::twitch::
The New York Daily News has an article on it too, so it must be true. . .
(We always suspected he was an Actroid anyway.)
[Thank qDOT!]
Sent in by James Welcher:
Whole Episodes of Top Gear from the BBC!
This one is about smooshing radio controlled cars into things. There are other episodes about equally important and exciting stuff!
BBC know that Youtube is their biggest advertiser. . .
Update Above To The Update Below: Violet Blue has more thoughts on her website, which links to more thoughts on other people’s websites, whoo hoo ripple effect (BTW: Some of Violet’s Site is NSFW).
The Industrious Violet Blue has a Very Good column in SFGate this morning about stupidness in the blogging world:
Imagine being a girl and working really hard to earn the reputation of a respected voice in the world of tech journalism and blogging — a world populated by disproportionately more men than women — and to find yourself the target object of a hate-filled Web site. The tone and content of the hate site centers around sexually threatening you, suggesting ways you could be killed and have your corpse defiled, stating that you are a “slut” and that your gender is also in question. Your straight male colleagues don’t have this problem.
Then the person running the hate site blogs about every word you say, every time you make a post or publish an article. And targets your friends. And posts the names of your family and Google satellite maps of your family’s homes. They deface your Wikipedia page at every opportunity, with sexual slurs, objectifying you at every possible chance. It’s enough to make a girl choose not to be a tech journalist.
Speaking as a chick who builds robots, the shock and incredulity that we can do such a thing is latent, rampant and annoying. When it’s downright threatening, you (yes, YOU) should be outraged.
UPDATE: SFGate is exploring this more. Pipe up on the Culture Blog.
Cisco has developed a set of small smart robots, which can act as wireless communications relays, that sense when a mobile user is moving out of service range, and can follow the user to maintain connectivity.
Cisco talked about the prototype box-shaped robots at this week’s Military Technologies Conference in Boston.
According to Dave Buster, product marketing manager for the Cisco Global Government Solutions Group, the robots can follow a user almost anywhere to maintain connectivity. Published reports said the robots were part of Cisco’s “Information on the move” initiative — a wide-ranging plan to secure all things wireless.
And by seriously cool, I mean totally sweet.
Here’s the Slashdot article.
[Nod of the antennae to Real Ultimate Power!]
Over at Wired’s GeekDad blog Chris Anderson is busy working out the kinks in his newly-Lego Autopiloted Electristar .40-sized trainer!
See the past Lego Autopilot entry here!
. . .a heapin’ helpin’ of good old down-home minimally-technical whole HOURS of fun for the smallest to the tallest in your family!
The Suicidebot Mobile Response Team went out of town this weekend, to a place where there were absolutely no robots except for the Large SB Canine, Miss Julie Andrews, who has a embedded ID microchip and thus could loosely be termed a cyborg. No DSL, No DVD, No WiFi, not even TV. The TLAs were in full force, however.
In honor of this lovely nerve-wracking, digital-technology-free weekend, we offer you the latest developments from the superlative Bill Gurstelle, author of that seminal work Backyard Ballistics
Backyard Ballistics is a treasure trove of information relating to how to safely get into as much trouble in the garage as humanly possible. His newest book, Whoosh Boom Splat, gets down to the nitty-gritty of obliterating the competition with various deployable starchy tubers.
Backyard Ballistics, Whoosh Boom Splat, and others
All children should have the opportunity to accidentally blow up their garage. Remember to wear you eye protection, kids!
Heh — for anyone who has ever smoked a motor controller:
Oh yeah.
If any post ever deserved a picture, it’s this one.
No picture. What’s the deal?
The deal is the Halfbakery, one of the Head Rotor’s favorite time wasters. The Halfbakery is where you post your inventions that are too impractical, useless or stupid to actually build — what the Japanese call chindogu. You know, impractical solutions to non-existent problems, like Custard-Filled Speed Bumps and the Anti-Ouch Lego System.
Only it’s not completely a waste of time; the Rotor finds surprising inspiration to be had amidst the dross and foolishness. (And there is quite a bit of the latter; Jutta the Bakesperson gives people a lot of room to be stupid, bless her.)
So, a few robot-flavored semipastries:
And so forth. So go out there, get half-baked, be inspired, and for God’s sake somebody please build a Giant Robot Chicken Soda Machine.
Does your hi-tech business want to get noticed?
Do you like robots, and want to be seen by tens of thousands of people?
Do you want to help support a sport which is hi-tech, educational, and makes football look slow?
Well then friends, do *we* ever have an offer for *you*!
Step right up and sign up to get a an exclusive space on the RoboGames Midway!
All new this year, we offer YOUR company a chance to tease, entice, excite and unite the over 3,000 people a day that come through the RoboGames Pavilion on the water in beautiful San Francisco!
Your company will have a ten by ten foot space among such noted luminaries as PLEN, Wired Magazine, MAKE Magazine, The Japanese External Trade Organization, and many others!
Spaces are filling up fast, midways space and other sponsorships are flexible and come with a ton of awesome perks like free tickets to RoboGames, VIP receptions, and seeing the pits up close and personal!
Send email to simone@robotics-society.org to get things rolling with Our Lovely Sponsorship Coordinator. She is the operator standing by for all your RoboGames Midway needs!
THIS WEEKEND!
If you happen to be in or around the environs of Vienna, Austria, this Saturday, definitely have some schnitzel and sachertorte.
THEN go to Robot Challenge at the Siemens Forum. Attendance is FREE!
With 129 registered robots RobotChallenge is “the biggest competition in Austria for self-made, autonomous, and mobile robots.” On top of two slaloms, obstacle course, mini sumo and puck collect challenges, this year’s event introduces a freestyle category. That’s also the category where we will see another cocktailrobot entering the challenge (last year, Chris Veigl and I had our drink-delivery bot Gaston participate in the basic slalom) … Robert Martin is going to let his RoboMoji compete.
Events include Parallel Slalom, Slalom Enhanced, Obstacle Course, Mini Sumo, Puck Collect, and Freestyle. Everyone should make an extra special effort to see RoboMoji, the unbelievable industrial Mojito Mixer, in action.
The photos also look like there might be a bit of line following. We once almost had an international incident over line following at RoboGames. Line Following competitors take their sport *very* seriously. Good Times.
Sigh. From The Register:
Korean sources have announced that Samsung, a company better known for its consumer goods, is manufacturing the SGR-A1 sentry unit for deployment on the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between South and North Korea.
Sigh.
It appears that the SGR-A1 may not be exactly impossible to sneak up on, however – at least from some directions – as Samsung is careful to specify that the weapons mount is equipped with an anti-theft alarm.
[snicker]
There is no indication from the company of any option to deliver a warning before opening fire, suggesting that intruders tangling with an SGR-A1 may not get the traditional 30 seconds to comply.
Hmmm.
Paintball technology at its finest:
From Recyclism’s Youtube Entry:
The PrintBall is like an Ink-Jet printer using a PaintBall Gun as printhead. The gun is mounted on a custom made pan & tilt unit which is connected to a Max/Msp based software through an Atmel chip [programmed in Basic]. The software allow the users to load and analyze images. The resolution of the image and the space between the point [definition the image] can be adjusted.
Because the document is printed from a central point the number of steps by points send to the pan & tilt, which is moved by two stepper motors, one for each axes horizontal and vertical, determine the space between each point.
[Thank you, Fresh Creation!]
We have not had a Shop Tip in a while, my friends, so here in this late hour is a little tidbit:
Shop Tip #6: Brass screws are nearly always a bad idea.
They are soft, and if you are taking them in and out of something repeatedly, they nearly always strip and you end up with the tip of your drill delicately embedded in the meat of your hand. Or your thigh. Or your ankle. You get the idea.
Standard brass screws are even worse than Phillips heads.
Not that we are speaking from recent bitter, bitter personal experience or anything. Heavens no.
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