Daily Archives: March 13, 2011

Mar 13 2011

Don’t ignore this robot – Seriously, don’t!

They WANT our attention now?

Rebecca Boyle – Popular Science — A new robot can tell when it’s being ignored, and it politely and subtly gets a person’s attention.

OK, so tell me as social cures go? Blowing stuff up is very high on the list of what NOT to do, but hey…

Whatever works, right?

No?

Keep telling yourself that…

Researchers say the new computer vision system could help robots and humans interact more effectively, by allowing robots to use the same social cues as people.

Simon the robot, developed at Georgia Tech’s Socially Intelligent Machines lab, uses a camera to figure out when a person is interested in interacting with it. It watches their behavior and uses some form of gesture, like waving its hand, to get noticed.

Then it has to figure out whether it actually captured the person’s attention. Using only the camera as a guide, Simon achieved about 80 percent accuracy in determining when he had gotten someone’s attention, according to Aaron Bobick, professor and chair of the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech’s College of Computing.

Check out the video above in which a volunteer constructs something out of colorful blocks, under Simon’s watchful eyes. Simon’s timid wave interrupts his concentration, and he waves back.

The goal is to help robots understand when to sit and be quiet and when it’s appropriate for them to get a human’s attention. People can figure this out pretty easily with simple body language, but it’s not as obvious for a robot. Remember Furby and its insistent, insipid desire to play, even when you didn’t feel like it? Simon is apparently a little more polite.

“In order for these robots to work with us effectively, they have to obey these same social conventions, which means they have to be able to perceive the same things humans perceive in determining how to abide by those conventions,” Bobick explains.

Other roboticists at Georgia Tech are helping robots learn whether they want to deceive other robots or humans, and then carry out a deceptive strategy to that effect. No word on whether these technologies would ever be combined, so robots could figure out when we humans aren’t paying attention and then carry out their devious world-dominating plans.[Read More]

That ‘no’ is not no as in ‘never’ it’s just a no as in not now yet.

Mar 13 2011

Daylight Saving Time might effect your health, but not mine!

Gifted with an hour!

Hugh Pickens writes“According to experts on circadian rhythms, the hour shift in sleep schedule from Daylight Saving Time can have serious effects on some people’s health, particularly in people with certain pre-existing health problems. One study found that men were more likely to commit suicide during the first few weeks of Daylight Saving Time (DST) than at any other time during the year, and another study showed that the number of serious heart attacks jumps 6% to 10% on the first three workdays after DST begins. Dr. Xiaoyong Yang, an assistant professor of comparative medicine and cellular and molecular physiology at Yale University, theorizes that shifts in biologic rhythms could trigger harmful inflammatory or metabolic changes at the cellular level, to which these individuals may be more susceptible.”

Doesn’t have a bad effect on Anguished Repose at all…

Me?

Night owl.

Health?

Better than ever, especially considering I work the graveyard shift. So thanks to DST, I actually get off an HOUR early.

I love this time of year, indeed I do!

It stays darker longer in the morning and light longer at night…

Seriously, how can that be a bad thing?

Mar 13 2011

The most notorious monk in history will never be forgotten!

Evil?

Debatable.

Dangerous?

Without a doubt.

Fascinating story?

Absolutely.

Because it is? Anguished Repose is surprised a movie hasn’t been made yet about this man who comes across historically as more demoniacally powerful, than he was just malicious, self-serving and manipulative to his black-hearted core.

After all, it’s not so much as what he was that has kept his name remembered…

But even after his death, what he was thought to be that has brought him a very decisive immortality.

And sadly, I think, in a way because it has?

May not be known exactly when Grigori Rasputin was born in Pokrovskoe, Western Siberia as peasant culture does not keep records but in his death would not be forgotten. In December 1916 the Russian newspapers screamed “Grigori Rasputin has ceased to exist!”. The mad monk of Russia was dead and a nation rejoiced.

Rasputin at the height of his fame was thought to be no less than a demonic figure, possessed of supernatural powers, an agent of the forces of evil with an iron-clad and perhaps sexual hold on the throne of Imperial Russia.

The downfall of Grigori Rasputin began on 8th December 1916 when the Union Towns, an important municipal body, went into a secret session. They passed a resolution stating that, “ the government, now become an instrument of the dark forces (Rasputin), is driving Russia to her ruin and is shattering the imperial throne.” [Read More]

Mar 13 2011

Tiger poo scares chickens? Well, it can!

Wonder if ‘crop-chewing’ includes chickens?

If it does…

I am so investing in some tiger poo.

[via Discovery] Researchers in Australia have discovered that the smell of tiger feces is a great deterrent for crop-chewing creatures like goats and kangaroos. The idea is that the smell of a predator nearby will keep these animals away from certain plants.

A team of researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia spread tiger poo collected from zoos near the feeding troughs of goats and found it to be the most effective repellent. It was even more effective when the tiger had been fed goat.

“There’s not only a chemical signal in the feces that says ‘Hooly dooley, this is a dangerous animal’; it’s ‘Hooly dooley, this is a dangerous animal that’s been eating my friends,’” explained Peter Murray, associate professor and study leader.

Researchers believe a synthetic tiger poo smell could be created and turned into a commercial product. [Read More]

Hmmm.

The key is?

Feed tigers chicken?

I can do that.

Mar 13 2011

What does a ‘red halo’ mean to you?

Depends.

Black hole or all-seeing eye of evil?

Really…

Isn’t one just as bad as the other.

43 million light years away from Earth, NGC 4151, named by astronomers, Eye of Sauron, after the all-seeing symbol of evil in The Lord Of The Rings, is one of the nearest galaxies to Earth to contain an actively-growing black hole. Powerful X-rays generated by the super-massive black hole produced the bright blue ‘pupil’ of the eye at the galaxy center. The red halo around the ‘pupil’ is made up of hydrogen atoms.

NGC 4151 is one of the nearest galaxies to Earth to contain an actively-growing black hole. It offers astronomers one of the best chances to study the interaction between a super-massive black hole and the surrounding gas of its host galaxy.

The new image was released last night by the American space agency NASA’s Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Daily Galaxy via Chandra X-Ray Center [Read More]

Mar 13 2011

I hate chickens.

The fact chickens have their own language and are (possibly) not as stupid as I have always thought they were? Will not make me like chickens any more than I do, right this minute…

I hate chickens.

It’s safe to say that it’s very hard to get chickens to shut up. Twenty-four hours before birth, baby chicks make peeping noises in the egg, with the mother chicken responding in soothing tones to provide assurance that everything is alright. In life, chickens learn and communicate more than 20 distinctive calls, including alarm calls when danger is near. Just a few years ago, researchers confirmed that the “tck, tck, tck” sound chickens make while pecking actually signifies the presence of food to other chicken and spurs them on to search for more food. Makes sense, I guess, that an animal that tastes so good maintains its owns exquisite “chicken language” for food. [Read More]

Now, I love to eat chickens. They taste divinely, especially with ketchup. Does the fact that they might experience empathy seeing one of their sisters or brothers heading off to the food processor make me feel more for them?

No.

Again, and I cannot stress this enough…

I hate chickens.

British scientists have discovered that chickens have feelings. More specifically, they have empathy — the ability to feel the emotions of other chickens, according to a report published in the Telegraph on London on Wednesday.

The discovery has important implications for the welfare of farm and laboratory animals, say researchers. … Scientists chose hens and chicks for the study because it is thought empathy probably evolved to aid parental care.

This means, chicken eaters, that it’s possible the birds you eat have the ability to “feel the pain” of their neighbors in high-stress situations, such as when birds are being gathered for slaughter.

The researchers literally “ruffled the feathers” of chicks with puffs of air and measured the responses of their mothers.

The hens’ heart rate increased, their eye temperature lowered — a recognised stress sign — and they became increasingly alert. Levels of preening were reduced, and the hens made more clucking noises directed at their chicks. [Read More]

Chicken is the T-Rex’s closest relative?

I tell you, make me look at chickens in a whole new, scary way…

Awesome.

I still hate them, but…

Awesome!

Analysis of a shred of 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein – along with that of 21 modern species and an extinct mastodon – confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with birds, particularly chickens and ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators. [Read More]