The Second Renaissance is on its way…

Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything eh? Shame. Anyways, happy new year to all – now let’s get onto the nerding…

NPR had a great story some time back about flying robots building a tower in Paris. Using flying rotocopters w/ suction cups attached to them, engineers were able to program the construction of a tower 20 feet high. Along w/ faster construction possibilities, using robots also allows more creative possibilities and greater control in construction, architecture, and design of all levels.

The robots steadily took foam bricks and stacked them into a design set up by two architects. It took a few days to get it altogether, but there were no major casualties or issues w/ the robots. When they were out of power, they automatically went to a nearby charging station and powered themselves back up. While a unit was out of commission, the remaining rotocopters continued to work w/o interruption to complete the task.

Video of the skyscraper being built is shown below.

This first example of automated construction has spawned countless ideas for new buildings; structures, and monuments of different shape/style/capabilities, and researchers in South Korea have taken it one step further beyond this to expand the possibilities of what these automated builders can do.

Radical designs and new methods of construction include proposing robotic flying bees that would secrete an “augmented synthetic material” that could conduct electricity, insulate a building, provide structural support, and much more. Some of the images for these concepts are shown below…

 

More discussion about the future possibilities of harnessing this “flying robotic construction cloud” are discussed at BLDGBLOG, including the ethics involved, as well as practical implications of where investment will come from, along w/ some other outlandish speculations of where the technology. Naturally, allusions are made to Skynet and eventually, the idea of robots constructing facilities to build even more advanced robots, etc. Regardless of what’s said, this field is going to be terribly interesting in the near future as we will see radical changes in building designs to reflect this new paradigm of automated construction.

The Best Street Art of 2011 and More

Street Art Utopia has a fantastic collection of inspiring street art pieces compiled thru 2011. Some pieces of work from now big-time artists; many of them not, and it’s refreshing to see the level of creativity on display. Lots of poignant selections in this überlist of artwork.

I was also pleased to see Banksy‘s graffiti church make the display. It reminded me that I had been in LA just this past April and had taken an extensive set of photos from MOCA’s “Art in the Streets” exhibit – a huge street art show that spanned the entire building and several floors in different areas. It was truly impressive, and I’ve decided to share it again for your viewing enjoyment. Check the gallery below:

How not to do PR, ever

In the past week, Paul Christoforo has reached internet stardom. In the course of a single negative email exchange between himself and a customer asking about a particular controller his company markets, Paul gets himself into a shouting match that hits the inbox of Mike Krahulik, one of the heads of Penny Arcade. From there, things get even worse as Paul then attempts a retraction, and then proceeds to insult Mike and then the email exchange terminates. After that, the emails are posted online, and then all hell breaks loose.

Paul’s life was turned upside in a matter of less than 24 hours. He loses his job; he receives constant death threats; he is at his wits end w/ the world that suddenly rose up against him for being the unbelievably ignorant and rude jerk that he was to a man named Dave. About a video game controller and a $10 coupon. Still, his saga is a cautionary tale worth heeding: don’t get up in a customer’s face. Sometimes, it really can come back to bite you in ways you never knew, and Paul was the sacrificial lamb of the week to prove that lesson to be true.

Here’s some links documenting the entire saga w/ some juicier details:

• Controller Company Berates Customer, Then Penny Arcade. Bring Popcorn. via Kotaku
• Chastened Gaming Rep responds to Internet Infamy via MSNBC
• Ocean Marketing Jackass Earns $10 Discount for All Pre-Orders via Kotaku

“…I could have nipped this all in the bud by being a little nicer. You never know who knows who, and lesson learned. We all have bad days and they caught me on one.” – Paul Christoforo (via MSNBC)

Mr. Christoforo, I salute you.

Real talk with Salman Khan, founder of Khanacademy.org

I have on and off mentioned the benefits of self-driven e-learning using sites like Khan Academy, and now Reddit has a great Ask Me Anything (AMA) column w/ Salman Khan himself — the founder of the online teaching haven that many students and individuals worldwide have benefitted from, just by having internet access and the time to go through each one of his lessons. The session has been really interesting w/ a lot of excellent questions about the future of e-learning. As an added bonus, Michael Nielsen, a key figure in quantum computing, ends up collaborating directly via the site to everyone’s “Newtonesque” appreciation of the entire scene unfolding…Either way: enlightening and encouraging in the end, above all. [Reddit]

The Best Wins of 2011

And now, I present to you, in one single video of sheer awesome – the folks that truly “won” 2011. By won, I mean it loosely. Some of the stuff you’ll see would be considered outright stupid, but hey, by suspension of disbelief, we assume all of these folks made it out okay. Go on, badasses!

Best Science of 2011 Roundup

If you’ve browsed around the net today at all, I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of links to the “Best Science stories of 2011″ or something to that extent. Wired has posted a really nice gallery online showcasing some of the highlights, such as the purported “faster-than-light” neutrino story (neutrinos shown above) that nearly got the scientific world in a flux over the possibility of Einstein’s famous work being trumped thru a new discovery. Turns out the results were a fluke as a result of relativistic interference in time measurement where the recordings were taken. Alas…

Here’s my quick and short best science of 2011 roundup:

1. Honeybees have emotions : Apparently, we’re not the only ones in this world that can find the glass half-empty. Does this mean we’ll finally eschew idiotic ideas of “innate” superiority sometime? Let’s hope…
2. First signs of the Higgs Boson : The LHC is finally living up to physicists’ hopes and dreams in revealing more and more about the intrinsic nature of matter in the Universe. I hope this follows thru to 2012 with some exciting news that helps us unify a standard model of physics that is finally consistent w/ current measurements of space phenomena. It would be nice to see us move on to greater elements beyond this – perhaps discovering a “mass” effect, even. (/swoon)
3. Potentially Earth-like planet may have just the right temperature for life : Another big find in the space arena. Since we’ve just hit 7 billion plus people on the Earth this past year, and considering the fact that it only took us 12 years to get to that point since 6 billion people were on this planet, extrasolar colonization is something we will have to look to doing in the future in order to guarantee our long-term survival. The discovery of Kepler-22b as a similar M-class planet that can support life and has environmental conditions similar to ours is a huge step forward towards humanity opening (or more accurately, giving in to) more possibilities thru science to make leaving our world happen at some point in the future.
4. Cell-Aging Hack Opens Longevity Research Frontier : Right on the heels of a Kurzweil prediction, it would seem. From the article: “A new experiment that flushed old, broken-down cells from the bodies of mice, slowing their descent into the infirmities of age…the findings mark the first time that cellular senescence (aging or the act of growing old) — its importance debated by biologists for decades — has been experimentally manipulated in an animal, demonstrating a fantastic new tool for studying its role in human aging.”

Other sites that had Top Science of 2011 stories: Science News - I’ll update this list w/ more soon. I think it’s a matter of still getting those final stories out since the year’s not technically done yet. Popular Science had a best of 2011 retrospective, but it was more gear-oriented and not necessarily concept or finding-oriented.

Mix of the Day: Gridlok @ Respect LA 12.15.11

Starting off a new segment on the site – Mix of the Day (MotD) begins w/ one of my favorite stateside producers : Ryan Gridlok. He just posted his set from Respect in L.A. on December 15th via Soundcloud for everyone to enjoy and listen. Feel free to play/grab it from the player linked below. Over 2 hours of hard-hitting upfront dnb to help you get through your workday. Enjoy!