Sep 28 2009 Sadness: LEGO House Gets Demolished
The LEGO house built by James May for his BBC program Toy Stories was recently demolished after nobody stepped forward to buy and preserve the plastic abode. I would have, but I don't have the money. Or pants (pants? where I'm going I don't need pants). I'm going back to the past! Anyway, this is a little gallery of the demolition. Allegedly the blocks (which were actually donated by LEGO) are going to be used for charity builds in the future. So yeah, that's a silver lining. But not a silver panty liner! Which, haha, HORF HORF HORF HORF HORF.
Hit the jump for several more shots of the sadness.
Jul 10 2009 Robot Teaches Itself To Smile, Next: Targeting
The fools at the University of California, San Diego have created a robot that can learn new facial expressions on it's own. Next, its gonna learn how to drive itself to the shooting range.
To begin teaching the robot, the researchers stuck Einstein in front of a mirror and instructed the robot to "body babble" by contorting its face into random positions. A video camera connected to facial recognition software gave the robot feedback: When it made a movement that resembled a "real" expression, it received a reward signal."It's an iterative process," said facial recognition expert Marian Bartlett, a co-author of the study. "It starts out completely random and then gets feedback. Next time the robot picks an expression, there's a bias towards putting the motors in the right configuration."
Now I'm no terrorist, BUT IF I WAS, Machine Perception Laboratory, just sayin'.
Robot Teaches Itself to Smile [wired]
Thanks to Dirk, Dennie and RealLifeFup, who asked it to smile for the camera and then shot it because it wasn't really a camera, it was a gun.
May 1 2009 Society For Prevention Of Cruelty To Robot
I want these people (if they are people) found, and I want them TERMINATED!
The American Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Robots (ASPCR)
Thanks to Greg, who took some initiative and called the FBI to report a new terrorist threat.
Apr 23 2009 Giant Spiders Of Death Now Attacking Japan
I wasn't going to post this because we've already seen La Machine's spider in Liverpool, but I've gotten the tip so many times asking why I'm not covering the apocalypse like I should, that I figured I'd go ahead and scare the shit out of you all again. Must be your lucky day. Oh, and now there's two giant robotic spiders of death. Eek!
A pair of giant robotic spiders designed and built by French performance art group La Machine have come to Yokohama to take part in the upcoming Expo Y150, a 5-month festival commemorating the 150th anniversary of the opening of the city's port.
Although the Expo Y150 festivities are not scheduled to officially begin until the end of April, the enormous steampunk spiders could be seen prowling the Yokohama waterfront this weekend.
Great, so the spiders went ahead and got a leg up (or eight!) on the festivities. And by festivities I obviously mean killing everyone and burning Japan to the ground. Oh well, I guess I'll have to postpone my worn panty shopping spree another year. *sigh*
Hit the jump for another shot and video.
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