It's hard to break new ground on the "artificial intelligence turns sentient" story. And yet, Alex + Ada somehow manages to feel fresh even while treading somewhat common tropes. It could be the crisp, clean artwork, or the simple, straightforward dialogue that still strikes a chord in your heart, or maybe the way that the technology feels more like jailbreaking an iPhone than awakening humanity within a person, but that similarity still draws some interesting connections in your mind. Either way, this was a delightful read, and I'm looking forward to the next one.
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Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).
Happy Judgement Day! 17 Years Robopocalypse-Free! #NoFateButWhatWeMake
Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day.
(I'm just kidding, of course. The robots haven't killed us. Yet. And neither has that new Terminator reboot with the corny puntmanteau name. But once again, I should qualify it: yet.)
God I love this movie.
So Anyway Here's A Real-Life 3D-Printed Robot Riding On A Hoverbike
Fortunately — or unfortunately, if you were really hoping that your visions of an Endor-like future were finally near — this is only a model, created by Malloy Aeronautics. As it turns out, the bike itself is less than four feet long, and the combined weight of the robot and the bike is a mere 15.4 pounds. On the bright side, the robot has a GoPro camera for a face, so at least they'll get some cool footage out of it, right?
The MA Hoverbike is a 1/3-scale model but Malloy Aeronautics is trying to turn the full-size bike into a reality. They've got a Kickstarter campaign going that ends this Sunday, so you better act fast if you want to get your own GoPro'd Hoverbike drone for the low, low price of $1000. Just think of it as a donation to a good cause (the cause of escaping from AT-STs and destroying the shield bunker on the Forest Moon of Endor so that the Rebels can destroy the second Death Star, obvi).
A Hitchhiking Robot's Guide to...Canada?
This little robot is hitchhiking across Canada, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. It's an interesting sociological experiment, and though I personally find "facial expressions" to kind of awkward, I definitely get how it makes him come off as much less threatening than, say, this guy:
They make the point right around the 4:20 mark that an experiment this could only ever work in Canada, because Americans are definitely way too trigger-happy, paranoid, and generally crazy, and would probably destroy the poor little Hitchbot. Especially once he got started making small talk. Hell, I got annoyed just listening to the short clip of his Wikipedia rambling. I'm not even sure how long I'd last in the car with this Canadian C-3PO.
I do kind of wonder about what a robot experiment like this could do in studying the dangerous aspects of hitchhiking, especially if it's recording its interactions. I've never actually hitchhiked myself, but at least in America, we're told that you're expected to trade "ass, cash, or grass." Sexual assault in particular is a major threat for women. But Hitchbot, he's just a freeloader!
...or is he? Hrmmm...