Some of my favorite sites — like Instructables, xkcd and Boing Boing — and others I use all the time — like YouTube and Wikipedia — are a product of and are only possible in an open internet that promotes the free exchange of knowledge.

Even a tiny site like mine is only possible in a world where I’m not in legal jeopardy if I link to a site anywhere online that has any links to copyright infringement (how could I possibly police that?).

Legislation currently pending in the US congress — H.R.3261 “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and S.968 “PROTECT IP” (PIPA) — threaten, at a minimum, to significantly undermine our (that’s all of us on the web, people) ability to communicate with each other and encourage collaborative learning through linking to and direct sharing of resources and ideas. At worst, some of our favorite websites could disappear from the web without warning, and without due process of law.

So PLEASE take just a minute to contact your representatives in congress. For more information about what these bills could mean for the internet, there are more resources over at the EFF.

Thanks!

“Watch out, research is about to get even geekier! Not only does the new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago look like one of the domed ships in “Silent Running,” it’s got a highly automated book storage and retrieval system. The public areas of the library are above ground in a glass and steel dome. But all the books are held underground in a climate controlled area capable of keeping 3.5 million volumes readily accessible. Library patrons email their request to the library and within five minutes the robotic system has found the desired book and sent it up to the pickup area in the reading room. The video below shows the whole process.”

Only one downside as I see it: no browsing the stacks. I’ve found some great authors that way, such as Sherman Alexie (obviously I started at the As). Still, it’s thrilling that this library actually exists and print books are being saved and used. I’m not a Luddite, but I do love me some binded paper.

Actually, first I was upset that I didn’t already know — it’s Thursday, which means the week is almost over — and then I got excited. I went to several robot sites and read about the latest advances, watched a number of videos, and it wasn’t until about 6pm that I discovered it’s NOT National Robotics Week. In fact, the second annual National Robotics Week doesn’t happen until April 9-17.

Am I too dumb to be interested in robotics? I think we should ask Watson because there’s no way he has enough data to draw a conclusion. Otherwise the verdict might be highly unflattering for me.

At least I spent some time today looking at robotics. And in honor of the impending fun-osity of all things artificially intelligent and robotical — humanoid, industrial, medical, even military — here are a few links: Instructables Robot Contest; IEEE Spectrum – Robotics; and Crabfu, my absolute favorite site today. This video is why…

Do you remember the game Mouse Trap? A boot kicks over a bucket sending a marble down a stair and through a chute to a pole with a hand on top holding another ball that drops down through a hole into a bathtub — on and on it goes until the mouse cage comes rattling down, trapping the poor mice below. That game was my first exposure to a Rube Goldberg machine and I thought it was incredibly fascinating and clever.

Well, I was recently reading in Fast Company about Syyn Labs, a team best known for the Rube Goldberg machine it built for the band OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass” video. This fun-loving and hard-working team learned when constructing their RB machine to put the most unreliable parts first, so if they didn’t work, it didn’t take as long to reset before testing again. And it took them 6 months to make their contraption and 85 takes to film it in a single shot.

So what does this have to do with writing?

Over the past three months, I’ve been trying to write faster. To get that first draft down and only then go back and edit the hell out of it. I have a tendency to nit-pick myself to death over nuance, or what I perceive to be nuance in word choice, sentence structure, rhythm, etc.

So I flew through the first five chapters of my new book, was driven to get it down. Then slam, I hit a roadblock — I needed to do some heavy-duty research before continuing. And I’ve been beating myself up for it over the past three weeks. Was I falling back into my old habits, I wondered, deluding myself that I was being productive when I was merely not writing?

But what if the writing process is the same as making a Rube Goldberg machine? What if the beginning comprises the pieces that can most easily go awry, and so it’s not such a bad idea to stop and make sure all your ducks (or dominoes) are in a row before continuing? Maybe getting that basis right is important and then you’re ready to fly through the rest before you go back and edit, edit, edit.

Is a Rube Goldberg machine just a diversion or is it something more? Is art just a diversion or must it be something more? Sometimes I think it’s pointless to wonder about such ideas while other times I feel the need to reach a conclusion, or at least to form an opinion.

Maybe all art is a form of Rube Goldberg machine, and all Rube Golderg machines are art — overly complex ways of saying/showing the simplicity of a thing so that we can marvel at it.

That works for me today.

The 27th Chaos Communication Congress (27C3) — an annual four-day conference in Berlin organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) — took place in late December. I’m only hearing about it now through io9, but what a blast it would have been to attend.

There were talks like “Contemporary Profiling of Web Users: On Using Anonymizers and Still Getting Fucked,” which included a description of ways of distinguishing bots from humans to provide crawlers with false data or to lure them into tar pits. And “From Robot to Robot: Restoring Creativity in School Pupils Using Robotics,” where university students mentor high school students. Topics also ranged from “Adventures in Mapping Afghanistan Elections” — using an open source mapping system called Ushahidi to track the election — to “A Short Political History of Acoustics: For Whom, and to Do What, the Science of Sound Was Developed in the 17th Century” about how the science of acoustics is connected to the desires to surveill and communicate.

io9 has a great post on it by Annalee Newitz, “10 devious new ways that computer hackers can control your machines (or fix them)” about how hackers might “subvert your computer, phone, bank card, and life” in 2011. It’ll either make you paranoid or spur you to learn more.

This first vid is from BotJunkie. Apparently those guys and gals at NASA not only build nimble robots but edit one slick video.

This second vid is old (from 2007) but it shows the kind of silliness it’s impossible to avoid when the means are right at your fingertips.

* Why haven’t I posted? I took a summer class (French) that was a semester’s work in six weeks, started a new novel and went on vacation. Also, I’ve been working on some tech projects with my nephew via Skype (more on that in a future post).

Most people have an idea of what a robot should do: it should serve us –- cart snacks over to the couch, rub our feet, make the bed. Kind of like a slave, which is when all the worries about robot consciousness crop up. Uh oh!

But the technology coming out of robotics allows your camera to self-focus and gets rid of pink-eye. It’s also allowing for better medical treatment with regard to, for example, prostate surgery (just went to a lecture on this last night, with video).

In fact, maybe someday –- and this is the most fascinating robot-related research I’ve read about recently — you’ll be able to pull a mobile phone out of your pocket and morph it into a laptop. Seriously. I’m shivering over here.

LINKS:
- “Intel Talks Up Our Wire-Free, Robot-Ruled Future”
- “Ready for the Robot Revolution”

Remember Diana Eng from Season 2 of Project Runway? Leah Buechley’s work is much cooler. In fact, she’s created a kit you can use to make your own interactive fashion — from turn-signal biking jackets to LED tank tops.

Once you know how the electronics work, sew away. Or once you learn how to sew, add the electronics. Wearable tech is the wave of the future, both as decoration and tool. Be on the vanguard.

Links:
- Leah Buechley [UPDATED: this is her new position at MIT]
- LilyPad Arduino
- Diana Eng

Human beings anthropomorphize robots even though they know bots are machines. So why wouldn’t animals do the same? (Anima-morphize?)

The interesting bit in this story is:

Seeking help, [dog-owner] Mr. Hearn found an online forum dedicated to the hundred-dollar Roomba buzzing with similar stories of pet assailants. Owners were offering advice. Among the most popular: Chastise the vacuum in front of the dog.

And so, with Argos [his dog] looking on, Mr. Hearn shook his finger at his gadget and sternly called it “a bad Roomba.” Argos appeared to be mollified. “After that, he never tried nipping at it again,” says Mr. Hearn.

But what about the Roomba? Was it upset after that wholly unjustified negative reinforcement? Apparently Mr. Hearn didn’t care. Not one bit. Poor robot.

Link:
- “When Dogs and Robots Collide, Somebody Needs a Talking To”