The A2cation of Gary

This is a happy little robot.

A graduate student at Tisch has been conducting a ‘social interaction experiment’ in New York City with cute robots that require human intervention to complete their tasks. This specific robot can only move forwards in a straight line, and has a flag that states its intended destination. It needs the help of passers-by to redirect its path or ‘save’ it from potholes, park benches, and traffic.

Even in a city like New York, the tweenbots have succeeded in every one of their missions, without suffering any catastrophis losses. If you see this little guy around, make sure to help it out.

Kat (in a low voice): Hi, this is Gary Liu speaking.

Bank Rep: Uh ... please hold on a second.

Elevator Music: la ti da ...

Bank Rep: Katrina, please put Gary on the phone.

Kat: How'd you know my name?!

I am actually surprised.

I really shouldn’t be, since stupidity and racism continue to be embedded across our country, but I’m still surprised. Look at these quotes:

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?”

“Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

It is just completely absurd that this woman is a Congressional Representative.

Internet Comment Of The Week:

“I distrust how that fox won’t look me in the eye. And what planet is he wiping his ass on?”

From Is Google Killing Firefox?

Old Man: Did you know that Aragorn is 400 years old? Why the heck would that pretty elf lady go for him?

Old Woman: Why not? He's still very handsome.

Old Man: But he's 400 years old! I bet his man-parts are all wrinkled. That's not very attractive.

Old Woman: Don't I know it ...

Old Man: Hey!

“The British government is proposing that Twitter is to be taught in primary (elementary) schools as part of a wider push to make online communication and social media a permanent part of the UK’s education system. And that’s not all. Kids will be taught blogging, podcasting and how to use Wikipedia alongside Maths, English and Science.”

Fantastic. Now the Brits are going to sound irrefutably intelligent while citing WikiGRL87 in 140 characters or less. America is doomed.

Continuing debate topic: does the proliferation of instant gratification knowledge that creates niche experts (for pretty much everything) dilute the power of intelligence and the importance of academia?

Gary: We don't have dessert?

Kat: We did. In that box.

Gary: It's empty.

Kat: There was Thin Mints in there.

Bathtub IV by Keith.

I’m a big fan of tilt shift lenses for still and motion photography. With some post-capture processing, you can make any scene look like a miniature model. Coupled with time-lapse videography, the result is a pretty cool video that looks like stop-motion animation, on a grandiose scale.

Congress is brilliant! They are retroactively taxing all bonuses paid out by companies owing more than $5 billion to the government by an incredible 90%! That’s some serious balls-to-the-wall legislation.

AIG’s executives now in effect get $16.5 million in bonuses, compared to an initial $110 million (after bonus tax), while not making a dent in their government debt.

There are going to be lots of pissed off bankers today. Sorry guys.