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Author Topic: Robots to Love 'n' Loathe
Wayne MacPhail
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Babbler # 119

posted 22 December 2005 10:35 AM      Profile for Wayne MacPhail   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Cathi LOVES robots. Nora, ah, not so much. Share your robots that make your bum hum, or scare your pants off.
From: Hamilton | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 22 December 2005 10:56 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Hey, you should link to the episode!
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
gopi
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posted 22 December 2005 11:38 AM      Profile for gopi     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post

From: transient | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Cartman
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Babbler # 7440

posted 22 December 2005 08:02 PM      Profile for Cartman        Edit/Delete Post
I am not quite sure how to post a picture from the South Park home page, but I liked AWESOMO-4000.
From: Bring back Audra!!!!! | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
Mr. Magoo
guilty-pleasure
Babbler # 3469

posted 22 December 2005 08:48 PM      Profile for Mr. Magoo   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I keep meaning to invent a small, personal version of the Roomba called the Groomba. It would crawl all over you while you sleep, squaring up sideburns, popping pimples, tweezing your monobrow, etc. Maybe over the holidays.

Meanwhile though, exactly where are all those robots they promised us back in the 50's? The ones that would answer our videophones and drive our hovercars and prepare our meals in pill form?


From: ĝ¤°`°¤ĝ,¸_¸,ĝ¤°`°¤ĝ,¸_¸,ĝ¤°°¤ĝ,¸_¸,ĝ¤°°¤ĝ, | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
Cartman
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Babbler # 7440

posted 22 December 2005 09:12 PM      Profile for Cartman        Edit/Delete Post
I think they did come through with that vacuum that goes around the house.
From: Bring back Audra!!!!! | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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Babbler # 5594

posted 22 December 2005 11:43 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I want a personal robot, like Sean Young as she was in 1980 and strong as ten men. A real goer. Jeez I'm bad.

Tyrell: Would you... like to be upgraded?
Roy Batty: I had in mind something a little more radical.
Tyrell: What... what seems to be the problem?
Roy Batty: Death. - Bladerunner, 1980 and based on the novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
scott
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Babbler # 637

posted 23 December 2005 01:38 PM      Profile for scott   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
I want a personal robot, like Sean Young as she was in 1980 and strong as ten men.

You might have to settle for a Cherry 2000

She's Blond, Beautiful and Forever Young.

She's Cherry 2000 - A Robotic Woman That Becomes A Man's Driving Passion...

Until He Meets The Real Thing.

There's a lot more to love than hot wiring.

In The Year 2017, A Good Woman Is Hard To Find. A Cherry 2000 Is Even Harder.

[ 30 December 2005: Message edited by: scott ]


From: Kootenays BC | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
F.
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10725

posted 23 December 2005 01:42 PM      Profile for F.     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
She's Cherry 2000 - A Robotic Woman That Becomes A Man's Driving Passion...

So much better than the HAL 2000.


From: here | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
Reality. Bites.
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6718

posted 23 December 2005 02:13 PM      Profile for Reality. Bites.        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
I keep meaning to invent a small, personal version of the Roomba called the Groomba. It would crawl all over you while you sleep, squaring up sideburns, popping pimples, tweezing your monobrow, etc. Maybe over the holidays.

SNL did a mock commercial for the "womba," but it was only for women, and only for one particular part.


From: Gone for good | Registered: Aug 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 23 December 2005 09:12 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
You will get $40 trillion just by reading this essay and understanding what it says. For complete details, see below. (It's true that authors will do just about anything to keep your attention, but I'm serious about this statement. Until I return to a further explanation, however, do read the first sentence of this paragraph carefully.)

Now back to the future: it's widely misunderstood. Our forebears expected the future to be pretty much like their present, which had been pretty much like their past. Although exponential trends did exist a thousand years ago, they were at that very early stage where an exponential trend is so flat that it looks like no trend at all. So their lack of expectations was largely fulfilled. Today, in accordance with the common wisdom, everyone expects continuous technological progress and the social repercussions that follow. But the future will be far more surprising than most observers realize: few have truly internalized the implications of the fact that the rate of change itself is accelerating.


Law of Accelerating Returns

Ray Kurzweil predicts AI that is at least as intelligent as us by 2030. We'll achieve "singularity" by 2040. And I think that this period we live in now will be looked back on as "pre-genetic engineering." Freaky deaky, mates.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Kindly Wise
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Babbler # 8699

posted 25 December 2005 07:46 AM      Profile for Kindly Wise     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The SCARIEST robot is definitely the Singing Santa being sold for $69.99 at Loblaws Superstores. This obnoxious ornament is five feet tall, decked out in black boots, red Santa suit and hat and has the traditional fat-white-guy face and snowy-white beard. So far, so good.

The Santa Robot sings a set of five to seven non-religious festive-season songs in a Burril Ives sort of baritone, AND he dances, a sort of Chubby-Checker twist dance without moving the feet! I could not figure out whether he was noise-activated or just on a random cycle of some kind, but the scary part is that prior to each set SR straightens up and appears to scan the room. There is the distinct feeling that SR has made eye-contact before he starts his unnerving song and dance.

On the plus side, if you could insert different festive tracks, you could use different costumes and maximize your festive mirth: A Grim Reaper robe for Hallowe'en, for example, or a toga for the Ides of March, perhaps even Edwardian morning suit for May 24th weekend. And around tax-time you could dress SR as a hobo, have him sing "Buddy Can You Spare A Dime" and put a collection can in his beefy left hand.

I really pity the poor guy in the PC-Financial booth, ten feet from where Santa Robot ('E's just like the REAL Santa, except 'E's a robot...) does his routine six times an hour!


From: Etobicoke, Ontario | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
Crippled_Newsie
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posted 25 December 2005 08:12 AM      Profile for Crippled_Newsie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Kindly Wise:
The SCARIEST robot is definitely the Singing Santa being sold for $69.99 at Loblaws Superstores.


From: It's all about the thumpa thumpa. | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Nora
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Babbler # 10674

posted 26 December 2005 11:00 AM      Profile for Nora   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Geeez! Those Singing Santas are everywhere this year. They are really Singing Satans! Ever hear of that concept in robotics called The Uncanny Valley? The idea is that people respond more and more positively to robots the more they look like people, but then there's a point where they're a little too close to human but still not quite Sean-Young-perfectly-human. At that point humans are repulsed and our response drops sharply into the negative...the "uncanny valley" on a graph. The Singing Satans are definitely in the uncanny valley.
From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
steffie
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Babbler # 3826

posted 26 December 2005 12:38 PM      Profile for steffie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I think that the "Douglas Fir" singing tree is also disturbing. It looks like a regular Christmas tree until, suddenly, glowing eyes appear and a huge mouth sings the words to a badly-canned "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".

Can't find a pic on the net, but it's bloody awful.


From: What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
Hephaestion
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Babbler # 4795

posted 26 December 2005 02:36 PM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
Then, of course, there was this tidbit...

quote:
(New York) For the man who has everything, or someone really desperate to find a last-minute gift, Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos have an answer: Their red-suited Santa Claus figure, holding a bloody knife in one hand and a severed doll's head in the other, went up for auction on Christmas Day.

Already, bidding had reached $200 US and "might go higher, maybe even to $500," the New York Post quoted Krupnik as saying.

Lest anyone be offended, and some people were, Krupnik had explained earlier that the macabre holiday display outside the couple's midtown Manhattan home was intended as a protest against the commercialization of Christmas.

The bids were to be deposited in a box next to the 1.5-metre tall Santa, to be opened after 3 p.m. Krupnik, whose telephone is unlisted, could not be reached late Sunday afternoon for a final accounting.

The auction proceeds would go to the highest bidder's favourite charity, according to a sign next to the display, which also included a number of other Barbie doll heads.

As for any critics suggesting the display was sacrilegious, Krupnik said St. Nick "is not in the Bible. He's not a religious symbol."

From: goodbye... :-( | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
scott
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 637

posted 28 December 2005 03:46 PM      Profile for scott   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The fantasies are fun, but most real robots look some thing like this:

The rest of the robots.

I once worked on a printing press that probably didn’t make the grade as far as being truly a robot, but it was a computer controlled machine, which was a few steps down the road towards robotics. The big difference between the computer on your desk and one that controls a machine is that a computer controlling a machine can move it. Most machines only move in response to operator control (push a button). Computer controlled machines can move unpredictably and this is what can be a bit unnerving. It is a bit strange to thread paper between a set of rollers knowing that they could break your arm if they moved. Eventually you learn ways of working around the machines so that you are always out of their way.

The press I worked on had lots of systems that were controlled by embedded computer systems, mostly using feedback loops to maintain a running condition (ink levels, paper position etc.) within set parameters. There was a central computer that was supposed to be able to override and control all the systems from one panel, but this never worked. Having each system independently doing it’s little thing seemed to work much better.

I was reminded of this when I watched the Errol Morris film Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, especially the section on Rodney Brooks the Robot Scientist.

quote:
Rodney Brooks: I think there's some deeper-seated thing which crosses the sex boundary of understanding life by building something that is lifelike.

[ 28 December 2005: Message edited by: scott ]


From: Kootenays BC | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Reality. Bites.
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6718

posted 28 December 2005 04:24 PM      Profile for Reality. Bites.        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Nora:
The idea is that people respond more and more positively to robots the more they look like people, but then there's a point where they're a little too close to human but still not quite Sean-Young-perfectly-human. At that point humans are repulsed and our response drops sharply into the negative...the "uncanny valley" on a graph.

How about this one?


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0610_050610_robot.html


From: Gone for good | Registered: Aug 2004  |  IP: Logged
Mr. Magoo
guilty-pleasure
Babbler # 3469

posted 28 December 2005 05:38 PM      Profile for Mr. Magoo   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Eventually you learn ways of working around the machines so that you are always out of their way.

I once had a job at a metal casting plant. They had a robotic arm — about five feet long with an "elbow" in the middle — that would dip a bucket into a furnace full of molten aluminum, then deposit that aluminum into a funnel at the top of an injection mold.

Part of my job was to sweep up metal bits from around the robotic arm while it did its thing. Step One was to watch it for about five minutes to see what it did, when, and with what periodicity. Step Two was simply to hope that it never made a mistake. Nothing like a half gallon of molten aluminum swinging by your head to keep you alert.


From: ĝ¤°`°¤ĝ,¸_¸,ĝ¤°`°¤ĝ,¸_¸,ĝ¤°°¤ĝ,¸_¸,ĝ¤°°¤ĝ, | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
MondoBondo
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Babbler # 10611

posted 29 December 2005 08:12 PM      Profile for MondoBondo     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Okay the robots I would *love* to have. When I go out walking Roo (thesniffer dog) at night through Crack Alley and the zombies come out of the bushes, I would be accompanied by ED 209 from Robocop. That would give them uber crack fudgees.
web page

Or....Yul Brenner from Westworld. He would make a good travelling company through the dark zone as well.

I saw the Woomba as well. Can you imagine having that thing loose in your bed at night? Could be fun.....As long as it doesn't have teeth. Speaking of teeth, what about Demon Seed? Anybody see that? Brrrrrr....


From: Ayr | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
MondoBondo
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Babbler # 10611

posted 29 December 2005 08:22 PM      Profile for MondoBondo     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oh yeah yeah yeah! Check this one out. I'd like to have it up at the farm. I could send it out to catch coyotes or walking fish. I think this is so neat. And it's made from the Austin Mini!



From: Ayr | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
MondoBondo
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Babbler # 10611

posted 29 December 2005 08:25 PM      Profile for MondoBondo     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oh man this is so embarrassing...

But I don't know how to put the pictures in the box. Can somebody help me?

Here's the link to my other robot

web page


From: Ayr | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
Reality. Bites.
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6718

posted 29 December 2005 08:51 PM      Profile for Reality. Bites.        Edit/Delete Post
Your picture is a video. there's no way to embed them into a babble page, just ordinary still pictures.
From: Gone for good | Registered: Aug 2004  |  IP: Logged
scott
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 637

posted 30 December 2005 09:36 AM      Profile for scott   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
This page has background info, thunbnails and links to videos of the bot that Mondo linked to.
You need some fancy dancy plugin to view the vids (32mb over a dialup? BAH).

From: Kootenays BC | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 30 December 2005 09:52 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The clip showing "it" catching the moving SUV as it rolls into the building is impressive. It looks as if it were getting ready to catch a line drive on a baseball diamond.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
jrootham
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Babbler # 838

posted 30 December 2005 10:34 AM      Profile for jrootham     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Boggle!!!

That is wild. Yeah, it does look like a baseball player, but more of a shortstop going after a hard grounder.

Erk. Just checked Slashdot. It's a fake. Amongst other things they found the actor.


From: Toronto | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
scott
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 637

posted 03 January 2006 03:10 PM      Profile for scott   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post

quote:
Wolverine robot in 2001. Using navigation and surveillance cameras and a manipulator arm to move and carry objects, the Wolverine is capable of operating in an underground mine for up to eight hours, and can supply data and video for 1 1/2 miles between the vehicle and an above-ground control station. It was deployed in a recovery mission in a gold mine in FY 2003. After testing and modification, the Wolverine was approved for use in potentially explosive environments such as underground coal mines.

I don't know for sure, but maybe this is similar to the robot that was supposed to be deployed in the mine explosion site in West Virginia currently ongoing.


From: Kootenays BC | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 06 January 2006 03:44 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Got any kiddies, nieces or nephews who like to tinker ?. lego mindstorm
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
scott
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 637

posted 07 January 2006 12:40 AM      Profile for scott   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
lego mindstorm

Cool. I want one. Do you think that it will be able to go to the fridge and get me a beer? I think that that would be the baseline test of usefullness.

[ 07 January 2006: Message edited by: scott ]


From: Kootenays BC | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 07 January 2006 02:09 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
oops, I did it again

[ 07 January 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 07 January 2006 02:11 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
No, but maybe your kid will build one for you in future
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Nora
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Babbler # 10674

posted 17 January 2006 01:41 PM      Profile for Nora   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Yowza! Those Lego things look fabulous. I wonder if we can get one of the pre-launch trial models for thesniffer?
From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
scott
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 637

posted 17 January 2006 01:54 PM      Profile for scott   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Maybe you could plug a recorder into it and let it loose to do streeters.
From: Kootenays BC | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
CHCMD
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10246

posted 17 January 2006 03:12 PM      Profile for CHCMD   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
Already available, all kinds of robots to order at www.robotshop.ca

My kid has one that can be programmed to do all kinds of goofy stuff - hours of fun tormenting the dog and cat


From: 1 | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged
MondoBondo
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Babbler # 10611

posted 17 January 2006 04:33 PM      Profile for MondoBondo     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Have you ever used the Roomba or the iScooba the floor washing one? They're not cheap, but if they work they could really free up some time for other things. As weird as a robot future might seem I think given how busy we all are that they make perfect sense.

I'd love to have a smart bot to simplifly my online world and I welcome a household robot to help keep my place clean. I'm not lazy, I just have no time.

PS

I test ran Aibo and found it really annoying and quite stupid. Anybody else try it or something like that?


From: Ayr | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged

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