Happy Birthday Karel Čapek (and robots)

plains — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:58:30 +0000

Today is the birthday of Karel Čapek, who is attributed with popularizing the term “robot,” which he introduced in his 1921 play “Rossum’s Universal Robots” (or R.U.R.). He gives credit to his brother Josef for inventing the word, which has its roots in the Slovak word robota which translates literally to “serf labor.” Čapek is a fairly well known science fiction writer. Of note is one of my favorites, War with the Newts, in which a species of intelligent newts are enslaved by the humans but eventually rebel and take over the world (I always thought Vonnegut had to have read that one). Happy birthday robots everywhere!

PI DAY

plains — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 16:21:35 +0000

Hello everyone, please remember to observe Pi Day today. On a less round note, I need to try to get a shot of it on the way home, but I was impressed this morning when I noticed for the first time some billboard graffiti near the West End station. DOSE has tagged the entire back of a billboard that rises about 60 feet up in the air. Anyway, I was fairly impressed, since it was quite a feat to get up there (there aren’t any other structures around it and it stands I think inside a fenced off area. Since I don’t have a shot of it yet, please accept this ditty bag set instead. OR…(later that day)…you can look at this:

Also, recently, I found my Japanese doppleganger (by name and trade) at Vector Scan by the name of Ryota Kuwakubo, who seems to have the ability to do some really cool stuff (the kind I would like to do sometimes). One of my favorites is block jam – which appears to be some sort of lego-like music and light sequencer. Of course, where I do more web/media based projects, his are more “real” world products.

plasticular inscriptor » graffiti

Happy Birthday Karel Čapek (and robots)

PI DAY