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Robot Maker Mark Tilden: All Life is Analog
simpl3x points to this New York Times article on master robotsmith Mark Tilden, writing: "It is interesting what makes a good toy." My favorite line is Tilden saying "I want to sell millions of toys, but what I really hope is that a bunch of kids who open them up use the motors and things to build something else ... They are my colleagues of the future."
Someone forgot to post the obligatory 'NY times warning, free reg required'. I always avoid those stories like the plague, and would've avoided this one. Yeah go ahead and mod me down.
I dunno if Elden or anyone still sells the erector sets, but those kicked butt (though I got my finger stuck in the gearbox of a motor when I was about 3) and any extension of that principle of toy design has hight marks with me. =)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Personally the most interesting and sickening part of the article was how they wanted him to convert his "neural network" into microprocessor functions so that it would be harder to reverse engineer.
Don't these people have better things to do that worry that some kid MIGHT be getting a little more intelligent due to natural curiousity and his ability to take apart his toys? If they are so worried about their competitors, they'll need a whole hell of a lot more than a microprocessor to stop them from hacking it.
It's as bad as copy protection schemes. The only people that it causes problems for are the everyday normal people NOT involved with things like that. Anyone who is already knows enough to circumvent any lame copy protection scheme.
Thus the need for hassling out a sensible system of ethics. Otherwise we may be in trouble. Of course, it may be that man, in his currwenty state, is not capable of developing a system of ethics, and the robots will be in a position similar the Kirk in that famous star trek episode, where there is the alternat barbarian universe. The barbarian kirk could not deal with a civilized world.
We may wind up being the barbarians, more or less. Which would explain things like micorsoft, enron, goerge bush, bill clinton, rush limbaugh, matt drudge, geraldo rivera, etc.
the truly civilized, like linus torvald, are few and far between.
[okay, enough sucking up here ;-) ]
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I didn't have Lego kits, I had a pile of Legos parts. I had a pile of resistors, caps, wires switches, motors, batteries, lights, some electrical tape, and a soldering iron. I built model rockets. I never bought a pre-made one.
First off, what you can do lies in your statement:
Quit shopping at Toys-R-Us. Give your kid a small hammer, some nails, and some scrap wood - let him build a tree house, a downhill racer, anything! Find things that he can take apart, and put back together (ok, at first he will be a "one-way-mechanic" - but teach him how to go both ways as time goes on). Get those resistors, etc - teach him how to build a motor, a telegraph, a generator, etc. Get your kid a copy of this book TODAY! If you have ever seen this book, you know that kids of yesterday were, by far, much more serious "self-starters" and experimenters than they are today.
You know what to do - so do it! As your kid grows older, teach him how to pull apart cars, computers, etc. If he wants to focus on software, let him - but try to teach him the hardware side as well - because knowing BOTH is very useful.
Encourage him to study his science, and to take shop classes, as well as drafting (CAD?) classes as he grows. Foster in him not just how to fix things, or how to build things - but how to design new things. Further, teach him how to work off-the-shelf stuff into new things (what I mean by this is learning the ability to look at an off-the-shelf item as a design object, rather than just the object itself, so that it can be incorporated into larger creations - like how to take a certain water valve, and use it and change it in ways for a totally new application).
Trips to the junk yard and yard sales become part finding expeditions! Don't neglect metalwork (my downfalling, until recently!) - heck, give him a welding rig or torch when he is 10 - but teach him proper respect - that it isn't a toy - but a tool that can cause harm, but can also cause much GREATER creation and invention! Build a gocart together! Or how about a wind generator (would go quite nice with the treehouse)? Convert a lawnmower to radio control! Build model rockets from gift wrapping tubes! Build a spud-launcher!
Want to foster creativity in him RIGHT NOW if he is less than 10 years old (hell, even if he is 10 years old or more)? Teach him how to make paper airplanes. Teach him how they fly, why they fly, how to "control" them (flaps, rudders, etc). Then, bring in origami folding techniques to make unique style planes (realistic tails, cockpits, and wing shapes are easily possible - especially once you know the swan folding techniques). Maybe build a hot air balloon with tissue paper?
The possibilities are endless - but I will end here. The gist of creative learning is to stop being extremely protective of your child (remember that book I refered you to? It shows how to make lead acid batteries! For KIDS!), and start being a parent and a teacher. The fact that you are bemoaning the loss of building toys reflects that you already know this. Take it to the next level...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Information on a computer does not need to be stored as a physical object. I am beating my head into the observer changing the observed object when I think of how perfect values of pi could be stored on an analog computer but that problem has nothing to do with perfect physical objects, which according to Plato are impossible. In other words, you have just restated a 2500-year-old argument that does not apply here. Information does not follow the laws of physics. That is why the information carried by our DNA is allowed to get more complex with time instead of the opposite, as entropy would dictate.
The problem of the value of pi being changed because of its use in computation (being observed by other parts of the machine) could be solved by skewing the value initially to allow for the change that would occur by checking it again.
As brilliant as Descartes was in applying graphing to geometry, he pigeon holed us into always assuming that shapes implying numbers, which on close examination is a ludicrous assumption. Shapes can expressed as numbers but that does not mean shapes are numbers.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.