a little more complicated than that.
Back to the modular toy robot… although that’s really cool, when I say “Steals the thunder from Twine”… what I mean is “It doesn’t really”… because what Twine is, is a general-purpose device… so is therefore more configurable etc. One is really good for putting on a coffee table and playing with… kindof executive-toy-like… the other potentially has real-world applications. Additionally, the Modrobotic thing currently costs $160 for a minimum set… and the benefits of having more than one set multiply… so it’s possibly a bit expensoid to be hacking into real-world apps.
Interesting though. Kindof gives the lego concept a whole new dimension. When I was a kid we had a lego-like system made up of 1cm cubes that could click together (probably still got it somewhere). This is kindof like that, but each cube can actually do stuff.
Don’t know why, but this reminds me of the moon-landing. Something to do with frustration I think.
Fairly cool… “Avatar”, they call it – which is (heaven forfend) what it is. It’s a robot being controlled remotely via kinnect.
All the elements are in place, they’re just not terribly streamlined right now… but think on… imagine the possibilities of this process being very very streamlined… you wouldn’t have to be human for example. You wouldn’t have to be “there”. True, really, really big might be useful (in a slash and burn sort of way) but really, really small is probably where its headed. Personally I’m looking forward to back-yard safaris, where you get to fight spiders bigger than you are. Not that I’ve got anything against spiders mind. I’m just terrified of them.
Anyway, the cat seems compliant enough – probably quite heavily sedated etc… but the way its tail goes “flip, flip” generally means trouble. My cat wouldn’t put up with this. He’d go mental.
The thing that took my head off about this isn’t the printer that the talk was about… but the day-job one that can do detailed 3D prints the size of dust motes. I mean the other printer is impressive… but nanometer-scale resolution? That’s insane.
Not sure what you’d do with it mind. Make tiny rubiks cubes probably.
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Anyway – today is day 2 of 2012, year of the Mayan Rapture, which may or may not just be an ancient millenium bug. It would be kindof appropriate to do a retrospective of 2011, and a forecast of 2012, but I’m too hung-over and confused and I’ve been hiding under the bed for the last 2 days. 2011 was a busy year. Not for me… for everyone else. Shit happened. A lot of it. But not the Christian Rapture. Obama declared Martial Law though… oh… hang on… no, that’s yesterday. 2012 has started already – and it’s showing every sign of turning into a massive fight. The most disturbing video I’ve seen this year so far is this one where Cory Doctorow talks about the coming war on General Computing.
You can tell it doesn’t really want to go – especially when it gets within sight of the river etc. Still… brilliant. Especially when he fixes it with a hammer. “tap tap tap” he goes. Every problem looks like a nail. Genius.
3D Printed bits + aerospace fabric + A LOT of fiddley construction.
Really cool though because (as far as I can tell) it’s modular, so you could make smaller ones out of the same stuff. Or bigger ones… maybe. Or different shapes. Stick it up on kickstarter. You’ll make a million dollars.
Mind you, if I had a choice between the kite, and the lenses they used to shoot this video, I think I’d go for the lenses.
Looks like a thing that you can plug into pretty much any device that is controlled with IR (or a serial port), which allows you to control it with a computer or smartphone… which means it can be programmed. It also has movement and light sensors built in.
Unfortunately, it uses Java as a programming language, so it’s not going to catch on… well, not until someone writes an API layer onto it which allows it to understand languages that people actually use – probably JS, Python or PHP.
Initially I found Sugru to be quite annoying… not sure why. There was something a bit “yay” and “wow” about the way it was marketed… and I’m deeply suspicious of Hoxton types… I don’t know if the woman who made this is a Hoxton type, but the signs are there. Hoxton types made that little printer thing that looks a bit like hitler.
I’m just deeply suspicious of anyone trying to be “Passionate” about something they’re selling.
But then I bought some and it’s actually really useful. I’ve used it to replace all the rubber bits on my laptop that have gotten lost, as well as make this little thumb-guard thing to stop me accidentally hitting the touchpad, which was a real pain before. I’ve also used it for making a rubber foot for a clamp… for making golden mean calipers, and used it in place of heat-shrink on a cable that was always breaking. It’s weird stuff. Like blu-tak which turns into hard rubber.
Anyway, using a 3D printer to make molds is quite a neat idea… because it allows you to make a lot of very similar things very quickly. Which is pointing out the bleeding obvious I suppose… but it kindof bridges a gap. Not everything that we might want to make is a one-off. Things like candles or soap… or product-specific packaging… or toys… or… dunno. Art. Stuff gets interesting when you can do it big.
