New Terminator-style 'bots can self-assemble, leap, climb and SWARM Roboticists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised a range of self-assembling cube robots, which have no external moving parts. Youtube Video Despite their lack of limbs, the M-Blocks can climb over and around each other, jump into the air, roll around and even move when hanging upside down - all thanks to …
No neutronium just means you can't get human-form replicators. (Which need such gods-awful amounts of power to create in the first place that I am entirely unsure Earth can generate that and deliver it all to one place.) You can still get the bugs. Those creepy, evil bugs.
Frankly, I always felt they were the single worst Sci-Fi enemy of all time. The human form replicators could be (sort of) reasoned with. The Pegasus replicators had some bizzare glitch where they actually constructed their ships and cities from regular materials (instead of blocks), making them vulnerable. Even the Borg always had the possibly of eventually negotiating a compromise.
Not the replicator bugs. Those things were relentless. They had one purpose and one purpose only: make more bugs. You were nothing more than raw materials to them. They would consume whole planets and convert them all into bug-blocks.
Terrifying, terrifying stuff. "Grey goo" given form and the ability to spray acid onto your face.
I'm going to give that a great big "nope" and run the hell away.
I thought it was going to be something different. True "self assembling" robots would go online to Maplin to order the parts for the next generation, and then build them when they land on the doormat.
At that point, we are just a credit-card away from oblivion. All it would take is for them to generate their own source of income - agriculture perhaps, or a spot on a reality TV show.
Before our civilisation collapses they would use their surplus income to fund research into hyperdrive technology, then clump together and head off to assimilate the rest of the galaxy.
It's not like other scientist are developing velociraptor like robots that could combine with this to create the perfect killing machine;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/05/dino_tail_robot/
Well lucky for us there's no Skynet-like AI which will allow it to realise that humans are the threat;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/21/ibm_watson_talking_computer_customer_service/
Oh
Steak _and_ faggots? I've nothing against protein overload, but I think we at least need some bashed tatties and neaps to go along o' that :-). Oh, and gravy. Though the whole 'faggots' thing sort of makes that a given... :-)):
http://www.yummyfood.net/recipes-id658.html
http://britishfood.about.com/od/eorecipes/r/faggots.htm
Damn. Now I'm hungry. Again. Sigh...
Sorry to put a damper on your intended repast...but the STAKE (nee steak) and FAGOTS (nee FAGGOTS) @ Pen-y-gors was referring to...would be used to COOK your meal...not be the entree'.
fag·ot - noun \ˈfa-gət\
Definition of FAGOT
: bundle: as
a : a bundle of sticks
b : a bundle of pieces of wrought iron to be shaped by rolling or hammering at high temperature
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fagot
OK...everyone back to work. The English lesson is over now.
Ah, me - I blush :-).
I'll leave it to the floor to decide whether I was falling victim to poor reading comprehension - or instead to a dance of word and pune (courtesy of Mr N Molesworth, and nothing to do with _prunes_, which are chiz and revolting) on words :-).
So stake thy ground sir, and I'll let my steak be ground - perhaps to make my faggots :-))).
"I thought the method was drowning in the village pond. If they sunk they werent a witch and if they floated they were.. obviously a bit late by then."
Yes, it was a bit late by then... but now, thanks to modern science, we have a foolproof way to ensure that innocent women don't get drowned. You simply have to put them on one pan of a giant weighing scale, with a duck in the other pan, and check that they are not in perfect balance. If they weigh the same, they will clearly float and are therefore made of wood and should be burned as a witch!
This will confuse out brethren from across the pond.
It will be necessary to explain to them that faggots can be:
An archaic unit of measurement for bundles of sticks used for burning heretics, witches were generally drowned.
Or
Is traditionally made from pig's heart, liver and fatty belly meat or bacon minced together, with herbs added for flavouring and sometimes bread crumbs, popular in the Midlands as a warming dish.
The author is not anti-gay or promoting the burning of homosexuals, also the word minced is not to do with they way a person walks.
In this day and age things need to be explained to prevent arrest and litigation.
In that these things look even less prepared for a war of annihilation than the average, non-stair climbing, Dalek.
On the other hand, I know of no Dalek that could jump on your wallet and erase the mag swipes of all your credit cards. It's a good thing we use chip & PIN :)
This reminds me of the robot in the film Demon Seed. Not the ones built by the scientist, the one built by the huge brain. It appeared to be made out of thousands of little pyramids (3 sided ones) that stuck together and flipped round to make new shapes.
This was an amazing thing to watch, as this was all before CGI got going, so I guess it was done by stop motion animation. There were a number of concepts in the film that were ahead of their time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Seed
can't help thinking that any structures or tools etc created by these bots would be extremely prone to falling apart at the drop of a hat if all that's holding the various parts together are a few magnets. surely to be used for any practical purpose you need to ensure that any shape or structure created by these bots is as rigid and strong as a solid object?
Get these things small enough (macro molecular) and with swarming programs and dipole switching the bonds will be strong enough to form anything. You will be able to watch grey goo jump and form itself into a velociraptor.
At the moment I am stripping out the magnetron from my microwave and cobbling it together with a car battery and an invertor to make a semi portable EMP generator, not too sure it will work on these things but at least I can keep my coffee warm on the go.
This post has been deleted by its author
robots in disguise! ...
I is I, Megatron, that have given this knowledge unto these puny earth monkeys of flesh. My invading army is even now hurdling towards their mineral rich world where we will establish a new and deadlier decepticon army. Machines that will destroy the autobots and conquer the universe!!!....
It looks impressive allright, but also limited at the same time. It seems to me that as soon as the blocks are closely together all that's steering them are their magnets. The movement itself seems more or less randomized.
Which brings me to another aspect; I was a bit disappointed that they didn't show any footage of two of them working together. For example two blocks which were linked to each other and then tried to perform a flip or movement while staying synchronized.
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