Sdtrk: ‘Underground library’ by Moon wiring club

Apparently the architects of Singapore like to play fast and loose with Mistress Fate. Observe:

*facepalms*

Far East Organization, Singapore’s largest private development company, has commissioned the Office for Metropolitan Architecture for OMA’s first architectural project in Singapore – a 36-storey residential high-rise. […] With 20,000m² of built floor area, the building will provide 68 high-end apartment units with panoramic views. The design strategically maneuvers within the highly regulated building environment to maximize the full potential of the site: Four individual apartment towers are vertically offset from one another and suspended from a central core.
taken from this site

I have to be honest — this proposed Scotts Tower looks rather fab, but it also looks like a Seventies disaster film just waiting to happen.

“THE SCOTTS TOWER CATASTROPHE”

starring

Peter Fonda

Suzanne Somers

Dick Van Dyke

Dyan Cannon

Avery Schreiber

and Gig Young as “Paddock”

© 1973 A QUINN-MARTIN PRODUCTION

Nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there, that sort of thing. There but for the grace of god go Singapore, I guess…
Also, if you recognise any of those names in the film cast, you’re too old

ta very much to KrazyQ for the tipoff

Sdtrk: ‘Ma recontre’ by Benjamin Biolay

I have to admit; the only Vonnegut that I’ve ever read would be Harrison Bergeron (for school) and Slaughterhouse-five (still a fantastic book), but I can definitely admire a bloke who not only came up with the concept of Ice-nine, but apparently had his den wallpapered with rejection notices from various publishers throughout the years.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Sdtrk: ‘Jinxed’ by The Aluminum group

Well, I for one am certainly encouraged!

Robot woman encourages turnout for local elections in Yokohama
Mainichi Daily News | April 9, 2007

YOKOHAMA — A humanoid robot designed to look like a young woman was a popular attraction at a department store here on Thursday as it called for voters to participate in nationwide local government elections.

The robot, named Actroid, appeared in front of the Sogo Department Store in Yokohama’s Nishi-ku.

The Yokohama Municipal Election Administration Commission planned the robot display to educate voters, as turnout for the unified local elections in Yokohama has not exceeded 50 percent since the start of the Heisei era in 1989.

The robot’s eyes and mouth move, along with its cheek muscles, and it even has veins in its legs to make it look real. The robot left at least one customer tying to sort out whether or not it was a real person.

“It’s a real human, isn’t it?” the customer asked.

Hopefully voters won’t have as much trouble sorting out the candidates during election time.

Hell, get me round to Yokohama; I’ll vote for whoever had the foresight to employ her.
That’s how they’ll get all of us Technosexuals — the worst party to vote for in the world will say ‘Hey, vote for us! We have Androids and Gynoids!’ and we’ll be like ‘Fuck yeah, there’s Gynoids at the polling booths WOOO’, and months after that party has won, we’ll all be made into Soylent Green or something similar. ‘Know your voters’ is the lesson to be learned here…

Not to harp on this point, but someone please put her in sandals and get some pics, even if it’s just for one day! If I can’t see how her feet look at least once, I will be vastly disappointed in the Universe

Technorati tags: Actroid, Repliee, Android, Gynoid, Technosexual

Sdtrk: ‘Hélicoptère’ by Mireille Darc

Some of you vaguely recall my report on Fräulein Borghild, the WWII-era RealDoll analogue assembled by Nazis, for Nazis. Yes, I was sceptical that she existed in the first place, but deep in my heart, I wanted to believe. Much to my chagrin, I just discovered this article on Boing Boing, posted back in 2005, about how a pair of unrelated and investigative readers in Germany revealed that the entire affair was merely a protracted example of japery. Gods, how depressing.

The main problems with “Borghild” are:

– There is no evidence that any of the documents the text talks about ever existed. The Deutsche Hygiene Museum says that of course most records were destroyed in an attack in 1945, but that still no one they talked seems to remember anything about this project. The photographs on borghild.de are clearly fabrications, and the site even acknowledges that.
– The author of borghild.de, “Norbert Lenz”, claims to have worked for a number of German magazines – all of which claim not to know a journalist by that name. He is not listed in phone directories, and the only book currently available in Germany by a Norbert Lenz is a book about – ducks.
the entire article is here

DAMNIT *pounds desk with fists, collapses into loud sobbing*

Technorati tags: Borghild, Nazis, sex doll

Sdtrk: ‘Sharevari’ by A number of names

So have you picked up issue nine (‘The Counterfeit issue’) of Lifelounge® Magazine? ‘Why would I want to do something like that??’ I hear you asking. Well, there’s a sympathetic and smartly-written article about RealDolls between its covers. Plus, it showcases some of Stacy Leigh‘s remarkable photos of her two naughty Synthetik roomies, Taylor Nishino and Tabitha Leone. Reasons enough? I’d say so!

The magazine’s actually bigger than it looks here. Well, wider?

My copy just arrived today from its origin country of Australia, so unless you live there, or have access to a subsonic flying machine, you might have to order it from the website. Or you can read the piece online, but frankly, it’s just not the same.

Always lovely to see well-deserving iDollator colleagues enjoying a slice of fame! Kudos to Lifelounge®, and double kudos to Stacy, Taylor, and Tabitha!

Technorati tags: RealDoll, iDollator, Lifelounge

Sdtrk: ‘Satellite’ by Depeche mode

from the cover of the April issue of Smithsonian:

I swear to “Bob”, when I first saw that line, I’d read it as ‘What Bizarro Taught Us’. An article detailing life lessons learned from a freakish alternate-universe version of Superman makes slightly more sense than lifestyle examples handed down from a chunky-brained mammal. Or should that be ‘hoofed down’?

No, I’ve not actually read the story. Anything it has to tell me cannot possibly live up to what I’d pictured in my mind. Apart, of course, from ‘whatever you do, do not break any of your four legs’. But that’s just plain common sense

Sdtrk: ‘Date with an angel’ by The caretaker

So far, it seems like there’s been a dearth of proper Doll and/or Synthetik news since the year began. A dearth, I say! And it’s making me a little despondent. See? —> 🙁
However, I managed to discover this recent article touching upon Japan’s latest robotic developments. Does it cover new ground? Err, ish.

Wow, International Rescue’s new uniforms are lookin’ sharp

While engineers in most of the world try to make robots that perform specific and usually unpleasant tasks, from fighting wars to performing deep-sea salvage, Japanese engineers are obsessed with making the machines more human. Having put the country squarely in the lead of the industrial robot market for the past two decades, they’re now working on a new generation of robots that will serve as playmates, pets and social workers. Says [roboticist Norihiro] Hagita: “The goal is to build an intelligent environment for the symbiosis of robots and humans in everyday life. The real challenge is to come up with robots that can actually communicate with people.” […]

That emphasis on the future function of robots as companions and helpers seems to be deeply Japanese. The reason may have much to do with Japanese popular culture, where robots like the cartoon cat Doraemon or the sweet 1960s, vintage Astroboy, tend to be portrayed as beneficent, friendly types. The tendency to regard lifelike machines as unthreatening may have deeper roots in Japan’s animist Shinto culture, where inanimate objects—ranging from teapots to samurai swords—can have souls. There’s also the social imperative: as the population ages, the Japanese are increasingly looking toward robots to help make up the labor shortfall.
the complete article is here. N.B.: It’s on Newsweek.com, so it’s got a limited posting lifespan

Once again, the point is brough up that Japanese culture is much more accepting of the concept of artificial life: they don’t think in baseless terms of ‘zOMG teh androids are going to take over and kill us all’ — they see them, really, as assistants, aides, and partners, which only makes sense. If the States expects to compete at all in the robotics development field, there’s going to have to be a giant shift of cultural thinking over here — in other words, a swift and overall flood of common sense. Heh, otherwise, I’m gonna have to take off for Japan…

Also relevant: an article on Physorg.com, concerning South Korea developing a ‘Robot Ethics Charter’.

A five-member task force including experts, futurists and a science fiction writer began work last November.

“The government plans to set ethical guidelines concerning the roles and functions of robots as robots are expected to develop strong intelligence in the near future,” the ministry said in a statement.

As South Korean society ages due to a low birth rate, various service robots which “think” for themselves will come into use in the not too distant future and become “key companions to human beings,” it said.

“Imagine if some people treat androids as if the machines were their wives. Others may get addicted to interacting with them just as many Internet users get hooked to the cyberworld,” Park Hye-Young of the ministry’s robot team told AFP.
emphasis mine (of course); the complete article is here

Not entirely sure if what Park Hye-Young meant was supposed to be pejorative, but as far as I’m concerned, the wives/husbands angle is a definite goal. To be honest, that’s one of the reasons that Shi-chan and I make spectacles of ourselves in print and on television: the way I see it, Androids and Gynoids are literally just around the corner; they probably won’t be commonplace for a good 30 – 40 years, but Synthetik humans will eventually be a slowly growing part of the populace. After our own fashion, Sidore and I are just trying to get society accustomed to the idea of an Organik person being in a relationship with a Synthetik one, or vice versa. Frankly, the day that relationships like that are as commonplace as interracial or homosexual ones, to the point where it no longer raises eyebrows, will be a great day…

So I guess R. Stevens, mastermind behind the webcomic Diesel sweeties, read the Physorg.com article as well, as evidenced here. Good eye, sir! That really just enforces what I’d linked to in a previous post, concerning how Diesel sweeties is more of a comic ‘strip’ that looks more towards the future, as opposed to relying on humour standbys and crutches that have been flogged to death since the Forties and Fifties. It’s advanced and sophisticated in every way!

And wahey, Sweetie’s posted a couple of new clips to her Dailymotion page, as it’s that time of the month again. Wow, that was incredibly inappropriate.
In the interim, enjoy your 23rd responsibly! Or not, see if I care

Technorati tags: Android, Gynoid, Actroid, EveR-1, EveR-2 Muse, Diesel Sweeties