david bowie, man

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 a scientist (though i suspect he is a misguided android seeking access to human emotional processes) has dismembered - again - the frankenstein's monster that is Bowie's actual lyrical repertoire. and - again - reassembled them into the sort of song a human like myself would never really listen to except for the hilarity of the badness.

my tribe calls this the Comedy of Things That Aren't That Funny. enjoy.

speaking of other things that remind me of robots: David Bowie.

i'm probably aging myself in interdome years, but in 1997, david bowie offered Bowie Bonds.  he securitized his intellectual property rights and used the $55million he raised to buy back a bunch of his catalog and do a bunch of other fun stuff.  ziggy plays guitar, but bowie is a freakin' genius.  do you suppose there's a subprime market for IP bonds?

anyway, if you want to watch the robot man shake his thing - er, write his lyrics, then here you go:

i remember my first beer

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!

meanwhile, in home furnishings

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.

this is so hot

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)

battlebots, iron chef edition

Things I Didn't Know About Robots

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. It only took me like 9 months to post this.

In other news...

My mother sent me an article from Discover Magazine online: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Robots. My favorite things I didn't know about robots turned out to be these:

14 Chris Melhuish of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory created robots that use bacteria-filled fuel cells to produce electricity from rotten apples and dead flies. The goal: robots that forage for their own food.

15 Mini Me: Australian researchers are trying to build a microrobot that would mimic the swim stroke used by E. coli bacteria. It would be injected into a patient so it could take a biopsy from the inside.

IPGs Emerging Media Lab Pet Robots

Visited the EML the other day... Here were their pet robots:

nobody puts robocop in the corner!

ladies & gentlemen, mrs. c3p0

your grandfather's robot - an heirloom!

let sleeping robot dogs lie

master of all he surveys