The fact that biped after biped robot is produced that tries to crack the problem by brute force without taking lessons from humans.
Just as babies can't start running from the get-go, their tech slowly evolves as well.
I don't think that's a valid analogy, but let's ignore that.
The fact that it can balance on two legs and withstand pushes is already remarkable. Self balancing is a huge step towards faster methods of locomotion.
Based on how it runs, pushing off the balls of its feet, swinging its body with its arms as counterbalance on the opposite side, it seems to have a remarkably human stride. Discounting the overly bent knees.
Also, I would be amazed if Japanese people haven't taken into account martial arts. They've probably spent months, if not years, with motion capture tech on various humans running to get this far.
I agree that it looks much better than previous attempts. But much of the better look is faked, in the sense that it mimics human behavior on the surface, despite the fundamentally different construction. In humans, the arms swing because of a complicated rotational movement of the spine, together with movement freedom in pelvis and shoulder girdle. In humans, all body parts from top to toes are connected by muscles, fascia, and other tissues, which cross over from one body part to others. E.g., the thigh is moved by muscles that extend across the pelvis up to the spine, abdomen, rips, and indirectly even the neck and head. Any movement in the upper body due to thigh movement is an inherent result of the construction.
That all seems totally absent here. It looks to me as if the arm swinging is purely there to make it look more human and its counterbalancing effect is small, if there at all. Look at the absolutely huge rigid torso, it cannot be counterbalanced much by the tiny arms.
Alleging that being Japanese automatically means that one has knowledge about martial arts or will always take them into account when working with body stuff is a bit of positive stereotyping. Martial arts are not so much a part of shared Japanese culture, anyway, at least compared to China, and the Japanese arts are, well, let's say there is a reason why I mentioned T'ai-Chi Ch'uan and not a Japanese art. Evens so, maybe they have looked into it, but I doubt it. The robot would look different if they had, even though technology is limited.
I don't get it. While impressive and cool-looking in itself, it's obvious that the robot misses a host of methods the human body can employ to move gracefully and efficiently on two legs. I'd suggest developers of humanoid robots try to understand how humans do it. Research into martial arts should teach them a thing or two, T'ai-Chi Ch'uan should work especially well.
Shit happens. It's practically public domain except for the restriction on the name. You don't want to have to diff the LICENSE file each time you check out "GPL" software.
What's the "fear," "uncertainty" or "doubt" caused by that post?
It makes releasing a program under GPL look scary by wrongly claiming that if you do so you are forced to provide the source to anyone asks. If this was indeed the case it would add uncertainty about the consequences of releasing under GPL. If this wrong belief caught on, it would add doubts whether releasing under GPL is a good idea.
use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar).
If you want to use our preamble in a modified license, please write to for permission.
. But the fSF discourages it because such changed versions "are almost certainly incompatible with the GPL."
How generous. As I really won't need Helvetica privately and have licensed access to it at work, please choose a charitable organization of your liking, maybe the FSF, Debian, or Médecins Sans Frontières:)
That's a nonsensical argument. If I could choose between Helvetica and Arial when buying Windows, I would take the Helvetica (if I bought Windows at all, which I don't). As it is, however, Helvetica is an extra cost. It also comes DRM-encumbered (at least those versions I came across), by the way, and MS Office enforces the restriction when you want to embed it.
Same thing with email addresses in online forms, why do I always have to type those in twice?
That's to reduce the chances you have a typo. Some even explain that. I have no idea about the MS thing, it's probably because their WLAN taskbar applet sucks hard.
I don't think so. I couldn't find definitive references and it's been a long time since I installed Ubuntu on a non-Intel-graphics system, but I am pretty sure that since Gutsy Ubuntu has been using a compositing window manager (compiz) by default on systems with Intel and Nvidia graphics (and since some later Ubuntu version also on ATi systems). Of course, compositing requires 3D hardware acceleration, and for Nvidia this means proprietary drivers.
Links? My experience says otherwise, and so do numerous other users, amateur and professional. I also wonder how MBT would go about suppressing studies, it's not as if they are a powerful multinational conglomerate or anything.
Barefoot is great on natural ground. The surfaces on which most of us usually walk, such as asphalt or wooden floors, however, are not so great because they are too hard and too even and thus don't challenge your musculoskeletal system sufficiently. E.g., even surfaces remove the need to constantly rebalance your body in order to compensate for changes in ground elevation, gradient, or softness.
Also, shoes do protect you from the dirt on urban streets, as you wrote, and thus allow you to train/condition your feet/body even where you cannot go barefoot. But hey, whatever floats your boat, it was just a suggestion, no need to say thanks.
Try MBT shoes.. Seriously. My T'ai Chi Ch'uan teacher recommended them to me in order to help improve my fucked up anatomy and they worked wonders. Haven't worn any other shoes since, because it just feels too wrong.
Doesn't notification-properties do what you need? It is in System > Settings, but hidden by default, you need to make it visible with the menu editor or run it from CLI.
Well you will have to accept that when the majority does not see these issues (e.g., I myself have not had Ubuntu crash or freeze on me since Warty any more than Debian did before that) you will need to present some evidence, e.g., bug reports, if you want people to listen to or believe you.
Slashdot Mirror
Future Dating. The scary thing is that this is what will obviously happen.
Not quite sure what you're getting at here.
The fact that biped after biped robot is produced that tries to crack the problem by brute force without taking lessons from humans.
Just as babies can't start running from the get-go, their tech slowly evolves as well.
I don't think that's a valid analogy, but let's ignore that.
The fact that it can balance on two legs and withstand pushes is already remarkable. Self balancing is a huge step towards faster methods of locomotion.
Based on how it runs, pushing off the balls of its feet, swinging its body with its arms as counterbalance on the opposite side, it seems to have a remarkably human stride. Discounting the overly bent knees.
Also, I would be amazed if Japanese people haven't taken into account martial arts. They've probably spent months, if not years, with motion capture tech on various humans running to get this far.
I agree that it looks much better than previous attempts. But much of the better look is faked, in the sense that it mimics human behavior on the surface, despite the fundamentally different construction. In humans, the arms swing because of a complicated rotational movement of the spine, together with movement freedom in pelvis and shoulder girdle. In humans, all body parts from top to toes are connected by muscles, fascia, and other tissues, which cross over from one body part to others. E.g., the thigh is moved by muscles that extend across the pelvis up to the spine, abdomen, rips, and indirectly even the neck and head. Any movement in the upper body due to thigh movement is an inherent result of the construction.
That all seems totally absent here. It looks to me as if the arm swinging is purely there to make it look more human and its counterbalancing effect is small, if there at all. Look at the absolutely huge rigid torso, it cannot be counterbalanced much by the tiny arms.
Alleging that being Japanese automatically means that one has knowledge about martial arts or will always take them into account when working with body stuff is a bit of positive stereotyping. Martial arts are not so much a part of shared Japanese culture, anyway, at least compared to China, and the Japanese arts are, well, let's say there is a reason why I mentioned T'ai-Chi Ch'uan and not a Japanese art.
Evens so, maybe they have looked into it, but I doubt it. The robot would look different if they had, even though technology is limited.
I don't get it. While impressive and cool-looking in itself, it's obvious that the robot misses a host of methods the human body can employ to move gracefully and efficiently on two legs. I'd suggest developers of humanoid robots try to understand how humans do it. Research into martial arts should teach them a thing or two, T'ai-Chi Ch'uan should work especially well.
Shit happens. It's practically public domain except for the restriction on the name. You don't want to have to diff the LICENSE file each time you check out "GPL" software.
What's the "fear," "uncertainty" or "doubt" caused by that post?
It makes releasing a program under GPL look scary by wrongly claiming that if you do so you are forced to provide the source to anyone asks. If this was indeed the case it would add uncertainty about the consequences of releasing under GPL. If this wrong belief caught on, it would add doubts whether releasing under GPL is a good idea.
(the text of the GPL is public domain)
Bzzzt!
-- GPL v2
What you can do is to
. But the fSF discourages it because such changed versions "are almost certainly incompatible with the GPL."
Also, whenever someone mentions to have seen such a probe, he/she is publicly ridiculed. Way to encourage potential discoverers.
How generous. As I really won't need Helvetica privately and have licensed access to it at work, please choose a charitable organization of your liking, maybe the FSF, Debian, or Médecins Sans Frontières :)
That's a nonsensical argument. If I could choose between Helvetica and Arial when buying Windows, I would take the Helvetica (if I bought Windows at all, which I don't). As it is, however, Helvetica is an extra cost. It also comes DRM-encumbered (at least those versions I came across), by the way, and MS Office enforces the restriction when you want to embed it.
How about it? You pay my license fees for it?
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeZeitgeist
Same thing with email addresses in online forms, why do I always have to type those in twice?
That's to reduce the chances you have a typo. Some even explain that.
I have no idea about the MS thing, it's probably because their WLAN taskbar applet sucks hard.
OK, thanks for the info, I was about to search for a computer with an Nvidia card and try it out :)
I don't think so. I couldn't find definitive references and it's been a long time since I installed Ubuntu on a non-Intel-graphics system, but I am pretty sure that since Gutsy Ubuntu has been using a compositing window manager (compiz) by default on systems with Intel and Nvidia graphics (and since some later Ubuntu version also on ATi systems). Of course, compositing requires 3D hardware acceleration, and for Nvidia this means proprietary drivers.
Compare:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/composite-by-default
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2007/09/ubuntu-technical-board-votes-on-compiz-for-ubuntu-7-10.ars
Except that Ubuntu uses the proprietary drivers by default, anyway.
Links? My experience says otherwise, and so do numerous other users, amateur and professional. I also wonder how MBT would go about suppressing studies, it's not as if they are a powerful multinational conglomerate or anything.
Barefoot is great on natural ground. The surfaces on which most of us usually walk, such as asphalt or wooden floors, however, are not so great because they are too hard and too even and thus don't challenge your musculoskeletal system sufficiently. E.g., even surfaces remove the need to constantly rebalance your body in order to compensate for changes in ground elevation, gradient, or softness.
Also, shoes do protect you from the dirt on urban streets, as you wrote, and thus allow you to train/condition your feet/body even where you cannot go barefoot. But hey, whatever floats your boat, it was just a suggestion, no need to say thanks.
Try MBT shoes.. Seriously. My T'ai Chi Ch'uan teacher recommended them to me in order to help improve my fucked up anatomy and they worked wonders. Haven't worn any other shoes since, because it just feels too wrong.
I understood, and I fully agree :)
You are right - same for me on a simple single-screen.
Sure, I just referred to the dependency issue re firefox that was discussed.
http://www.google.de/search?q=ubuntu+bug
First hit.
Doesn't notification-properties do what you need? It is in System > Settings, but hidden by default, you need to make it visible with the menu editor or run it from CLI.
Or you can simply use checkinstall.
Well you will have to accept that when the majority does not see these issues (e.g., I myself have not had Ubuntu crash or freeze on me since Warty any more than Debian did before that) you will need to present some evidence, e.g., bug reports, if you want people to listen to or believe you.