Senor Parrot's Perch

After a while, what scares you gets less scary. As a kid, you were easily frightened. As you grew older, scary stuff had to get scarier to keep its edge, and now the kid stuff you just laugh off. Of course, this makes life tough for Zombies. I read this at the Pink Tentacle: Zombie Boot Camp.

The Pink Tentacle reports that the zombies at a maze of terror in Japan were just not scary enough. So, true to modern business methods and quality improvement principles which are widely practiced in Japan, training was in order. He provides the video and I’m inserting it and the other link Pink Tentacle video here. I wish I understood Japanese, but that didn’t stop me from laughing. It’s all good, clean, zombie fun, and perfect Friday goofiness.

The link to the Japanese site that has more..

Enjoy. Now for me, the scary part is…this is real!

My kids’ old computer konked out again and needs a new power supply. I saw a good sale on a laptop with enough stuff for the kids so I sent my wife out to get it. Well, as I am setting it up, I find I want it. Maybe they still have one in stock at the store for them cause I’m keeping this for me. Bad Dad! At least they didn’t know it was for them.

Lego Robots are amazing. They’re easy to construct. My youngest was able to help assemble one when she was only 5 years old (and she’s 6 now). The programming is simple, with assembling programs as easy as dragging action components and setting� some simple parameters on a computer screen. If you outgrow the computer brain that Lego provides, there are third party brains that snap in and let you program more complicated routines in languages like C. This is great for your teenager.

Lego Robots are also helpful for teaching complex concepts in math. Here is a short news clip of math teachers learning how to use Lego Robots in the classroom:

The video is courtesy WHSV.com in Virginia.

Pink Tentacle has this post and video of a Japanese robot from the University of Tokyo that pitches with amazing accuracy. An updated version of a robot constructed first in 2003, this new model has super sensitive control of its fingers. The batter is a robot from MIT.

Well, my title overstates it, but I loved this quote from Benito’s Wine Reviews that popped up in my daily google book review search. It’s the first two paragraphs of Benito’s review of a history of the 1920′s era of wine making during prohibition. The book itself sounds very interesting, but I loved his first two paragraphs:

Book Review: When the Rivers Ran Red

When I was a child, Mom had a strict rule against horror movies. It wasn’t a religious thing, or an attempt to prevent my brother and me from being scared, she just pointed out that they were stupid and fake. In my teenage and young adult years, when I finally got around to seeing things like Nightmare on Elm Street, I was bored out of my mind. When I saw The Blair Witch Project, I thought, “Geez, there was no projectile vomiting, venomous snakes, hypothermia, lightning strikes, and nobody got stranded in the desert for several hours. I did scarier camping when I was 12.”

But if you want real terror, the kind that keeps you up at night and pesters you like an itch inside your skull that can’t be scratched, read some history.

The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet

by Neil deGrasse Tyson

It’s been a tough ride on the roller coaster for Pluto. Once the favorite planet of children, now ingominiously referred to as a dwarf planet, the status of Pluto had become something of an astronomer’s political football a few years back. In a day and age when we’re supersizing our meals, we are downsizing planets. How this came to be is richly detailed, albeit somewhat one-sidedly, in Neil deGrasse Tyson‘s very entertaining and informative book entitled The Pluto Files:The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet.

It is a very aptly titled book. It’s irreverent, funny and enlightening. It is also a great example of how science can be discussed on a layman’s level. Tyson’s sense of humor and pugnacious spirit shows on every page in clearly written prose. If it’s something you need to know to understand the topic, Tyson is very able to explain it in a way you can understand.

Covering the history of Pluto from the early search for Planet X through it’s (more…)

Robot Living has a short informational post about a cute, pink, robotic penguin that interacts with its friends and has a baby that it interacts with, too. I’m not showing these videos of Penbo the Pink Penguin Robot that are embedded below (the first is also posted by Robot Living) to my youngest daughter. I might show it to a grandparent or uncle around Christmas time. I think I’ll show it to my friends’ kids, though. Nothing like sowing seeds of the Christmas Gimme’s early on and spoiling summer in the mix.

Robot Living says:

What can we say. It is pink. It is a penguin and has a baby called Bebe. Both respond to stimulation like your voice and your touch. Both robots should be available soon through Amazon.

The other robot that Robot Living is referring to is Prime 8 Gorilla that is developed for boys. Here’s the video, a commercial you’ll probably see on Saturday morning TV, if you watch with your kids:

Here’s another video performance by Penbo, from the London Toy Show, with a man giving a demo:

I’m too old! (can you hear my bones creaking?) I love this interactivity that they are developing. I want to re-engineer my career and work on programming these things instead of working in BI and teaching Economics. But that mortgage and tuition for the kids’ school always gets in the way.

Well, I was too slow with this post. My youngest just woke up and came downstairs. Like a foolish dad, I showed her the video I’ve posted below. She watched quietly for about 15 seconds and then said, “I want that. Can you buy me that robot?” I knew she’d say that.

This video comes from Botropolis.

Bossa Nova Penbo from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

Also from Botropolis is this video of Prime 8, the gorilla robot for boys:

Bossa Nova Prime8 from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

The London Eye Mystery

By Siobhan Dowd

How does someone vanish into thin air? Magicians make beautiful women disappear. Harry Houdini made an elephant disappear. David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. All tricks. All illusions. But what about when your cousin disappears? Almost from before your very eyes. And he doesn’t reappear?

Ted and Kat, his older sister, wait on the ground while their cousin Salim rides the great London Eye, an enormous Ferris Wheel like ride that towers over everything nearby. Salim never appears. He’s vanished. A mysterious man had given his ticket to Salim. Then, Salim had jumped to the head of the long, snaking line waiting to board the London Eye. Ted and Kat saw him enter the car. No one saw him again.

Together, Ted and Kat work to solve the mystery of their vanished cousin. The twist is that (more…)

Life on Earth – And Beyond: An Astrobiologists Quest

by Pamela S. Turner

The question of the existence of life elsewhere in the universe has always fascinated people. Writers use it as a means of examining our own prejudices, scientists find it a puzzle, Hollywood makes millions from it. There are all sorts of ideas on the subject. And thanks to Star Trek, we know it is likely that they all speak with better English accents than either Checkov or Scotty. What’s with that?

If there is life in space, what does it look like? Where should we look? Evolutionary biology suggests that life may exist elsewhere. Astrobiology gives us clues to what this life may look like.

In her excellent book, Life On Earth – and Beyond: An Astrobiologist’s Quest, author Pamela S. Turner follows NASA scientist Dr. Chris McKay as he looks for life in the most extreme environments on Earth. By searching for life in these environments, the most arid and the most frigid, he discovers clues that lead us further in our search for life in the extreme environments of space.

(more…)

I tried to find the blog where I learned about this enormous reading contraption from Japan this morning, but I couldn’t find it. I searched on the term “reading robot” and quickly found another source.

Equipped with character recognition software, this oversized robot can read printed materials. It’s expressive ability is similar to the Kindle’s, which is to say, it is surprisingly good for a machine, but needs a lot of work before it’s ready.

I love robots. I think it is amazing what they can be programmed to do. But this one is overkill. The developers say it will be great for reading to kids or old folks. So maybe it’s really a metal nanny, instead of a reader. I don’t think this will promote reading, but it sure will promote alienation between parents and children. Why bond to mom or dad when I have this lovely machine? Send me a Kindle, instead. Better yet, send me Grandma!

Here is a video:

Thanks to Pink Tentacle for the article on this robotic miscue.