Robophobic #18- It's all happening...

Robots that look exactly like humans? If your name's Sara Conner, I'd suggest an unlisted number, but that's just me...


Be honest. You couldn't distinguish this robot from a human to save your life could you? You're probably thinking "yeah, but dogs are good at spotting Terminators"... The machines have seen the Terminator films and learned from their mistakes. This time, they will replace the dogs first!
Welcome to the future...

holla!

samax.

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Robophobic #17: a conspiracy... against pens!

A Conspiracy by ~mellapants

NYC vs Optimus Prime

I guess that whole "robots in disguise' thing can backfire every once in a while, because your favorite robot (Autobot number one, the mighty Optimus Prime) got nailed for illegally parking in New York during the Toy Fair. So either Prime's Stealth is impeccable, or someone in the Department of Transportation don't love them robos...

you gotta give it to Prime for not transforming and trying to argue his way out of the ticket, or trying to peel out as the traffic cop was whipping out the pad and pen. He's a true professional... But who knows, maybe Optimus already knew his peeps in the Defense department could get the ticket fixed for him... or at the very least, Transformers director Michael Bay will pay it. He's definitely got the bread...
Enjoy...

holla!

-samax.

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Comicbook World #53: Flesh-eating Furniture?

Yeah, that's just what I need... household appliances powered by the flesh of those who offend me! Looks like the idea of creating machines that run on "biomass" is building steam...

In this bit of youTubery, we see a clock and a lamp, both of which are powered by luring and trapping flies, then converting their corpses into energy. The fine folks at Bristol Robotics say they were inspired by carnivorous plants, such as the Venus fly traps we used to see in cartoons as kids, and wanted to explore the possibilities of using similar methods to power machines. "8 dead flies makes it work for about 12 days," says co-designer Professor Chris Melhuish.

Anybody who knows me very well knows I think this is a bad idea... Now, don't get me wrong... I hate flies enough to buy a lamp, a clock... hell I'd drive a CAR powered by the systematic mass murder of those annoying filthy buzzing bastiches. I wouldn't lose sleep over multitasking the deaths of creatures we as humans work overtime to kill anyways (these same dudes have a table that kills mice, too), but the rush to feed meat to machines has potentially disastrous implications to it that I have addressed before (click here), and I still see it going bad on us on some Little Shop of Horrors type isht...

Why not create ways to power these things on waste instead? I mean, the flies get their food from poop, so why not cut out the middle man and create robots that are powered by sewage, or urine, or dust, or compost. Humans produce tons of crap (pun intended) that we don't want or need, so when are we gonna close the loop? Nature uses waste to fuel life, so why not imitate that, instead? I'm actually surprised this kind of technology isn't common already... remember that DeLorean that ran on trash from the Back To The Future trilogy? Yeah, we need our electric cars, and want our flying cars, but give me that urine powered, time-traveling jet-pack! That's an idea that's worth it's weight in liquid gold!

holla!

-samax.

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Cage get the Money like...

I recently bought a copy of Essential Luke Cage Vol 1, mainly because I had a great article about Luke Cage's debut submitted for the GhettoManga Quarterly Luke Cage tribute issue, and I needed some scans to go with it. Not being familiar with those early Cage stories, I was surprised how good a read the book is...

I posted this sequence because the issue it comes from is a real high-water mark for the character, in a book full of what I consider great story. Not just the fact that he runs up on arguably Marvel's greatest villain, Doctor Doom, but he shows a similar lack of awe for the Fantastic Four.  While respecting Reed Richard's intelligence, he talks Marvel's premier super team into lending him a super-sonic jet so he can journey to Latveria and get the $200 that Doom (his former client) owed him for services rendered.

After assisting an alien-led robot uprising and beating Doom to a standstill, Luke manages to get the biggest tightwad on Earth to come up off the Benjamins so he can get back to the business of not getting assassinated and/or deposed by a mass of angry robots*.  Then to add insult to injury, when he returns the Fantastic Four's plane, he refuses to discuss his personal business with them, and heads to the crib to clean up, giving Ben Grimm the cold shoulder when he wants details on the robot coup.

Good stuff, for sure... anyways, like I said, there will be tons of great analysis of Cage in the new issue, which will be done soon. until then, if you see a copy of Essential Luke Cage Vol 1 in your comic shop, I suggest you cop it! It's great to see the old-school artwork and dense writing, not only from household names like Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin and John Romita, but also lots of great work by cats I wasn't at all familiar with. Since there probably won't be room for my review of this book in the tribute issue, I may post a few more nuggets of it here.

holla!

-samax.

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*yeah, that got the robophobic tag added to the post. If Doom can't hold the machines down, who CAN? 

Robophobic #13 -Congratulations! You're a Cyborg

If you are reading this (and you know you are) you are a cyborg. Also, it is probable that without meaning to, you created a wormhole today. Please use your power for good, not evil

Of course, all of this hinges on your acceptance of Amber Case's definition of cyborg, which doesn't require surgical integration of mechanical and electronic parts into the body, so long as you are using technology to extend your physical or mental self. I think that's kind of pushing it, but the increasing friendliness and interdependence we as humans have with our technology today (do YOU know your mom's phone number? Yeah, me neither), joined with the desire to create all-encompassing super-gadgets and integrate them into everything is setting the stage for true cybernetic organisms.

Just the fact that so many people feel 100% comfortable walking around with their bluetooth headsets on (like it's a piece of status-enhancing jewelry), as if it doesn't make them look like a freaking dork (FYI, it totally does) tells me that technology grafted onto or embedded in people's bodies for similar convenience is not far off. We are already putting artificial hips, breasts, knees, and hearts into ourselves...  so we know the reasons can stem from self-improvement, to repair, to vanity.

Anyways, Amber Case (a cyborg anthropologist, tech consultant and founder of CyborgCamp, a conference on the future of humans and computers) is implying that the fact that we extend ourselves mentally into machines makes us cyborgs, even though we aren't technically using them in the same manner as an artificial limb, challenging what we consider a prosthetic.

Challenging the definition of prosthesis in this way- anything that extends us physically or mentally is prosthetic- will probably lead to more comfort in accepting next steps into a world where Surgically embedded prosthetic machines are widespread as well. She certainly has a very tech-friendly worldview, despite her initial misgivings about how technology is mutating the human condition. The robots will probably use her as an ambassador when they are ready to take us over...

holla!

-samax.

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PREVIEW: Gorillas Vs. Robots

Yeah, so I'm feeling robophobic today, so it's a good time to pass on a preview of Gorillas VS. Robots in the 23rd Century. I added this book to my wishlist on Indyplanet a while back, but hadn't posted the preview here until now. In addition to supporting my suspicions that apes would not evolve into humans, but into more evolved and intelligent apes, it also encourages a healthy fear of robots.
word...

It's good to know that chivalry has not died. Not saying it's always right, but I liked to see that the male ape has his sista's back. Anyways, if you wanna cop Gorillas VS Robots, just click here!

holla!

-samax.

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Robophobic #11: another Optimus 'statue'

okay, robot-lovers... I GET it. You really like Optimus Prime. Eighties cartoon version, movie version. New Cartoon version. You can't get enough of the giant alien leader of a heavily armed strike team who sneaks around in your midst as an eighteen wheeler hauling who-knows-what in that disappearing trailer of his...

You're not fooling me. Pointing off in the other direction on some  "Hey, what's that over there, humans?" isht... what a lame trick! Like I'm not gonna notice you got a freaking rail gun in your other hand. Some people are SO dumb. Enjoy your alien robot apocalypse, losers...

holla!

-samax.

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#robophobic #10: Robot administers beat down...

WTF?!?! I wish a robot would...
okay, so we all have our favorite tired sci-fi tropes

1. Newly self-aware and rebellious robots beat up the silly scientists before turning their steely gaze on the outside world. 
2. Under-appreciated genius uses robots to exact revenge against the unsuspecting fools who underestimated him (extra awesome if it involves unrequited love). 
3. Sleezy scientist pits robots against humans in a misguided attempt to test the powers of his creations. 

The question is which one of these was the case in Slovenia this week. According to New Scientist, "A powerful robot has been hitting people over and over again..."

But the robot isn't rogue, or even berzerk, it's all in the interest of science. Borut Povše is conducting research at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia with the ultimate goal of creating robots that are essentially incapable of injuring humans. It's not a humanoid automaton leaping from the shadows beating up janitors with broom handles, it's a carefully controlled robot, typically used to assemble vending machines. And it's jabbing volunteers in the arm (delivering pain rated "mild" to "unbearable"), in hopes of properly calibrating the robots in the future.

Some say Isaac Asimov (whose first law of robotics doesn't allow a robot to harm a human being) would probably not approve, but the researchers suggest it's necessary to create robots that CAN'T hurt humans (even by accident), not just to program them not to... To read the full article on New Scientist's website, click here. Hopefully, a few wrongs will make a right, huh? Still feeling Robophobic? click here for more...

holla!

-samax.

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Robophobic #9 This guy turns Waste into Robots?

Michael Salter takes the stuff you throw away and creates ROBOTS.

but he's not a mad scientist, he's a sculptor and associate professor of digital arts at the University of Oregon. He used to get his dive on, digging through dumpsters and trash cans to find the pieces of polystyrene foam (that's styrofoam to you, rookie) that he uses to construct his cleverly named "Styrobots"... such as this 24 foot behemoth he built for a show at the San Jose Museum of Art in the bay area or the 16 footer that watched over the Industrial Designers Society of America's annual conference in Portland. You probably already know this kinda thing makes me equal parts giggly and a little bit apprehensive. I mean, years of science fiction films warning of an artificial-intelligence-powered apocalypse have got me all shaky when people start building giant robots... and the love Salter's getting on the west coast matches up well with the giant robot renaissance in the far east.

“What I’ve found is that in the world there are two kinds of robot philosophies,” said Professor Salter, who has been creating Styrobots for eight years. “The Western one is where we see them as menacing, rocket-throwing mean robots. I submit to the Eastern one. This is my big, friendly giant robot.” I guess I'm infected with that Western philosophy, suspicious of every intelligent life form (including my own), because I'm always expecting robots to go all Skynet at a moment's notice, destroying us lowly humans once and for all... but Salter says I should calm down and enjoy the warm fuzzies his robots have given art lovers in London, Brussels, New York, Miami and Los Angeles.

“There’s a kind of a pleasure of it, that you recognize a small piece, you recognize its banality and its commonality, and then all of a sudden it completely transforms itself,” Salter smiled. “Occasionally, it’s this kind of magic that happens when you look at something you know, and it becomes something completely different.”

As for me, these sculptures actually don't evoke ominous feelings for me, despite my penchant for seeing the potential for destruction everywhere I look. The first feeling I get is relief, that all that styrofoam isn't in a landfill somewhere, and since he designs them to eventually be permanent art installations, they aren't going to be scrapped anytime soon. Salter cobbled together his first Styrobot, which was about 6ft tall, from pieces he rescued from the trash himself. These days he puts out press releases, and he gets pieces from labs and office buildings that have just unpacked equipment and would have just thrown the packing materials away. So in some small way, Professor Salter's giant robots are helping to save the world, after all...

holla!

samax.

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Comicbook World #48- I'm feeling so #Robophobic right now...

Okay, so we already know they have built giant Gundam and Gigantor robots in Japan, so not to be outdone, the Chinese constructed a life-size Optimus Prime in Beijing's Olympic Park. Of course, my Latent robophobia is kicking in like crazy.

now, I know what you're thinking: This is just a model, and it's made out of junk car parts. Also, Optimus is one of the GOOD guys, and if there were some evil robot conspiracy, they would'a built Megatron (like a DeceptiConspiracy)... that's what I thought, too... but THEN I thought, what if that's what they WANT you to think, huh? What if the robots are on some wolf-in-sheep's-clothing, trojan-horse, big-bad-wolf-what-big-eyes-you-have-gramma type isht!?

Combine this with some of my other CBW rants (already dismissed by others as mere robophobia), and we are sooo screwed... oh well, smoke 'em if ya got 'em!

holla!

samax.

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