You make me like charity, instead of paying enough taxes
Apo-logies for the radio silence. Last weekend I went to the mountains near the east coast of Korea with some colleagues, and we had some great seafood down at the coast. Now, I'm pretty good with chopsticks when the food stays still, but when it actively tries to get away, I have to resort to fingers. Here (if it works) is a video of me eating recently hacked up squid, which, in an impressive display of the "never say die" attitude still tries to escape:
For the last week I've been in Seoul, for a Sweden-Korea workshop on robotics, or "intelligent systems". Basically a chance for everyone from the two countries to meet and propose collaborations. Some progress made, but 90% of what was there didn't interest me in the slightest. On the plus side, my german mate from Sweden, Uwe, came over to Korea for it. He's always keen for a beverage. Also we were staying at a mega fancy-pants hotel (most expensive in Korea) all payed for by the Koreans.
A lot of the people there are involved in "home robotics", like those robot vacuum cleaners etc. They are selling like hotcakes, not because they are any good at cleaning (they're not), but because people buy them as pets. You can get faces wih whiskers to put on them, and so on.
Apparently, during the design phase, there were two navigation algorithms proposed: one which went back and forth in an orderly pattern across the room, and guaranteed every point would be cleaned, and another which just moved about randomly, in a brownian motion, and might clean the same spot 20,000 times. But in marketing focus groups, the second one was universally preferred, because the robot seemed "alive".
Finally, and continuing this post's general theme of liveness and deadness, and the porous membrane separating them: last night Uwe and I had dinner at a BBQ restaurant which offered "Dead Horse" in the menu... I'm pretty sure they didn't mean tomato sauce.
Back to Sweden tomorrow...
For the last week I've been in Seoul, for a Sweden-Korea workshop on robotics, or "intelligent systems". Basically a chance for everyone from the two countries to meet and propose collaborations. Some progress made, but 90% of what was there didn't interest me in the slightest. On the plus side, my german mate from Sweden, Uwe, came over to Korea for it. He's always keen for a beverage. Also we were staying at a mega fancy-pants hotel (most expensive in Korea) all payed for by the Koreans.
A lot of the people there are involved in "home robotics", like those robot vacuum cleaners etc. They are selling like hotcakes, not because they are any good at cleaning (they're not), but because people buy them as pets. You can get faces wih whiskers to put on them, and so on.
Apparently, during the design phase, there were two navigation algorithms proposed: one which went back and forth in an orderly pattern across the room, and guaranteed every point would be cleaned, and another which just moved about randomly, in a brownian motion, and might clean the same spot 20,000 times. But in marketing focus groups, the second one was universally preferred, because the robot seemed "alive".
Finally, and continuing this post's general theme of liveness and deadness, and the porous membrane separating them: last night Uwe and I had dinner at a BBQ restaurant which offered "Dead Horse" in the menu... I'm pretty sure they didn't mean tomato sauce.
Back to Sweden tomorrow...
posted by I-Rock at 2:48 AM
6 Comments:
what more can i say other than nice work on the squid
cheers
scott
thanks mate.
There are three animals I've been offered here and turned down:
1) Horse
2) Dog
3) Fried maggot things (not sure exactly what, but some kind of larvae or grub) - just the smell made me sick.
oh you should do it - just to say you did. I ate mice once.
You gotta do it!
PS: See you shortly!
K (now with kettle and cups) T.
xx
Nice post. I have limited brain cause I am tired, but I can appreciate a good post - specially when it contains VIDEO of squid eating.
Also - funny stuff on the vacum cleaners. Kinda got me thinking how many other ways humans choose to take the long way around cause it seems like it is more fun. Procreation anyone?
Chia, when you're posting on the internet, the offer "procreation, anyone?" is a daring one to make. But I for one salute you for it.
In Amsterdam now, it's 3:30am for me, but I'm about to fly to Stockholm to hit the cans with Mikey.
Kt - I ate so many lumps of unidentified meatlike substance, I'm sure I ate them once without knowing it.
p.s. you know what kind of dogs they eat? St Bernards. True story. The dogs that save the most human lives (after Lassie and Charlie the Wonder Dog) and how do we repay them???
Actually, speaking of vacuum cleaners, and things (or people) called Chia, the vacuum cleaners as pets thing reminds me of Chia pets (remember waynes world) and pet rocks.
Why am I wasting my time with this high-tech stuff, when you can glue some googly eyes to a rock and sell millions. Now THAT's genius!!
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