Style: David Bartlett
Model: Tayo Campbell
A Video Game Helps Artificial Intelligences Learn to Learn
From Popsci.com:
Ever wish you could play a game that tailors its strategy around your particular playing style? Thanks to a team of game programmers affiliated with the MIT Media Lab, and their project The Restaurant Game, that might be a reality sooner than you think.
One of the holy grails for programmers is to create artificial intelligence that's able to teach itself based on variables taken in on the fly. The Restaurant Game seeks to accomplish this by analyzing real interactions between a waiter and a customer, and figuring out which interaction combinations yield favorable results.
Read more ....
World's First Computer May Be Even Older Than Thought
From New Scientist:
From Swiss Army knives to iPhones, it seems we just love fancy gadgets with as many different functions as possible. And judging from the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism, the desire to impress with the latest multipurpose must-have item goes back at least 2000 years.
This mysterious box of tricks was a portable clockwork computer, dating from the first or second century BC. Operated by turning a handle on the side, it modelled the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets through the sky, sported a local calendar, star calendar and Moon-phase display, and could even predict eclipses and track the timing of the Olympic games.
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Robot Model Hits the Runway
From Live Science:
What appeared to be petite woman in an elaborate wedding dress walked slowly down the runway in an Osaka fashion show earlier this week. The twist is that this was no blushing bride; this was the HRP-4C female robot.
Though encumbered by an elaborate wedding dress, HRP-4C easily navigated the ten meter runway at the fashion show. Developed by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, the female humanoid robot stands just 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs a mere 95 pounds - batteries included. The robot has highly realistic facial features, and is able to use facial motions and arm movements to indicate basic emotions, such as anger and surprise.
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Two Anniversaries
One year ago today, Kleostoday was launched on the anniversary of the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia in 1914..
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife thirty days earlier in Sarajevo (28 June) proved to be the single greatest casus belli in the history of warfare. When the fighting finally ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of November 1918, more than 16 million soldiers and civilians combined had been killed and another 21 million had been wounded around the globe.
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After seeking revenge two decades later for its humiliation at the hands of France, Great Britain and the United States, the German war machine was finally defeated once and for all in 1945.
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Since the defeat of Hitler, Europe has been largely free from conflict. However, war still rages across the world in Nigeria, Somalia, the Congo and elsewhere. Oppressive regimes of one type or another have not disappeared in the 95 years since the tragic beginning of World War I. The governments of Iran, North Korea, China, Russia and Pakistan - just to name a few - still rule despotically and intend to neither honor the UN Charter nor international law.
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Nevertheless, world peace and (relative) economic equality will be achieved in the future.
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Mankind began primitively with little comprehension of his surroundings. After thousands of years of struggle, man finally reached an age of reason. In the Renaissance, myths were discarded, and truth was pursued rationally, logically and scientifically.
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A new Renaissance, which began in the 1960s worldwide, continues to evolve, and its moral force is in the process of sweeping away the core elements of sexism, racism, homophobia, economic inequality, war and corruption from the planet.
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As peace, love, education and humanism advances globally, Kleostoday is looking forward to another year of publication.
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Thank you for your readership.
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Sincerely,
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J Roquen
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(Picture: Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand)
Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man
This personal robot plugs itself in when it needs a charge. Servant now, master later?Ken Conley/Willow Garage
From The New York Times:
A robot that can open doors and find electrical outlets to recharge itself. Computer viruses that no one can stop. Predator drones, which, though still controlled remotely by humans, come close to a machine that can kill autonomously.
Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.
Read more ....
Another Ratbot, This One with Bigger Whiskers
From Popsci.com:
Encountering a swarm of genuine sewer-dwelling rats would send the average human screaming and jumping up onto the nearest chair, but there's nothing to fear -- and everything to admire -- about the latest plague of ratbots being developed in robotics labs around the world.
First came Psikharpax, the French ratbot with the fancy literary name, whose sensors simulated the function of three senses: vision, hearing, and touch. Now comes the less jazzily named SCRATCHbot (Spatial Cognition and Representation through Active TouCh) from England, who focuses only on the sense of touch.
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Robo-Ethicists Want to Revamp Asimov’s 3 Laws
From Gadget Lab/Wired News:
Two years ago, a military robot used in the South African army killed nine soldiers after a malfunction. Earlier this year, a Swedish factory was fined after a robot machine injured one of the workers (though part of the blame was assigned to the worker). Robots have been found guilty of other smaller offenses such as an incorrectly responding to a request.
So how do you prevent problems like this from happening? Stop making psychopathic robots, say robot experts.
Read more ....
Artificial Brain '10 Years Away'
From The BBC:A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed.
Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, has already built elements of a rat brain.
He told the TED global conference in Oxford that a synthetic human brain would be of particular use finding treatments for mental illnesses.
Around two billion people are thought to suffer some kind of brain impairment, he said.
"It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years," he said.
"And if we do succeed, we will send a hologram to TED to talk."
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Bobby, King & Aeschylus
It was early April. A few days earlier, a beleaguered Lyndon Johnson shocked his countrymen by announcing his decision not to run for a second full term as president. After years of escalating the war in Vietnam at the advice of his Secretary of Defense (Robert McNamara) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, American soldiers were no closer to winning the war and leaving the Southeast Asian nation than four years earlier..
For largely that reason, Robert 'Bobby' Kennedy decided to run for the Democratic Party nomination against LBJ in 1968. As LBJ had already suffered a bitter loss to John F. Kennedy for the Democratic nomination in 1960, he was not about to expose himself to any further political humiliation at the hands of a family he regarded as pompous and elitist. In fact, LBJ and Bobby largely despised each other. Rather than run as a wounded warrior with a Vietnam albatross around his neck, LBJ made plans to retire to his ranch in Texas. At that moment, Bobby Kennedy, the former Attorney General and current Senator of New York, became a leading candidate for president. Many if not most people believed that another Nixon-Kennedy showdown was in the offing for the November general election. This time, however, it would be a Nixon eight years older against the younger brother of his former political nemesis.
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On 4 April, an assassin's bullet ended the life of the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. Similar to Bobby Kennedy, he had championed equal rights, desegregation and was an outspoken critic of both the Vietnam War and economic injustice in America. Unlike Malcolm X and some other militant black leaders, King, who had been heavily influenced by Gandhi, advocated non-violence and a peaceful reconciliation between whites and blacks. As a result, his message had won the hearts and minds of a significant number of white, middle-class Americans. When King was gunned down, race relations seemed to be at a flashpoint. How would blacks react? If a majority had decided to turn away from non-violence and embrace a militant approach, the next decade would have been fraught with racial violence from coast-to-coast. Fortunately, blacks opted to continue the path of non-violent protest to honor the legacy of Dr. King.
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One speech on the day of King's assassination played a significant part in keeping the black community on the path of non-violence, and it was not given by a black man. A few minutes prior to taking the podium at a campaign appearance in Indianapolis, Bobby Kennedy was informed that the crowd had not yet learned of King's death. Bobby was ready. On the way to the Indiana capital, he had prepared a short speech to address the tragic event. Behind the microphone, Bobby delivered the news and launched into one of the most compelling speeches ever given in American history.
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When Bobby said the word 'killed', the onlookers responded with a collective gasp and shriek of horror. Then, stunned into silence, they listened to the orator - a man who was no stranger to tragedy himself. In a compassionate tone, he directly addressed blacks both in the audience and in the nation. After saying that he could understand the temptation for retribution and hatred of the white man, he asked African-Americans (a term not used then) to consider the options. One option was to resort to violence and mutual distrust. The other option was to advance King's dream of racial harmony through peaceful measures to bring about equal justice for all in America.
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The crowd, still stunned, hung on his every word. In the course of his speech, Bobby mentioned the death of his brother at the hands of a white man, and then he bridged the deaths of his brother and King together by citing a passage from Agamemnon by the ancient Greek playwright and poet Aeschylus (525BC-456BC):
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'even in our sleep
pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until in our own despair
against our will
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of god'
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At the 1964 Democratic convention, Bobby had recited the same passage to honor his fallen brother. Blacks in the crowd and around the United States understood his message and the larger truth. All Americans, regardless of race, color or creed, share the same desire for 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'. Progress toward achieving social and economic justice could never be made separately. It could only be made together with respect and compassion.
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By the end of his remarks, the crowd was applauding and cheering - determined not to allow the loss of King derail their efforts to bring about a better America. It was a moving moment at a pivotal time in American history, and it has not been forgotten.
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Bobby Kennedy would not live out the remainder of the year. Only four months later, he was killed in Los Angeles while on his way to the Democratic nomination and possibly the presidency. Despite his tragic end, Bobby's dream, the same dream held by Martin Luther King and millions of Americans, did not die.
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In that year of 1968, Bobby looked at the progress of the civil rights movement and predicted that a black person could be elected to the presidency within forty years.
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Exactly forty years later in 2008, Barack Obama was elected president.
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(To watch Bobby Kennedy's 4 April 1968 speech, please click on the YouTube Video to the right)
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J Roquen
Robot Rides Motorcycles Efficiently, Terrifyingly
From Popsci.com:Let me introduce you to Flossie, the creepy motorcycle-driving robot. She will drive through scorching heat and freezing cold without a complaint. She will shift perfectly every time. She will haunt your dreams.
Flossie was constructed by Castrol to be used in lubricant testing for just about any motorcycle. Flossie allows testers to monitor how lubricants function over time in a variety of situations, with Flossie the one constant, shifting and riding the bike perfectly each time. The most disturbing part of Flossie's design is that she learns, all by herself, how to get a feel for each bike and how to ride it. To what end, might you ask? Well, the obvious answer is: to become self-aware, evolve, and enslave us all.
In the video below you get a view of Flossie in action. The video ends ominously by calling Flossie "a safe rider". Let's hope we don't regret those words.
Read more ....
Helping Robots Get a Grip
Photo: Good grip: A new approach allows a complicated robotic hand to grab an object more easily.Credit: Matei Ciocarlie and Peter Allen, Dept. of Computer Science, Columbia University From Technology Review:
A new approach lets dexterous robotic hands grasp easily.
One of the main things preventing robots from lending a hand with everyday tasks is a simple lack of manual dexterity. New research from a team at Columbia University NY could help robots--and robotic prosthetics--get a better grip on all kinds of objects.
Peter Allen, a professor at Columbia University and director of its Robotics Group, and colleague Matei Ciocarlie developed a simpler way to control a dexterous robotic hand by drawing on research in biology. They realized that while human hands have about 20 degrees of freedom (20 joints that can each bend), each joint is not capable of moving completely independently; instead, its movements are linked to those of other joints by muscles or nerves.
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Human-like Vision Lets Robots Navigate Naturally
An inside view of VisGuide with the electronic circuits on main board. The video signals are sent via cables to a light- weight micro-PC that is carried for the user. (Credit: Decisions in Motion Project (www.decisionsinmotion.org))From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (July 17, 2009) — A robotic vision system that mimics key visual functions of the human brain promises to let robots manoeuvre quickly and safely through cluttered environments, and to help guide the visually impaired.
It’s something any toddler can do – cross a cluttered room to find a toy.
It's also one of those seemingly trivial skills that have proved to be extremely hard for computers to master. Analysing shifting and often-ambiguous visual data to detect objects and separate their movement from one’s own has turned out to be an intensely challenging artificial intelligence problem.
Read more ....
Storyteller (part 2)
Guru. Orchha, originally uploaded by entrelec
I titled the last post "Storyteller" but somehow it ended up being about rules and systems. I forgot to write anything about, you know, telling stories. This is the second thing that I enjoyed about my D&D experience.
Essentially, role-playing is interactive storytelling. This is great, because I tried writing novels and short fiction for a while, and I was not very good at it. I could do an awesome outline with plenty of interesting hooks and ideas; that came easily. Writing believable characters, dialogue, and action? Not so much.
With a role-playing game, I can just do the parts I'm good at. I set the stage and my players provide the action that moves the plot forward. We all get to share in creating a story together.
19 Of The Top 20 Supercomputers In The World Are Running Some Form Of Linux
From Pingdom:Operating systems on supercomputers used to be custom-made affairs, but this has changed. These days, Linux has become a popular choice for supercomputers. But how popular? You may be surprised.
Top500.org maintains a list of the fastest supercomputers in the world. A new list was published yesterday (it happens twice a year), so we took the opportunity to go through the list and find out what OS the top 20 supercomputers are using.
It took some work, but the results are interesting.
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Quantum Computer Closer: Optical Transistor Made From Single Molecule
From Gizmag:
Researchers from ETH Zurich have recently managed to create an optical transistor from a single molecule in what is yet another important achievement on the road to quantum computing.
Quantum photonics is a particularly attractive field to scientists and engineers alike in that it could, once some core issues have been resolved, allow for the production of integrated circuits that operate on the basis of photons instead of electrons, which would in turn enable considerably higher data transfer rates as well as dramatically reduced heat dissipation.
Read more ....
Storyteller
Grandfather's Watch, originally uploaded by Treefiddy
Previously I wrote about how I always read the instructions. This is not due to a lack of faith in myself or some misplaced sense of duty. Basically, I just enjoy figuring out how systems work.
Learning the rules of a new game is part of the fun for me. In fact, it's sufficient entertainment to derive the essence of gameplay from a manual, even if I never actually play the game. From when I was a young kid I loved to invent new games for the sheer joy of creation. Back then I used to play them at least once, but now I'm content to establish the possibility -- to build a universe that doesn't fall apart two days later -- and move on to the next challenge.
So it was great fun to play my first game of Dungeons & Dragons last week, with me as the Dungeon Master. (A sports analogy for the uninitiated: if you're playing a game, he's like the referee, the other players, and the field they're on, all at once.) I create and sustain the world, and other people play in it. Everyone's a winner!
Raspberry
Raspberry Seltzer, originally uploaded by Garrett and Rachel
We had a great harvest of raspberries, possibly more than we've ever grown before. This is partly because I learned last year that berries only grow on the last year's stalks. So I didn't decimate them last winter like I did the year before. Our sweet peas seemed to be done for the year, but they have been loving the colder weather this week, and new pods are popping off the vines.
Our house was getting lots of interest and showings, but no offers after a few weeks. It's still early, but we have a better chance of selling quickly than letting it sit on the market for months. We dropped the price and hopefully that's going to do the trick.
Two people have come through so far this weekend, plus one more today. We spent all morning cleaning inside, working in the yard, and picking up trash after the parade. When we returned after yesterday's afternoon showings, police had several young men lined up against a fence, across the street from our house. There's only so much you can do.
Darpa's Self-Feeding Sentry Robot Is Not A Man-Eater, Company Protests
EATR Robot: Don't let that chainsaw fool you. The EATR robot is being designed for a strictly vegetarian diet. Robotic Technology Inc. From Popsci.com:
"We completely understand the public's concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission," says CEO.
There hasn't been such a scare over the future of green since Soylent Green. But a DARPA-funded robot that forages for biomass will only consume plant matter, as opposed to dead bodies or wayward pets, its creators assure us.
The makers of the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) have issued a statement saying that "this robot is strictly vegetarian," after news outlets ranging from Fox News to CNET pounced on the flesh-eating potential of the bot.
Read more ....
Robots Could Replace Teachers
Research at the University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences shows that infants can learn foreign speech sounds when they interact with a live human being in a social setting. But infants under 1-year-old do not seem to learn language when they are read to over TV. The children stare at the TV and even point to it. They seem visually attentive to the images that flow past, but learn no language. Scientists think that social interaction with a live human being is crucial for learning to take place in children under 1 year. Credit: University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.From Live Science:
In the future, more and more of us will learn from social robots, especially kids learning pre-school skills and students of all ages studying a new language.
This is just one of the scenarios sketched in a review essay that looks at a "new science of learning," which brings together recent findings from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, machine learning and education.
The essay, published in the July 17 issue of the journal Science, outlines new insights into how humans learn now and could learn in the future, based on various studies including some that document the amazing amount of brain development that happens in infants and later on in childhood.
Read more ....
N.B.
Cartuxa, originally uploaded by Miguel Manso
"What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous."
- Thomas Merton
Robotic "Spiderman" Device Unveiled
From Technology Review:
Today, at the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics here in Cambridge, MA, robotics professor and prolific inventor Shigeo Hirose, from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, presented a grappling-hook system designed to help robots get over difficult terrain.
Hirose says that he was inspired by Batman's grappling hook and the way that Spiderman stays in constant motion using a repetitive tether-and-swing action.
Read more ....
Today, at the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics here in Cambridge, MA, robotics professor and prolific inventor Shigeo Hirose, from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, presented a grappling-hook system designed to help robots get over difficult terrain.
Hirose says that he was inspired by Batman's grappling hook and the way that Spiderman stays in constant motion using a repetitive tether-and-swing action.
Read more ....
Identity
Harajuku snapshot, originally uploaded by manganite
When I was younger, and I suppose this is common adolescent behavior, I spent lots of time evaluating a list of labels to define "who I was." I defined myself by what I did, or how I dressed, or who I hung out with. It was an easy way to pick a pre-defined identity without bothering to develop a unique personality. Bicyclist, hippie, punk, Christian, hipster, father. Just slap on a label, and you're done.
The problem with labels is that they didn't make me a more complete person once they were applied. To the contrary, they limited my freedom by restricting my own definition of who I was. Gradually I'm realizing that I didn't need labels to define myself. In fact I don't need to define myself at all.
I can just be what I am, and that is enough.
Cleanse
I like alcohol, it is my vice. Occasionally I take some time off from drinking, a mini-Lent, and let my body detox. Not that I party hard these days--in a wild night I might have three or four drinks--but it's an exercise in mindfulness.
So I have been thinking about the topic of purification this week. In a splendid display of serendipity, Boing Boing tackled the topic of Personal Transformations in the Internet Age yesterday. We humans have a need to reinvent ourselves. But it's difficult to create a new identity when the shed skins from our past lives are littered around the Internet for all to see.
I think a lot (probably too much) about my online identity. What should I link where, how candid should I be, who will read this and what will they think of me? Is it ironic that I am most sincere on a (semi-)anonymous blog, that I only feel free to be totally myself in a place where nobody knows who I am?
Twendy-One Nursebot Says Sit Up And Eat Your Jell-O
Gentle Giant: Courtesy Sugano Laboratory/Waseda UniversityFrom Popsci.com:
At 245 pounds, Japan's Twendy-One is sturdy enough to lift its elderly patients clear off the ground, and force sensors in its fingertips and humanlike joints mean it can do it without crushing them.
In the movies, entrusting human life to robot helpers and sophisticated machines inevitable ends in fire, destruction and death. But in reality, the automatons are actually saving lives. We featured six Machines that Heal in our July issue, one of which is Twendy-One, a Japanese robot nurse straight out of the comic books built to assists the elderly.
Read more ....
Skyscapes by Firecatcher
A new range of illustrations we've been working on based on buildings and architecture around London. The images have a dreamy quality, taking elements of the architecture and juxtaposing them with abstract shapes and transparencies to create places that could be anywhere.
Cyclone Biomass Engine Takes Next Step In Powering DARPA's EATR Bot, A Hungry Hungry Sentinel
LIGHT MY FIRE: Harry Schoell shows the uncovered combustion chamber in his steam engine. John B. Carnett.From Popsci.com:
A waste heat engine would allow a robot to feed off grass, furniture, and dead bodies.
A DARPA-funded robot that refuels itself on wood, grass--even decaying biomatter--whatever it can consume has met its perfect match--a biomass engine system called the Cyclone which we featured last year in our annual Invention Awards. Cyclone has just completed trials of their engine that will eventually digest EATR's foraged meals into power, just like Mr. Fusion.
The Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) is a prototype military reconnaissance 'bot that could keep going and going, except that it's not dependent on long-lasting batteries. The robot would instead use a waste heat engine developed by Cyclone Power Technologies to continually fuel itself on plants and other biomass from the surrounding environment.
Read more ....
The Descent of Russia
Prior to making an historic visit to Accra, Ghana as the first African-American President of the United States, Mr. Obama flew to Moscow to hold talks with President Dmitry Medvedev. While he was able to come away with an agreement reducing the number of nuclear warheads, Obama was wholly rebuffed by the kingmaker behind the scenes: ex-President Vladimir Putin..
It is a facade carried on despite being transparent to both Russians and followers of politics around the world. In short, Medvedev is a puppet, and his strings are largely pulled by his political client. Putin has already stated his intention to seriously consider another run for president in 2012. The world should consider his statement a foregone conclusion.
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Under Putin's leadership over the past few years, Russia has declined from a semi-democratic state to a corrupt oligarchy with virtually no independent media outlets. As it was Putin's job to quash dissent as a member of the First Chief Directorate in the Soviet KGB, it should be no surprise that his government has all but jettisoned the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. After uncovering Russian atrocities in Chechnya, Anna Politkovskaya (1958-2006), a well-known investigative journalist in Russia, was murdered in cold blood. While no link was found to either Putin or his government, the case has been swept under the rug, and her death still remains unsolved. Unfortunately, Politkovskaya has not been the only Russian journalist killed in the line of pursuing the truth.
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After a few of years of staggering economic growth due to high oil prices, the Russian economy has fallen on hard times once again. Corruption is the order of the day, and Russians have little to no trust in the police. Alcoholism is still rampant, and crime and unemployment plague every sector of society. In the absence of democracy, the Russians suffer under a rigged system heavily tilted toward a parasitical industrial-political class. This outcome was no accident. It has always been the aim of Putin to restore Russia to 'great power' status - regardless of any former promises to adhere to a more open model of government.
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Boris Nemtsov (b. 1959), a former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and head of the Union of Right Forces party, has rightly labeled Putin as an adversary to the United States. After shaking hands with President Obama last week, he clearly avoided making eye-contact with his guest. Subsequent to their meeting, Obama used the word 'unsentimental' to describe the character of his host. Undoubtedly, the American president found Putin ice cold and prickly on several subjects during their talk. Significantly, Obama failed to mention whether or not the issue of Iranian nuclear power had been broached. Most likely, Putin was asked to consider being open to suspending Russian support in building Iran's first nuclear reactor - which the West believes to be a thinly-veiled program to manufacture nuclear weapons. If he was indeed asked about Iran, Putin would have dismissed Obama by criticizing the US for encircling Iran with soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and defended Russian dealings with Iran as a sovereign affair.
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By continuing to assist Iran in constructing a nuclear program, Russia, under the reign of Putin, has demonstrated its anti-American stance and unscrupulous nature in aiding a despicable and despotic regime for the sheer purpose of countering American influence in the region. In his strident opposition to America, Putin is willing to embrace any nation irrespective of its human rights abuses. His Machiavellian politics are reminiscent of old Soviet-style internationalism and require a watchful eye.
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Although President Obama delivered an inspiring speech to the college students at Moscow's New School, the Russian people, who were prevented from hearing about the address by the their government, know nothing about it. After decades of dictatorship at the hands of Soviet rule, Russia is rapidly falling into another era of autocratic misery.
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How long will the West remain silent about the erosion of freedom and the increasingly aggressive posture of Moscow? Although welcome, a new round of diplomacy must not come at the expense of the Russian people. If the West collectively ignores the rising tides of Russian oppression, it may still yet manage to lose the Cold War nearly two decades after its reputed conclusion.
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J Roquen
Freaky Robot Is A Real Einstein
Some of the facial expressions that the new Einstein robot has learned through a process of self-guided learning. Credit: UCSDFrom Live Science:
Albert Einstein is practically alive and smiling in the guise of a new robot that looks eerily like the great scientist and generates facial expressions that take robotics to a new level.
"As far as we know, no other research group has used machine learning to teach a robot to make realistic facial expressions," said Tingfan Wu, a computer science graduate student from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
To teach this, the team connected tiny motors via strings to about 30 of the robot's facial muscles. Programmers then directed the Albert Einstein head to twist and turn its face in numerous directions, a process called "body babbling," which is similar to the random movements that infants use when learning to control their bodies and reach for objects.
Read more ....
Meet Lemur IIa, The Autonomous Space Handyman Robot
Swiss Army Knife for Space Vehicles: Astronauts can add tools to the limbs of the Lemur IIa robot Thomas Slager From Popsci.com:
Versatile robots will rule the heavens, or at least ensure that they run efficiently.
Lemur IIa is a robot designed to autonomously inspect and maintain in-orbit space equipment such as the Orion crew exploration vehicle. Shown below on a model space telescope, the Lemur IIa was envisioned as an orbital Swiss Army knife. Each limb has four degrees of freedom and a "quick connect” feature, allowing astronauts to swap in different repair tools as needed.
Read more ....
Fotografías de la premiere de 'Harry Potter y el Misterio del Príncipe' en Nueva York!
La premiere de 'Harry Potter y el Misterio del Príncipe' fue realizada finalmente el día de ayer en Estados Unidos, donde estuvieron presentes varios miembros del equipo de producción de Harry Potter.
El evento que aconteció en Nueva York contó con la presencia de los actores Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Tom Felton, Rupert Grint, Bonnie Wright, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Freddie Stroma, el director David Yates, el productor David Heyman y mas celebridades de la serie.
Las primeras fotografías las puedes ver aquí:
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Fuente: OC
El evento que aconteció en Nueva York contó con la presencia de los actores Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Tom Felton, Rupert Grint, Bonnie Wright, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Freddie Stroma, el director David Yates, el productor David Heyman y mas celebridades de la serie.
Las primeras fotografías las puedes ver aquí:
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Fuente: OC
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