While the larger focus of an article by Jennifer Palmer called “Zombie Apocalypse” is deconstructing our weird zombie fetish in entertainment, the best part is the discussion of a curious term: the uncanny valley. The term finds its origin in robotics (in 1970, according to the Wikipedia article). Although purely theoretical and lacking scientific support, [...]
Archive for February, 2008
One of my first posts on Creative Destruction (my nearly dead group blog) featured comments on a twisting skyscraper design, the Fordham Spire (now the Chicago Spire — cool flash website here) meant to start going up any old day now. That post still draws some hits. Well, it seems that the new self-proclaimed skyscraper [...]
My decades old vacuum, a Kirby, has several minor faults that I thought about getting fixed. (Alas, the repair shop I identified is now out of business. Indeed, for many things, the cost of repair far exceeds the cost of replacement.) It still works fine, and the motor and casing are extremely well built. But [...]
