…but still pretty good – A Japanese gynoid explores further into the uncanny valley than anyone has gone before. (via Zygbotics):

It makes you wonder how much something like this would be capable of if its movements were learned rather than programmed. Gymnastics? Maybe not but light maintenance work and truncheon wielding? Perhaps. Man, I’d pay to see that. Especially an electro-truncheon directed towards rich kid anarchy protesters. “Konnichiwa hypocrite thugs”. (BONK! ZAP)

from here.

Today is Judgment Day!

Suicidal planet on a death spiral with star.

That upcoming posthumous Michael Crichton book is about pirates and is entitled Pirate Latitudes. And Steven Spielberg wants to make a movie out of it.

Is House actually science fiction?

The monster with 21 faces.

DNA swap could cure inherited diseases.

The porn of Franz Kafka.

Futurama porn.

Watching robots kiss is actually really fucking creepy:

Am I right?

That beautiful place where peep shows and love hotels meet.

Please don’t feed the gorillas pop tarts.

Child bride’s nightmare after divorce.

“I’m happy because I’m stupid, scared of spiders, scared of flies.”

“Physicists use the wave theory on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the particle theory on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.”

-William Henry Bragg, quoted in the Dictionary Of Scientific Quotations.

Robot doppelganger!

An android is a robot designed to appear as a male, while a gynoid is a robot designed to appear as a female.

Robots can carry out conversations and even sing.

Is human space travel actually feasible?

I hope that when I’m dead, my friends/family/enemies don’t find out via twitter.

The trailer to Christopher Nolan’s Inception looks mind blowingly awesome. Set within “the architecture of the mind,” huh? With that and Lost, can it be 2010 already?

“Toast always lands buttered-side down, and a cat always lands feet first. I propose we strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches from the ground. With a giant buttered-toast/cat array, a hovering monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.”

-Jon Frazee, from the Journal Of Irreproducible Results.

from here.

Wave-particle duality.

Lorrie Moore, as reviewed by Jonathan Lethem.

Reading Rainbow is over. That’s seriously depressing. I loved that show. And even more depressing is that it’s ending partially because of funding, of course, but also because of George W. Bush. The “why to read” is just as important as the “how to read,” kids.

Speaking of which: The 61 essential post modern reads. How many have you read?

The future of reading: Read what you like.

Reading is sexy.

[postingan ini sudah pernah dipublikasikan di Forum Sains dan mengalami pengeditan]

Tahun kemarin (2007) sempet nyari artikel-artikel tentang robot untuk mengisi presentasi tentang perkembangan teknologi robot. Saya bener-bener kaget, pas baca di website LIFESCIENCE (seperti artikel ini) disana dikatakan bahwa salah seorang mahasiswa Netherlands University bernama David Levy melakukan riset tentang prediksi hubungan manusia dan robot. Dia mengatakan, bahwa pada tahun 2050, manusia bakalan menikahi robot.

“My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots,” (David Levy)

WHATS ? ? ? ?

Levy memperkirakan demikian karena, saat ini teknologi robot sudah sampai pada tahap pembuatan robot yang benar-benar mirip dengan manusia (Android dan Gynoid). Dimana kecerdasan buatan dan teori-teori yang memperkuat kemiripan gerakan manusia dengan robot sudah banyak bermunculan. Ditambah lagi robot tentunya bisa diprogram, jadi kalo mau pasangan seperti apapun pasti bisa diusahakan… hihihi..!!! Yang jelas gak bawel, gak rewel, gak bikin kesel, etc-lah….

Yang jelas berkat risetnya ini membuat Levy berhasil meraih gelar PhD.

Yang ini bukan gambar manusia, juga bukan patung, tapi Gynoid

Yang ini Gynoid masih setengah jadi

Yang ini sebagai presenter dan penyanyi

Yups, kira-kira bisa terjadi gak sih? Emang bisa?

Gambar diambil dari : Wikimedia dan metropolitician.blogs.com

 Det er ikke så mange som husker Elita One, eller Ariel som hun også heter. Den eneste rosa roboten i Transformersuniverset noen erindrer. Det du kanskje aldri fikk med deg er at dama til Optimus Prime faktisk endte med å lede sin egen herlige gruppe med kvinnelige autobots. Om dette var noe annet enn et håpløst frieri til småjenter er dog dessverre lite trolig. Det er kanskje unødvendig å påpeke at alle venninnene til Elita var i forhold med mannlige autobots, som kom for å redde dem da de var i trøbbel. Transformers wiki har lite å melde om damene.

Chromia

“Chromia is a rough-and-tumble blue collar trucker gal, which means, of course, that she’s Ironhide’s girlfriend. She’s not afraid of getting dirty, which is good, because she probably always is.”
Annen trivia om Chromia er at hun transformerer til en minivan. Perfekt for å kjøre ungene på fotballtrening, mao.

Moonracer

“She worries that others, either friends or enemies, don’t take her seriously and dismiss her as simply being cute. But she’ll show them. She’ll show them she too can be hardcore.”
Tøffa. Ikke pell meg på nesen, du liksom. Dama til Powerglide.

Firestar

“Practical and unprepossessing, she is nonetheless particularly useful during thefts of Decepticon Energon cubes, as her vehicle mode is capable of transporting large numbers of them. “
Ok, så hun er getaway-bilen? Dama til Inferno.

La oss heller ikke glemme de to gjenværende medlemmene av Elitas gjeng, de to ikke-navngitte autobotene. Nettopp. De har ikke navn. La oss kalle dem grønn og oransje.

Ved siden av disse fem feiende flotte fembotene, kan man også finne en syvende fembot, Arcee. Hun er også rosa! Ved siden av å være femboten som har datet flest mannlige autobots i universet, er hun kanskje mest kjent for sitatet ”War seems to be too tough particularly for females.” Dette vil muligens Women in Black istemme, selvom de trolig har et noe ulikt utgangspunkt enn en stakkars autobot.

Jeg har sett det påpekt tidligere andre steder at kjønnsspesifiseringen av Transformers er totalt urimelig. Om roboter har kjønn, betyr det at de kan formere seg? Er ikke kvinnelige roboter, i ikke-gynoid form helt uinteressant? Ingen av dem hadde pupper i utgangspunktet. Det er kanskje en seier for kroppstyranniserte jenter?

Men hva om autobotene opplever ekte kjærlighet, slik androide og gynoide roboter av og til gjør i fremtiden? Som når Athena (evt. Sharon Valerii, om du vil) blir gravid med Helos barn i Battlestar Galactica. (Cylonene kan ikke reprodusere seg i mellom foreløpig dog) Hvordan føder en autobot? Det melder seg mange spørsmål, ikke bare om samspillet mellom biologi og teknologi, men også om hvorvidt slike hensyn er verdt å diskutere i det hele tatt. Blablabla reproduksjon. Er eksistensen av kvinnelige autoboter faktisk et innlegg i diskusjonen om biologiske kjønnsroller? Betyr det at reproduksjon ikke vil være knyttet opp til kjønn i fremtiden? Eller var det slik et sted i fortiden, Transformers er jo historie, må vite. Om de ikke hadde vært så jævla reaksjonære (der var det ordet igjen), hadde det kanskje vært mulig å fronte den overbevisningen.

ps. Takk til kvinnekongen for å gjenoppta diskusjon omkring gynoide roboter. Mer om det etterhvert.

Andre lite nevneverdige kvinnelige autobots i TV-Transformers:

Nancy

Pasifist-bot fra Paradron, aka sykepleierbot

A graph showing the relationship between the amount of effort humans put into making robots and the amount of sexy female robots found in popular culture.

The graph is fictional, but I’m not convinced the relationship is false.

P.S. Yes, I know that humorous graphs are all the rage these days.  I couldn’t help myself in this case.  Baaa.