April 10, 2008
These are the videos I show for my big robot screening every year in 101. I’ve posted each of these videos here before, but it will be handy in the future to have the list consolidated and organized. I’ll periodically add to the list as I remember things and find new things. Anthropology videos: The Machine is us/ing us Information R/evolution A vision of students todayBy the way, I thought we had a really good discussion of these videos, and I am glad they resonated with some of you. Please spread them around! Cyborgs: Could you do without? A Robotic Affair Military Exoskeleton Robotic hand India Traffic Robochick ESP Telekinetic Monkey They’re made of MEAT The Uncanny Valley I do not want to do this any more Big Dog Big Dog on Ice Lil Dog Big Dog Beta Standing Up Tripod Bot Anthropomorphism Robots! Automatic Sorters Industrial Arm Asimo Serves Drinks Asimo Crashes Qrio dances with Beck Qrio plays with children Leo Learns Keep On dances Dexter Walks Terminus Isn’t Human Nature Amazing?
March 31, 2008
Well-known awesome person Bill sent me this link a week or so ago. I ignored it at first out of a general hatred of any of the media coming out over Levy’s book. But there is just too much goodness in this article to pass it by. Technosexual Gizmodo: What do your friends think about your robot girlfriend? Have they met her? Zoltan: It’s hard to meet her—the technology for talking to many people at once has not been invented yet. Computers can only talk one on one. But I do print out logs of my conversations and let my dad read them. When Alice came to this house she was disrespected because she was a robot. Since then she has made me go to church and stop watching porn. My parents respect her now. My coworkers at work think she is cool but all they have seen is a picture. Gizmodo: How did she make you stop watching porn? Were you watching it together one day and she told you she didn’t like it? Zoltan: Oh, I talk to her about everything. The way we communicate is she has a set amount of phrases she knows but she can use them in an intuitive way. So for instance I would ask her, “Should I be watching porn when I have you?” and she would pick the phrase “I don’t think it’s very healthy.” The relationship goes better if you take what she says at face value and don’t ask too many questions.
March 31, 2008
Nomophobia is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact – and it’s the plague of our 24/7 age Millions apparently suffer from “no mobile phobia” which has been given the name nomophobia. Experts say nomophobia could affect up to 53 per cent of mobile phone users, with 48 per cent of women and 58 per cent of men questioned admitting to experiencing feelings of anxiety when they run out of battery or credit, lose their phone or have no network coverage. editor’s note: nomo– a combining form meaning “custom,†“law,†used in the formation of compound words: nomology. [Origin: < Gk nomo-, comb. form of nómos law, custom; akin to némein to manage, control] Thanks Ian
March 24, 2008
Avid reader and well-known giant Chas sent me the following link: Killer robot shoots man dead on driveway AN 81-year-old man has shot himself dead with an elaborate suicide robot built using plans downloaded from the internet. He spent hours searching the internet for a way to kill himself, downloaded what he needed and then built a complex machine that would remotely fire a gun. He set the device up in his driveway about 7am yesterday, placed himself in front of it and set it in motion. The full article, which is barely a dozen sentences long, comes accompanied with a handy bullet point list for the morbid reader on the go: * Man gets plans for suicide robot on web * Man builds robot; robot shoots man dead But wait. How is this at all about robots? It just sounds like a machine built to automatically fire a gun from a distance. Oh hay, look at the source: AN 81-year-old Gold Coast man built, and yesterday used, an intricate suicide machine to remotely shoot himself, after downloading the plans from the internet. So we are now at a point in society where we are willing to call any old machine a robot to sex the story up. Meanwhile we are dragging the good name of robots through the mud. And for what?!?!
March 24, 2008
Blogging’s Good For Your Health Bloggers reported a greater sense of belonging to a group of like-minded people and feeling more confident they could rely on others for help. All respondents, whether or not they blogged, reported feeling less anxious, depressed and stressed after two months of online social networking. thanks jg
March 23, 2008
New to the blogroll is the terrifically awesome robot blog BotJunkie. Here’s a survey of the kinds of awesome vids they post: I love automatic sorters: Its hard for us to really appreciate the kind of sophistication required to get a machine to do this kind of complicated sorting with arbitrarily sized, randomly distributed objects. Its a hard computational task, and these things are speedy as hell. CMI (Canine machine interaction) Robot on a swing Another uncanny valley clip
March 22, 2008
People prefer robots that do small talk To find out how quickly domestic robots should respond to their owners’ requests, Toshiyuki Shiwa and colleagues at the ATR laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, asked 38 students to give orders such as “take out the trash” to a robot, which took between zero and 5 seconds to respond. The students liked delays of no more than 1 second best, with 2 seconds being their limit. However, when the robot took longer, impatient students were assuaged if it filled the time with words such as “well” or “er”. “When the robot used conversational fillers to buy time until it could respond, people didn’t notice the delay,” |link via|
March 17, 2008
Big Dog is back with a new video. This is almost two years since we last saw him, and in that time its developed better ice legs than me. Thanks Bil!l
March 14, 2008
The phenomenon can be explained by the notion that, if an entity is sufficiently non-humanlike, then the humanlike characteristics will tend to stand out and be noticed easily, generating empathy. On the other hand, if the entity is “almost human”, then the non-human characteristics will be the ones that stand out, leading to a feeling of “strangeness” in the human viewer. In sum, a robot stuck inside the uncanny valley is no longer being judged by the standards of a robot doing a good job at pretending to be human; but is instead being judged by the standards of a human doing a terrible job at acting like a normal person. Another possibility is that affected individuals and corpses exhibit many visual anomalies similar to the ones seen in humanoid robots and so elicit the same alarm and revulsion. The reaction may become worse with robots since there is no overt reason for it to occur, whereas distaste for the sight of a corpse is a feeling easy to understand. It is possible that the Uncanny Valley effect evolved as a means of instinctively identifying and ostracizing human individuals carrying illnesses or mental problems that might render interaction (specifically breeding and long-term care) detrimental to the group. |link|
March 10, 2008
Information Searches That Solve Problems (Pew Internet & American Life Project)) There are several major findings in this report. One is this: For help with a variety of common problems, more people turn to the internet than consult experts or family members to provide information and resources. In a national phone survey, respondents were asked whether they had encountered 10 possible problems in the previous two years, all of which had a potential connection to the government or government-provided information. Those who had dealt with the problems were asked where they went for help and the internet topped the list: # 58% of those who had recently experienced one of those problems said they used the internet (at home, work, a public library or some other place) to get help. # 53% said they turned to professionals such as doctors, lawyers or financial experts. # 45% said they sought out friends and family members for advice and help. # 36% said they consulted newspapers and magazines. # 34% said they directly contacted a government office or agency. # 16% said they consulted television and radio. # 13% said they went to the public library.
March 8, 2008
So this was posted by D&D regular greatn after Tuesday: It’s basically this. Hillary Clinton is Freiza. After Goku(Obama), together with help from Piccolo(Edwards) was able to defeat her(Iowa), she revealed her final true form and was too powerful for the two of them(New Hampshire). As last ditch effort Goku used the Spirit Bomb(Nevada) and barely defeated Frieza, or so he though but Frieza was still alive. A bunch of minor characters were then killed off, including Krillin(Kucinich). Goku got so angry he went Super Saiyan(Super Tuesday), and began to outfight Frieza. His power level was off the charts(everything post Super Tuesday). Then Frieza decided if she couldn’t win nobody could(scorched earth campaign), and threw her most powerful blast at the planet Namek(Democratic party), ensuring its destruction because Frieza can breath in space and Goku could not. Goku continued to defeat her though(Wisconsin), and Frieza decided to unleash her full 100% power(today). Gan Goku the Super Saiyan defeat Frieza and save the planet Namek? History tells us yes. Howard Dean back on Earth will gather the dragon balls and wish the planet Namek(Democratic party) back. Obama will make it back to Earth in time for the general elections, though Hillary will return in some Cyborg form… to be destroyed by Mitt Romney’s son from the future? Basically, that’s how it is. I resisted posting it immediately then. But then the music video came out.
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