Sdtrk: ‘Jackie Onassis’ by Milky

Saturday! Traditionally known throughout history as a Day of Acquiring Knowledge and Stuff. And with my mates and I, that’s exactly what happened!

Our Algonquin End Table this Saturday past consisted of Jeff (aka Zip Gun) Derek et Steph, and Joe (aka SafeTinspector). We convened at Jeff’s digs at about 1.30, piled in D&S’s van, and sped off to the wild, largely uncultured city of Dearborn, as the Henry Ford Museum (now referred to as simply ‘the Henry Ford’, in an effort to make the place sound ‘hip’ and ‘with it’) had something we wanted to see: they were holding a temporary exhibit entitled ‘Best of Friends: Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi‘. Initially SafeT told me about it a number of weeks ago, and he and I had made arrangements to see it, and Zip Gun and D&S elected to come with, as it was something different from our usual week-end fare.

On the way to the Fuller/Noguchi exhibit, we stopped to look at the car John F Kennedy was assassinated in. Upon reflection, I should’ve gotten a pic of myself near it, for Extra Ballard Points.
Having looked through the info provided on the Dymaxion house, we had to actually queue up for about ten minutes for a guided tour, as there were quite a few interested people there with us as well. The Dymaxion house was, like a lot of Bucky Fuller’s ideas, startlingly ahead of its time. Essentially after WWII, there were hundreds of American soldiers returning home to find there was a housing shortage, while at the same time, aircraft manufacturers were laying off employees left and right, due to the decreased demand for fighter planes. Bucky Fuller presented a design that he’d been refining since the Twenties to the aircraft manufacturers that would solve both problems: by using excess aluminum material, he would retrain the employees into building homes instead of planes.

It was very ace thinking. The house was like an IKEA house: all parts were shipped in a rather large tube, and the whole assemblage took only three days to build — two days for the major assembly, and the third for installing the bathroom and electricals. As the home was built using cables suspended off an enormous central pole, not only could you raise or lower it, as it needed no foundation, but if you didn’t like where you lived, you rung up the builders, they came round and broke your home down, and set the whole thing up again in your new locale. 1000 sq.ft of self-contained living, featuring a gutter that collected rainwater for later use, ‘Ovolving’ (vertically rotating) shelves built into the walls for clothing storage, and other such fab amenities. Very forward thinking, especially for the late Forties. Unfortunately, as per usual, the general populace wasn’t ready for such a thing as kit housing, which is why the homes never went into production. The Henry Ford has one of the two prototypes in existence, and over the course of three years, restored it to its finery.
I regret not getting more pics of the house — the tour we were with probably had about fifteen people, so it was kinda cramped — but I did get this pic of the Dymaxion car, which was part of the Fuller/Noguchi tour proper, and as such, isn’t a permanent exhibit.

Four hours later, we made our leave. If we’d had more time, we would’ve gone to see the seat where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, as well as the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, but ZG had fatherly duties to see to. However, we made a brief stop in what passes for Dearborn’s downtown district, and hit up the comic store Green brain, as we were in the area. They’ve got quite a selection, although I didn’t see too much manga, but perhaps I just overlooked it. I did grab something that completely slipped under my radar: the trade paperback for ‘The gifting’, the all-new Tank girl series. When I bought it, I was a wee bit hesitant, as Jamie ‘The Hewll’ Hewlett wasn’t the artist — too busy working with Mr Albarn, undoubtedly — but art duties were competently handled by someone named Ashley Wood. Tank girl’s new character design wasn’t what I was used to, as sometimes it veered from somewhat sketchy to sub-Hewll, but since Alan Martin was still writing all the stories, it was just like meeting an old friend after a twelve-year long absence. A sweary, lager-swilling, heavy-ordnance-toting friend who lives in a tank with her kangaroo boyfriend. And we all know someone like that, right?
Our purchases duly made, ZG, SafeT and I dashed upstairs to Stormy records, to see what they had on offer. My purchase there? ‘Merzbear‘, by Merzbow. As it is, I’m gonna have to give it a good solid listening-to, as so far, it’s proving to to be wildly mediocre — too much like ‘Houjoue’ and not enough like ‘Oersted’. Masami, you’re killin’ me, man!

DAVECAT (flipping through the Merzbow section): ‘I can’t keep up with all of his releases!’
ZIP GUN: ‘Who can?’

Upon getting back to Zip Gun Towers, we split our separate ways for dinnair, as unusually enough, we couldn’t come to a decision as where to eat. SafeT and I filled up at Quiznos, then the lot of us (minus Steph, as she called it a day) returned to ZG’s, for several unbridled hours of Godzilla: Unleashed. I still can’t get entirely used to properly using those Wiichucks! This means I am old.

The end!

Sdtrk: ‘Kokser kun pa Jesus’ by Faderhuset

*mops brow* For those of you lucky to have missed it, ‘Shouting etc etc’ had another outage, lasting nearly a day. Well, it was more of a deep hiccup. The main page was all screwed up, as some bollocky server error had occurred. We seem to be back to normal now, thankfully! Unfortunately though, I was in the middle of writing a lengthy post when everything went pear-shaped, and I dinna get a chance to save it. It was literally one of those things where it’s like ‘check me out I’ve been typing for half an hour straight without saving once and o shit something’s gone wrong and aaah my file it has disappeared into the very ether forever.’ Fuck. O well, I still have a third of it on my Treo, so I’ll just have to work from there…
Watch this space! Well, not this space, but that space. You know.

In the meantime, EGAD ONLY 13 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE NEW DOCTOR WHO

Sdtrk: ‘Three-way’ by Magnetic fields

Apart from the previous post, which is again due to an inside tip from the Inspector of Safe Tea, I do believe I’m in another writing slump! Let’s analyse the possible reasons:

+ Found a new copy of Half-life 2 for the XBLOX at a Kmart for $5 USD. I’d always wanted to play it before, but the computer I owned at the time was woefully inadequate for running it. But now, I can catch up on all the fun that my mates were having back in 2004! So for Xmas 2007, I would like a gravity gun

+ When I’m not busy playing that, I’m logging far too many hours in on Warriors Orochi, as previously mentioned in this post. Short of unlocking four or five of the seventy-odd characters, finishing about eight stages, and grinding various characters’ levels, I’m all done! In short, I have much work to do

+ Getting Deafening silence Plus in some semblance of order. Yes, still. It’s actually 98% done — the dining area is now home to IKEA’s priced-to-move LAVER table and four chairs set — but the only major task that still needs to be done is to move my loveseat in. Which I could do myself if I had a gravity gun. Honestly, the most time-consuming thing, though, was setting up my vast collection of figures and toys collectibles into a stunning tableau, which I think I’ve finally accomplished, praise “Bob”.

Click here for full-sized version; opens in new window

Not pictured: the other third of my collection, either up against the adjoining wall, or in boxes about to be deployed, once I get more rack shelving.

+ And Reason Number the First: I’ve been feeling under the weather again. Yes, again. Monday I awakened with a dull ache in my guts, which intensified and moved upwards from my stomach into my chest whenever I belched or breathed too deeply. I mentioned this to Steph when she and I were buying sushi from our usual place with her hubby Derek Tuesday night, and she said my symptoms sounded quite a lot like when she was getting pneumonia. Heh, check that off of my List of Things to Do! Thankfully, upon seeing my GP this morn, he diagnosed it was heartburn. Heartburn! Exacerbated by post-nasal drip, as the weather’s been bitterly cold lately, but heartburn! He gave me prescriptions for Prilosec and Flonase, and kicked me unceremoniously out of his office for wasting his precious time.
In my defence, I’ve never had heartburn this bad before. That shit hurts when it migrates up my torso. Lesson learned? Don’t eat an hour before bedtime. in fact, just don’t eat, to be absolutely certain.

So yeah! I’ll be in Writing Form again soon, I’m sure. Or something?

O, and speaking of Xmas, my friends (you know who you are) would do well to update their Amazon wish lists. Just sayin’. Here’s mine! Also just sayin’.
Remember, my rules for Xmas apply just like they have for the past couple of years: everyone gets a Xmas prezzie, just not necessarily at Xmas

Sdtrk: ‘Cemetry gates’ by the Smiths

Ha ha! Looks like even Gynoids aren’t exempt from visiting the dentist now! Now they can go through what I recently went through. Sucks to be you, Little Miss Synthetik! Ha!

As long as the nurse doesn’t start asking ‘Is it sssafe?’, then she should be alright

Humanoid robot teaches dentists to feel people’s pain
Yahoo! News | Wed Nov 28, 4:59 AM ET

Japan’s future dentists may soon be able to better appreciate patients’ pain by training on a humanoid robot that can mumble “ouch” when the drill hits a nerve.

The robot, resembling an attractive young woman with long black hair and a pink sweater, also can listen to instructions and react to pain by moving her eyes or hands.

A group of robot and computer makers presented the high-tech dental patient in Tokyo at the 2007 International Robot Exhibition, a four-day technology showcase that opened Wednesday.

The medical simulation robot, named “Simroid,” is designed to be used for clinical training at dental schools, said Tatsuo Matsuzaki, an official at robot maker Kokoro Company Ltd., which developed the body and control system.
the rest of the article is here

For a while, I was wondering what the forward-thinking people at Kokoro Co. Ltd. were up to, as I hadn’t seen nor heard any Actroid news in months. And believe me, I looked. But it’s good to know they’re not resting on their laurels…
Although you can’t exactly tell from the above photo, Simroid-chan’s pretty cute, even when there’s a bunch of people jamming their hands into her mouth. At the very least, you know she takes care of her teeth.

I found a couple of videos of her in action as well, but I’m debating whether to upload them to my YouTube page, or let the Missus put them on her Dailymotion page. Dailymotion has been giving us problems as of late, as most, if not all, of the videos we’ve uploaded have been marked as having inappropriate content. Bloody ridiculous. I’ll figure out something relatively soon

EDIT (2.31 pm): Well, damnit, Pink Tentacle. I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME *shakes fist*

ta very much to SafeTinspector for the hip tip

Technorati tags: robots, Androids, Gynoids, Kokoro Co. Ltd., Actroid, dentistry

Sdtrk: ‘Let you go (Drop the Lime remix)’ by Starkey

Happy Cholera Blankets Day! In celebration, here is the cutest goddamn thing anyone will ever bear witness to in this, or any other, lifetime. Be sure to turn your speakers up!

Sdtrk: ‘Jeane’ by the Smiths

Under normal circumstances, when I hear the word ‘children’, I automatically think ‘leash laws’, but this article on the Telegraph’s website reminds me that children really are the future.
Great, now I’ve got that goddamned Whitney Houston song running through my head.

Children treat nursery robot as a human
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor | Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 06/11/2007

Child-like robots are being developed for nursery schools after researchers found that toddlers are able to regard their artificial friends as human.

The key step for robots to help teachers is for the automatons to be accepted by toddlers as social peers who are worth paying attention to – and bonding with – a hurdle that is crossed today in a study published by a team from the University of California, San Diego, UCSD.

Robots are capable of impressive mechanical feats, but the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences now shows that researchers are close to solving more difficult challenge: being accepted as being a peer, at least by the smaller members of our species.

The problem is that most robots do not hold a toddler’s attention. The most successful so far have been storytellers, but even these can only hold interest for approximately 10 hours.

Now Dr Fumihide Tanaka of UCSD and colleagues has done much better by introducing a prototype “social robot” into a classroom of toddlers for five months.

A human controller sent very occasional instructions for the robot to turn its head or perform an action like giggling or dancing. The robot was programmed to lie down when its batteries were running out. Often children would put a blanket on him, saying “night-night”. Early in the study, some children even cried when he keeled over.

The researchers videotaped the sessions and scored the quality of the interactions, noting that the children’s social contact with the robot increased over time.

The children lost interest when the robot was reprogrammed to dance randomly, but the robot again became popular after resuming its original operating mode. “By the last sessions, five months later, they treated the robot as a peer rather than as a toy,” the team reports.
the rest of the article is here

This is an incredibly important aspect to upcoming Synthetik/Organik interaction, as if a child grows up alongside robots, they won’t develop a needless fear of or prejudice against robots. Obviously, there more than enough blinkered adults out there now who’ve watched the ‘Terminator’ movies and took them as fact, but kids don’t have that ridiculous conditioning. It’s my hope that successive generations of Organiks can see Synthetiks as their equals, but it’s obviously best to start raising children with that sort of open-mindedness as soon as possible. It’s like any prejudice against any race, colour, creed, etc, really — stamp it out early, and your children develop into better human beings. Kudos, UCSD researchers!

On the passive Synthetik (we just call ’em Dolls) front, 4woods does good again, with the release of the 小悪魔 (‘Little Devil’) version of their somewhat-dour-yet-cute Neu lass, only available for viewing on the Japanese side of the site. A saucy minx!

Give her a black pair of PVC bat wings, and she’s a RYU’S FORM SITE character

Now all she is, really, is a tattooed version of their Neu Doll, with a darker paint scheme and a brown wig. Does she genuinely count as a new Doll? Err… maybe? She’s a rarer version of a (semi-)rare Doll, rather like when DeLorean made the limited edition gold version of their fantastic automobile.
I have to say that I prefer the Little Devil Neu over the bog-standard version, but I would say that. But how long will those tattoos last, is my question? Get your photos in as soon as you can before they rub off!

Not to be outdone, Orient industry have released yet another variation of their popular CandyGirl Jewel line, called CandyGirl Jewel Diva. Much like their CandyGirl Jewel Rosa series, these gorgeous lasses get my Seal of Approval.

If I were her, I’d be staring at my foot, too

At about 5’3″ (taller than the Missus?), just shy of 75 lbs (34 kgs) and with the measurements 34 / 26 / 38, they’re fantastic enough, but the distinction that really sets them apart from all seventy-two of the other types of CandyGirl are their more realistically-sculpted faces. In fact, the Mao-type (pictured above) kinda resembles 4woods’ Mitsumi. Not that I’m complaining. Sexy? Yes!

And finally, performance artist and iDollator Amber Hawk Swanson has slapped together a fine site of her own that details her various projects and appearances, and features a passel of photos and video of her with her Doll twin/bride. Go check it out!

‘Shouting to hear the echoes’. We’ve seen the future, and it’s silicone-based

Technorati tags: robots, Androids, Gynoids, 4woods, Orient industry, iDollators, RealDolls, Amber Hawk Swanson

Sdtrk: ‘The torture garden’ by Death in June

Attention, those of you who grew up in the Eighties or are into late-Eighties anime culture: hands up if you remember the show ‘Spiral zone’. Right, that’s three of you. Hrm.
To jostle your memory somewhat, leprous-looking bad guys were going round a future Earth with these huge generators that emanated a gas that turned ordinary people into, uh, zombies or something? I’m not entirely sure. I do know that the show was based on a series of highly-detailed action figures from Japan that competely impressed me, as they were about six inches tall with removable cloth suits and plastic armour — kinda like a precursor to all those Dragon / 21st Century Toys / Blue Box 12″ figures that seem to be so popular these days. But the reason I’m dragging you lot by the hair down Memory Lane is that the good guys rode motorcycles with one giant wheel, which I thought was ace. ‘OMG,’ you scream at the top of your lungs, pronouncing it ‘omj’, ‘I remember those cycles! I always wanted to ride one myself!’ Well, thanks to some lunatics from the Netherlands, now you can. Introducing: The Wheelsurf.

Not as fab as a Vespa, but definitely cooler than a Segway

The Wheelsurf consists of an inner and an outer frame. The inner frame has three small wheels that make contact with the outer frame. The outer frame is the actual rotating wheel and has a solid rubber tire. The rider sits inside the inner frame that also contains the engine, drive train and petrol tank.
The Wheelsurf is steered by shifting your weight. Although it has a hand brake, braking is limited to the counterbalance you can provide by leaning backwards. If you brake too hard, you will start spinning with the outer wheel. Which of course is exciting…

Of course it’s ‘exciting’! That doesn’t mean it’s ‘good’! I keep picturing that nutty YouTube video with the hamster and the wheel and the momentum and the Schadenfreude. You know which one I’m talking about.
Apart from any errant braking incidents though, the Wheelsurf looks rather neat. If they came in colours apart from red and yellow, I’d buy one! And if they weren’t $7,000 USD, that is