Cool Robot Stuff

In lieu of taking a break from revisions on an article that is slowly killing me, I thought I would offer up some observations from the world of robots, fact and fiction (well, really, which is which at this point?).

The first is a fascinating clip of "Roboman," the robot twin of the Japanese scientist who created him--note how near the end of the report it is stated that Ishiguru feels that such beings might be used to study human behavior--interesting stuff!

The second article, which I happened across just the other day, is entitled "Real Soldiers Love Their Robot Brethren". I think the following quote, which I actually find quite moving, speaks for itself:

"One EOD soldier brought in a robot for repairs with tears in his eyes and asked the repair shop if it could put "Scooby-Doo" back together. Despite being assured that he would get a new robot, the soldier remained inconsolable. He only wanted Scooby-Doo."

And for anyone who would immediately dismiss this as "twaddle", I would urge him or her to think of some piece of machinery that has impacted his or her life in such a way that made the device seem animate. For me, the list might be quite long, starting with, of course, Speak'N'Spell.

And lastly, in order to tie up the threads of this human/machine emotional connection theme, I give you a clip of an early first season "Twilight Zone" episode (no, not the lame-o 80s Twilight Zone but the actual original late 50s series) called "The Lonely," in which a man who has been wrongly convicted of a crime is banished to a distant planet with only "Alicia," his human-on-the-outside, robot-on-the-inside companion, to keep him company. At first he is completely repelled by her and her audacity in looking like a human but being a machine, but eventually the two form a strong bond (to the point that he refuses to leave the planet without her and will not accept that she is, after all, a mere robot). Despite TZ actors' apparent inability to properly pronounce the word "robot," I actually found this episode to coincide somewhat with a theory a student introduced me to last semester--the "uncanney valley" concept.

Deep Fried Curiosities

Following Thomas Browne's 17th century line of thought concerning keeping a "cabinet of curiosities", I thought that perhaps my own blog could serve as a kind of "cyber-cabinet" of my own odd experiences. Most of these little narratives have simply been tucked away in my memory for years now, just waiting for the right medium to come along to unleash them.

It's no secret that ghosts are big business. It seems that every time I turn around, there's some "10 Scariest This" or "15 Creepiest That" show on that purports to tell us that all the enticing details of places inhabited by, as my dad would call them, "haints." Well, the other day I was working on the computer and half-listening to the t.v., and the Travel Channel was running a thing about haunted restaurants. At the top of the list was "Catfish Plantation" in Waxahachie, Texas.

I've actually been to Catfish Plantation several times (as a kid). I had heard the hype (you know, the typical redneck-on-the-street interivews where people say things like, "that ghost threw a piece of broccoli clear across the room and hit me in the head!") on a local news station and, as kids are wont to do, I informed my mother this place was a must see. She agreed.

So, we went--I must have been thirteen at the time. (The food there is actually fabulous, by the way, if you're into "down home" southern fried stuff--I think this is actually the first place I ever had fried pickles, but I digress...) We ordered cheese sticks as an appetizer. At one point, when I happened to be looking away, my mother gasped in horror and swore up and down that some unseen entity had made one of the mozzarella sticks disappear and caused the tissue paper lining the basket to "float up." I did not count the cheesesticks before the incident, so I had nothing really to go on, but I bought into the idea that our foodstuffs had been violated by an apparition. It was thrilling.

Before we left, we passed the guestbook in which patrons write brief descriptions of their alleged encounters with C.P. ghosts. I read through a few--many were elaborate narratives focusing on some romanticized vision of a woman in a white flowing gown or a man in a suit that made him "look like he was from the 1920s." I brazenly added my own succinct experience into the mix. It read, "Ghost stole a cheesestick." Nothing more, nothing less.

Oh, no he didn't!

Recently, a Chronicle of Higher Ed article by Geoffrey Pullum entitled "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice" spewed forth venom (thinly couched in academese) about Strunk and White'sThe Elements of Style. Among the author's issues is the volume's increasingly apparent lack of pedagogical application:

"The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it."

Much of Pullum's article is a sanely reasoned journey through the contradictions found in the text--in short, Strunk and White do not seem to practice what they preach, and several of their examples do not even fit with the rules they are attempting to discuss. Point taken. But there is a subtext to the piece that I, as someone gearing up to teach a course in advanced argumentation, find just plain sad--it is Pullum's insistence on tapdancing on Strunk and White's graves (metaphorically) through incessant name calling. In prefacing his "ad grammarian" attack (in which he dubs Strunk and White bossy and "idiosyncratic bumblers"), where he cites both Strunk and White as "grammatical incompetents," Pullum simply assures us that "The authors won't be hurt by these critical remarks. They are long dead." It's almost as though Pullum takes great delight in the fact that these men have long since been six feet under, because their inability to retaliate allows him carte blanche to say whatever without fear of refutation--his glee at having the last word just seems rather offputting. I mean, really--put yourself in Strunk and White's shoes. Or, better yet, I'll use myself as an example. Let's say I write some little tome that enjoys some popularity but has some real flaws. And let's say I kick off, and somewhere down the road, someone smarter than I am decides to write a scathing review and mentions that, hey, it's not like Pace can say anything--she's dead, you know--so, nyaaa nyaaa nyaaahhh! I believe that Aristotle would hang his head in shame at such a cheap shot.

Though, despite the name calling, I do find much of Pullum's perspective intriguing, I do take issue with one particular point he makes, and since he is not long dead, I will handle my response with more tact than he has shown. Pullum writes:

"Several generations of college students learned their grammar from the uninformed bossiness of Strunk and White, and the result is a nation of educated people who know they feel vaguely anxious and insecure whenever they write "however" or "than me" or "was" or "which," but can't tell you why. The land of the free in the grip of The Elements of Style."

I truly find this claim a bit optimistic, but perhaps I am simply hampered by geography. Dr. Pullum, can you point me to the location of this "nation of educated people" who feel twinges of insecurity over their choices of which/who/whom/than/however? Because, you see, I have taught introductory composition for around ten years, and I'm pretty sure these hordes of overconscientious would be grammarians do not live in my vicinity.

How soon we forget...

The other day my dad reminded me that our first computer was not in fact the Commodore 64, but rather the TI-99. (Texas Instruments was also responsible for the infamous and beloved Speak and Spell, and so in my book they can do no wrong.) This computer came out before floppy disks--to operate it, one needed cassettes/cartridges.



One can also visit the very cool site dedicated to all things TI.

Some things are still under construction, but you'll get the gist of the amazing-ness that was Texas Instruments in its 80s heyday.

To Tweet or not to Tweet?

The other day, my dad and I were watching the news (CNN possibly), and at the end of the broadcast, the [male] anchor (in a move that is becoming more common and less likely to evoke giggles) said, "Be sure to follow the rest of the story on Twitter as it evolves." My dad (who talks to the t.v. quite a lot) offered the following bit of wisdom: "No grown man should have anything to do with anything involving the word "twitter." I concurred, as I always do with dad's edicts. Issues of manhood as they relate to digital status updates aside, however, the incident got me thinking further about my own attitudes toward various digital media.

Twitter has become a topic that has woven itself in and out of discussions in my multimedia writing class--I may, unintentionally, have poisoned the class's attitude toward microblogging in showing everyone the "Trouble with Twitter" video--perhaps, though, there are a few closet tweeters in the bunch who will (I hope) prevail and continue to microblog. I say go for it--it's all good.

Anyway, I started wondering just why it is that I am so sure I will never use Twitter, and I came up with an answer--my life is simply too boring (not in a bad way--just not in a way that is worthy of updates that make me look as though I am breathlessly sprinting from one adventure to the next). Blogger blogging has much more to do with what I am thinking than what I am doing, and therein lies the issue. Twitter's prompt, which one cannot escape, is "What are you doing?"

And, really, even in face to face conversation, I hate it when people ask me, "So, what are you doing?" as if they are waiting for me to say something like, "Well, my first novel sold really well, I just got back from a safari, and I'm really big in Japan. (I have a dear friend who hates that question even more than I do, and her stock response is "Whatever the hell I want to.")

If I were an avid tweeter, here is what an average morning's tweet's would probably look like:

8:30--enjoying Cheerios with a banana
9:33--trying to find a matching pair of socks
10:02--giving up on finding a matching pair of socks and who cares anyway because they're all either navy or black and my shoes will cover them up
10:46--getting ready to go to Lamar

I think you see the problem...

But--what if Twitter's prompt were "What are you thinking?" Such might be the beginning of a fantastic tool for low stakes freewriting that would allow students/writers to update their thoughts (from their cell phones, keyboards, etc.--from anywhere at any time), preserve them, and come back to them later on in the quest to construct an essay from their piecemeal observations. Plus, their classmates would be more likely to "tweet" back and create some really interesting cross referencing discourse. Here's the bottom line--I am planning to pervert Twitter for my own purposes and use it in the service of prewriting.