August 28th, 2009
Right after I posted that last link I realized that I don’t really feel the desire to keep this linkblog going — at least not in the same way. But I’ve got an idea to continue RPM so I’m going to work on that (I hope). It’s a book — or maybe a blog — called 100RPM, or “The 100 Greatest Robots, Pirates and Monkeys That Ever Lived, Died, or Didn’t Live.” Or something like that. Quick bios on the best of the best. Here’s a sample I whipped up:
100RPM might be looking for a publisher. Here’s my Amazon author page and here are my two previous books:
• Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found
• 50 Sad Chairs
So see ya later keaggy.com/rpm. Posting here had slowed down so much that this page is basically shuttered anyway. It’s been a good nine years, though. Cheers.
— Bill
Posted in Monkeys, Pirates, RPM Projects, Robots, Trifectas, Various | No Comments »
August 28th, 2009
“DID YOU KNOW : THIS WEB SITE IS USED TO IDENTIFY, RECORD AND RETAIN INFORMATION ON ROBOTS
- THIS IS A ROBOT HOBBYIST WEB SITE I/WE DO NOT BUY AND/OR SELL ANYTHING ON THIS SITE.
- WHAT YOU GET IS INFORMATION AND PICTURES THAT WILL HELP YOU IDENTIFY ROBOTS AND THEIR BOXES, CONTROLLERS AND ITEMS THAT PERTAIN TO ROBOTS.
- I/WE DO NOT BUY OR SELL ROBOTS, MANUALS, CONTROLLERS ETC.. I/WE DO NOT BUY OR SELL ANYTHING ON THIS SITE. YOU GET LINKS TO COMPANIES THAT BUY AND SELL ROBOTS AND TOYS.
- YOU GET FILES THAT YOU CANNOT GET ANYWHERE TO HELP YOU, YOU GET INFORMATION OF WHERE TO GET THOSE ITEMS.
- I/WE DO NOT FIND PARTS FOR OTHERS. YOU GET LINKS TO CHAT ROOMS THAT CAN HELP YOU.
- YOU GET INFORMATION ON HOW TO REPAIR YOUR ROBOTS.
- I/WE DO NOT REPAIR ROBOTS. YOU GET LINKS TO OTHERS THAT DO REPAIRS.
- THERE IS NO WARRANTIES EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.”
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
May 30th, 2009
Heh. “Junkbot sculptor Lockwasher strikes again (strikes back?).”
Beer2′s technical specs:
Head – 1945 chrome BLC utility light shell.
Eye – vintage movie camera lens w/adjustable spring-loaded aluminum casing.
Body – 4.7 liter “adult soda” mini-keg.
Legs – propane tank valve handles, brass spacers, drilled-out washers, pair of aluminum Lady Josephine shoe butler (wall-mounted shoe shine holders).
Feet/base – 3 mini bread loaf pans, lamp hardware and a 1/2″ precision drilled aluminum base plate.
+assorted nuts, bolts, screws and, of course – lockwashers!
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
May 30th, 2009
“This map shows all the piracy and armed robbery incidents reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre during 2009. If exact coordinates are not provided, estimated positions are shown based on information provided. Zoom-in and click on the pointers to view more information of an individual attack. Pointers may be superimposed on each other.”
Posted in Pirates | No Comments »
May 30th, 2009
I’ve actually started working on an RPM book. These good monkeys are mentioned but Albert III is the one who’s getting his own page.
In Huntsville, Ala., there is an unusual grave site where, instead of flowers, people sometimes leave bananas.
The gravestone reads: “Miss Baker, squirrel monkey, first U.S. animal to fly in space and return alive. May 28, 1959.”
Fifty years ago, when Baker made her famous flight, she had some company in the nose cone of the Jupiter ballistic missile: a rhesus monkey named Able.
Posted in Monkeys | No Comments »
March 15th, 2009
“Robotic systems continue to evolve, slowly penetrating many areas of our lives, from manufacturing, medicine and remote exploration to entertainment, security and personal assistance. Developers in Japan are currently building robots to assist the elderly, while NASA develops the next generation of space explorers, and artists are exploring new avenues of entertainment. Collected here are a handful of images of our recent robotic past, and perhaps a glimpse into the near future.”
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
February 27th, 2009
Wow, they managed to use the work “robot” 11 times in the opening paragraph.
Robot innovation continued its relentless advances during 2008. In this post we would like to showcase some of our favorite robots and robot videos of the last year or so. This review is heavily slanted to consumer robots and research robots. Perhaps in the future we can do a review of industrial robots. Given the sheer number of robots that are out there we know there will be several excellent robots that we have overlooked in this review. If you know of any really awesome robots or robot videos that we have missed please let us know and we will consider adding them to this post. So without further delay, lets take a look at some of the best robots and robot videos of 2008
PS: Yay. WordPress 2.7.1 broke my shitty custom RPM theme. I changed it to a generic one for now.
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
December 21st, 2008
“Just in case you’re not clear on the pecking order, here’s a handy chart that’s been doing the rounds today. It’s like paper rock scissors, except with more senseless violence.”
Posted in Trifectas | No Comments »
August 10th, 2008
hello naomi posts “i finally made robot cupcakes! they’ve been on my to-do list for a while =)”
Awesome!
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
May 16th, 2008
“Before the technology can become practical, the developers must overcome cost barriers and extend the suit’s battery life. Jameson was tethered to power cords during his demonstration because the current battery lasts just 30 minutes.
But the technology already offers evidence that robotics can amplify human muscle power in reality — not just in the realm of comic books and movies like the recently debuted “Iron Man,” about a wealthy weapons designer who builds a high-tech suit to battle bad guys.”
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
March 29th, 2008
Totally unrelated to robots, pirates, monkeys (or even ninjas): I probably should mention that my new book is out. It’s published by the weird and wonderful folks at BlueQ. It’s a nice little photo book of the sad chairs of St. Louis. No, really. Discarded chairs in alleys. Abandoned chairs on street corners. Abused chairs on loading docks. You get the picture. You’re gonna like it.
Check out www.50sadchairs.com to see some page samples and (if you want) by it at Amazon or Blueq.com.
C’mon!
Posted in RPM Projects, Various | No Comments »
February 27th, 2008
“coondoggie writes to tell us NetworkWorld is reporting that one researcher seems to think that a military robot arms race may be imminent between both governments and terrorists.”
We are beginning to see the first steps towards an international robot arms race and it may not be long before robots become a standard terrorist weapon to replace the suicide bomber, according to professor Noel Sharkey, from the Royal United Services Institute Department of Computer Science.
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
February 20th, 2008
Best stationary ever. Via the ‘lele.
Posted in Robots | 1 Comment »
January 25th, 2008
“This tea is called Monkey Picked Tea, and it’s not just a name it’s a fact. According to legend, monkeys used to pick tea from high branches and brought them to their masters. The masters — mostly monks — thought it was delicious and so a cycle was born. These days, the monkey picking tea practice has all but died out, but apparently one remote village continues the tradition.” (Thanks Coudal Partners!)
Posted in Monkeys | No Comments »
December 31st, 2007
Great find by AkitaSan. Tagged: Click this icon to see all public photos tagged with Armour Plant, National City, East St. Louis, Illinois, UEU.
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
December 2nd, 2007
“This robot has been programmed to write out the entire Martin Luther bible in a calligraphic style on a long roll of paper. I wonder if they’re going to bind the pages up and publish it? What the robot does is a step up from print in reproducing the manuscripts made by monks, which is great, though it doesn’t say (though my German isn’t good enough to read the product page) whether the robot arm applies differential pressure and angle of stroke depending on the previous letters, or how far across the line it is, or how far down the page, like a human being would. If it did, then that would in my mind give the work a magical, delicate quality of something written. I don’t want to get all tedious and mystical about some missing innate human or animistic quality, but I like the idea of a robot arm having to stretch a bit at the edges of the page, altering its stroke weight after a particularly arduous cadel previously, all that kind of stuff. I can imagine a whole series of publications that could be given this ‘hand done’ treatment.” (Thanks Coudal Partners!)
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
November 14th, 2007
“Thrill seekers and robot admirers alike can mark South Korea down as a must-see destination in the coming years, as it will soon be home to not one, but two robot theme parks. Yeah, we already knew that one of these fantasmical places were on the planning block, but just today the Commerce Ministry ‘announced a proposal to build two parks by 2013 for $1.6 billion.’ Reportedly, each park will mesh culture and entertainment with robot technology, and while one will be built in Incheon, the other will be erected some 242 miles south of Seoul in the port city of Masan.”
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
October 26th, 2007
“It has long been discussed that one of the goals of nanotechnology is to create miniscule machines and robots that can function inside our bodies to cure disease. Once this idea was straight from the script of a science fiction movie but now Korean researchers from Chonnam National University have created a microscopic robot that can travel through blood vessels.”
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
October 22nd, 2007
battery charger
box brownie
bathroom scales
door handles
shoe lasts
vintage egg whisk
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
September 28th, 2007
“Those reading Engadget last year might recall our unbridled excitement for the opening of the largest, most extensive (if not the first) museum dedicated to robots and robotics: the Robot Museum (aka Robothink). So you can only imagine how incredibly crestfallen we were to hear that just after a year of entertaining and educating the robot loving hordes, the museum announced that it is shuttering permanently.”
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
September 25th, 2007
“Two years ago, I forgot about it. Last year, I didn’t get a suitable call. But finally . . . This year . . . I’m very pleased to wish you all . . .
HAPPY TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!!!
…
ME: Yarrrrr, this be the Cap’n, what de ye be needin’ matey?
GUY: . . . . Uh, hello?
ME: Ahoy matey, the bosun tells me ye be havin’ a problem with one o’ me lads.
GUY: . . . Uh, yeah . . . I had a problem with one of your drivers?
ME: What did he be doin’, says I?”
Posted in Pirates | No Comments »
September 19th, 2007
…for International Talk Like A Pirate Day! But this year be different: Flickr is in on the fun (click the Arrr! translate link at the bottom of the page).
Posted in Pirates | No Comments »
September 13th, 2007
“A big, warm hug works wonders, even in the monkey world. Female spider monkeys without infants, it seems, will hug mother monkeys in exchange for permission to kiss, sniff and touch their babies.”
Posted in Monkeys | No Comments »
September 7th, 2007
“I decided to make this robot because I’ve never had very neat handwriting, so making large letters has always been difficult. When I was on Student Council in high school, I always got marked down for posters that weren’t “neat” enough. Like any nerd, I figured “If I can’t do it, I’ll make a robot to do it for me.”
This robot will draw out any small monochrome bitmap onto poster paper. It can mark out the individual pixels just as a printer might. It works best with strings of characters.”
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
August 28th, 2007
“You can keep your Bluebeards and your Blackbeards. The most successful pirate of all time controlled a fleet of more than 1,500 ships and upwards of 80,000 sailors — and she did it all without the help of facial hair.
When a Chinese pirate captain named Cheng married a beautiful prostitute in 1801, he wasn’t just getting the girl of his dreams; he was making the best financial investment of his career. His new bride, known to history as Cheng I Sao, or ‘Wife of Cheng,’ agreed to the marriage on one condition — that she would share equally in his power and would be given the opportunity to help him secure more wealth.”
Posted in Pirates | No Comments »
August 24th, 2007
“Wacky Monkey Alarm Clock will amuse even the grumpiest sleepyhead! You’ll wake up laughing to the “oo-oo-oo-ahh-ha-ha” sounds of the cute chimp on the clock’s face. Classic double bell style alarm clock features easy-to-read numbers and sweep second hand.”
Posted in Monkeys | No Comments »
July 29th, 2007
…please excuse any hiccups while I get the cool old RPM design back up and running.
Posted in RPM Projects | No Comments »
June 17th, 2007
This map tracks actual pirate attacks around the world. Indonesia and bangladesh are the big trouble spots these days.
Posted in Pirates | No Comments »
June 16th, 2007
“The Stanford Racing Team’s autonomous car, Junior, passed a complex driving test Thursday, making it one of the few robots in the world able to deal with the complexities of city traffic. Well, maybe small town traffic.
‘It drives like my grandma,’ exclaimed one bystander, as Junior cautiously pulled up to an intersection, turned on its blinker, waited ten seconds, and then pulled cautiously and jerkily around the curve.
Pathetic for a human — but pretty damn impressive for a completely self-contained, autonomous robot.”
Posted in Robots | No Comments »
