These Japanese researchers HAVE to stop making their robots look like humans. It’s just too damn creepy. Just take a look at their latest creation, Diego-san, the extremely disproportionate 1 year old. Built to imitate a human child, this robot is apparently helping them learn more about human child development.
This creature from hell has over 60 moving parts, the most sophisticated to date. And if it was not scary enough, it has 20 moving parts alone for facial expressions, guaranteeing a beautiful grin a la Child’s Play style.
via Boing Boing
A large family takes in an orphan. The house is already crowded so the orphan must share an attic room with a child too weak to protest the intrusion. The parents give each of the two children half of the room but ask each child to share a beautiful cabinet, treasured by both. The parents take a long trip, leaving their strongest son in charge.
When the parents leave, other children in the family attack the orphan and try to get him to leave. The weakest child, in particular, fights unfairly. He waits for the orphan to sleep and then attacks him. The orphan wakes up each time and hurts the weak child; he also takes over more of the room, including the beautiful cabinet.
As the orphan continues to take over more of the room, the weak child continues to take revenge. The strongest son tries to bring peace and sometimes succeeds for short periods. The basic problem, however, is that each child believes that he should have the entire attic room to himself.
Finally, the parents return. They realize that they made a mistake by leaving home while there was such a difficult situation in the attic. They don’t just ask the two children to stop fighting, however. Instead, they take immediate action.
The parents decide that the boys need temporary separation, something constructive to keep them busy, and careful supervision. The parents work with the two boys to build shelves and cabinets down the middle of the room, with private storage space for each boy on each side. They install plumbing so each side of the room has plenty of fresh water. Finally, when the crisis is over, the parents set up a way for the boys to share the beautiful cabinet.
The parents do more than just provide better space, however. They provide the love, kindness, and supervision that each child needs to do well. They also make sure that the other children support the solution.
Each boy reverts to his old behavior a few times, but the parents remove his privileges each time and the old behaviors stop. Besides, each boy becomes too busy pursuing his own goals to be distracted by fighting.
They lived happily ever after…with a few disagreements here and there.
The “large family” is the United Nations. The “orphan” is Israel. The “other children” are the Arab states. The “weakest son” is the Palestinian people. Attacking the orphan unfairly means “terrorist attacks.” The “attic room” is the territory of Palestine before the United Nations carved Israel into it. The “beautiful cabinet” is Jerusalem.
The “strongest son” is the United States. Alas, there are no wise parents to supervise the boys. The UN Security Council has not been able to perform this essential role.
The “strongest son,” therefore, must work with the “other children” to implement peace. If the “strongest son” and the “other children” work together effectively, then peace will spread throughout the entire family.
Recently, this has not happened. Instead, extremist Palestinians have engaged in bombings when Israelis agreed to work on peace. Extremist Israelis have engaged in assassinations or other acts of aggression when Palestinians agreed to work on peace. Israelis are swiftly completing a wall between Israel and Palestinian territory, but the wall is not on the 1967 border. Rather, it snakes into Palestinian territory to unlawfully take land and water rights from 200,000 Palestinians. Extremists from both sides have destroyed the peace process.
The Palestinian people are allowing extremists to lead them. The Israeli people are allowing extremists to lead them. As the violence keeps increasing, wisdom from any quarter would be welcome.
By R. Jerry Adams, Ph.D.
Continue reading: Middle East Conflict – Why?
Vampire Weekend have announced their sophomore album titled “Contra” to be released on January 12, 2010. The pop superstars created quite a buzz with their viral marketing campaign by releasing images of mystery girl in music blogs linking to ithinkuracontra.com. Now we know the site redirects to Vampire Weekend’s site.
Here is the track listing:
01. Horchata
02. White Sky
03. Holiday
04. California English
05. Taxi Cab
06. Run
07. Cousins
08. Giving Up The Gun
09. Diplomat’s Son
10. I Think Ur A Contra
Honestly, I think Vampire weekend are a bit overated. Although this summer would have not been the same without them. Looking forward to hear what they bring to the table this time. As with most releases nowadays you should keep an eye out for a leaked version to hit the net.
“You have summoned the fail-whale!”
The sad thing about it, I still like to consider myself a Twitter….sigh.
And this is why I hate mainstream media…
This shocking video shows the negligence at a Brooklyn’s hospital as doctors, nurses and guards walk by a dying woman and do nothing to help her.
According to the Daily News:
Green, 49, taken to the unit for “agitation,” keels over out of her chair at 5:32a.m., according to the time stamp on the video. She had been sitting about 3feet from an observation window. Two other patients were in the room.
Green is lying facedown on the floor, her legs splayed, when a security guard strolls by at 5:53 a.m., looks at her for about 20 seconds and then walks away.
She is writhing on the floor, thrashing her legs, about 6 a.m., when her medical chart contends she was “awake, up and about, went to the bathroom.”
Green rolls on her back at 6:04a.m. She stops moving at 6:08 a.m., but two minutes later a security guard pushed his chair into camera view.
He never gets out of the chair, but looks at Green and scoots away. A female patient who was in and out of the room finally brings a clinic staffer to check the woman and a crash cart is summoned.
How can we be world’s super power and yet have the worst health system. Anyone seen Sicko recently?
via Gothamist.
The odds seem to be in our favor when it comes to meeting girls here in the East Coast. According to this map by Richard Florida, there are 210,820 more single women than men in the New York and northern New Jersey area. Single women seem to be concentrated in large metropolitan cities around the world, always outnumbering men. Very important information which will help you decide where to move next ;)
…when Bonnaroo announces the lineup for this year’s festival. There were many rumors circulating that Led Zeppelin will be headlining the festival this year but I guess that won’t be happening but Lez Zeppelin will be there. Instead Pearl Jam and Metallica (yuck) will be the big names this year. I could careless, there plenty of other amazing bands that I am really exited to see live this year:
Pearl Jam, Kanye West, Death Cab for Cutie, B.B. King, Sigur Ros, Ben Folds, M.I.A., Iron & Wine, Gogol Bordello, Broken Social Scene, Ozomatli, Ladytron, Minus the Bear, Battles, Vampire Weekend, and Black Kids.
Being my second year in Bonnaroo I know what to expect, I am no longer a noob and will be better prepared (more beer and food). So I’m really stoked!!! as you can see from the use of 3 exclamation points. I gotta get some money together as tickets go on sale Feb 16!
Also, there have been several parties persuading me to go to Burning Man in Cali this year, all I have to say is: perhaps…perhaps…
For info and tix visit their site: www.bonnaroo.com
What the heck is a Keepon you may ask? Keepon is a small yellow japanese robot designed by Hideki Kozima to study social interaction mainly amongst kids but also adults. This small cute yellow robot has been recently featured in Spoon’s newest music video for “Don’t You Evah” as a Japanese scientist takes the robot to the streets of Japan to see how people react. See if you can spot the band members throughout the video:
The New York Times said it best:
It’s a little embarrassing to watch the New York art world “discovering†Latin American modernist art year after year, as if forever only half-aware of its existence.
It’s a little surprising to see the NYC art world not paying much attention to the Latin American artists. There are so many talented Latinos waiting for their break in a big city like New York. It has not been until recently that these artists have had a chance to present their work to what seems like an ignorant audience. That chance comes in the form of Pinta, the contemporary Latin American art fair, the very first of its kind in NYC.
I actually have a pretty interesting story about how I came to hear about Pinta. I was in Harlem visiting El Museo Del Barrio just trying to enjoy a quiet Sunday with a friend. We arrived to the museum not knowing we only had about an hour left to walk around. So we walked in and instead of trying to see everyone in a hurry we decided to concentrate just a few pieces and really study them. As we finished the tour, with guards almost pushing us to leave, we stopped by the gift shop to look at some books when we were approached by one of the cashiers working there that afternoon. He overheard our conversation on how we were so disappointed to not see all the pieces. He must have seen our enthusiasm and invited us to this new of a kind Art Fair in NYC filled with Latin American artists, us having nothing else to do that night we jumped at the opportunity. He handed us two white translucent, very modern looking envelopes with the Pinta logo on one side, it was out free tickets to the fair. That was the very first day I ever heard about Pinta and was lucky enought to be invited for free on its opening night. I had a great time there, seeing works by some of the most talented contemporary and modern Latino artists. I just hope that next time it will have a much bigger turn around, more publicity and a lot more art (this first year there were only 35 galleries).
Keep an eye out for the next Pinta and hopefully I will see you there.
Links:
Bulletins From a Bustling ‘Undiscovered’ Land
www.pinta-art.com
I was trying to think about what I enjoyed the most about a cold morning on my way to work. Here are a few things that just popped into my mind: Holding that warm coffee cup, steaming endlessly while I wait on the station for the train. Watching strangers awkwardly huddle together without touching or making any eye contact. Lighting the first cigarette of the day feels so damn good (fuck, I gotta quit). Turning your back to the wind as it picks up in your direction. Chap-stick. Feeling your hands start to go numb because you forgot your gloves. Seeing your breath every time you exhale. Shaking your legs almost as if you had to pee. Repeating in your head over and over again “Fuck it’s cold”. Yeah, that is why cold mornings are great….
It seems like the Bush administration is at it again, what will it take for everyone in this country to open their eyes and do something? He is now trying to grant himself immunity for any possible war crimes committed against detainees. Check out the video:
Anybody can take a polaroid, load film, aim the camera and press the button but not everyone can capture such images as The Polaroid Kidd. Mike Brodie (aka The Polaroid Kidd) has been photographing his tribe of young vagabond friends for the past few years as they travel around the country, capturing a very intimate and interesting glimpse into their lives. These young people are a cross between hippies, gypsies and punks, traveling around the country squatting wherever they can and doing by with what they can find and Mike has been able to capture it all through his lens. His pictures have really touched and inspired me to lean a little more towards documentary photography, something I hope to accomplish in the very near future.
For more on Mike visit his website: The Polaroid Kidd
New York City has proposed new rules that will drastically affect independent film makers and photographers all around the city.
Under the new rules proposed on May 25, 2007 by the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcast (MOFTB), any group of two or more people using a handheld camera (still or video) for more than 30 minutes at a single location (defined as a 100-foot area) would have to apply for and obtain a permit and would have to present proof of $1 million in insurance (unless a waiver was obtained). Also under the new rules, any group of five or more people using a single tripod for more than 10 minutes would have to obtain a permit and have insurance.
The new rules were open to public comments until June 27th but that has been extended until August 3rd, 2007…that’s 2 days from now. What can you do?! Please email your comments and concerns to the address below and let your voice be heard. These new rules, if passed will have a tremendous impact on this great city, where no day goes by that thousands of moments are captured in video and film.
If you’re a filmaker or photographer or just want to express your views please e-mail or send in a letter to:
Julianne Cho
Assistant Commissioner
Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting
1697 Broadway
New York, N.Y. 10019
jcho@film.nyc.gov
Now I leave you with this rap music video about the subject by the Comedy troupe “Olde English”:
For more information visit: http://www.nyclu.org/permitrules/