So this morning, as I'm getting ready for work, I hear an NPR story on toddlers and robots. The wonderful neuro-scientists, behavoralists and engineers at SONY are testing a 'bot and it's ability to socialize and be accepted by toddlers. But that's not where the story gets weird...
Turns out this story is a perennial thing on the news circuit. Through the power of the church of google, and while trying to dig up a media report on the Sony robots, I found a ton of press releases on the 'bots Sony is developing. The Sony version of the humanoid 'bot is the Qrio, and the "entertainment" 'bot, effectively a robot dog, is part of a group called AIBO.
Robo-SPOT is alive! And has voice recognition abilites!
And ....And Robo-SPOT understands English and Spanish!
And it turns out they've been running the machine-interaction lab with toddlers for a few years now, if this is the same lab (which I think it is....) Read all about how robots are teacher's little helpers: Robots attend UCSD nursery school in research study
Of course there are the detractors, namely child care providers. In a lovely and lo-tech site, the potential digital outsourcers are listed.
Daycare workers fear their jobs will be taken by robots....
Does this strike you as cool or creepy? Robots taking over? I can't really imagine playing hopscotch with Qrio but maybe I'm just too old school....
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Robots versus Babies
Monday, November 5, 2007
Stewart possibly pays people to picket
There's some confusion, but it looks like Jon Stewart is paying his writers to participate in the writer's guild strike. As always, he's a badass.
Who's a lefty?
You may not know this, but HON is overrun with left-handeders (I believe 9), Capricorns (I believe 5), and, the most special of all, left-handed Capricorns (I believe 4). I was of course delighted to see there is finally scientific support for our south paw superiority.
Funny and very, very true
I thought of the lovely La C when I read this article. I giggled most of the way through it, because I think it's dead on, although I suspect the equally lovely Ms. Nerdette will disagree.
Since we're callin people out...
Oh, the drinking will continue. Especially since our friend "That Guy" is a finalist for a Fulbright scholarship... kind of a big deal.
And, Sophie and John are engaged!!!!!!!! Hooray!!!!
The HON community is kickin' some ass right now! Keep it up!
Curing AIDS is nothing - we could do it next week =)
Big Ups to the Clancinator
Because Kellie would never give herself "props" (can you tell I teach in PG County?) for kicking the living crap out of the GRE, I feel like somone needs to do it for her. She worked, and drank, her ass off studying for this damn thing, and all that booze paid off in the end. So Kellie, here's to you. You are an inspiration to us all. But now that the test is over we need to find something else to drive you crazy so that you don't sober up on us. Who's down for curing AIDS?
You're not microblogging alone
Happy Monday morning, nerds and nerdettes!
So the next time someone says Web 2.0 technology is annoying, irrelevant, or silly, let them know... Twitter saves lives, people!
The story of how Twitter kept one unhappy nerd from flinging himself off a bridge, and how truly pervasive these new methods of communication have become -- after the jump.
Twitter is a microblogging site -- predating Facebook -- where people will post their "status", effectively what they're up to at the moment. Gmail chat and the plethora of instant messaging applications have a similar function.
I have to admit, originally I was skeptical. I mean, who the hell cares if I'm plucking my eyebrows, drinking a cup of coffee, or reacting to the score from last night's game?
Turns out, Twitter actually saved someone life --
"Mr. Starr, who was driving around near his hometown, wrote in Twitter’s characteristic staccato, stream-of-consciousness style about picking up some chicken wings and getting a new haircut. Then his postings took a darker turn.
At 6:02, he sent out a note about a nearby bridge: “Maybe I should jump from it?”
At 8:17, bemoaning his lack of close friends, he speculated about being the first “Twitter suicide.”
At 9:39, there was a final note: “Alright this is it. Parked my car. I wish everyone who ever was nice to me well. See you in the next life.”
Mr. Starr didn’t jump from the bridge, the Sunshine Skyway across Tampa Bay. The police found him asleep in his car the next morning. But the incident didn’t go unnoticed among Twitter users: Mr. Starr’s iPhone was jammed with text messages from people frantically trying to reach him. Some had alerted the local police."
Totally worth the read:
The Global Sympathetic Audience
Fetish? Secret Obsession? Yes please...
Good morning my darling bloggers. Leave it up to your sweet sweet Dorki (you likeee the name changeee?) to begin our morning with a discussion about fetishes. On my way to work this morning, I found myself staring at a man next to me in traffic picking his nose like a wild animal. Clearly, I was loving every moment of it. I couldn't take my eyes off this man who seemed so at peace finger-deep in booger heaven. And at this moment I realized, my goodness, I am obsessed with boogers! I love the s#*t out of boogers(I'm trying to cut back on swearing)! I don't so much pick my own nose as I do other people's. What drives me even wilder than boogers themselves are the reactions I get when I dive at people's noses. No one sees it coming, it's awesome! My other fetish, I like to "accidentally" grab Nuraido's boobs. I pretty much do it every time I see her fine ars. And now, I'm noticing other perverts like me and their little fetishes. I have a new friend (we will call him "Elbows") who has a thing for, you guesses it, elbows! He basically plans his day according to how many elbow skins he can pinch and play with on perfect strangers. He's been seen frolicking the DMV and public bath houses. Ok, that's a lie, he is actually as uncreepy as Mathgimp. He just thinks elbow skins are fun to pull at, especially on old people because, and I quote him, "their skin stands up for hours!" Bravo to Elbows for his honesty. So my loves, I am humbly requesting your best, most foul, most intriguing fetish admissions and self incriminations. The blog is a safe space children, don't be afraid. GO ELBOWS!!!
Friday, November 2, 2007
Blame the bloggers, protestors.
Sour grapes for President Bush. So his communication director thought it would be a good idea to blame MoveOn bloggers and CodePink protestors. What the hell was Dana Perino thinking?
So last night, Bush decided to go on the attack and blame all of our problems on the Far Left Wing of the the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.
"When it comes to funding our troops, some in Washington should spend more time responding to the warnings of terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the requests of our commanders on the ground, and less time responding to the demands of MoveOn.org bloggers and Code Pink protesters."
Um, yeah. My good friends at Think Progress have an insightful posting, and the footage. Also, the comments? Pretty funny.
Happy Friday, y'all.
xox,
Nerdette
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Weird Science Experiments. OMG.
From today's Guardian. Elephant on acid, dog head grafts and a seesaw to revive the dead. Holy mad scientists! Also, breaking: Scientific community rife with zen masters of the obvious.
Top 10 most bizarre experiments (with my comments, where warranted.)
Elephant receives massive dose of LSD to see if it induces temporary madness.
Conclusion: LSD is fatal to elephants
(this is making me snarf my coffee, and it's mean but funny. The idea of an elephant tripping balls is funny, but only in theory or far, far away behind glass.)
Aircraft passengers told they are about to die in crash make more mistakes in written test.
Conclusion: Extreme stress harms cognitive ability
(naaaaah, really? Suprised this didn't cause a heartattack.)
Two-headed dogs created by Soviet surgeon, above, but die within a month.
Conclusion: Tissue rejection makes animals incompatible
(Also, that plan for Cerberus is so totally not happening! Damn.)
Psychologist begins experiments on son to test if laughing is spontaneous when tickled.
Conclusion: Laughing is an innate response to tickling
(And Piaget doesn't know what hit him.)
A room of nail-biting boys is played a recording or spoken announcements to break the habit while they sleep.
Conclusion: Sleep learning is possible. Others prove otherwise.
(Or social embarrassment can also break nasty habits. Gross.)
To test if people can sleep through anything, volunteers have their eyes taped open and bright lights shone in their eyes.
Conclusion: The men dozed off in 12 minutes.
(Typical. Yawn.)
People asked to smell ammonia, put hands in a bucket of frogs and watch porn.
Conclusion: Disgust has no single expression.
(Personally, I find frogs kind of cute...)
Doctor rubs vomit from yellow fever patients into open wounds and drinks it.
Conclusion: Mistakenly claims it is not infectious
(Could have fooled me.)
Animal corpses placed on seesaw to restart circulation and bring them back to life.
Conclusion: Two animals survive with blindness and brain damage
Fake female turkey dismantled limb by limb to find minimum that a male will mate with.
Conclusion: Male turkeys aroused by a head on a stick, but not a headless body
See the full article here.