99 Problems: Solved!

Thanks, ACME!

Robot Defense Corps - Lesson 1

While the mega-funded military-industrial-complex churns out threats to humanity for greed without ethics, I feel that I must begin collecting information on how to defend against the robot threat for future reference.
Of course, this is all tounge-in-cheek speculation and by no means represents a serious study.
One would want to read Sun Tsu's The Art of War first, which would be just as effective against robots as it would humans. Paraphrasing The Art of War- misdirection and recon(spies) are very important to victory. Know more about your enemy than he knows about you. Appear weak when you are strong, appear strong when you are weak. Misdirect and confuse your enemy as much as possible.
With that in mind...

Our first subject: the Robotex model AH.

Most likely humanities first ground-based robotic threat, the Robotex AH is being marketed today by Robotex and Blackwater. Here's the link:
Killer robots could replace soldiers
It's main advantages are that it's cheap, simple and deadly. It's main disadvantage seems to be it's limited field of vision and almost total reliance on it.
According to the article, the model AH is 2' tall, has a speed of 10 mph, zero-turn-radius and carries 1 or 2 AA-12 Atchinson Assault Shotguns, which can fire regular 12 gauge rounds, slugs or FRAG-12 rounds, which are small, explosive, 12-gauge grenades. The AH has a 360 Deg. turret independent of travel direction. They can fire fully automatic and carry anywhere from 8 to 32 rounds apiece depending on the magazine with no recoil. According to Jerry Barber, founder of 'Military Police Systems', "It delivers the lead equivalent of 132 M16s," says Baber. "When they start firing from every direction, it's all over." So the first defense would be to limit your bodily exposure to the AH as much as possible.
Baber and MPS has designed a "mini" robotic helicopter to carry and deploy the model AH, and can be assumed it will be used as recon after the drop. So it will be important to take the helicopter first, to give you the best advantage over the land-based AH. The helicopters loadout is not known at this time.

Against the Model AH, Molotov cocktails effectiveness is debatable. Straight-on gunfire would be unwise.
Since there are 6 wheels or rubber track, disabling movement could only be achieved by controlling it's operating surface.
The easiest way to take out a model AH seems to be the oldest trick in the book. A camouflaged or trap-door pit with sheer walls no less than 3 feet deep and at least 3 feet square. Since there is only one camera pointed straight down the barrel for targeting, this seems a cheap, safe and effective defense assuming there is no advanced infra-red involved. At a current price-tag of 30-50k, that seems unlikely. One would have to assume that the Model AH can right itself if inverted, so a pit will only capture one, limit it's movement and field-of-fire and vision. It will still be active and deadly.
So if possible, secondary measures should be added to the pit(s). Filling it with water would be an option. If immersion in water does not disable it completely, water would go a long way to further disabling it's movement, vision and lethality. Furthermore, immersing a simple split wire in the water would be a simple and effective secondary defense. Once a Model AH is pitted, the wire could be plugged into a 120 wall plug to do some serious electrical damage without destroying the shotguns, which could be removed and utilized once the AH is rendered 'safe'.
Spikes in the pit would probably be ineffective, but some measure of limiting the AH's abilities, such as a tangle of rebar, a layer of gasoline that could be ignited, or several inches of mud or grease could be employed to coat the camera and wheels. Humans capacity to think is our greatest advantage, so experimentation and innovation is encouraged.
By looking at the unit, one can see that the AH is equipped with a single camera. If that could be disabled with a scoped rifle, that would go a long way to limiting the AH's lethality while staying out of range. If the camera is disabled, it would be likely for that unit to retreat, making any salvage unlikely.
The camera and shotgun-control wires seem conspicuously exposed with a good possibility of compromise.
With the AH's inability to adjust it's height, another defense could be tightened wires strung across a span. Hallways would be ideal for this but only as a simple way of stopping them and/or controlling their movement. Limiting the visibility of the wires would be advantageous for defense and problematic for the robot. One would want to use as many defenses as possible to defeat the AH. Cheaply stopping them or coralling them into a trap would seem to be effective to limit a humans exposure to the AH's withering field of fire.
One must assume that there will be a GPS unit aboard the AH, so salvage of the entire unit would probably be unwise, but shotguns and batteries could probably be taken without much chance of compromise, and used for future defense.
If the GPS could be disabled, or better yet sent on a goose-chase, then an entire unit would be good for further study and possibly employed against future encounters. A Trojan-horse, if you will, could be added to gather information and possibly attack with deception and misdirection.
So be safe, humans. And be smart. These robots are gonna suck.

Cyborg see, cyborg do.

Monkeys Control a Robot Arm With Their Thoughts
Let's start the human testing already! Oh for heaven sake mankind it’s only four light years away you know! There's only so much we can learn from monkeys who can't tell you what's happening and can only understand limited instructions. Bring on the giant cyborg men! And let's dispense with the simple functions of using a spoon or flipping a light switch. Let's get straight to the Frankensteinien betrayal phase where they leave a cyborg-shaped hole in the wall as they run for the hills and lament their hideous, monster-like selves. Sign me up.

Damn! I see demons.

Nuthin like a girl with measurements like 36/2/32.
Animation is awesome, but the font choice needs some rethinking.

True Patriots vol. 1

I want to collect information on people I respect and wish to emulate.
One of the first is Daniel Schorr.

Qualified for greatness and being a true patriot. He was on Nixon's enemies list and investigated by the FBI, which would have been one of the charges of abuse of power if Nixon had been impeached. He was arrested, drugged and deported by the KGB on trumped-up charges because of his journalistic criticism of the Kremlin. He also was part of Edward R. Murrow's team, interviewed Castro and Khrushchev and traveled with President Eisenhower. He helped build CNN and was canned for editorial differences. Mr. Schorr is even the man who convinced me to give up my Oliver Stone-ish conspiracy theories about Lee Harvey Oswald just with his opinion alone.
Before I get long-winded about how awesome he is, here's some links.

You can read his NPR Bio here

And I believe it's never a waste to listen to an hour interview of someone so awesome. You can do other things while listening cuz it's only audio. So kill that second bird and click this
Dianne Rehm interview with Daniel Schorr in 2006 to celebrate his 90th birthday. Second story down. audio links to the right. I do believe that realAudio will stream in iTunes.

Daniel, I hope you live another 90 years. Hope that's ok with you.

Gonzo

From a classic Fark Photoshop Thread.

I like my bands in league with the Gypsies

Hell ya. Wonder if I can get them to come here.
Gogol Bordello

Super Saiyan

A few days ago, I told myself that I'd reach super-saiyan if I could do my whole bike route of 4.5 miles without switching out of high gear. Bingo. A full 7 days before I thought I could even attempt it. Never even got close before. This with 20 sustained-30 gust north wind, stinging 37 degree wind chill, a completely loose handlebar malfunction and a broken shoelace.
100x gravity.

Adam Phillips - Animator extrodinare

If I have a hero, he's it. If I have a role model, he's the one. As much as Dr. J inspires me to be a better designer and think about the deeper aspects of what design can be, Adam Phillips inspires me to be a better animator. His stuff is spectacular and he pays his own way, doing his own thing and collaborating with other talented artists on projects. I'm not there yet, Adam. But I will be. I'm experienced enough to see your technique and analyze your kung-fu. You are the Kyūzō to my Kikuchiyo. A true Ronin. My goal is to get talented enough to collaborate with you. The training continues.
Go to Adam's site: Bitey Castle and thumb thru the "30 animations in 30 days section on the right. #16 - "Ninja" is my personal fav.
...and have a look at his entire Brackenwood series. Time well spent.

parody of a parody

The cthulhu political poster made me make this.
Why?

Mulling over the mechanics of safety pins

In my pursuit of the Total Perspective Vortex, I've been admiring the self-regulation ability of candles. The flame burns off the tip of the wick if it's too far up to draw wax, keeping the flame from getting so big it melts the entire candle. If the flame gets to where a lot of wax melts, the level of liquid wax raises on the wick, making the flame smaller which limits its heat and stops adding to the wax pool. In turn, that keeps the melted wax from snuffing the flame. Hmmmm.
I sure hope coffee works well as a Brownian Motion calculator. I'm not that big a fan of tea. Oh wait. That's the Infinite Improbability generator. The Vortex requires cake as an extrapolator. In theory, anyway. Meanwhile, the dust-speck remains insignificant and without a sense of proportion.

Fear of a squid planet

Trickle-down Ergonomics

Weight-loss and fitness have been successful finally. Really good strength and definition have resulted. I've got traps now. The scale said 166 yesterday. To add some cardio and back-strength, I've restarted the daily bike ride. Yes, the goal is currently cheap cigarettes, but it's easier if I have a reason to go and a destination. I figure it offsets.
There's other benefits. Spring smells and sights. Plus on a bike, you see more than a car. Today, I saw two young brothers with the reddest hair since ever. Yesterday, a guy pulled his pants down on his front porch, full-on harry crack- shorts to the knees. I'm sure it was more benign stupidity of "Ther's sumthin in muh shorts." than malignant sex-offender "here's muh ass", but damn, dude. Keep yer shorts up... and wear underwear.
There's a place right around the corner with great honeysuckle smell. There's another place that usually smells like fabric softener. There's a long stretch on the park where hot girls walk their dogs, and a couple of thigh-burn hill climbs. Most of the route is tree-covered. It seems last years ice-storm only culled the weak branches, and what's left is full and healthy.
I do it every day. It's a little over 3 miles long and it gets easier every day. Come ride with me.

8-bit bliss

Old-school. Was putzin around the Radiohead site and found alink to this.
An 8-bit style sidescroller freeware. It's kinda a cross between mega-man and zelda with a little bit of bomberman thrown in. Storyline, powerups, puzzles, shootems, good bosses. It's un-complicated but full-featured. It's easy while not too easy. There's an english patch and it's pretty good. And it's free.


It's at your own risk, tho. I didn't get any alerts and haven't noticed anything malicious.

You're for me, Punk Rock Girl.

yes. Yes you are.


Remember when Gwen Stefani was punk? Neither do I.

Cinco De Mayo

Well eat my worm, it's time for another drinking holiday. Originally a celebration of the Mexican army's victory over French forces in 1862, Cinco de Mayo has devolved into yet another excuse to get completely blotto, if anyone needed one at all. Like the observance of St. Patrick's driving out of the Druids (or "snakes" if you like your dogma served with seltzer) and the German celebration of the October harvest... let's drink, because drinkers need enabling and everything else is history.

Bad... Ass

This might be the most bad-ass photo I have ever seen.

I found it rummaging among the copious Library of Congress / Flickr royalty-free image project website.
It's an M3 "General Lee" Medium Tank and it's crew with some serious firepower brought to bear. That's:
Four - M1917 .45 caliber, double-action, 6 shot revolvers.
Two - M1A1 Thompson .45 caliber sub-machine guns with 50 round magazines
One - M3A1 37mm High-velocity cannon
One - M3 75mm main cannon
...and one godamn proud American. Thank you, Second Amendment. Thank you, Library of Congress.

Too weird to live.

To rare to die.
The more strange and rare a cartoon, the more I love it. The more I love it, the quicker they seem to be canceled. There are 4 main examples that I will present here: with the help of the internet's uncanny ability to infringe on intellectual property.

First, Sam & Max.

On for 2 short seasons. With such great writing and adult themes, it was doomed. I wanted to post the episode where they go to save their favorite snack, "The Fried McGuffin" but couldn't find it. So in it's place, I give you the "$59.95 wedding package with complementary passes to the Buddy Hacket Experience."
Way too weird to live.


Second, Invader Zim.

The darkest of the dark, and one of the best animated series ever. 2 seasons short, even winning an Emmy couldn't save it. From shooting chickens into the sun, to developing a virus to turn people into baloney, to having a giant, sloshing, hypnotic zit named "Pusstulio," Invader Zim at least attained Cult status. He's even got an entire fan-made collection on Newgrounds. His robot, Gir, was so great a character, he could have had his own spin-off. Alas, it was so good as to be completely, predictably doom doom da doom doom doomed.

Below is the only full episode posted on youtube. It doesn't have Zim in it, but it shows just how dark the series is. What's extra skin-crawlingly awesome is that this episode is typically... not extraordinarily, dark for the show. Probably why it was doomed. Both seasons live on in DVD, which is why you can't find youtube episodes. Guess I'll have to pony up.


Third, The Tick.

The tamest of the list, it was a short three seasons long. With characters like Die Fledermaus, Sewer Urchin and American Maid, villains like Chairhead Chippendale and The Mad Bomber What Bombs at Midnight, and a battle-cry of SPOON!...it was doomed. So doomed, I don't know why a live-action sit-com was green-lit. It was doomed too.

Last, and definitely first: The Venture Brothers.

What more could you ask for? Brock Sampson may be the greatest straight-man ever to slaughter an entire army with a lawnmower. Who could be man enough to train such a great character? Why, only a government-assasin version of Hunter S. Thompson. That's who. Brock F'n Sampson, man. Dibbs on his cigarette butt.

It's still on TV, and on DVD and whole episodes on adultswim.com, so I won't embed a video. So great I can't explain why it's 3rd season starts June 1, and wikipedia reports a fourth in the works. I wouldn't put money on it, but here's hoping it lives, because it's the greatest thing on TV. Go team Venture.

I found it.

Everyone I mentioned this to thought I was crazy, but I found it and can prove it exists now.
It was an animated Christmas special from the 70's. It was only played 2 times that I can remember, and I recognized it for how different it was. "Different" seems to translate to "weird" in good ol' 'Muricka, which is probably why it didn't make a longer run on 'Murican TV. Or maybe the Baby-Boomers didn't like being portrayed as greedy, uncaring and stupid.
Whatever the reason, I present A Cosmic Christmas from Nelvana Studios. I knew I wasn't crazy.
Stay weird, Canada.

Progress

I registered roninrobot(dot)com this week thinking about an animation studio.
It's unhosted as of this moment, but I've got the URL. I was pretty happy it wasn't taken. Let's see if I do something with it.
Meanwhile, I'm working on a new flash website. It's unsold, so if Saturn Grill doesn't want it, I'll revamp it for either Deep Deuce Grill, or even Roninrobot. I've learned a lot, and functionality is getting better and cooler cuz I know more a lot more actionscript.
It's kinda like teaching myself latin, as many programing languages have very similar syntax. Hopefully, actionscript will let me learn the others easier.
Not much works, but the basics are there and you can see it here if you care:
Saturn Grill Flash

I really like the navigation bar. The script font caused me some problems, but I worked around it cuz it's cool. I'm getting faster too. It only took me 12 hours to get it to this point...from scratch. That's amazing to me.