… and it’s all downhill from here or so they say.
I have a lot on my mind and need to write that down sooner than later. I had the best birthday party and gift ever. Many thanks to my dear friends who traveled the distance. This is Gru, with my home-brew beer kit wrapped inside.
Do you live to eat or eat to live? I’ve been on both sides of the saying and I now believe that what we eat defines how we live. I’ve been following Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and it’s been an eye opener for how little we know about the food we eat. And it’s even more embarrassing for how little we care to know about our food. I’m guilty of this and I know a lot more people who’re on the same boat with me.
Here’s a little push to your wake up call.
I gave this talk at Quanda Convergence on Mar 4th. I was pleasantly surprised with the response the talk received. It was a very good gauge to ascertain if people in general were ready for having more robots in their everyday lives and the answer is an overwhelming YES!
The talk focused on my work in robotics and the kind of questions people asked me when I told that I build robots. While most of them were paranoid as to when we should welcome our robot overlords, others were skeptical if robotics was there yet. We’re somewhere in between today and this talk examined the topic in a lighthearted manner. It touched the various movies that had robots as a centerstage and linked them to real robots or intelligent systems that we have today.
So, when will the robots rise?
Helium is so desired, and is being wasted at such a rapid rate, claims Robert Richardson (a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, whose research was on helium), that a single helium-filled party balloon ought to cost about $100.
Source: http://www.sciencebuzz.org/blog/running-out-gas-helium
I’m looking for alternative lifting gases. Suggestions?
A 12 year old boy, Dre, moves from Detroit to Beijing with his mother. He gets beaten up by a gang of Chinese bullies who’re also students of an agressive form of Kung-Fu. Mr.Han (Jackie Chan) teaches the boy his style of Kung-Fu to ward off the bad guys at a major tournament. The underdog wins as expected.I liked every bit of it, except the name.
Why is a movie about a kid who learnt Kung-Fu called Karate Kid?
The best explanation for the inexplicable.
Source: http://www.slowpokecomics.com/strips/terminatrix.html
We’re finally there. Our first event’s tonight at Hackerspace
and we have an amazing speaker line up. With talks ranging from neurocircuitry in fish to paper Gucci shoes for the dead, we have an interesting night ahead. Many thanks to Chaitu for helping out with the logos and graphics and moral support.
For more info, visit the website here: http://www.blinkbl-nk.com
Honda released this awesome short film titled ‘Living with Robots’ at the Sundance Festival. It does justice to explaining the motivation for robotics and also the reason for people’s general fear towards robots.
We fear robots because we think they will replace us. So, we fear robots just like we fear immigrants/aliens?
My prayers go to the people of Haiti. Nature has not been kind to them with three hurricanes and now this.
Source: http://twitpic.com/xvt91
And now the Singapore government decides to help them with a very generous $50,000 donation and written condolences from the Singapore President S.R.Nathan.
For the record, the President earns a salary of S$3.9m a year, that is about S$10,685 a day which is US$7691 a day. Now that puts the US$50,000 donation in perspective.
UPDATE: Google has pledged to donate US$1m to Haiti. You can help too by donating via Google Checkout here: http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake
Source: http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/bnm/20100114/tts-singapore-haiti-993ba14.html
To all my perplexed readers, fear not, blog renovation should be completed by this weekend.