Archive for October, 2007

the technoviking part 1 and 2

Woman Gives Birth to Own Grandchildren

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A 51-year-old surrogate mother for her daughter has given birth to her own twin grandchildren in northeastern Brazil, the delivery hospital said.

Rosinete Palmeira Serrao, a government health worker, gave birth to twin boys by Caesarean section on Thursday at the Santa Joana Hospital in the city of Recife, the hospital said in a statement on its Web site.

Hospital officials were not available for comment on Sunday, but press reports said the grandmother and twins were discharged on Saturday in excellent health. The Caesarean section was performed about two weeks ahead of time because Serrao was having trouble sleeping, the statement said.

Serrao decided to serve as a surrogate mother after four years of failed attempts at pregnancy by her 27-year-old daughter, Claudia Michelle de Brito.

Brazilian law stipulates that only close relatives can serve as surrogate mothers. De Brito is an only child and none of her cousins volunteered, so Serrao agreed to receive four embryos from her daughter.

Haha, um… I’m not even going to say anything about this one…AA thanks to Jen for sending it in. [via msnbc]

Real-Life Mechwarriors

[update: sorry, i had the youtube videos switched around. it should be fixed.AA enjoy]

I’ve decided that everybody needs a little fluff in their day to make it through. I also realize that the things I write about on Mondays are generally the types of things that ninjas spend their time thinking about. It might be because it’s Columbus Day and I didn’t want to overload my own poor brain. All these things factor into the following foolishness that I have deigned to call a post.

First of all, for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about when I say Mechwarrior, well, you seriously and urgently need to watch more anime. If you don’t know what anime is, then this article just might be lost on you. Actually just kidding, read on.

So, in the future the robots and machines will take over, which has most likely already started (don’t kid yourselves) and possibly start avenging themselves of the needless wrongs human beings have inflicted, all the while hopefully completely unaware of this. When that day comes, we might be in some critical need of mechwarrior suits to fend them off. Who knows what else could happen?… aliens… meteorites… whatever…

Right about now a whole bunch of geeks are about to start making comments about how me calling the joints mechwarriors is an inaccurate term, so I’m going to nip that in the bud and explain right now.

A mechwarrior, technically, is a dude from a certain series of video games that drives a battlemech. A battlemech is a huge robot that a human sits inside of and controls. Mostly these things are used to, you know fire huge lasers and… fly… and whatnot. The huge robot with a human controller inside is a pretty universal concept. It almost certainly is a metaphorical reference to post-war Japan (as are many anime concepts), industrialization, and technologization (erm, not a word, but you get the gist). Anyway, plenty of you are already acquainted with the basic idea through such imports as Voltron, Gundam, or Power Rangers, and even possibly the American response to such creations Exo-Squad, which was inevitably poorer than the others. So whether you call them exo-skeletons, gundams, mechs, zoids, whatevers, they’re still just big ass robots that people get inside of to control. That should satisfy even the most discriminating geek.

Still with me? Great, because now after much adieu, we dive into the world of the real life applications of these things.

Real Life:

The first thing we’re talking about is a dude who, in 2005, built an 18 foot mech in his backyard. Although the robot could only take a few steps in its beta version, the thing has flamethrowers on its fists. As long as the robot overlords arent overly mobile, this guy can burn the crap out of them.

The 18-foot-tall giant in steelworker Carlos Owens’ Alaska backyard isn’t quite up to smashing Volkswagens-or taking the kind of pounding footsteps that might strike fear into the heart of an enemy.

With a rumbling gasoline engine and creaking hydraulic joints (not to mention flame spouting from its fists), the red steel monster is limited to taking a young child’s few tottering steps. That’s not quite enough to sell the military on its worth. But it’s a start.

Unfortunately for Owens, who has spent almost $25,000 and two years building this homebrewed "mech"-think giant robot, but controlled by a pilot inside-it’s also an end, at least for this version. With little room left to improve it, he’s shutting down work and selling it on eBay. Link

Now, I know this guy is a bit old, but it’s BANANAS. This thing is huge and crazy and I wouldn’t want to be in a dark alley alone with it at night. If the pictures don’t totally bug you out you can watch a video of it here.

In real life, there’s the $50 million that the U.S. military is pouring into researching ways to augment soldiers’ physical capabilities with high-tech exoskeletons.

That idea hasn’t always gone well. General Electric tried this in the late 1960s, creating the cumbersome Hardiman prototype, a massive steel frame intended to be strapped onto its users’ arms and legs to help them lift up to 1,500 pounds.

The GE project operators never got more than one arm working, however, and the project died in the early 1970s.

Well, as you can see the military has been all over this concept for years. The next thing we’re looking at is a possibly more advanced mechwarrior. Enter The LandWalker. Straight out of Japan, of course, this beast is the first fully advanced mech to be built.

Japanese machinery and robotics manufacturer Sakakibara-Kikai has released the first genuine bi-pedal exoskeleton a€" a landmark event and one which is certain to attract a lot of attention for the company. Mechanatrons and BattleMechs have long been the subject of scifi books, comics and movies with the promise of cyborg technology popularised by the smash sixties television series a€oeThe Six Million Dollar Man.a€A Wea€™ve previously seen some celebrated exoskeletons in films such as Alien. Link

Check out the video below to see this thing in action. This guy may be our best bet in the event of any of the aforementioned emergencies. I’d love to whip one of these bad boys, wouldn’t you? That said, I don’t know if the best reaction is childish jubilation or utter fear.

My inner boy is totally satisfied. One bloger’s thoughts.

If you ask me, the best thing about these things is that they come in different colors. That way I can get one to match my pretty gun.

Mecha, also known as meka or mechs, are walking vehicles controlled by a pilot. Mecha are generally, though not necessarily, bipedal. In most science fiction stories in which they appear, mecha are war machines: essentially armored fighting vehicles with legs instead of treads or wheels. Some stories, such as the Japanese manga Patlabor, also encompass mecha used for civilian purposes such as heavy construction work, police functions, or firefighting.

Ha, that above Wikipedia article regretted to mention the most important aspect of the functions, which would be defending us against the overlords. It appears the robots may have already infiltrated them. In any case, the last mech we will look at is the previous title holder of the most advanced mech besides the LandWalker. Check out Enryu.

Enryua€™s towering presence matches the super hero job description; the DFWM looks of a Transformer, the gait of a bulldozer, a five ton King Kong fighting weight and human-like arms which can lift a ton, quite literally.

Now Enryu can be operated remotely, thanks to seven 6.8 MPX CCD lens mounted on its head, torso and arms, enabling the remote driver to see from several angles. It can also be operated from inside, making it an exoskeleton and enabling it far greater dexterity and hence capability. The driver wears a fireproof suit and is encased in a protection capsule and will surely have the dream job of the next generation of adolescents. Production began last year (2004) and the company sees a large part of its future building robots which can go where human beings cannot, such as burning buildings or on the battlefield. Link

If you want to read about this thing in action, check out this article.

Unfortunately, our 2 hours is almost up. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be fair if I talked about mech warriors and didn’t at least mention human robotic suits. Undoubtedly you’ve heard of these things that increase strength and speed and whatnot. Very Ghost in the Shellish. Well below we have one of those in action.

If you want to know more about human robotic suits you can click here or do your own research. This whole article started as a Google search for ‘real life mechwarrior.’ As I feel obligated to say every week, it’s frickin’ amazing what you can find in two hours on the internet. See ya again next week!

Foto Del Dia 10.8

cougar-flares frim btwise

ART! - Human Collaborations

Welcome to ART DAY! Those of use who’ve been with us already know what the deal is, but for those that don’t, every Friday we feature art from around the internet. We’re mostly lovers of representational and abstract art, but you can expect to find anything from sculptures to words here. For those of you who know what the deal is already, thanks for comin’ out.

Seeing that last week we brought you collaborations between man and insect, it’s only fair that we also bring you some collaborations of the human kind, namely, human kind co-operating with human kind to make art.

Collaborative art is a broad topic, especially given that many collaborative art projects (at least on the contemporary level) cross the boundaries of what many people would consider to be art, in the traditional sense.

Many online projects in collaborative art have started, mainly because of the relative facility of sharing ideas and images and words over the internet as it is.

One of my favorite internet collaborations I have seen to date is a project called Glyphiti, a product of which is featured above. Glyphiti basically incorporates a white board that is divided into different squares or glyphs. When you come along to the webpage, you can choose one of these squares at a time to edit. Each square is divided into smaller pixels which can be either left white or turned black. By editing each small glyph, a larger pattern begins to emerge. Some people are especially skilled and can create whole intricate pictures by editing one glyph at a time. That’s basically the paraphrased explanation.

The image you see above is a timelapse capture of all the activity for the month of 07/01. They actually have an archive that includes stream captures of all the months. You can just watch them or you can jump right in and start editing glyphs.

It’s important to stress that I only aim to give you a sample of what’s out there, for the web is basically teeming with collaborative art projects if you keep your eyes open.

a user generated apple!

Another cool project is Art.Othernet.Com which operates on a similar principle as Glyphiti. Similar but different. In this experimental collaborative art project, the user is shown a collection of computer generated images and asked to say which one looks more like [insert subject]. The paintings that survive serve as the genetic material for the next generation of generated pictures. Using the interface the creator has designed, by logging into the page and participating you affect the final outcome.

The topics from the project range from abstract things like "fear" to more concrete things, such as the "apple" pictured above, or the "sunset" below. I think this is a pretty ill idea, but only time will tell what it produces. Log in and try it out!

an [impressionistic] sunset

Keep scrollin’ for more ART DAY!

Potato Eaters

Here we have some of the featured work from the art collective, Potato Eaters.AA Both pieces are by Frank O’Brien,AA an artiste who I have come to appreciate very much.

Our CULT of POTATO show is starting to garner attention in Las Vegas, where the World Tour Premiere Party happens at the Contemporary Art Collective, February 4th. This traveling exhibit, featuring home towners Andrea Avery and Nina Ganci along with others in the International Potato Arts Collective, will be making its way to St. Louis in July (opening at Mad Art July 8th) and then will be traveling on to New York City and Rotterdam. Those of you who haven’t attended a Potato Eaters Party will want to start clearing your calendar now.

Collabarts.org

Collab Arts is a site dedicated specifically to collaborative arts.AA They’re still awaiting the necessary funding to be able to feature art projects of their own, but in the meanwhile they have a great collection of essays on collaborative art that are worth a gander, ‘specially if you’re an artiste-intellectualista type.AA Their site takes about 47,000 years to load but I promise, no disappointments.AA I also like their web design.

Synergy and Such

SITO is a website for individual and collaborative artists. Here you will find art portfolios of hundreds of artists around the world. Also, SITO.org creates and hosts a number of Internet-based collaborative art projects, including the award-winning Gridcosm and HyGrid.

The spiritual commandments of the Grid are also important. These are in accord with the original philosophy of Gridcosm.

• Thou shalt blend unto thy neighbor’s gridsquare.
• Thou shalt not hog the whole Grid to thyself.

The reason for these commandments is that the purpose of our game is collaboration. Like a jam session, you can’t just play solo. Like sex, it gets silly sometimes. When we are really in the groove, our 8 separate gridpieces and the motherpiece form a coherent whole, and it sings. Then we party in the Gridcosm forum, and post up things like "Wowie! That was fun!"

Check out the SITIO site for collaborative artists.

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

In June 2007 Iain and Jane travelled to Auckland to make the next in their Precious Little series, Make me Yours again. Twelve Aucklanders participated in the filming which happened over three days. Then Iain and Jane edited and produced the piece in the following week.

Make me yours again is a 34 minute unscripted portrait of twelve people talking directly to the camera about music, love and loss. Iain and Jane use the premise of the homemade mix tape as a trigger to spark each of their subjects into talking openly. Watch a short online video excerpt of the work.

Peep the site