But look at the upside. The total price tag [for Virgin Galactic] is half the cost of a single Airbus A340-600 - and Virgin Atlantic ordered 26 of those last summer. In return, Branson gets bragging rights to one of the cooler breakthroughs of the early 21st century, with rocket-powered marketing opportunities that could fuel excitement - and sales - in his entire 200-company holding group.
People often complain about how much stuff like this supposedly costs, but it's interesting to see what a small amount it is compared to how much is typically thrown around in the airline industry. The marketing value alone is probably worth the cost of the fleet.
Why do the solutions have to come from the chip manufacturers? There's plenty of great third-party solutions, just check Quiet PC. I already have one of their power supplies, and just ordered a couple of their SilentDrive enclosures and a low-noise heatsink/fan combo.
Another option is to just order one of their AcoustiCases.
It seems these guys haven't heard of the way you convert force to distance and vis versa.
I'm sure they have. Problem is, things like that tend to greatly increase the complexity of the system, and much of the appeal of this is its simplicity and resilience.
I'm also curious to see if this sort of technology will be banned outright, or be allowed in certain circumstances. For example, what if somebody is injured and they make use of this technology to recuperate?
Check out these folks, who put together a prehensile robotic tail. The apparatus registers EMG signals from skin electrodes and uses them to control the tail.
Then a well-known crackpot wrote a Wikipedia page about himself, only to have it, er, rendered more objective by other contributors. This drove him wild. Again the page was locked (in what seemed to me to be an admirably detached state) to prevent further vandalism.
Does anyone know who this is referring to?
On a side note, some time ago I tried to create an article on the infamous AI crank Mentifex, but Mentifex himself (who also frequents slashdot) ended up vandalizing the article repeatedly. It got so bad and was so difficult to maintain that in the end the article was simply deleted.
And now that I think about it a little more, it's also possible that they could be using something different, where you emit IR light into the environment. You then use an IR-sensitive camera, and the IR brightness tends to inversely correlate with distance. It's not as accurate as using a rangefinder, but you can get distances for your entire visual field, rather than a single ray.
Yeah, they're pretty neat little devices. I once took a course where we put together little wheeled lego robots with the IR rangefinders stuck on, and used them to do things like generate maps of mazes.
what's frightening is the number of people who voted for bush not because of any of his fiscal, foreign, economic, scientific, military, educational, or any other policy -- but that the sole reason they voted for bush is because he's a christian who is against homosexuality.
Do you have any numbers for how many people voted for him solely on the basis of his homosexuality stance? And please don't try citing that debunked "moral values" exit poll.
Unfortunately, I've only been able to locate a little bit so far. If anyone has old movies lying around on floppy disks or something, please let me know at neuronexmachina@gmail.com
Also, Stunt Island runs like a charm in DOSBox, and you can typically acquire it from an abandonware site like The Underdogs.
Actually, If they're anything like the original Robosapien, these are immensely hackable -- Mark Tilden (the creator) actually designed them with this in mind. Check out here and here to see what sorts of things people have done.
As I was reading the above I pictured standing in my living room holding index cards with commands written on them in front of my Robosapien and it reading them and nodding that it understood.
Interestingly, the AIBO ERS-7 does have little cards like this. They're called AIBO Cards, and when you hold them up in front of the AIBO it recognizes them and does things like dance, go to its power station, turn around, etc. I think this sort of recognition needs a little more processing power than the Robosapien has, though.
I wonder if you could have the Roboraptor hunting several Robopets, with the Robopets learning to run away. Then you could send in a remote-controlled Robosapien V2 to pick up the Roboraptor and lift it up into the air.
I could definitely see a modified/hacked version of one of these making a great "greeter" in the entrance of restaurants. It'd be really cool to interact with one of these while waiting to be seated, perhaps while it suggests various items to order.
Darn, somebody beat me to the submission. Anyways, here's my version, which has some more information:
Robotics physicist Mark Tilden has unveiled his follow-ups to the Robosapien, which was mentioned on slashdot last year and sold rather well during the holidays. The foremost is the $200 Robosapien V2, which will be able to lie down, stand up, speak, use its built-in camera to recognize objects and people, and follow a laser-traced path. The $70 Robopet will be able to perform simple tricks and learn through positive and negative reinforcement. The $100 Roboraptor is covered with sensors and will have three different moods: hunter, cautious, and playful. The Robopet is scheduled to launch in July, with the Robosapien V2 and Roboraptor scheduled for September. I can't wait to see what hacks people come up with for this.
Slashdot Mirror
From the article:
But look at the upside. The total price tag [for Virgin Galactic] is half the cost of a single Airbus A340-600 - and Virgin Atlantic ordered 26 of those last summer. In return, Branson gets bragging rights to one of the cooler breakthroughs of the early 21st century, with rocket-powered marketing opportunities that could fuel excitement - and sales - in his entire 200-company holding group.
People often complain about how much stuff like this supposedly costs, but it's interesting to see what a small amount it is compared to how much is typically thrown around in the airline industry. The marketing value alone is probably worth the cost of the fleet.
Why do the solutions have to come from the chip manufacturers? There's plenty of great third-party solutions, just check Quiet PC. I already have one of their power supplies, and just ordered a couple of their SilentDrive enclosures and a low-noise heatsink/fan combo.
Another option is to just order one of their AcoustiCases.
It seems these guys haven't heard of the way you convert force to distance and vis versa.
I'm sure they have. Problem is, things like that tend to greatly increase the complexity of the system, and much of the appeal of this is its simplicity and resilience.
I'm also curious to see if this sort of technology will be banned outright, or be allowed in certain circumstances. For example, what if somebody is injured and they make use of this technology to recuperate?
Check out these folks, who put together a prehensile robotic tail. The apparatus registers EMG signals from skin electrodes and uses them to control the tail.
Actually, now that I think about it some more, the article might be referring to Gene Ray's Time Cube.
From the article:
Then a well-known crackpot wrote a Wikipedia page about himself, only to have it, er, rendered more objective by other contributors. This drove him wild. Again the page was locked (in what seemed to me to be an admirably detached state) to prevent further vandalism.
Does anyone know who this is referring to?
On a side note, some time ago I tried to create an article on the infamous AI crank Mentifex, but Mentifex himself (who also frequents slashdot) ended up vandalizing the article repeatedly. It got so bad and was so difficult to maintain that in the end the article was simply deleted.
There are robots which can exhibit the same sorts of responses. Should they also be regarded in the same way as humans?
Actually, there is. For example, very few animals can pass the mirror test.
Thanks for the links.
Just because they are not as bright does not mean they don't feel pain.
You have proof that all animals are self-sentient and consciously aware of pain? If so, many in the scientific community would love to have your data.
And now that I think about it a little more, it's also possible that they could be using something different, where you emit IR light into the environment. You then use an IR-sensitive camera, and the IR brightness tends to inversely correlate with distance. It's not as accurate as using a rangefinder, but you can get distances for your entire visual field, rather than a single ray.
Yeah, they're pretty neat little devices. I once took a course where we put together little wheeled lego robots with the IR rangefinders stuck on, and used them to do things like generate maps of mazes.
You could have cats hunting Robopets, and Roboraptors hunting cats. It'd be an entire freakin' ecosystem. ;)
Why is the right commentary always dragging the discussion into areas that involve "amoral" "Homosexual Agenda" etc.?
Can you cite some circumstances in which Orson Scott Card or the parent poster have done this?
what's frightening is the number of people who voted for bush not because of any of his fiscal, foreign, economic, scientific, military, educational, or any other policy -- but that the sole reason they voted for bush is because he's a christian who is against homosexuality.
Do you have any numbers for how many people voted for him solely on the basis of his homosexuality stance? And please don't try citing that debunked "moral values" exit poll.
I've actually been trying to archive as much as I can of old stunt island films before they disappear forever. The archive is available here:
http://halelamien.no-ip.org/stunt_island/
Unfortunately, I've only been able to locate a little bit so far. If anyone has old movies lying around on floppy disks or something, please let me know at neuronexmachina@gmail.com
Also, Stunt Island runs like a charm in DOSBox, and you can typically acquire it from an abandonware site like The Underdogs.
Hah! Anyways, in this case I figured it was appropriate since the information overlap between the actual submission and mine were minimal.
Actually, If they're anything like the original Robosapien, these are immensely hackable -- Mark Tilden (the creator) actually designed them with this in mind. Check out here and here to see what sorts of things people have done.
I'm assuming it's referring to an infrared range sensor, which operates like a simple variant of radar.
As I was reading the above I pictured standing in my living room holding index cards with commands written on them in front of my Robosapien and it reading them and nodding that it understood.
Interestingly, the AIBO ERS-7 does have little cards like this. They're called AIBO Cards, and when you hold them up in front of the AIBO it recognizes them and does things like dance, go to its power station, turn around, etc. I think this sort of recognition needs a little more processing power than the Robosapien has, though.
I wonder if you could have the Roboraptor hunting several Robopets, with the Robopets learning to run away. Then you could send in a remote-controlled Robosapien V2 to pick up the Roboraptor and lift it up into the air.
I could definitely see a modified/hacked version of one of these making a great "greeter" in the entrance of restaurants. It'd be really cool to interact with one of these while waiting to be seated, perhaps while it suggests various items to order.
Darn, somebody beat me to the submission. Anyways, here's my version, which has some more information:
Robotics physicist Mark Tilden has unveiled his follow-ups to the Robosapien, which was mentioned on slashdot last year and sold rather well during the holidays. The foremost is the $200 Robosapien V2, which will be able to lie down, stand up, speak, use its built-in camera to recognize objects and people, and follow a laser-traced path. The $70 Robopet will be able to perform simple tricks and learn through positive and negative reinforcement. The $100 Roboraptor is covered with sensors and will have three different moods: hunter, cautious, and playful. The Robopet is scheduled to launch in July, with the Robosapien V2 and Roboraptor scheduled for September. I can't wait to see what hacks people come up with for this.
Shouldn't it be trivial for google's PageRank to either ignore trackback links or give them a lower score?