Commercial Break: Robots Be Jumpin'

"Another Commercial Break?!"

I know right? It's like there are more commercials than show on this damn site, as of late. Well, I'll have you know, I've been paying the bills on my end. And yes, I've been sitting on a couple finished articles that I've just been re-editing and sharpening.

In the mean time, I got this internet clip of a Sand Flea Jumping Robot. 

"But Isaiah, this has nothing to do with video games or Rachael Leigh Cooke."

True, and I'm glad you brought that up. I've actually been playing a fair amount of games and germinating thoughts and ideas about my passions. Unfortunately, this means I have to take large "thinky breaks" to fine tune what I want to say to you. And by "you" I mean this white page with the blinking cursor and nothing else on it.

I'm sure the game writing community hasn't missed me, nor has Miss Cooke. Rest assured that this jumping robot clip will function as a symbol of dedication of me delivering random thoughts to you, but more so, Rachael Leigh Cooke.

*note: Racheal Leigh Cooke does not endorse or condone any of the thoughts this post or any post The Brog and/or the itbrog.com has published.

Commercial Break: Processed Food vs Whole Foods -- Inside Of You

One day me and some dancing buddies were waiting in line at an IHOP talking about cancer. Because, you know, what else would some twenty-somethings talk about while waiting to fill ourselves with sugary-fried goodness? 

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Commercial Break: Animatronic Baby, Future Terminator

Really think about that baby next to you, or in you, or possibly the one you're married to. Think about it. Wouldn't life be so much easier if that baby was a robot? I mean, look how adorbable the little fella is. Look at how it learns about the environment while playfully swimming on it's back.

It probably just uploaded the schematics of the room it's in. You know, for the future cybernetic humonid take over?

Art You Might Hate: Pinkroad by Limee Young + U Joo

Many thanks to Colossal for pointing me in the direction of this power couple. Husband and wife duo, Limee Young and U Joo are a pretty cool team. I've been studying a lot on kinetic art, and sculpture specifically, Limee Young's name kept popping up.

Imagine my surprise when I ventured to their site and noticed some pretty amazing paintings, illustrations and video of their meticulous works.

I've always been interested in the construction of kinetic sculpture. I use to build robots for crying out loud! But this? This is a little over my head. The whole idea of kinetic sculpture is reliant on either wind energy, a standalone electricity source, or an artist having an active hand in how the kinetic energy is stored. Like being on a seesaw, but an amazingly beautiful and complex machine is on the other end of the plank.

So in these videos, you are seeing machines function because of liquid, weight and equal amounts of pushing and pulling on joints. Depending on how far a joint moves a microprocessor on a circuit board uses the energy generated to tell another joint to move. Or in the above video's case, a processor is telling a joint to move back, while the kinetic energy stored in the joints are telling it to move forward. This is as best as I can describe the very little I understand.

I thought I was getting closer to understanding kinetic art, but this work is proof I'm no where near comprehension. It's truly amazing work. After the jump is more stills, illustrations and videos. Thanks for the inspiration U_Joo and Lim!

 

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Commercial Break: Bill Gates Got Ups

Prior to spewing that yang and dumping that slang for the internet. I need to get energized. I need a guiding light that will channel my ideas into words of various fonts and font sizes. Oh, wait. You're telling me there is a clip of a young Bill Gates jumping the s**t over a chair? Well, see now this? This right here? This is just what I needed.

Peep his recovery? Didn't even flinch. Like nothing ever happened. "What? Oh that? Yeah, I just jumped the f**k over that and will probably make a billion dollars in the next twenty years. Become one of the biggest philanthropist and out live ya boy Steve Jobs. What? Huh? I cross a line? Do I need to jump over another chair to prove my swag?"

I'm paraphrasing, of course.

Commercial Break: Can You Remember The First Time You Saw Yourself?

I can't quite vocalize specifics of the tech being used here, so I'll let the engineers responsible do that for you here. However, I want to highlight a portion of their synopsis that struck a chord with me.

This quite simple experiment touches interesting psychological aspects of self-consciousness, whose complexity can be proved by the fact I already mentioned of the few species that can recognize themselves in front of the mirror.

I'm realizing my next batch of upcoming articles deal largely with how personally I process detail in art and/or the production of said art. When I saw Qbo, looking at himself ... itself, I first thought [skeptically] how much assistance is being used. I hear keyboard clatter, is this playing a role?

Then I let go. I looked at the robot's optical movements as if looking at a car being manufactured. Jigsaw puzzles being aligned but not wedged together. Then the instructor tells Qbo that the reflection is of him ... of it. 

I tried thinking long and hard about the first time I saw my reflection. It was so far back that my consciousness takes for granted how our brains adjusted and have been adjusted time and time again, in how we see ourselves, and how we see each other.

A very human side of me wondered if a 'second Qbo' was there looking at an adjacent mirror, would the litany of pre-programmed reactions have still been "Nice?" What if Qbo's reaction wasn't so cheerful?

I love that the next frontier of artificial intelligence is of aspects of the self-conscious. But I do find it funny that we must build something wholly new, to understand something about ourselves. Thoughts?

Commercial Break: Science Just F**kin' Killed Mosquitoes

Yes, I know, another video! I'm kinda suffering from the worst kind of block right now. It also doesn't help that I'm running quite the fever after a long [productive] trip.

What you see above is from a TED talk [which we all should watch more of] centered around a constructive use of the blue laser found in most of our tech. Okay, a constructive use other than watching The Wire at two in the morning.

The inner-entomologist in me, is a bit concerned with the future ramifications of such a find. "What if we kill too many mosquitoes?" And other such questions come to mind. 

But still though, this is pretty cool. And I think it's helping me through this mental block.

Maybe I'll write about this San Diego trip after all?

Commercial Break: Ultimate Stain Remover

I kinda feel like anything I've accomplished in life has been all for naught. How can any idea I have after today compete with something that, not only removes stains with such ease, but even the stain's residue! America, there is no hope. Our inventions are not worthy.

FYI: We Know The PS3 Was Hacked & The PSP2 Will Be Announced

A Blog talking about how there are too many blogs. Irony.

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The HTC HD2 Emulates My Favorite Fighting Games? Sold

For the record, T-Mobile nor HTC are sponsors for the Brog. I just think this is pretty freaking cool. With the help of the emulation wizards behind FpseCE -- a game emulator available for download via the Windows Mobile marketplace. The HD2 is capable of emulating games like:

GTA 2

Tekken 3

Street Fighter Alpha 3

Time Crisis

Wipeout XL

I know that WinMo 6.5 gets a ton of flack for basically being a smartphone's crippling death nail. I mean supposedly T-Mobile has had to promote the phone as a $9 a month phone. Well, this sold me, hopefully I'll put up a review before the summer is out.