This week’s whimsy is brought to you by a wild robot-ride.
Video description: a factory-style robot arm has been fitted with a padded seat with harness on the end of of its arm – a man is strapped into this and then the robot rotates back and forth while the arm twists and gyrates in complicated loops. At times the man is swooshing along while upside down with his head very close to the ground.
Best comment on the youtube page?
Stay away from that thing when skynet takes over.
Please share any bits and pieces you have come across recently that have surprised, delighted, intrigued or otherwise positively engaged you.
NB: the weekly whimsy thread is a stoush-free zone
Remember never to take yourself too seriously when you have a cat.
via Ampersand Duck
Why I like cats so much more than dogs.
http://youtu.be/ukM-O7jd3PQ
This Whimsied the heck out of my 19yo son, me too
Not quite whimsical, but interesting: the sulphur dioxide plume from the recent eruption of Grimsvotn in Iceland.
Eek!
http://www.space.com/11818-space-spiders-weightless-webs-station-shuttle.html
Not a robot but a good ride.Non Sequitur Comic Strip, May 17, 2011 on GoComics.com
http://www.gocomics.com
I was surprised by a recent ABC News 24 lead headline about ‘smugglers exporting e-waste’. This is the stuff that local authorities would love to have someone take off their hands quite apart from the polluting effect some of it has in landfill.
If someone wants to ‘smuggle’ my analogue tv ….
Hardly whimsical, pablo. IIRC, the article in question had to do with exporting our toxic landfill to some poverty-stricken shithole because that was cheaper than recycling it properly.
Web weaving spiders would do very well in space I think, so many more things drifting past than in low g and their very own static line to anchor themselves. Poor little jumping spiders, hands down the most disarmingly anthropomorphic spiders around, with their tendency to tilt their heads (and “faces”) towards you as they give you the once over, might have a very lean time of it.
Thanks DI for the clarification. I tried to find the story behind the headline but missed it. Can you reference?
George Lucas Strikes Back via @clembastow
The World’s Only Waterskiing Elephant Dies: but why would a pet shop in New York be selling baby elephants? Wouldn’t an elephant be a bit difficult to keep in a Manhattan apartment?
Architectural Gymnastics