/* ** ************************************************************************ ** ************************************************************************ ** The Non-Sequitur Express ** Published at random intervals by Phillip Thorne ** Volume 3, Issue 9: Wednesday, 5 September 2001 ** http://nsx.underbase.org/ ** ** "Where do you stand on footnotes?" ** ************************************************************************ ** ************************************************************************ */ OBSERVATIONS & C: Silver pen, male screams, pretty faces, crunch or splat. ERRATA & O+A+A: Reader comments, nsx-discuss-l. TECHNOLOGY: Modular and reconfigurable robots. ANALYSIS: The many worlds of "Mobile Suit Gundam". UPCOMING: TCN, UPN, Tribune, Showtime SG-1 marathon, "Farscape" RPG. plus Legalese, acknowledgements and opt-in/out instructions. http://nsx.underbase.org/ - back issues http://nsx.underbase.org/index_plus.htm - synopses, reviews, analyses, etc. http://nsx.underbase.org/tv/ - Philadelphia and network TV listings mailto://nsx-discuss-l@underbase.org - post on this issue (if subscribed) http://www.underbase.org/ - additional databases /* *************************************************************************** ** OBSERVATIONS & COGITATIONS ** Silver gel pen for writing in the dark. ** Male TV characters who aren't afraid to scream. ** Computer as face-casting director? A proposal. ** Crunch or splat? Falling and dying in popular vid. ** 3.7 and 3.9 mastheads. ** ************************************************************************ */ A while ago, there was a brief fad in pastel "gel pens" capable of writing on black paper, the two sold in every permutation in otherwise-sober craft, department, and office-supplies stores. The other week, in my local Museum Company Store, I saw a packaged application that actually made sense: a silver-ink pen and accompanying journal. The target audience is people who log their nightly dreams, but don't want to turn on a painful light; the nifty idea (explained on the package) is to do so in the dark, with the silver ink reflecting whatever ambient light is present (moonlight, streetlights, nightlights). This is probably superior (vis-a-vis avoiding eyestrain-squinting) even to a PDA with backlight. *** This July, at the BotCon 2001 Transformers fan convention, "Beast Wars" voice actor Scott McNeil (with one "L") commented that heroic male characters are typically not permitted to utter high-pitched shrieks of surprise and dismay, despite real-life lapses by even the most manly men. The writers and actors of the Sci Fi Channel series "Farscape" apparently didn't attend that panel. On two occasions this season, "Farscape" males have yelped, nay, *squealed*. In 313 "Scratch & Sniff", main character John Crichton awakens in the window of a bar, after a night of drunken revelry, surrounded by laughing passerby; and realizes his pants are missing. (He is, however, wearing hose.) And in 317 "The Choice", while ducking gunfire in the surgical bay, captain Bialar Crais gets the head of an alien Boolite dropped in his lap. The head screams. Crais screams back. (It's "E.T." meets "Naked Lunch".) *** Computer as casting director? 1. www.hotornot.com 2. The Visionics FaceIt(R) face recognition system. 3. Self-learning AIs, like www.cyc.org and www.mindpixels.com. The popular website HotOrNot.com allows ordinary people to post an anonymous personal photograph (non-pornographic), and then passerby rate its attractiveness on a scale of 1-10. Vote, the site advances to the next photo, and you see the average vote (and vote-count) for the prior face. Photograph-posters must register, and can periodically check the stats on their image. Visionics Corp. (www.visionics.com) makes the FaceIt(R) human facial- recognition software (as now deployed in, among other places, Ybor City, Tampa, Florida); it creates a unique signature from 80 measurements of facial dimensions. The software behind MindPixels.com is designed to develop a "consensus" understanding of the world, those things most humans can agree upon, based on input provided by users over the Internet. (The notion that common-sense knowledge is essential to general AI, as opposed to the rigid rulebases of domain-specific "expert systems", was pioneered by the Cyc Project, now at www.cyc.org.) Now, feed the photos and scores from HotOrNot.com into the FaceIt algorithm, then feed the results into the MindPixels.com consensus AI. Voilą! We suddenly have software that can pick attractive faces in the same way as the general public. *** The other night I saw the current film "Rush Hour 2", in which the villian stumbles out a hotel window (circa tenth floor) and onto the roof of a police cruiser (crunch!); and also the third ep of "Martian Successor Nadesico", in which the hero clobbers a guard with a cast-iron skillet (whang!). I hence wonder: what does "instant death" or "knocked out" mean? What biological complexities hide within those simple phrases? Why does concussing (impacting) a head cause a concussion (physio-state) of the brain within? What permanent damage is incurred, debilities induced? Does "instant death" denote the cessation of heartbeat, or respiration, or macro-visible brain activity? (Note that cardiac muscle will organize itself to pulse, even without external stimulation; and there's limited evidence (from that wacky guillotine party, the French Revolution) that even *decapitation* doesn't cause *instant* unconsciousness in the severed head -- though on general principles, I'd expect the ensuing drop in blood pressure would cause it soon enough). The definition of "death" changes with diagnostic and assistive techniques; qv the old stories of coma victims buried alive, because their respiration was too shallow to observe with unassisted senses. Some children survive prolonged hypothermia and oxygen deprivation. Today terms like "clinical death" and "brain dead" are needed to denote distinctions that were formerly lumped within the single end-state of the DFA of life. In a nanotech future, we'll have to speak of "retrievable" accident victims, those with sufficient brain integrity and valid DNA to reconstruct a body. Today, severing the spinal cord doesn't always kill, nor puncturing the brain; but even in the future, *splattering* it might. (The stethescope was invented by a physician who considered it immodest to press his ear against the chests of young women. In Dan Simmon's novel _Endymion_ (1996), even brain-splatter isn't permanently fatal to a human wearing a "cruciform" symbiote.) Under what conditions (ie rapid decelleration) does a human body go "crunch", and under what does it go "splat"? Presumably forensics experts and emergency medical technicians have some notion, though the rate of fatal plunges is probably artificially enriched in popular vid. Do the SFX (special effects) techs know the difference? Do they perhaps *tone down* the gore (that'd be a first) involved in a truly realistic depiction? *** Issue 3.8's masthead combined the following adages and concepts: A rolling stone gathers no moss. A watched pot never boils. To make tea, bring the water in the kettle to a rolling boil. Treat boils with unguents. Kate Moss. The dormouse from _Alice in Wonderland_. Today's masthead was overheard at this year's WorldCon, and published in _The Kessel Run_ ("all the news in less than 12 parsecs"), its thrice-daily newsletter. /* *************************************************************************** ** ERRATA & OMISSIONS, ADDENDA & ADMISSIONS ** More reader comments ** Discussion on: nsx-discuss-l@underbase.org ** ************************************************************************ */ JA formerly-of-PA maintains his number-one rank in comment messages. His reactions to Issues 3.7 and 3.8 require more thought than I can spare at the moment. Should he keep this up, I may be forced to appoint him to the exalted role of Unpaid Research Assistant. I remind readers that the nsx-l@underbase.org list is for the newsletter only, while nsx-discuss-l is for discussion of topics raised in the newsletter. That address is repeated above (in the Contenst section), and below (in Legalese). They're separate so that you can avoid busy debate on the discussion list (assuming such a thing ever occurs). Technically, the newsletter should be a send-only list, but I haven't yet figured out its configurability. /* *************************************************************************** ** TECHNOLOGY ** Modular and self-reconfigurable robotics ** ************************************************************************ */ DEFINITIONS: DOF - degree of freedom. In robotics, denotes an ability to rotate or translate (slide) in one dimension; refers either to physical joints or the aggregate capability of a manipulator. Six DOF covers all three axes; mechanical engineers sometimes call this *twelve* DOF, counting each axis- half separately. Robotics engineers are motivated to create machines able to perform tasks too boring or dangerous for humans, in environments too hazardous for humans, with minimal supervision from humans. These masks might entail mobility. Some terrains are controlled, predictable, and suitable for wheels; others require legs or more exotic locomotion. Other landscapes are too varied for any single mobile modality to be optimal, hence a RECONFIGURABLE robot; and since such landscapes tend to be far from human roboticists, a SELF- RECONFIGURABLE one. They also tend to be harsh on machines, so a MODULAR robot, built of repeated, redundant identical units and capable of discarding damaged ones, is even better. Of course, the notion of alternate mobility has appeared in SF since the 1980s: a Transformer, Go-Bot, Robotech Veritech fighter or Droideka attack droid can select a mode (from a strictly limited set) suitable to the current task: wheels, treads, legs, wings. Such machines have been portrayed almost exclusively through cel and CG animation, since (to coin a term) exogenous transformation (ie a pair of hands fiddling with hinged plastic) is much easier to achieve than endogenous (internal motors gaining leverage, driveshafts crossing gaps, temporary props suspending deadweights of anatomy). Stop-motion puppetry is feasible, but in animation you can fudge the physical compromises. Hyper-redundant modular reconfigurable robots have *not* appeared in visual SF, probably because they're nightmarishly difficult to model and animate. The repetition demands PROCEDURAL techniques (ie describe the shapes mathematically), which is alien to most CG artists (and their software packages). The closest portrayals have been shapeshifters like the T-1000 assassin of "Terminator II", but they're cop-outs; since the modules are microscopic, morphing techniques are used, and the robots are boring blobs (continuous rather than discrete). (...Or so I hypothesize. Perhaps there are animators who'd welcome the challenge of portraying some really original robots, even with new software (the big houses all customize the commerical packages), if only the right script was approved by the execs.) *** An apr-2000 overview of and index to modular robotics projects. By Denis Susaic, AI editor at About.com. [ http://ai.about.com/library/weekly/aa040400a.htm ] Other hubs. [ http://www.parc.xerox.com/spl/projects/modrobots/Links/links.htm ] [ http://www.isi.edu/conro/relinf.html ] *** The TETRABOT is (are?) a class of variable geometry truss mechanisms (ie struts in tetrahedral shapes) using a patented CONCENTRIC MULTILINK SPHERICAL (CMS) joint. By the Center for Automation Technologies (CAT) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in US/NY/Troy; last updated not indicated. [ http://www.cat.rpi.edu/robotic.htm#mrr ] FRACTAL ROBOTS for DIGITAL MATTER CONTROL consist of linked cubes, at progressively smaller scales; they're able to climb over each other along beveled slots, assuming compact or branched shapes. Proposed applications include construction jigs, wiring layout, and flexible manufacturing cells. The inventor has made grandiose claims since c.1995 (eg, that fractal robots built with IC techniques would render molecular nanotechnology unnecessary, and that all the other researchers have stolen his work), but a few prototypes were finally built circa oct-1999. By J.Michael in UK; last updated feb-2000. [ http://www.stellar.demon.co.uk/ ] Marsette Vona et al have prototyped CRYSTALLINE MODULAR SELF-RECONFIGURABLE ROBOTS at the Robot Lab at Dartmouth Univ (US/NH/Hanover) and later the Media Lab at MIT (US/MA/Boston). The individual ATOMS are cubes with four telescoping sides. [ http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~robotlab/robotlab/robots/index.html ] [ http://www.ai.mit.edu/~vona/xtal/ ] The POLYPOD is a BI-UNIT modular robot; it consists of *two* types of repeated modules (cubes and hinge-jacks). Site includes photos of hardware, simulations of three modes (rolling loop, earthworm, spider), and a taxonomy of statically stable locomotion. By Mark Yim of Stanford Univ in US/CA/Stanford, 1993-4; page last updated 1997. Later work at Xerox PARC. [ http://robotics.stanford.edu/people/mark/polypod.html ] The MODULAR RECONFIGURABLE ROBOTS at Xerox PARC (US/CA/Palo Alto) include POLYPOD (1994), POLYBOT (1998), and PROTEO (2000). PolyBot modules are smaller and simpler than Polypod's; 5-cm cubes with one DOF. Proteo is a series of simulations of QUASI-FLUID CRYSTALLOID ROBOTS using rhombic dodecahedron-shaped modules. Last updated spring-2000. [ http://www.parc.xerox.com/spl/projects/modrobots/Polypod/polypod.htm ] [ http://www.parc.xerox.com/spl/projects/modrobots/PolyBot/polybot.htm ] [ http://www.parc.xerox.com/spl/projects/modrobots/Proteo/proteo.htm ] Spherical stepper motor, binary actuators, and METAMORPHIC ROBOTS. By the Robot Kinematics and Motion Planning Lab at John Hopkins Univ (US/MD/Baltimore). Limited details, last updated sep-1998. [ http://custer.me.jhu.edu/html/research.html ] The I-CUBES modular self-reconfiguring BIPARTITE robotic system. Consists of independently-controlled mechatronic modules (links) and passive connectors (cubes); a link attaches to the face of a cube, then pivots it to a new location. Prototypes, videos, path planning software, publications. By the Advanced Mechatronics Laboratory (AML) at Carnegie Melon Univ (CMU) in US/PA/Pittsburgh. Javascript tree menu; last updated sep-2000. [ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~unsal/research/ices/cubes/index.html ] [ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aml/ -- CMU AML ] [ http://www.ri.cmu.edu/ -- CMU Robotics Institute ] The DARPA CONRO project (1998) aims to create a miniature reconfigurable robot for field reconaissance. Caterpillar, hexapod, snake, loop. "Hormone"-based distributed control. Prototypes, videos. At the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the Univ of Southern California (USC) in US/CA/Los Angeles. Last updated 2000. [ http://www.isi.edu/conro/ ] The FRACTA SYSTEM, a two-dimensional self-assembling/self-repairing machine of homogenous units, each called a FRACTUM. Photos of 12-cm first prototype, 8-cm second prototype. By Eiichi Yoshida, System Science Division, Mechanical Engineering Laboratory at AIST, MITI, Japan; last updated oct- 2000. [ http://www.mel.go.jp/soshiki/buturi/system/yoshida/yoshida-e.html ] [ http://www.mel.go.jp/soshiki/buturi/system/murata/fractum-e.htm ] Modular reconfigurable robot and manufacturing systems, for a flexible workcell for agile manufacturing. By I-Ming Chen at Nanyang Technological Univ, Singapore; last updated aug-1996. [ http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/michen/res-modular.html ] *** The CHRISTMAS BUSH of the Robert L. Forward novel _Flight of the Dragonfly_ (1984)[1] is based on the BUSH ROBOT proposed by Hans Moravec. It's a sixfold fractal robot: a module has six jointed limbs, each of which can be tipped with a duplicate one-third the size, continuing to near-microscopic scale. Each branch can detach and operate independently. External lasers are used for sensors, data, and power (the bush is suffused with green light, hence its name); inter-segment connects are purely structural. The FLEXER in the Greg Bear novel _Slant_ (1997)[2] is a reconfigurable robot of square flat cards, which can pivot 180 degrees at all four edges. The packed configuration is stacked as a deck. It has low physical strength, and is used as a command unit for other military robots (or "warbeiters"); it can detach subsets to interface with computers in a targeted building. [1] Later retitled _Rocheworld_ (1990) and followed by four sequels. [2] Sequel to _Queen of Angels_, same universe as _Heads_ and _Moving Mars_. /* *************************************************************************** ** ANALYSIS: ** The Many Worlds of MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM ** ************************************************************************ */ When it hit Japan's airwaves in 1979, "Mobile Suit Gundam" initiated a sea- change in anime. (It's required that such a statement is always made in connection with MSG. What *is* a sea-change, anyway?) But regardless; it soon spawned movies (cobbled together mostly of pre-existing footage), sequels, and side-stories, all in the same universe; and then, just to confuse American fans with half-translated copies, entirely new continuities, with no connection to prior characters. To further muddy the issue, title have been multiply translated. Three series have aired on "The Cartoon Network": the original "Mobile Suit Gundam", the side-story "08th Mobile Suit Team", and the oh-aren't-they- dreamy-appeal-to-girls "Gundam Wing". (It's a boy band in giant robots! --Except they don't sing or play instruments or, in fact, get along very well.) The table below summarizes my research. There seem to be two continuities containing multiple series, plus several other standalone proprties; the Powers call these the Universal Century and After Colony Century timelines. Title Form Date EpLen Writer Director ---------------------------------------------- --- ---- ----- -------- -------- Universal Century timeline ---------------------------------------------- --- ---- ----- -------- -------- Mobile Suit Gundam tv 1979 43e30 Y.Tomino Mobile Suit Gundam I mov 1981 148 Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow mov 1981 139 Mobile Suit Gundam III: Place in the Encounter mov 1982 144 Mobile Suit Z Gundam (Zeta Gundam) tv 1985 50e30 Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (Double Zeta Gundam) tv 1986 47e30 Gundam: Char's Counter Attack mov 1988 Y.Tomino Y.Tomino Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: A War in the Pocket oav 1989 Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory oav 1991 13e30 Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Last Blitz of Zeon mov 1992 120 Mobile Suit Gundam 08th Mobile Suit Team oav 1996 13e30 ---------------------------------------------- --- ---- ----- -------- -------- After Colony Century timeline ---------------------------------------------- --- ---- ----- -------- -------- New Mobile War Chronicle Gundam W tv 1995 49e30 K.Sumi. M.Ikeda (New Mobile Report Gundam W, Gundam Wing) Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz oav 1997 3e90 Gundam Wing: The Movie - Endless Waltz tvm 2000 ---------------------------------------------- --- ---- ----- -------- -------- Unclassified ---------------------------------------------- --- ---- ----- -------- -------- Mobile Suit Gundam F91 mov 1991 120 Mobile Suit Victory Gundam tv 1993 51e30 Mobile Fighter G Gundam tv 1994 49e30 F.Gobu Y.Imagawa Mobile New Century Gundam X tv 1996 e30 H.Kawa. S.Taka. Turn-A Gundam tv 1999 G-Savior (Gundam Savior) tvm 1999 ---------------------------------------------- --- ---- ----- -------- -------- F.Gobu = Fuyushi Gobu mov = theatrical movie M.Ikeda = Masashi Ikeda oav = original animation video = direct-to-vid Y.Imagawa = Yasuhiro Imagawa tv = TV series H.Kawa. = Hiroyuki Kawasaki tvm = telemovie = made-for-TV movie K.Sumi. = Katsuyuki Sumisawa S.Taka. = Shinji Takamatsu 43e30 = 43 episodes of 30 minutes each Y.Tomino = Yoshiyuki Tomino 148 = 148-minute movie [ www.ex.org/1.1/, www.gundamofficial.com, www.imdb.com ] /* *************************************************************************** ** UPCOMING ** Cartoon Network: Cowboy Bebop, Adult Swim, Dragonball Z ** UPN: Enterprise, Special Unit 2, Buffy, Roswell ** Tribune: Andromeda, Earth: Final Conflict ** Showtime: SG-1 marathon ** AEG Farscape RPG ** ************************************************************************ */ sun-02-sep-00:00, TCN, new anime: "Cowboy Bebop". This is the latest anime addition by The Cartoon Network (following "Mobile Suit Gundam" and "08th Mobile Suit Team"), and is included in the new "Adult Swim" block on Sundays and Thursdays at 22:00. The ads say "no one uner 17 allowed" but, what? Because it's "late night", they don't bowdlerize the dialogue and digitally overpaint nudity? On mon-10-sep, new episodes of "Dragonball Z" begin airing. The UPN fall lineup begins on wed-26-sep-20:00 with the two-hour premiere of "Enterprise" (no "Star Trek:" prefix); the next week, 03-oct-21:00, "Special Unit 2" gets a second season. On tue-02-oct-20:00 "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" season six opens; the next week, 09-oct-21:00, "Roswell" assumes the following slot. (Both are transfers from the WB.) In the syndicated Tribune block (in Philadelphia, wphl-17-wb), "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda" season two premieres the week of 01-oct, and "Earth Final Conflict" season five the week of 06-oct. Augur (Jean Chevolleau) is not a regular, Renee Parker (Jayne Heitmeyer) stays a lead, Liam Kincaid (Robert Leeshock) might have been blown up in a volcano, Da'an (Leni Parker) is gone (Taelon+Jaridian=Atavus), and BOONE (Kevin Kilner) is back (woo- hoo!). Philip Segal (formerly of "SeaQuest" and the Fox "Doctor Who" movie) is the new Tribune Senior VP of Scripted Programming, and has agreed in an online chat (archived at www.efc.com) that the show lost its way for three seasons. If you get Showtime, beginning sat-08-sep-12:30 they air an 11-ep marathon of fifth-season "StarGate SG-1". Alderac Entertainment Group releases a "Farscape" RPG (pen-and-paper role-playing gamein December, set in the show's first season; it's a 256-page full-color hardback. (News revealed at WorldCon by author Keith DeCandido; see www.alderac.com) /* ************************************************************************ ** Legalese ** Acknowledgments ** Opt-in/out Instructions ** *********************************************************************** */ The set of creative works herein reviewed and analyzed, including the subset {books, movies, TV shows, toys}, are the property of their respective copyright holders. No infringement or endorsement is expressed, implied or intended. The original reviews and analyses are themselves copyright 2001 by Phillip Thorne. In this issue, certain data (possibly not otherwise acknowledged) have been obtained, aggregated and synthesized from: Epguides.com epguides.com Excite TV tv.excite.com The Internet Speculative Fiction Database sfsite.com/isfdb/ If you're receiving this newsletter, you've probably intentionally subscribed to it, or possibly you're interested in special topical coverage, or maybe I've sent you a teaser issue. To subscribe, email nsx@underbase.org with the words "SUBSCRIBE NON-SEQUITUR" in the subject line and/or body. To unsubscribe, use the same address but the phrase "UNSUBSCRIBE NON-SEQUITUR". Capitalization and punctuation are irrelevant, since there's still absolutely no automation behind the subscription process. Publisher: nsx@underbase.org Newsletter: nsx-l@underbase.org nsx-l-subscribe (to subscribe; blank subject) nsx-l-unsubscribe (to unsubscribe) Discussion list: nsx-discuss-l@underbase.org nsx-discuss-l-subscribe (to subscribe; blank subject) nsx-discuss-l (to post) nsx-discuss-l-unsubscribe (to unsubscribe) /* *************************************************************************** ** *************************************************************************** ** The Non-Sequitur Express ** http://nsx.underbase.org/ ** Volume 3, Issue 9: Wednesday, 5 September 2001 ** Copyright 1999-2001 Phillip Thorne, nsx@underbase.org ** *************************************************************************** ** ************************************************************************ */