Kickstarter Project: A Robot to Teach Coding

Here is a Kickstarter page for a robot to teach coding. But be careful with off-by-one errors (like in Robot Turtles), because now it's live action.


(Tip of the cap to Todd Gingrich.)

Best. Press Release. Ever.

I thought this was a joke when I first read it, but apparently this is a real press release.

The money quote comes at the end of the press release (bold words were bold in the release):

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO. “We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.”


Wow. I'm at a loss for words---well, except for the fact that one of the sites that promulgated the flesh-eating robot news was apparently FoxNews.com. I hate to break it to you, guys and gals, but she already works for you.

(Tip of the cap to Francisco Gutierrez and Heidi Eldenburg Bramlet.)

Life Imitates Weird Science (and Buffy)

Every so often there's a news story that reminds us how life sometimes imitates the things we see in movies and television.

Well, this time around life seems to be imitating Weird Science (and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if you prefer), as a Japanese inventor has built his own girlfriend.

Money quote: She has all senses except for smell.

Money quote #2: Aiko actually means "love child" in Japanese but the software engineer denies he has created the robot for sex.


As some of you will no doubt recall, this didn't exactly work out well for the character in Buffy. We'll see what happens in this case.