The Bionic Tripod design is so simple , elegant and sexy that I'm speechless. I think I'm in love.
Here's a video describing more about Festo's Bionic projects. I want a personal vaulted auditorium sized room just so I can have a pack of the AirPenguins. Again...sexy.
The ASIMO has come a long way from the days it made breakthroughs in bi-pedal robotic locomotion. I can remember seeing the demonstration for the first time and thinking "Wow!", having a good idea about what all is involved in sensing center of mass, computing necessary data to compensate and then executing those results in order to balance all within a matter of milliseconds. This would later lead to devices such as the self-balancing Segway. Now with the latest strides in artificial intelligence, bi-pedal locomotion seems like child's play.
"One of the great paradoxes that has been thrown up in research into robots is this: Robots and computers are very very good at things we find very difficult such as long division and '..' returns, but they're very very bad at things we find extremely easy and instinctive such as walking, talking and seeing."
At 1000fps and superb clarity, all I can do is gawk in amazement.
I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.
I recently finished two books, Blink by Malcom Gladwell and On the Road by Jack Kerouac which I'm borrowing from William.
Blink was a very intriguing book to read that was primarily about the cognitive thinking that occurs essentially the first two seconds in any given situation. It kind of tip-toed the line of intuition but Malcom made it clear that he felt there is a difference between the emotional, gut feeling reactions of intuition when compared to quicker, conscious decision making of "thinking".
On the Road was recommended by William one night while talking about travels and what not. It tells the story of spontaneous road trips across the country from New Jersey to California made by Jack and friends he befriends along the way. It's one of those stories that I personally want to live out in real life, as I'm sure everyone else does as well, but the way that Jack describes is the way I feel is the only way to truly appreciate the experience. Some time ago I came across www.oneyearoff.net, a website documenting a couple's one year backpacking trip through countries that included Austria, Laos, Thailand, New Zealand and Peru just to name a few. What really got my attention was that they set out on this venture with the mentality of no time constraint. This allowed them to stay in small villages and with families rather than sight-seeing in a rush, allowing them to really get a meaningful experience and a glimpse into the various cultures. This struck a chord somewhere within myself and got me thinking and starting to take a different perspective when visiting new places. But now I'm just rambling, and I guess I'll save whatever I was rambling about for another post some time in the future.
Anyways, the next book I'm considering picking up is between Integrity by Henry Cloud or Insatiable Curiosity by Helga Nowotny. I've read reviews for each and I'm torn at the moment. I might not have time to read much in the upcoming weeks/months as summer classes tend to be more demanding. I guess we'll see.
I feel as if this past month has gone by a bit slow. The semester is coming to an end and I'm looking forward to having a couple of days at work to work on a project and do some training before jumping right back into classes for the summer. Just for my own "well-being" and to uphold one of my resolutions to write more this year, I guess this will primarily be about two major things that occured in the past month.
I flew up to New Haven, CT to visit a long time friend of mine, William, at Yale University. It was a pleasant time getting to meet his friends that stayed behind for Spring Break in order to catch up/get ahead on course work. Getting the opportunity to be immersed in a community of people from literally opposite sides of the country AND the globe was refreshing. It also provided motivation after discovering what each of them had been involved with during college and what they had planned post-graduation. One day William had planned for us to hike up to the top of East Rock where you can view all of the city of New Haven. The trek from campus to the base of East Rock alone was tiring, nevertheless the ascent up East Rock. Getting to the top though was worth it, even though it was very breezy from the ocean. My last day there was spent walking around NYC since I didn't get to see much when I was previously there for New Years 2008.
Maybe a week or two after I got back from New Haven, my dad got a surprise visit from a journalist from the local newspaper who found out that the family business was rewarded a $5M military contract to manufacture missile containers, yet it wasn't reported in the news. The following week, a photo of my dad alongside a picture of him and his siblings from when they were younger headlined the newspaper describing the family's story of their climb from poor war refugees to successful citizens fulfilling the American Dream. I think it was a good birthday present for my dad which was the week prior. The article can be found here.
