tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41511369039163239502011-07-08T03:14:50.836-04:00robots & reasons to liveflbnoreply@blogger.comBlogger421100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-30220604187747035382010-01-21T10:06:00.001-05:002010-01-21T10:08:48.744-05:00

i realized this several years ago when doing some work for the SciFi Channel (now just Syfy, which is either growing on me, or is growing on me in a way that requires antibiotics). space is retro. or at least, the notion of a utopian, techno-future, stylized space - that is retro. think Star Trek more than Star Wars. space was always filled with uncertainties about isolation, alien life,

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-22046889936977832322009-09-03T13:09:00.002-04:002009-09-03T13:09:38.636-04:00

a robot, using a Microsoft Surface, speaking French. there may be nothing so adorable.

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-12258279505591361122009-08-31T17:47:00.002-04:002009-08-31T17:47:08.467-04:00

oh i must get a trip back to london towards the end of the year, because there will be battery powered robot-chauffered pods to take me from terminal to terminal.

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-60664782293892326032009-08-25T21:50:00.000-04:002009-08-25T21:50:51.163-04:00

several years i saw bits of the documentary Cracked Actor discussing how bowie writes (wrote) his lyrics.  it is, i suppose, a form of linguistic decoupage.  apparently burroughs used it 'first.'  for a time i think he was even claiming someone had written software for him to do this - and there are tons of cut up generators online. some obviously better than others... well, now a man posing as

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-44231952519446669992009-08-25T17:41:00.001-04:002009-08-25T17:41:25.625-04:00

this, via blastedsamoflange: http://www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com/robot.html adorable - combining the charm of old-timey silent film with the charm of old-timey robots and the charm of drinking to yield more charm. huzzah!

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-8768176811248736442009-08-24T12:19:00.003-04:002009-08-24T12:29:26.479-04:00

cagney sent me this: i basically said, that's adorable. now produce a child, and i'll get it for him. or her. whichever.to be honest, i spent a few minutes entertaining the notion of turning my Interiors inspired grisaille office into a robot room. then i thought - i'll save that idea for my next apartment.

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-10133937324185243642009-08-24T12:03:00.002-04:002009-08-24T12:04:02.118-04:00

some take this as proof that our robot overlords will commit us to slavery very soon. i say, science is fun!(thanks to eddy hodgson for the tip)

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-42212286318314070872009-08-11T14:36:00.000-04:002009-08-11T14:37:07.207-04:00

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-20555513482945431492009-08-11T12:52:00.004-04:002009-08-11T14:37:52.548-04:00

This picture is of robotic birds that tweet when you, well, tweet. Programmed to correlate with user names or hashtags, they fly up and down when a post by them or referencing them appears. The projected tree branch backdrop also runs a script showing you the tweets as they come in. The ITP program at NYU is so cool... and my friend Josh who helped design the tweeting birds did a fabulous job.

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-10855523816051306552009-07-10T17:06:00.003-04:002009-07-10T17:22:26.995-04:00

Visited the EML the other day... Here were their pet robots:nobody puts robocop in the corner!ladies & gentlemen, mrs. c3p0your grandfather's robot - an heirloom!let sleeping robot dogs liemaster of all he surveys

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-5712842491968054342009-07-06T09:50:00.003-04:002009-07-06T09:55:52.505-04:00

robots drawing at the ITP show several months backcrazy plastic, seemingly robotic mannequins, lit from within, in portland, orrobot messenger bag in soho reading toilet paper printouts

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-49545646902593147532009-07-06T09:37:00.003-04:002009-07-06T09:49:09.383-04:00

image courtesy loganloganloganso slate seems to be doing a whole series about movies. it's summertime after all and we do like our summer blockbusters, right? i've seen exactly one: Star Trek. it was delicious.but it turns out that 'formulaic' movies have a founding father. Wycliffe A. Hill took 36 archetypal figures and combined them with 36 archetypal situations (adding one of his own, "A

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-31487295074119526852009-04-20T12:41:00.002-04:002009-04-20T12:43:36.391-04:00

so now i'm following @r2d2 on twitter, and i enjoy his tweets. even if i don't really understand them.but there are other, far less clever and endearing robots on twitter...via Mashable:6. You are a robotYou are not really a person at all. You are a bot. I’m a science fiction fan. I’m all for the rights of robots and all that, but in the world we live in bots are not exactly the highly developed

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-57276524287567774532009-04-15T23:33:00.003-04:002009-04-15T23:35:56.978-04:00

saw them tonight at radio city music hall. brilliant.

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-9421655436859346372009-03-31T22:09:00.001-04:002009-03-31T22:17:25.098-04:00

some days i like to state the obvious.

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-75295361066675271662009-03-08T20:11:00.000-04:002009-03-08T20:12:04.679-04:00

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-19150473226015359662009-03-01T23:55:00.000-05:002009-03-01T23:56:55.676-05:00

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-39164075834035185582009-01-29T20:39:00.003-05:002009-01-29T20:49:14.191-05:00

Wall-E.  A bit Woody Allen, yes.  Terribly earnest.  Friendly with roaches.  Diligent in his work. And a participant in one of the greatest screen kisses I've ever seen.  Over on noahbrier.com, a nice bit about how we can only accept unadulterated joy in a dystopian future universe in which the beings that find and experience true love are, well, robots.That is the role of sci-fi, though - to let

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-80808862399416298912008-11-17T07:07:00.004-05:002008-11-17T07:17:37.888-05:00

Yeah. Let's start there.  It kind of sucks.  A few minutes of hilarity never expires.  That's crazy!  Eventually I'll seek out some link to the robot bit on Colbert that will not expire, all willy-nilly.  But right now I have another topic in mind.So.  It's been awhile. About a month, I guess. How are you?  Oh, good.I wanted to watch a movie the other day - something fun and simple, etc.  I am

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-24431483853267378562008-10-14T20:08:00.001-04:002008-10-14T20:09:41.150-04:00

stephen colbert inspires me to blog. i've been on a hiatus created - in more than one way - by the financial markets meltdown, but i seem to be back... check this out:

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-13794028159428841622008-08-27T23:27:00.004-04:002008-08-27T23:50:17.437-04:00

so.i've taken to twittering. and then gareth kay pointed out that don draper, the lead character of the AMC show "Mad Men" is also twittering. so i followed his tweets, and now he's following mine, and so is peggy olsen, and so is betty and so is salvatore and it's just so much to follow! i'm not even sure if it's linked to the show, and there seems to be office intrigue that's going on in the

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-35123509621218684712008-08-17T22:34:00.005-04:002008-08-17T23:09:35.707-04:00

hi there - coming at you LIVE from the westin buckhead in beautiful, muggy atlanta. i just had linguine in white clam sauce - frankly, too much linguine. safely back in my hotel room, i unbuttoned my jeans and heaved a deep sigh and turned to the ever-trusty google to do my robot bidding. what was the most newsworthy connection between robots and atlanta, i wondered?well, back in april, the

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-29549366598833156412008-08-16T10:27:00.007-04:002008-08-16T11:22:34.245-04:00

via BoingBoing.a robot housekeeper.  an etiquette and protocol droid.  a portable extension of the ship's computer.  robotic arms that build cars.  we often think of robots in terms of utility - it's that slavic root again ('to do, to labor').but long before do androids dream of electric sheep? and i, robot, people have been trying to build electromechanical creatures that have not only

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-11524845405149819702008-08-16T00:56:00.004-04:002008-08-16T11:22:16.006-04:00

so i'm sitting here talking to my friend about robots and she says, "what makes a robot a robot, and not just a computer?"let's ask toothpastefordinner.toothpastefordinner.comwell that's not quite right. so let's try wikipedia. it says:While there is no single correct definition of robot,[2] a typical robot will have several, though not necessarily all of the following properties: is not '

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-70729539223582828002008-08-16T00:53:00.003-04:002008-08-16T11:20:21.157-04:00

MSNBC has looked into the crystal ball and concluded that these are the 10 careers for the future (and i'm guessing that like any good group of hack-futurists, they pivoted on the present and then did a google search). also, they define the future as 2012. you know, in the good ol' days, the future was a long time from now.the careers are thusly: Organic food producers, retailers. Insight

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-45964925071413617112008-08-15T09:56:00.005-04:002008-08-16T11:28:49.252-04:00

what do robots represent if not the future - a utopian future, a dystopian future, any flavor of these two you like or fear.i work in a business where we're trying to tell our clients what to do next in a way that gives them the flexibility and power to grow or move forward into the future. but what i can't do is tell them what their business is going to be like in five years, or what consumers

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-11300113919793981322008-08-11T00:11:00.007-04:002008-08-16T11:24:17.385-04:00

i realize that title is desperately lame, but i'm tired and i exceeded my 1 drink maximum because the conversation was good. my bad.but hey, check it: robotic fish that can communicate and form schools.apparently, this is potentially very useful for tracking oceanic pollution or marine life, but the most important part of this video comes when the aussie calls them, "fishy robots" entirely

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-17997626856667274982008-08-10T15:21:00.003-04:002008-08-16T11:21:56.816-04:00

one of the blogs i scan is PSFK - basically a blog for people who do what i do for a living, and are bored. and we're often bored, but unwilling to be boring ourselves. so PSFK expressed some disdain for this concern for the safety of a piece of electronic equipment:Harmed - not damaged, knackered, smashed or mucked up? How emotional is our connection with electronics becoming?i suppose my

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-83849490151146476412008-08-10T00:01:00.008-04:002008-08-16T11:23:43.134-04:00

the way in which this reminds me of robots is, let's say, tenuous. for the uninitiated, steampunk is this:a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-17455559233760558182008-07-30T15:11:00.005-04:002008-08-16T11:24:27.195-04:00

Courtesy of Scientific American: a robot dragonfly that flies for 3 minutes at about 5m/second and carries an onboard camera. someday soon it will be able to hover like a hummingbird and fly backwards. in the movies, robotic insects that have cameras are usually sort of sinister and creepy and climbing all over things to expose the hero to his nemesis - but this one seems so delicate and

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-49985714341458607832008-07-29T19:07:00.004-04:002008-08-16T11:25:25.636-04:00

i'm a bit jetlagged. i'm in mexico city today, and just arrived from shanghai last night. i'm doing a really mediocre job of listening to an english translation of a spanish conversation, with the spanish conversation at full volume in the background. i tripped on steps right in front of me. i struggled to order breakfast off the hang tag card. why? well first, it's my job :)second, i'm

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-54643476106511348032008-07-26T10:46:00.003-04:002008-08-16T11:25:56.988-04:00

I was catching up with my Daily Show episodes on iTunes last night and noticed this image...

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-16938736109036445452008-07-24T04:51:00.004-04:002008-08-16T11:26:27.426-04:00

I live in Brooklyn. Carroll Gardens. Previously known simply as South Brooklyn. A neighborhood known for longshoremen, Italians, bakeries, soppresatta, lawn chairs and funeral homes. Or at least, known to me for these qualities. Actually, the neighborhood is known for having both front and back gardens for each brownstone. The Los Angeles Times (via Gothamist) did a nice little video ...

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-65027956690567912812008-07-24T04:12:00.005-04:002008-08-16T11:27:11.290-04:00

Sorry, have not been blogging responsibly.I was in Miami for a few days for a conference. Some interesting topics, some terrific speakers. Some real duds, as all conferences have, of course. Maybe the thing that stood out most to me was how much we have known for years but we willfully ignore because it seems that there MUST be something new out there. The truth seems to be - there just

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-40778462218384277432008-07-14T22:14:00.005-04:002008-08-16T11:27:32.887-04:00

a few robots from natashathese robots seem a bit lost. don't you worry - they'll figure out where to go, as long as they don't make that left turn at albuquerque.oh, but these robots are celebrating a very happy christmas.and this robot dog is gonna kick dr. who's arse at chess, yo!

flbnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-73045064483452986512008-07-13T21:30:00.003-04:002008-08-16T11:28:21.766-04:00

I just watched a film classic - one I'd been meaning to watch for some time but had sat on the shelf, still wrapped in cellophane and three sides of tape, ever since Christmas when my dad got it for me. Dad and I always liked to watch movies together, could spend whole days watching movies and talking about them and then deciding what to watch next. We weren't particular - any movie would do.

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-73012012832270294452008-07-13T14:28:00.005-04:002008-08-16T11:29:34.705-04:00

i only started this blog a week ago - and it has worked to inspire friends of mine who would ordinarily never admit an interest in such things to notice robots and robot-like things just about everywhere. and of course i've started to notice them in more places than just my google reader feed. as it's sunday, and it was a slightly rough weekend of my own making, i think i'll refrain from undue

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-39399529955930119422008-07-10T20:58:00.005-04:002008-08-16T11:30:24.698-04:00

Mmmm... foooooood...Look at that monkey, feeding itself what looks to be some delicious pastry with a robotic arm that it controls WITH ITS MIND. To wit, from the BBC:With the probes inserted into the monkeys' motor cortices, computer software was used to interpret the brain's electrical impulses and translate them into movement through the robotic arm.With a bit of training, the monkeys could

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-44209830845405362892008-07-09T22:20:00.007-04:002008-08-16T11:31:05.637-04:00

I grew up in the 80s. In the 80s we were concerned about the following: The eruption of Mt. St. Helens - this was the first time we turned to powdered milk and face masks The Chernobyl disaster - that was the second time... Mmmm... Tang The Spaceshuttle Challenger disaster - no powdered milk, just a classroom full of shocked 4th graders The Iran/Contra Hearing - interrupting summer programming

flbnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-12045326695544339502008-07-07T21:03:00.003-04:002008-08-16T11:31:31.962-04:00

from meme hufferlook at this poor bot. offering to process data for energy. that's how you know that we're in a recession and an energy crisis. don't you just feel his pain? when it's 10am on monday and you're already wondering when the weekend will come because that's when you can get off the hamster wheel and do some other totally soul-destroying thing like, say, drink to excess in a

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-59381970341546432672008-07-07T01:30:00.006-04:002008-08-16T11:31:58.630-04:00

That's how many pairs of shoes I own. Many of them, frankly, need to be retired and replaced. But I love them so - especially the pink and lavender ones with the cool brushed metal piece on the heel. Perhaps I'll take those in to the Cowboy Boot Hospital to have the little divots in the heels replaced and the toes buffed up and shined. Maybe new suede lining put in... Pardon me as I fantasize

flbnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4151136903916323950.post-49839316734225226782008-07-05T15:00:00.002-04:002008-08-16T11:32:27.021-04:00

"The great mystery is why robots come off so well in science-fiction films when the human characters are often so astoundingly wooden." John PodhoretzI realized one day that I had a deep and abiding fondness for the robotic. Not real robots, necessarily, but things that are reminiscent, evocative, or referential (reverential?) to robots.Perhaps it was my childhood of Buck Rogers reruns, Star

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