Heroes Denouement

I knew it.

I knew what was going to happen the second Richard Roundtree's character told him he could love unconditionally and THAT was the answer.

And as I broke down then, I did not stop.

May they Rest in Peace.

(....goddamn manipulative TV shows ;) )

In Maryland for Will's Birthday

I'm here in Annapolis until Monday morning. I'm not sure who is in town but if you're interested in dropping by to see us, fire off an email or give me a call on my cell - 617-797-8471.

BrainStream: Self-Repairing Networked, Spiderbot Scout Collective

Here's quite the stream of consciousness from daydreaming on the train ride home yesterday. I went straight up to my office and "leaked" it out into Word before I lost it.

Usual disclaimer: None of this has been edited or researched. Putting this together at present would be nigh impossible but there are a lot of components out there to make a lot of this plausible. This is raw thought.

"May 10, 2007

5:44pm

Robots - about the size of the extended human hand
look like balls of stainless steel or some sort of polymer/titanium
must be durable and light

can have spider-like legs all over...so walking on bottom 3-4....top 3-4 retracted or being used as air sensors / arms.

key is that if it gets on its back, it can walk immediately.

All legs are retractable...micro filaments that "stick" to things like spiders?

Like Ian Mcdonalds 'slow missles"

used for specific missions. 5-10 are released in a field do assess flamability. they each go off in 4-6 directions to establish a grid set at the start by GPS or physical limits. Should be able to go anywhere....higher end bots would be amphibious.

computer data and "sensor" attachments are loaded depending on mission. Bots normally stay in docking station type environment where they can use arms to self assess, self-repair, stay charged and used to load data and sensor attachments.

docking station also durable and can be left in the wild, kept charged through solar, wind or other means. Allows for some extension of standalone lifetime of bots to repair, recharge and update data or download data

bots can create internal, secure asyncronous data. Ideally, one is never not connected to another and the whole 5-10 grouping should all be connected at all times. Else closed one to last position should go cautiously "check" within reason.

Needs to be some sort of survival mode if bots get attacked.

Look at antlion - full arms retract and bot shoots piston deep into ground from belly then spins body or pulls arms out from vertical piston to dig hole. All that stays on the surface would be camo'd antennea and solar device for charging. Needs energy conserving mode.

Bot should be able to climb tree, attach to branch or crawl in hole, retract into ball and stay tight until "safe". These are scouts...not weapons

Bots should be able to connect by any means possible - open wireless networks, bluetooth, packet radio, rfid, possibly even microwaves? probably too high power. When one bot connects to an external entity, it examines available bandwidth and (if possible) establishes a closed VPN through it to "home". Ideally it would be able to do bandwidth prioritization and not use up everything on host device unless emergency.

Base station would have added sat capabilities and depending on carefully calculated energy availability, could be the lifeline for the entire bot network to pass data back and forth. Standalone scenario should be use if base station needs to power down, botnet looses connectivity to the base station, emergency etc.

a simple bot activity could be to act as a mobile repeater. Possibility of bots to connect to each other like Voltron for larger tasks but the use of bots to continue seeking higher locations to maximize signal range.

if possible, specialized bots and base should be EMP shielded to allow for continued operation in the case of a nuclear incident.

bots are loaded with data sets and sensor attachments according to mission. Could be as simple as catalogue all flora and fauna in this sector ....use cameras to "count" wildlife and recognition library to name them. Could be used to constantly assess the fire danger of an area or to survey for other reasons. Could be used for S&R in all terrain (specialized bots) including swamps. Possibility for high-temp resistant bots to work in forest fires, shielding all equipment until in a cool zone.

For longer missions, certain basestations could "house" bots, possibly residing mostly underground for safety. geothermal as possible power source?

Obviously botnet could be used in times of war and war situations as scouts. If small enough and properly camoflauged, they can go unnoticed and be used for a multitude of purposes including night scouting, IED detection and possible disarmament...forward sighting etc.

Specialized versions of bots could collect various samples...would need to determine clean way to certify forensically....military bots would need to be temptest shielded....
"

Apple PC vs Mac Ads - South Park style

After quite a long, tiring day at the weeks end of traveling, this video made me have to suppress absolute cackling - I had tears streaming down my face and was sputtering in a wild attempt to do so.