The Bionic Man Is Also an Iraq War Veteran

Really and truly. This man’s computerized hand and arm read the electrical impulses coming from the muscles in his arm that would have moved his biological hand, and duplicates the action. In other words: his mind makes the robot hand work.

Watch the video, courtesy of AP.

The Best Use Yet for Second Life

This little piece of machinima by artist Robbie Dingo is literally one of the most moving things I’ve seen published on the InterWebs. And, on a different note, it also displays Second Life at its best. I was frustrated by Second Life because I tried to use it in my Comp. II class in the Spring, but it was too fussy and temperamental for me to make it work. (I know, other professors have had smashing success with Second Life in the classroom, but look, I’ll bet you a can of Diet Sprite that every last one of them has his/her own favorite “I couldn’t get Second Life to work” stories. But I digress.) Watching this video, however, makes me believe again in Second Life’s possibilities.

One of the commentators on the YouTube site called this “achingly beautiful.” Couldn’t agree more. Especially in the end, when he frames himself and his art … but enough: go see for yourself! And once you’ve done that, you can go to this page and get a behind-the-scenes look at how it was made.

Robot Pic of the Moment

Courtesy of Wired magazine: “General Dubris” here is guarding the entrance to the 2007 Robogames. You can see more pictures here, including a frightening robo-clone of a mild-mannered Asian man, but this was by far my favorite. Just looks cool. Would make a good web banner. I could see basing a whole web concept around it. Call it roboslinger.com or something. Dang: maybe I should go reserve that name.