Month: December 2006

The robots – now they get you drunk

Closer, closer, comes the robot uprising. I’m preparing every day. Are you? The latest news that indicates the robots are working to bring down all humanity is this tasty brief on Robomoji (the robotic bartender). That’s right – the robots will get us drunk first, which should make the human-takedown ploy easier to pull off. In an attempt to protect all humanity, I will abstain from drinking any non-human poured liquor. (via TechEBlog)

Robots have way too many roles these days, ranging from security sentries to cellphone salesbots. Too mundane, you say? What about something that will surely please everyone at your party: a bot that can play bartender?

[tags]Robotic bartender, The nearing robot uprising[/tags]

First X flight (for various values of X)

Today being the 103rd anniversary of the Wright Brother’s first flight, I thought it might be nice to quickly cover some other first flights that preceeded the Wrights’ flight. Most of the following information is ripped and modified from the excellent gathering of information hosted at the Dalle Molle Institure for Artificial Intelligence.

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Sure, the occasional error happens

Mistakes happen. All the time. It’s no big deal. But put together a web site that tracks mistakes in print, and hilarity ensues. I’ve just started reading the site, but some of the media corrections and retractions are side-splitting funny (to my easily amused lazy rear). Go to Regret the error to find such corrections as:

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The psychology of the psychopath

One of my recent reading kicks has been the various books by the primary creators of the FBI’s behavioral sciences unit (BSU). This is the group you watch working every week if you watch Criminal Minds. One of the things that is covered in every one of these books is some of the background on how criminal profiling is done, and how that work was built up. Psychpathic behavior plays in to some of the work these folks do. And since I’ve been reading so much about that, I figured when I saw this Science News article on the nature and roots of psychopathy. After with a brief section on Derry Mainwaring-Knight, the article has:

Mainwaring-Knight wasn’t just a con man. By all accounts, he had a psychopathic personality. Psychopaths lack a conscience and are incapable of experiencing empathy, guilt, or loyalty. Descriptions of psychopatchs callously manipulating, intimidating, or harming others go back hundreds of years.

I would like to use this article to point out that Martin Blank isn’t quite correct when he says “No, no. Psychopaths kill for no reason. I kill for *money*. It’s a *job*. That didn’t come out right.” In fact, psychopaths do kill for a reason. It’s just that reason is completely their own.

[tags]The psychology of psychopathy, Pychopaths kill for no reason – I kill for money[/tags]

Dead musicians sign copyright extension petition

Over in the UK, the legal folks decided to not extend current copyright protections from 50 years to 95 years. Naturally, some musicians were upset. Moreover, some businesses that benefit financially from the legal monopolies they hold as a result of copyrights were upset. In response, they all banded together to sign a petition asking the legal muck-mucks to reconsider.

Normaly, such a thing would be one good way to go about trying to institute change. The folks behind this push, however, might get in a little trouble. I’m not sure if they’ll get in trouble for zombification of the dead, or for forging signatures. One way or another, however, those folks got some long dead musicians and artists, as well as quite a few non-British musicians and artists to supposedly sign on. And then got caught. Ooops. (via boingboing)

[tags]Undead musicians sign copyright extension petition[/tags]

Finally, some potentially good news for PS3 fans

There’s been a lot of negativity around the PlayStation 3 (I’m guilty of some, since there have been a lot of problems with the PS3 so far), but here’s something that honestly seems like good news to me (if it is true). According to an Electronics Arts exec, current games for the PS3 are only using around 20% of the consoles potential. That means that these games, as good as they look and as well as the play, are truly just a very early glimpse at what PS3 owners have to look forward to. Given the difficulties of developing for the PS3 that I’ve read, I’m inclined to believe this. Maybe 20% is a low guess, but it is potentially accurate. So think what the PS3 will be offering you in 3-5 years.

“The whole industry knows it’s been a challenge; the PS3’s a very complex piece of equipment. On one hand it’s a challenge, on the other hand there’s tremendous potential in that box. I think it’s going to take developers a little while to figure out how to unlock that power.

We’ve got games coming out now where we feel we’ve hit maybe 20 per cent of the potential of PlayStation 3. We know the power’s there, but like any new platform it’s going to take us a little bit of time to unleash it.

So we shall see what 2nd and 3rd wave games are like and see how accurate this is, shall we not? (via Kotaku)

[tags]PS3 games well short of full system potential[/tags]