Was this really worth writing down?

typed for your pleasure on 11 May 2006, at 9.32 pm

Sdtrk: ‘Ground zero: Infinity dose’ by SPK

So I dreamt the other night that my friend Mike and his dad were living over an auto repair shop, and that he was working with some Brazilian/Mexican bloke on a project for a new pseudo-Kamen rider series, with the motif based on apes. The Mexican bloke had ICQed me, but he was using Mike’s computer, so I saw this message from aneamo (Mike’s online alias) asking if I liked Noise & Power-electronics and I was like ‘huh?? Mike knows I like Noise, he’s known me for years!’ He’d first sent a message asking if this was Davecat — I guess he was actually online at the time — but I didn’t respond initially, as I was busy at the time. Then a couple of minutes later, he typed, ‘i am *name*, i am 17 years old, and i like merzbow, whitehouse, masonna, mb, etc etc..’ I suppose I sussed that he was of Latin descent, as all of his sentences began with an upside-down exclamation mark.

Later, I somehow managed to get hold of the Latino fella’s sketchbook, and I was sitting in the coffeeshop section of a Borders, looking over a couple of the coloured pencil sketches he did for their KR project. Despite the idiotic-sounding motif (apes??), the drawings were rather good.. Then this pleasant-looking Asian lass that looked about 17 or 18 came over and sat next to me. When she didn’t get my immediate attention, she pulled out a coloured pencil of her own, and began doodling in the margins of the sketchbook. ‘Heh — that’s not mine, you know,’ I told her. She stopped.

Naturally, I’ve no idea what to make of that. The Kamen rider idea was undoubtedly fueled by the fact that I’ve been watching a lot of downloaded tokusatsu shows recently, such as GARO and Kamen rider Kabuto, but the rest of it? No clue. I don’t think I’ve ever known a Spanish bloke in my entire life! I don’t think I’ve ever lived over an auto repair place my entire life! Who comes up with this stuff?? Don’t answer that.

And if you think that’s bad, a couple of nights before that, I dreamt that Captain Jack Harkness, the dashing bisexual 51st Century rogue from Doctor Who, had a pet bear cub that spoke English. I was initially impressed, like anyone else would be, but it seems that the only word this cub could speak was ‘ham’, and that’s all it would repeat. ‘Ham,’ it would say, in a voice you would expect from a winsome four year old. ‘Ham ham ham ham.’

What the fuck?

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Posted in das Traumjournal, What the | 9 comments »


Problem solved!?

typed for your pleasure on 9 May 2006, at 5.25 pm

Sdtrk: ‘Defenestration’ by NON

Now, if you’ll all have a glance at the lefthand sidebar, down below the ‘Previous blab’ and above the ‘This was the Future’ archive drop-down menu, you’ll note a stunning new menu. The ‘Doll / Synthetik / iDollator news’ drop-down menu allows swift and unfettered access to all* of the posts I’ve made concerning RealDolls, A.I.Dolls, Actroid-chan, etc etc. This would be another one for the ‘Why the hell did it take me so long to do this??’ file, obviously.
Truth be told, it’s a short-term solution. When I get round to making The Big Jump To WordPress, that sort of post categorisation will be a snap, but for now, I kinda wanted a quicker way to get to those sorts of posts. So my OCD tendencies are your gain! Or, ah, something


‘My, he sure does go on and on about that Actroid girl’

*’all’, meaning ‘most’. I’m sure there’s a post or two that I’ve overlooked. I’ll get round to a more intensive search eventually

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Your link cup overfloweth

typed for your pleasure on 7 May 2006, at 12.31 am

Sdtrk: ‘Monologue’ by Adult.

It’s yet another linkdump! CAN YOU SMELL *needless pause* WHAT TEH ROCK *raises eyebrow* IS MICROWAVING

+ La Vie à Bord – ephemera concerning the history of Air France, but concentrating on the Jet Set years of the Fifties and Sixties. SWEET JESUS, YES

+ ‘Serenity and Firefly are worth fighting for, and we will show our numbers by purchasing Serenity on June 23 en masse, proving to Universal that Serenity deserves to keep flying.’
Serenity Day on 23 June. Good job I’ve not bought my copy yet..

+ The Institute for the Study of The Goat, The Pole, and Their Relative Positions, a.k.a, Goat on a Pole. Sure, why not

+ Are you a fan of Ricky Gervais’ podcast series? Well, then you must certainly know of the Pilkipedia, which of course is all about everyone’s favourite vacuous roundheaded Manc, Karl Pilkington. And praise “Bob”, he has a book coming out in September. WOOOOO

+ Samurai warriors 2 is due out in the States in May. Heh, technically I still don’t have 100% completion on the first one. But then really, who does?
And unf unf, Armored core: Last Raven is out sometime this Spring. It’s the last one for the PS2, so I expect it’ll go out with a bang. Heh, technically I’ve not finished Armored core: Nexus, but I’ll get round to it eventually

+ I’m looking at these pics and saying ‘Has The Hafler trio considered using these for their Cd covers yet?’


“BANG!” – an open letter

The room is actually painted in this fashion (above), so that when you look at it from a certain angle, you get the correct result (below). Brilliant

+ Death note (Vol.5 is the most recent release) is still rocking the bells. Apparently there’s going to be a live-action fillum version of it as well! At first, I was wincing when I first heard of this, but apparently the director is Shusuke Kaneko, who more famously directed the Heisei-era Gamera trilogy. All together now: ooohh

+ Speaking of Gamera, I’d like to see ‘Gamera: The Little braves’, even though it seems a wee bit.. kiddy.
Also on my must-see list of revivalist tokusatsu features would be Mirrorman Reflex and Bio planet WOO. And why has no domestic company picked up the rights to Keita Amemiya’s Mikazuki? It’s only six feckin’ episodes long!

+ Finally, I’m still madly in love with Delia Derbyshire. Apparently, in 2005, BBC 4 aired a documentary about her and a potted history of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which can be obtained from here. Fab! (link courtesy of ektopia)

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So, what’d I miss?

typed for your pleasure on 4 May 2006, at 3.14 pm

Sdtrk: ‘Always crashing in the same car’ by David Bowie

Well!

How did I spend my Holiday from Blogging, you axe? Playing altogether too much Phantom dust (crazy game. I like it), listening to a lot of Thin White Duke-era Bowie, and catching up on the 2005 – 2006 episodes of Doctor Who. I have to say, I’m likin’ what I’m seein’, so there’ll be a post about that relatively soon.

As I often say at my job, I’ll keep this brief: to those of you who posted or otherwise sent messages of support in this direction, both Sidore-chan and are very appreciative and grateful. It’s reassuring to know that are still a few people out there that not only have an open mind, but realise that if a person is finding some way of getting through life using a biologically harmless method that makes them happy without intruding on anyone else’s life, then more power to ’em. Again, thanks very much to all of you!

To our detractors, obviously I’ve nothing positive to say to you sorry twats. Apart from the fact that it’s pretty fucked up that you really have nothing better to do with your time than to mock someone that’s happier than yourselves. I understand that everyone needs a hobby; perhaps you lot should consider heroin addiction instead.

Right! *cracks knuckles* Back to.. whatever the hell you call this, ah, thing that I’m doing

N.B. Comment moderation is turned on, by the way, so if you don’t see your post at first, give me a couple of hours to look it over..

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Any Synthetiks-related news, Davecat? (May 06)

typed for your pleasure on 4 May 2006, at 3.08 pm

Sdtrk: ‘Paul cries’ by Think about life

I know, I know, I’m early. I’ll tell you, I was originally going to wait until the 17th of this month to start posting again, but I got bored. Doesn’t that sound crazy?
But the other reason was that I found a couple of things rather relevant to my interests, such as EveR-1, Korea’s answer to Actroid-chan:

EveR-1, a combination of Eve and robot, looks just like a Korean female in her early 20s including her shape that is benchmarked against the nation’s model. [..]“For now, EveR-1 can be employed as a guide robot at museums and department stores or as an educational model to read books to children,” Baeg said.

“But we are looking further ahead _ we are working on upgrading the android with the aim of making it move its legs by the end of this year. It will be able to sit down and stand up by then,” he expects.
the complete article is here

EveR-1 — apparently pronounced like ‘Beaver One’ — is looking rather tasty. And they’re planning on making her legs move as well? Naturally, my question is — how sexy will her feet look? Naturally, I’m on the lookout for additional pics and videos, so keep an eye peeled (sounds painful).
And y’know, if I see someone write ‘silicon’ for ‘silicone’ or vice versa, I’m gonna spit. Silicone with an E is squishy (think boobs); silicon without the E is hard (think circuit boards). Honestly, people — pay attention.

Also, the May 2006 issue of Scientific American sports a new article concerning Actroid-chan. You heard it here first! Well, second. Well, you heard about the article here first. Stop arguing with me, and read the bloody thing.

One key strategy in Ishiguro’s approach is to model robots on real people. He began research four years ago with his then four-year-old daughter, casting a rudimentary android from her body, but its few actuator mechanisms resulted in jerky, unnatural motion. With Tokyo-based robotics maker Kokoro Company, Ishiguro built Repliee also by “copying” a real person–NHK TV newscaster Ayako Fujii–with shape-memory silicone rubber and plaster molds. Polyurethane and a five-millimeter-thick silicone skin, soft and specially colored, cover a metal skeleton. Given clothing, a wig and lipstick, it is a near mirror image of Fujii.
the rest of the article is here

See, I was completely unaware that Actroid-chan was based off an Organik lass! Well, I never.
For those of you further intrigued — which is all of you, right? — I’ve got a couple of pertinent videos uploaded on my YouTube page, one of which is Ishiguro-san himself going on at length about what he hopes to achieve with the Repliee projects.

Not too shabby, Ishiguro-san! Now get back to work. You’re up against the Koreans now, mate

Technorati tags: Actroid, Repliee, EveR-1, Gynoid, Hiroshi Ishiguro

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This was the Future, Vol.24

typed for your pleasure on 15 April 2006, at 2.05 pm

Sdtrk: ‘I hate my generation’ by Sloan

Normally, the concept of living in a place with another human being fills me with an almost palpable dread. However, I’d be willing to make an exception, if it meant we could live in the spaciousness that is the Willow Glen Houses, located in Los Angeles, California.

The project is for two single family dwellings for close friends who wish to live cooperatively rather than in more typical LA isolation. [..] While to two houses have the same structure and materials, the uniqueness of each families structure and interest is expressed in fundamentally different plan arrangements and different interior finishes such that each house has its own character internally.

Very nice! Reduce the costs of your house payments by living together, yet there’s enough separate space where you’re not living in each other’s pockets! But then, since it’s listed as ‘two single family houses’, I suppose each family would be making payments on their own house, as opposed to one payment for two living spaces that happen to be stacked on top of each other. Curse those deceptive builders, for making me think this was a money-saving venture! *shakes fist at builders*

Very fab structural design, though — gotta love open-plan. Although I’d be putting blinds everywhere, cos people don’t need to see what I’d be getting up to

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An idea whose time has come

typed for your pleasure on 10 April 2006, at 8.02 pm

Sdtrk: the main theme from ‘Get Carter’ by Roy Budd

Y’know how the first podcast series of The Ricky Gervais Show had ‘Monkey News’ as a regular feature? Well, lately, ‘Shouting etc etc’ has turned into ‘Synthetiks News’. I mean, moreso than usual.

Soon he’ll be in two places at once
February 1, 2006

Students of Hiroshi Ishiguro will struggle to tell their teacher from his robotic doppelganger, writes Deborah Smith.

TRAVELLING long distances to meetings and conferences will soon be a thing of the past for Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, the creator of the world’s most human-like robot – a female named Repliee Q2. Ishiguro, of Osaka University, is close to finishing an even more advanced robot – a male, this time – that will be a physical replica of himself.

“I will not need to come here again,” he told a conference in Sydney earlier this week. “I will send my android instead.”

The busy Japanese scientist expects his $500,000 lookalike will prove most valuable for avoiding the regular trips to see his research students at the ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories in Kyoto, an hour’s drive away from his Osaka office.

Its lifelike presence will keep his researchers on their toes during teleconferences, he hopes. “If they feel my authority with my android there, it will be good,” he told the Herald.

Hollywood’s robotic creations usually have hard, metallic shells. But people prefer human-like machines with soft skin, Ishiguro says. “They don’t like to spend time with a robot-like robot.”
the rest of the article is here

This is exactly the sort of thing Andy Warhol was attempting to do. Even back during the Sixties, long before the concept of an Android double had crossed his mind, he had Factory hanger-on Alan Midgette do the lecture circuit thing dressed as Andy — black rollneck jumper, some talc liberally sprinkled in his hair, black shades, the lot. But this is even better. We have the technology.

So will the Android Ishiguro-san be allowed to eventually head new robotics projects? That would be very… meta. But entirely appropriate!

Technorati tags: Actroid, Repliee, Gynoid, Andy Warhol

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