Slashdot Mirror
Miss Digital World 2005
dnix writes "With the slogan: "Don't hate me because I'm digital" this year we have a nice new Top Digital Model, called Mi, from Shinichi Yoshimoto. She is a nice cybernetic geisha who was chosen from 15 finalists from Italy, Germany, Spain, Pakistan, Iran, Usa, Chile, India, Australia, Brasil and Mexico."
This might be interesting news, though I remember reading this article the first time, in December 2004. Is anyone ambitious enough to search and see if this is indeed a dupe too?
Brasil is absolutely correct.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Here's a cached version of the page. Link
Wow, amazing....you seem to enjoy bashing American's ignorance while exposing your own:read the first sentence here, it tells you the official name of Bra(s/z)il in Portugese is...........drumroll please.....
República Federativa do Brasil!
And guess what, I'm an American! I've also had tech jobs on 3 continents before my 25th birthday! Go back and learn something about the world, then we can talk
Monstar L
The appropriate phrase would be: "I'd hit it"
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I think this is brilliant. I little pointless but brilliant.
You can find some more great 3D stuff here. http://raph.com/3dartists/artgallery/ Some of the leading ladies are many years old.
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Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
In fact, she exists only from the neck up
Pics of many of the finalists (including neck down) here
My pics.
http://www.missdigitalworld.com.nyud.net:8090/MDWC ontest/showpage/177
http://www.missdigitalworld.com.nyud.net:8090/MDWC ontest/showpage/179
http://www.missdigitalworld.com.nyud.net:8090/MDWC ontest/showpage/181
You're on your own with the videos
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Go!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Kaya was proportedly created to be a virtual newscaster, or some such. She was designed to have big teeth, pudgy nose, blemished skin -- all traits humans find unattractive, so as to appear non-threatening. In some ways she is the antithesis of this contest, and your complaint. Just a little FYI. They don't HAVE to be virtual sex toys, they could be giving you updated information at a mall kisok, for example.
What I want to do is offer an explanation why this happens. In most cases, the bachelors has nothing to do with the job you turn out to perform. Even in technical fields, you only use a tiny fraction of your college knowledge. So why do they require it?
Fundamental mis-use of statistics really. COORELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION! People see that on average college graduates earn some big amount more in their lifetime than non-college grads. So what do they think? If everyone goes to college, then everyone will make more money!
BZZZZT! Try again! The reason college grads make more money isn't simply the piece of sheep skin. More than likely they are smarter/harder workers, and have a real passion for their work(the later is probably much more important than the former). Therefore they are driven to succeed. Forcing someone who doesn't want to go to college into college does not somehow magically bestow those traits upon them, and costs the individual and society at large a lot of money that could have been invested elsewhere. Furthermore, it might stop them from doing something amazing with their life(such as start their own business etc) instead of sitting in a class where they are bored. I think the "feel gooders" who think that everyone is entitled to a degree so they can feel great about themselves really need to come back to reality. Not everyone needs a college education, not everyone wants one, not having one does not condemn you to failure.
Monstar L
Each of these digital "people" suffers from the same problem most movies full of digital actors suffer from: they look like animated dead people. We humans are pretty good at accepting cartoon characters as "real" when they don't look like humans, but once they start looking too real we start looking for those details indescribable that show they are alive. When they don't move/look 100% natural, they tend to just register in our minds as dead bodies moved by puppet strings...
Posted from the wireless couch.
I do a fair bit of CGI profesionally, and I have to say a lot of these images and the work people have done in general on rendering humans is really amazing. There is also a lot more to creating a convincing looking human than to creating a photorealistic city, car, office building, etc.
I've seen better images than what were in the wired article (the other site was slashdotted unfortunately), but they were still highly impressive.
A lot of the problem is that skin is one of the most difficult materials to accurately render. Aside from minor imperfections and blemishes that lend realism to an image, it's difficult to manage proper material attributes that look "real". Such as multiple layers, subsurface refraction, bump mapping, reflectivity, etc.
If I weren't afraid of slashdotting my own server I would post some of my own renders, but I am, so I won't.
Anyone got a cached link of the main site? I'd like to have a look at some of the other entries.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Tell your Catholic friends (well the girls at least) that if they are in a position to get married, the ClearBlue Easy fertility monitor is a really great way to monitor their cycle and avoid pregnancy. If they use it 'religiously' in the same way secular girls have to use birth control pills, etc. then they have just as good birth control as any other method. By using the fertility monitor they can have sex 20 days a month... which is pretty good. The hardest part is to schedule the wedding and honeymoon for the 'right' time ;-p
;-p
My wife uses it... I love checking it in the morning before I shower...heheh another good day
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
If you look at the girls in the article... that are the 2004 contestants... you'll see the winner (Kaya) won exactly because she was draw with human imperfections (her skin don't look so smooth neither poreless)
That or there's the symptothermal method where the female checks their body temperature upon waking which is also highly accurate. However, using non-artifical methods shouldn't be seen as a carte blanche. A good Catholic should consider whether they're actually delaying kids for a good reason (can't support them yet, conditions currently make childbirth an iffy proposition) or if it's for more selfish reasons (want to buy that new sportscar first, can't stand the possibility of losing free time to tending children, don't want to risk ruining their figure). *shrug* And not everyone follows that, but that's what's suggested.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
The joke originally cited the rhythm method, which did have a fair amount of "failure" to it. Many people either haven't noticed that the method has improved, or don't want to acknowledge it. *shrug* NFP is in the 99.999% range when done properly and is statistically correlated with happy and long marriages. I'm not sure why they're so afraid to consider it.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
One would first need a homebrew CNC milling machine, with an X/Y bed of sized around 1 meter per side, and a Z travel for the milling head of around a foot. The milling head can be a simple dremel tool with either a tool extension or a way to tilt the tool or rotate the material to be worked on. It is assummed the doll will be built in sections (the why will be apparent). Enough information on building such a machine is easily available on the internet, parts can be sourced from surplus, structural material can be either "free", surplus, or new, and controlling software is freely available, and in some limited cases, easy to develop (I am sure someone has made simple CNC milling software using QBASIC controlling the parallel port, which is hooked to the servos).
Once you have the CNC milling machine built (not an easy task alone, but sure to be rewarding!), you then need to choose the material to mill. The easiest and cheapest would be plaster of paris. Build half-thickness molds of plaster of paris, then reverse-impression mill them with the model. Alignment accuracy is important, as these molds will form the parts you are building, and the edges of the molds (after milling) must line up accurately. After milling, you will likely notice tool marks left behind, you will need to carefully (using dental picks, files, sandpaper, etc) smooth all of this out.
Once you have all of these molds created, you can now start casting with latex (or, if you have the money, silicone rubber). Plenty of information on the internet about how to do this - just realize that latex in the large amounts needed won't be cheap. Also, realize that at this point, if you do things correctly, you can insert metal/plastic armatures (up to and including robotics!) into the molds prior to filling them with latex. These things would themselves have to be carefully engineered, but that is what your CNC machine is for, right? Come to think of it - you could eMachineShop the molds and the armature parts (at significant cost)...
At this point, it is just pouring, assembly (got to learn how to apply hair, latex paint, where to get fake eyeballs, etc - but all of this too is available on the internet), etc. After all, you got time, right? You are somebody with not much of a life building his (or her) own RealDoll, right? Actually - you want to know what might make you some money? Troll the internet looking for all the information, from the ground up, to custom build such a doll. From building the CNC machine to how to make the casts, to pouring latex, etc - include sources, sample 3D model files, etc. Dump it all on a few CD-Rs or a DVD-R - then sell it in the adult section of Ebay.
Remember - this will be the best prom evar...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Looks to me as if the eyes were taken straight from the top National Geographic magazine cover (http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/afghangir l/).
You can't help but stare at those eyes for a few seconds... very captivating.