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Tech/Games
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Tech/Games Thank God Someone Is Preparing Us for the Robot Apocalypse
Posted by Dan Gibson on Thu, May 10, 2012 at 1:00 PM
As you may know, I have tried, largely unsuccessfully, to use my platform here at the Tucson Weekly to warn the world of our future enslavement by a self-sufficient horde of robots, possibly involving KVOA's SKYNET somehow.
However, all I can do is sound a warning. I lack the practical robot defeating knowledge that will help our human race survive. Thankfully, author Daniel H. Wilson and Epipheo have teamed up to create a helpful animated video that might be of some assistance.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Tech/Games Are You Obsessed With Facebook?
Posted by Dan Gibson on Mon, May 7, 2012 at 3:00 PM
- Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
- No clue what this photo has to do with anything, but I thought it was funny, at least.
I'm stunned that someone spent time and money coming up with an index for Facebook addiction - not because Facebook can't be a problem, but because the signs see a little obvious - but the University of Bergen came up with a scale, which consists of giving a score to each of these six attributes from 1 (very rarely) to 5 (very often):
You spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook or plan use of Facebook
You feel an urge to use Facebook more and more
You use Facebook in order to forget about personal problems
You have tried to cut down on the use of Facebook without success
You become restless or troubled if you are prohibited from using Facebook
You use Facebook so much that it has had a negative impact on your job/studies.
If you score four or more of those with a four or five, it might be time to turn the computer off.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
TV / Tech/Games Finally, a "Perfect Strangers" Themed Video Game
Posted by Dan Gibson on Thu, May 3, 2012 at 9:00 AM
From the same creative firm that created the Fall Out Boy version of "Oregon Trail", there's now a Flash-based game themed around the late 80's/early 90's sitcom Perfect Strangers, in which you play as Balki, chasing a dream by collecting stars as the show's theme plays. Yes, this is actually something that exists.
A special bonus, you can read through the "dreams" people have entered to "chase" which range from the desire to lose forty pounds to an aspiration to hunt and kill a unicorn.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Tech/Games You Asked for It: Information About Sex Robots
Posted by Dan Gibson on Tue, May 1, 2012 at 10:30 AM
Yesterday, commenter Bob Cap asked:
Whats going on with the Japanese sex robots......functional yet???
While I don't have any information about Japanese robots specifically, The Week has an article online covering the future world of robotic prostitutes:
What are the benefits of robotic prostitutes?
Beyond being tireless, "commercial sex robots would be free of disease and would reduce the trafficking of real people," write the study's authors, Michelle Mars and Ian Yeoman at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Human trafficking continues to plague every region of the globe, with conservative estimates putting the victim count at 2.5 million, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.[...]
What would future sex robots be like?
Mars and Yeoman envision "next-generation robots with human-like skin," offering intimate services like lap-dances and intercourse. The bots would be made with "bacteria resistant fiber that could be flushed for human fluids between uses," keeping them disease-free.
I'll tell you, nothing sounds sexier that a tireless robot made of flushable bacteria resistant fiber. However, the upside is that I'm relatively sure the human race will find a way to give robots sexually transmitted diseases somehow, which might slow their inevitable dominance over the planet.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Tech/Games Robot to Serve Humans Drinks Before Enslaving Our Race
Posted by Dan Gibson on Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 4:58 PM
I believe I'm on the record regarding my prediction of our future as slaves of a hyper-intelligent class of robots , so, for me, even seemingly positive advances in robotic technology are a harbinger of our forthcoming doom, but I guess if you're interested in a machine bringing you the soda you asked for, enjoy it while it lasts.
Here's a cool video from the research team at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics department (the Search-based Planning Laboratory), in which a robot bartender (the PR2 dual-arm mobile robot) is demonstrated. After a human makes a drink and snack selection, the robot can determine the proper area of where the items are located, as well as how far its arm is so it can properly grab the snack and drink choice.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Tech/Games Finally, a Useful Guide to Getting Facebook Likes
Posted by Dan Gibson on Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 5:00 PM
You should read the entire comic, but the above frame from The Oatmeal should probably be everyone's guide to using the internet.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Tech/Games RIP, Jack Tramiel
Posted by Dan Gibson on Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:00 AM
- Image courtesy of Shutterstock
It feels a little strange that I didn't know the name of one of the people who deeply influenced my life until today, but thanks for bringing home computing into my life, Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore:
Tramiel was born in Poland to a Jewish family in 1928. During World War II, he and his family were sent to Auschwitz, after which he and his father were sent to a labor camp called Ahlem, near Hannover. Tramiel was rescued in April 1945 and emigrated to the United States in 1947.In America, Tramiel started a typewriter repair business. Staying in the forefront of technology, his typewriters morphed into calculators, and later computers. In 1982, Commodore International launched the Commodore 64, which went on to the best-selling personal computer of all time. In 1984, after being forced to leave the company he founded, Jack bought the crumbling Atari Inc.’s Consumer Division and formed Atari Corporation.
“Jack Tramiel was an immense influence in the consumer electronics and computing industries. A name once uttered in the same vein as Steve Jobs is today, his journey from concentration camp survivor to captain of industry is the stuff of legends,” says Martin Goldberg, a writer working on a book about the Atari brand and the early days of video games and computing with Atari Museum founder Curt Vendel.
My first computer was a Commodore 64 and my family went through two of them (maybe even three?) hanging on to a box full of floppy discs and a dot-matrix computer long after the world of technology left that particular device in the dust. I tried to make birthday cards with Print Shop, explored underground worlds with the Zork Trilogy and probably started my way down the world of carpal tunnel issues rapidly smashing buttons playing low-tech sports games. My family couldn't afford the far more expensive products by Apple and IBM, so Tramiel's belief that computers should be for "the masses, not the classes" was directly responsible for introducing me to computing. There are times these days where I wish I could escape the world of keyboards and screens, but still, I wouldn't be wherever it is I am today, if I didn't have years of feeling comfortable with computers developed while using the C64. Thanks, Jack Tramiel.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Booze / Do This! / Tech/Games / Sports Great Advances in Beer Technology: Bottoms Up Beer Available at Padres Games This Year!
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 3:00 PM
With opening day just a week away, we talked with Tucson Padres General Manager Mike Feder about the upcoming AAA Baseball club's season. He's excited about a lot of things, but he made a point of mentioned that this year's Thirsty Thursdays (co-sponsored by your friends here at Tucson Weekly) will feature this astounding technology of Bottoms Up beer.
"The beer pours from the bottom and it pours a virtually perfect 16-oz. beer," Feder says. "The beauty of it is, you can do 40 or 50 beers a minute."
Here's the upside: The cups are 16 ounces, so you're getting more beer per cup. Minor downside: Thirsty Thursday beers will be $1.50 instead of a buck, but with the larger serving, you won't need to go back as often and lines will be shorter, so quit your complaining.
Opening night is Thursday, April 5. Details here!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Nostalgia / Tech/Games AOL Instant Messenger Is (Mostly) Dead
Posted by David Mendez on Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 2:00 PM
According to a news report by the New York Times' "Bits" blog, AOL has slashed the team for its long-time instant messaging program, AIM.
Nick Bilton reported that a former AOL employee told him that “nearly all of the West Coast tech team has been killed," effectively ending the upcoming development for the software.
In the age of Facebook chat, Google Chat and Skype, AIM is a bloated, decrepit dinosaur that tries to install too much crap into your browser. Its death is long overdue, to be honest.
But at the same time, I feel like my generation owes it a debt of gratitude — particularly because I know that many of my longest friendships wouldn't exist had I not been able to connect with those people using AIM to talk outside of class (yes, I'm of the generation of kids who didn't go outside, lay off me).
And I'm pretty sure that NBC's To Catch a Predator would have had to work twice as hard to snag the same number of potential pedophiles had AIM chat rooms not been around.
So my fellow Millennials, let's take the time to pour one out for AIM — may its alert tones ring in our hearts forevermore.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Tech/Games The Mini-Documentary on Animated GIFs You Never Knew You Wanted
Posted by Dan Gibson on Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 3:00 PM
It's only seven minutes long and there are pictures of cats included. I don't know what's going on over there at PBS, but if they could produce more mini-documentaries about the nerdy stuff I'm into and fewer three hour specials about doo wop, that would really help me out.
[HT: The Awl]
