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Robotics

Inside Mantis: a 2-Ton Hexapod Robot With a Linux Brain 84

Posted by timothy
from the but-can-it-get-to-boston-on-one-battery-charge? dept.
DeviceGuru writes "After four years of development, Micromagic Systems has finally completed the Mantis Hexapod Walking Machine (YouTube video), claimed to be the world's largest all-terrain operational hexapod robot. The device stands nearly three meters tall, weighs just under two tons, and is controlled by a PC/104 module stack running embedded Linux."

Comment: Re:my bet (Score 2) 94

by joss (#42939165) Attached to: US Joins Google, Microsoft In "Brain Race"

Good job, never let historical fact mess with your ideology.

The last sentence is a particular peach. Sometimes things are not entirely about money, is that a concept you can grasp? It's hard to compete with that, but I'll try:
The Taj Mahal was a failure measured in terms of return on investment.
The Mona Lisa is pretty pathetic when measured in terms of luminosity per square inch, he should have painted it white.
Faberge eggs are pretty useless as crash helmets for chickens.

Comment: Re:3d systems buys competition (Score 4, Informative) 59

by joss (#42888743) Attached to: CES: Formlabs Co-Founder Describes Their Stereolithographic 3D Printer (Video)

Thing is, 3D Systems (specifically the companies founder, Chuck Hull), invented stereolithography and they have tons of patents in this area (I'm named as inventor on 22 of them.. I used to work for 3D Systems). So, if Formlabs can get out of this one as it's close to expiration date, there's more pain in the pipeline.

Comment: Re:We should build software like we build software (Score 1) 432

by joss (#42770641) Attached to: Is 'Brogramming' Killing Requirements Engineering?

Nicely put, TOA is beyond stupid.

When engineers make a new airline/bridge/circuit, they model the entire thing on a computer first. The CAD model is an unambiguous model of the plane. Important subsystems in it are modelled and analysed independently and in conjunction with the components around it.

So, if writing software was similar, we would first model the software on a computer. Oh, er, wait a moment. In an important sense, software is a design. The only unambiguous design is the actual software [otherwise we could make the design the programming language]. So, one could have a notion of starting with a fuzzy design and gradually making it clearer, but you can still end up with a bad design.

When someone designs a bad aircraft, the design is modelled, flaws are found and the design is improved. Nobody builds the thing until they feel pretty sure the design is right. However, software is often bad for the same reason that an initial design of anything else is bad. If it was equivalent to an airplane, windows 95 for instance, once designed, would never have been built. However, once the design for a piece of software is complete, one has created the software. All the development money has been spent, so the makers will try to get what they can for it. It's *all* design.

Comment: Re:Heh... Radical...Islamists...redundant... (Score 1) 564

by joss (#42663521) Attached to: Islamist Hackers Shut Down Egyptology Research Journal

> A disturbingly large number of people who identify themselves as Muslims go around blowing up buildings, hijacking refineries, chopping off heads, raping Western reporters to celebrate "democracy", and generally doing their damnedest to make the rest of the world hate them. The rest of the world has no obligation to give a shit about why we shouldn't consider the left hand as bad as the right; The burden rests on "the good ones" to get their own house in order.

That's a fucking retarded viewpoint, dealing with the assholes of this world is down to all of us. I lean atheist, does that mean its up to me to keep the actions of other atheists in check? If Jeffrey Dalmer or some other atheist lunatic does something sick is it up to me and other atheists to cure their behaviour ? Also, your viewpoint on the statistics of which groups go around doing wrong is almost entirely dependent on where you live. If you lived in the middle east you would hear no end of talk about how evil christians and jews are killing innocent muslims all over the place. Instead you live in the US where you hear about Muslims being dicks. It's not that what either group is hearing is false, its just that this is all they hear. However, if you *did* look at the numbers of westerners killed by muslims versus muslims killed by westerners in last 20 years, it comes to around 10,000 westerners versus, um.. well, over a million, but who's counting.

Comment: Re:The problem with protests. (Score 5, Insightful) 584

by joss (#42432759) Attached to: New Documents Detail FBI, Bank Crack Down On Occupy Wall Street

Are you out of your fucking mind ?

Can you name any major political change that happened through normal democratic methods without widespread protests ?

Getting rid of the monarchy, getting rid of slavery, votes for women, civil rights, whatever. None of these happen through people simply going through the motions of voting. "Change must come through the barrel of a gun ..." might be an exaggeration, but it is not far off. Non-violent protest is sometimes sufficient, I hope that this is all it will take to reduce the current "government by Goldman Sachs" but sitting on your backside righting letters to congress or voting for a particular candidate definitely is not going to do it.

Force has no place where there is need of skill. -- Herodotus

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