Father Xmas

Caught a piece on CNBC tonight, not new, about how comic books rise in Hollywood. This was probably done soon after the success of both The Dark Knight and Iron Man so late 2008, early 2009.

There were anecdotes about how Hollywood ruining both Superman and Batman sequels. Also Marvel's really bad run of movies until Spiderman and X-Men as well as the Corman Fantastic Four.

Humorously it ended wondering what new comic character will drive the next generation of comic movies. Humorous because DC and Marvel comics really haven't come up with anyone new, at least anyone that became a huge hit since the 70s? They recycle just like movies.

The thought behind most humanoid robot design is because the man made world is designed around humans. Cars, buildings, stairs, doors, weapons, tools, etc. So you could have equipment that either a robot or human can use.

What they want is a general purpose robot, sort of the same way that a modern computer is a general purpose data manipulation device. Way back when, the first computers were designed for very specific tasks and were difficult to configure for a different task. When computers became truly programmable, they became more useful to more people.

Same is true here, we could easily build the equivalent of a unmanned drone tank that zips around battlefields while their operators are safe in the US. We could even build semi-autonomous ones that could identify unfriendliness and target them depending on threat and mission with a variety of weapons. However a humanoid robot could be added to a tank crew undermanned, run resupply missions in dangerous areas, go into dangerous situations equipped with the same, well, equipment a soldier/sailor would be wielding (fire crews on ships for instance).

One of the lessons learned about current military robots from the nuclear accident in Japan is they really don't interface well in an environment designed for humans. Door knobs, knee knockers on hatches, valve wheels, location of gauges and control panels, etc. So what do you do, retrofit the world for conventional robots or design robots to handle a world designed around humans?

T, this current rant is an example of you being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative.

I also think you've spent too much time being exposed to Hollywood's idea of "advanced computing interfaces" and assume that there's actual research behind their designs rather than the fact quietly typing at a keyboard doesn't make exciting or interesting television or movies than gesturing at screens and speaking commands.

Sysadmins and programmers always use the keyboard and rarely use the mouse because in their jobs it's faster. They use multiple windows on their screen than full screen when working because they often are doing multiple things at the same time. This is what people mean when they say power user. These facts are not up for debate with someone who obviously isn't in the industry. Do you argue with surgeons over how they use their tools? How about plumbers? Auto mechanics?

I thought parody was too harsh of a word so I changed it to homage.

Mojo Nixon was really big in the mid 80s, back when MTV showed videos all the time and Weird Al was in full swing on the network. Besides Elvis is Everywhere, I remember him for his "hits" Stuffin' Martha's Muffin - about MTV's VJ Martha Quinn; Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child; and my personal favorite Don Henley Must Die! (Don't let him get back together with Glenn Frey!).

But I wanted a Giant Robot for my birthday.

My point was taking an activity that required training or skill and make it so anyone can do it. While this isn't bad for the unskilled or untrained, it often ignores the needs of those with the skill and training.

Well as something becomes more attainable by more people and as technology gets cheap enough, it inevitably gets "dumb down". Cars now parallel park themselves, something you had to show you could do back when I first got my license. Samsung has a TV you can talk to and gesture at to control it's features as well as facial recognition so it can show you your streaming internet preferences (it has a built in web cam). Apple dumb down Final Cut Pro X for the masses and the professionals who have been using previous versions of the product for years are leaving for Avid.

As for Metro, I blame the iPhone, well iOS in particular. In the years since it's introduction enough people have or used an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch that the concept of only having full screen apps, launch by touch from multiple screens of icons and only downloadable from an online store, has trained the public to accept this rather than the traditional WIMP interface. Of course the blame isn't just iOS as it spawned the competitors Android and the current Microsoft Phone OS which is very Metro-like.

Someone (3) won because over 600 million tickets were bought. In the case of the Apophis, it only has one chance.

I didn't notice it was a "police box", I thought it was the same old blue telephone booth that had been used in previous episodes.

Edit: Dang it, I should have caught that (just watched the clip from YouTube).

7. Incarnate content.

Massively showed cleaning ship windows, from the outside, in space.

They have a list of links to a few AF pranks done by MMOs, including ours.

As for best joke, Foxtrot.

I wasn't talking forum software. The time on my computer was off by an entire hour earlier than it was, as if fall back from DST. Most odd.

Gigantor

[Joker clap]

I assumed he didn't know the key name.

I glitched here as well. I'm back to normal now.

I know that Windows will attempt to set the time from some central time source, maybe that glitched. It would have been an interesting April Fool's joke from some hacker somewhere, turn time back an hour.

CN recap

Ben 10 - Seems to be a good place to end this series. Sadly the animation of the next one looks godawful.

Thundercats - Lion-o's mostly dead. Slithe has the Sword and is bringing it to Mumbra. The rest of the cats are left in the desert far from the ThunderTank. While this is going on Lion-o's spirit is going through a series of trials to get a 2nd chance of life. All is required is for him to learn to be a better leader. Part 1 of 2.

Green Lantern - OK episode. No real forward progress on the overall story, unless you count robo-GL.

Young Justice - Wow. Now we all know Artemis's family tree. Boy is Red Arrow hard on her. And Wally, now realizing he is out of the running for Miss M, has his sights focused on Artemis, until the end of the episode.

Yu Yu Hakusho comes after Big O (which came after Outlaw Star).

They showed.

Bleach - Episode 247

DBZ - Episode 191
Gundam Wing - Episode 10
Tenchi Muyo Ryo-ohki - Episode 19 (OVA 3)
Outlaw Star (still phony painted on sports bra and shorts on Melfina) - Episode 25
Big O - Episode 1
YuYu Hakusho - Episode 110
Blue Submarine #6 - Episode 1
Trigun - Episode 23
Astro Boy - Episode 1
Gigantor - Episode 1

Boy did this really choke me up, like finding an old movie of your friends from high school who aren't around anymore.

During each was a commercial for the DVD box set. We also had some classic Toonami bumps as well as a game review for Mass Effect 3. And this was the hardcore robot Tom 3.0, not Tom 4.0 with the face from the very end of Toonami. They also included a sneak peak of next weeks Bleach. Note they only ran 10 episodes in the 5 1/2 hour block but it didn't seem like they added more commercials.

Edit: Now with the complete schedule and episode number.

/bind tilde "powexecname Tar Patch"

Win 8 will be out by the end of the year, October seems likely.

I think Player Guides is a better place for this since it not all that game related.