Hi again. You may remember me from this past spring when I drew a robot every day for the month of May.

Well, I'll be doing it again this October. One original robot every day, unless I happen to forget, in which case I'll do two the following day, or three on the day after, or quite possibly thirty on the thirty-first. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

I'm not sure which is scarier: this drawing, or the fact that I saw it in a towel. No, wait, come back! It was just a case of matrixing, or what Scott McCloud called "closure" in the book Understanding Comics. If you see something vaguely face-like, such as our friend the emoticon :-), then a part of the brain will insist there's a face there. Quite likely, some hard-wired survival instinct. An instinct which no leads to, no doubt, some of the Jesus-on-toast sightings. (Ze Frank on toast, on the other hand...)

Here's my second Robot-a-Day for October. This one is especially for Cheile.

"Fnord fneener."

Here's some exciting news. Next month is National Blog Posting Month, or NABLOPOMO for short. The idea behind NABLOPOMO is to encourage all bloggers to post to their blogs at least once per day throughout the month of November.

There's an official site at nablopomo.ning.com for those of you who'd like to make a true challenge of it, and possibly win some fabulous prizes and new readers. I played along last year, and try as I might, I missed at least two days and thus wasn't eligible to enter the drawing for the fabulous prizes. But I did gain, literally, a couple of readers, and I certainly expanded my personal blogroll through use of the randomizer. And, of course, I had a good time doing it. That's why I'll be doing it again this year, and you should too!

“Listen,” said Ford, who was still engrossed in the sales brochure, “they make a big thing of the ship's cybernetics. A new generation of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots and computers, with the new GPP feature.”

“GPP feature?” said Arthur. “What's that?”

“Oh, it says Genuine People Personalities.”

“Oh,” said Arthur, “sounds ghastly.”

A voice behind them said, “It is.” The voice was low and hopeless and accompanied by a slight clanking sound. They span round and saw an abject steel man standing hunched in the doorway.

Seeded on rocky vacuum worlds aeons ago, powered only by sunlight, moving at a vegetal pace, Cyber-Trees absorb precious metals and extrude ring-like segments, meant to be pruned and harvested. Now, untended, long-forgotten, and feral, some Cyber-Trees grow very large, indeed.

And then you're in the man from Mars//You go out at night eating cars//You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns, too// Mercurys and Subaru...

"Nooooooooooo!"

Like most of you who have your own websites, I occasionally look at what brought people to the site. Sometimes, if I see that an interesting query is posed often enough, I'll occasionally answer it. Other times, well, you know where aneurysms come from, right?

compound chocolate

Well, maybe I did mention compound chocolate once. This is the resulting substance when one substitutes vegetable oil (or other fat) for cocoa butter when making chocolate. There were plans to extend the official definition of the word "chocolate" to encompass compound chocolate, but I don't know whether that's been resolved yet.

basic stamp hard disk

Either someone is trying to connect a hard drive to a BASIC stamp, or someone is planning to build a hard drive around a BASIC stamp. The former is, in my opinion, probably not worth it, unless you're using the Stamp as some sort of data collection device, but even then, it wouldn't be hard to just establish a serial link with a real computer, which could write the data to disk with ease. The latter, on the other hand, would be a fantastic science fair project. And, it wouldn't necessarily have to be a disk. A cylinder might be easier to build:

electronic brain pancake

Are we about to witness the birth of the next Internet meme, or is "electronic brain pancake crystal elderly" just a random collection of words, like "fish brain robot?" Perhaps today's Robot-a-Day will shed some light on the matter. Main screen turn on!

Elder Crystal not included.

silicone gynoid replicant

Asking how to build a generic feminine robot is one thing. Asking how to build a replica of a specific female is something else. And asking specifically for silicone, with al of its connotations, is just a little over-the-top. However, I suppose it does depend on the intent behind the replicaition. I'd suppose that replicating, oh, Angelina Jolie for the purposes of, say, a Tomb Raider-themed amusement park ride would be okay, unless it was done without her permission. On the other hand, replicating Angelina Jolie as a love-bot would be a little creepy, unless it was done with her permission. (It would still be a bit creepy, though.) Now, what if it wasn't a celebrity that was replicated, but an ordinary person who happened to attract a stalker? Quite a bit more creepy. Now, what if it wasn't a stalkee that was replicated, but a beloved, deceased spouse? A little less creepy. How about a spouse that was slightly less beloved, and slightly less dead? Hmm...

No, nothing good could possibly come of that.

build your own gynoid

I said no.

"Detachible Penis" android

Perhaps you meant this:

Originally uploaded by Greefus Groinks

meaning "roll back in their heads"

I believe that's what happens just before the aneurysm strikes.

"Space is dangerous, powerful dangerous. A fella's sure to lose a hand, a leg, even a head. The ol' Doc does what he can for us, but sometimes-- heck, most of the time-- it ain't pretty."

The software pirates were bad enough, but the fleets of bots that came after them were worse, much worse.

"We must run as fast as we can just to stay where we are. If we want to go somewhere, we must run at least twice as fast as that."

Gentle Reader writes:

Q: Are there christmas lights that clip individually and are self- contained? no wires!

A: There can be, if you don't mind a little bit of gluing or taping. You can make a variation of throwies that have clips instead of magnets. You will need:

1. Light-Emitting Diodes. Any color you like. If you're not picky, you can get an LED assortment. If you're feeling adventurous, you can get the self-blinking variety.
2. Watch Batteries: The original article suggests the CR2032 battery, although I suspect that any three volt watch battery will work just as well, but it may not last as long.
3. Tape: Any strong, non-conductive tape. It will hold the LED to the battery, and the battery to the clip.
4. Clips: Since trees generally aren't magnetic, you'll need some way to hold your throwie to the tree. You can use clothespins, binder clips, Twist-Em's, ornament hooks, or whatever else you may like.

Now, the only tricky part is to attach the long lead of the LED to the positive (+) side of the battery. Use the tape to secure the LED to the battery, and then to the fastening device thusly. (Click to enlarge.)

   

My examples are a little crude-looking, but they are only meant to demonstrate the principle. One could get quite crafty and employ ribbons, styrofoam, glitter, pipe cleaners, pine cones, spraypaint and anything else that may spring to mind.

The advantages of these over traditional lights are of course that there are no wires to tangle (although winding your traditional string of lights around a piece of cardboard at the end of the season can help with that.) They are also very low-current and should put off very little heat, much less than the typical incandescent bulb. Thus is is very unlikely that they will melt anything.

If we can digitize a human with a milling machine, it seems to me that we ought to be able to fabricate robots in a single pass. I doubt they'd be the clanking tin monsters of last century. Instead, they'd be rubbery humanoids, hydraulically or pneumatically powered. At first, they'd probably have electronic brains and hydraulic pumps built in the usual fashion, but perhaps with the invention of extremely high-resolution fabricators, even those could be printed or extruded along with the rest of the unit. Eventually, they might literally walk off the assembly line.

NO assembly required.

Things have been a little crazy this last week. Toorcon was fun. (Hackerspaces!) What wasn't so fun was the Witch fire, and although I wasn't evacuated, it was looking pretty iffy there for a while. Fortunately, everything seems to be under control for now, and maybe this weekend I'll just put on my bunny slippers, make a cup of cocoa, and read a book.

Anyway, as the title says, IOU five robots for Robot-a-Day, and here they are.

October's almost over, and with it, this round of Robot-a-Day. I think these latest three really sum up the different views that people hold as to the future of robotics. What will be the ultimate role of our creations? Blindly obedient applicances? Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With™? Frankenstein's Monsters? Might there even be a role that's been overlooked?

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do// one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.