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Automata On The March
OldSchool writes "The Morris Museum (NJ) was recently awarded The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of 700 historic mechanical musical instruments and automata (mechanical figures). The extraordinary collection represents one of the most significant of its kind in the world.
There's pictures, demos, and animation of these devices at the museum website."
You just know that the museum director has gone mad and is currently hatching a diabolical scheme to get Data in that collection, too...
---
she won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
My Formal Languages and Automata Theory class is finally going to be useful!
Play some free games
It's in Jersey...
I wonderd if they have the skeleton of that little person they used in that automagic chess "machine?"
It's got to be incomplete without an animatronic bear playing banjo and singing, "It's a small world after all."
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Sounds like the DoD procurement department.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I'm assuming they're finite state, otherwise that would make for a rather surreal museum experience.
Don't you have to win a reward?
Sounds more like they were just willed this stuff to show case.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
In Ironforge, near Tinker Town. They have a mechaniod museum there with some interesting exhibits. I stopped in there before making another linen run - man I've been playing too much WoW since it came out last week...
"As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
Sept 27 2007 the little drummer boy becomes self aware
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
York in England used to have a museum of automata which I went to once, the York Museum of Automata, but it closed down - back in 1996, apparently. I wonder what happened to its collection - there were some impressive pieces...
This was posted 2 days ago on Boing Boing.
Get moving, boys. We're wating for our sexbots.
--- Ban humanity.
Not to rain on your parade or anything, but flautist is a perfectly good synonym for flutist.
Seriously though, a music playing ring does seem pretty bling-bling. An ancient cow-herders song is unlikely to impress the ladies though...
Daar is nie 'n lepel nie
...that looked at the title and thought "Cool! An interview with Hopcroft and Ullman."
Then I click and see the doll dusting the picture, and I go mad Cthluthlu-style.
Whever I look at those automatons, I can't help but think robotics and programming. The drums encoded the music and all. I wondered how much this inspired automata theory in computer science... I wonder if learning about automatons and watch making will give one an edge in robotics making today.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
And on the next USR download, they will take over the world!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
To begin with, to help all fellow nerds to understand that terms such as "cybernetics", "algorithm" or even "program" are not directly related to microchip-based modern computers. The term cyber- is often foolishly interpreted as "something computerlike" (especially in media buzzwords such as cyberporn or cyberbusiness) while it comes from ancient Greek (kybernetikos) and means actually "steering". I think it's good for any nerd worth its name to abstract sometimes from modern computer hardware and think of the whole theory of steering and algorithms in its pure form.
By the way: since pornography comes also from ancient Greek and means "depiction of a whore", cyberporn literally could be translated to "steering whore". Hmmmmm...
hey, some of this compares favourably to what the music industry wants us to buy
What keeps me going is my inertia.
I wonder if they have all those wind-up and battery powered toys that were popular in the 50's and 60's. Go Robbie!
As a geek, I always found the Automata fascinating, even from my youngest days. It was the science, it was the art, and it was the sheer ambition and talent that it took to create these things that amazed me. Art that moves and acts, science in motion.
I'm glad to see this and hope I can visit it. It's always good to understand one's technical past.
I wonder if there will be a museum of programming some day? Will there be ancient systems running Half-Life? Will people marvel that a PS2 could "do all that when it was so prmitive", etc. Will we, crotchey old geeks, go there and reminisce?
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Jeez, a "vibrant educational and cultural center in New Jersey"? I live ~5 minutes from there...went to church right around the corner for a while...
:-)
I'd hardly call it a "vibrant" anything! Well, they did have a Harley exhibit once, it was pretty cool....but it's such a small place. I guess then it's fitting that they have these small objects for show
AccountKiller
The Musee des Arts and Metiers in Paris (France!) has a couple of rooms of automata. They show the objects and have movies of them working.s /info.html
http://www.paris.org/Musees/Arts.Metier
DeBence Antique Music World has some great stuff along the same lines... and an antique website to match.
"steering whore" Sounds like what I need for my bassboat! Oh yeah, and a "cooler Ho" to fetch me berrs! Hmmmm...*wakes up from daydream*
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
next time i'm in nj i'll (nevermind).... atlantic city wins again.
Get your torrents...