Nerd Rage [Comic]

So I was talking to a friend the other day and he said he didn’t know about xkcd. Or Cyanide and Happiness. That made me sad. I only recently discovered Nerd Rage but I’m sure many of you have already seen it – he didn’t know that one either. I love reading comics – mainly because I have always wanted to do them but can’t draw to save my life. I personally find xkcd much more intelligent and hilarious, but Nerd Rage has its moments…like this one.

 P.S. When I was complaining to someone how all the best scifi shows always seem to get cancelled (read: Firefly) they suggested something: the audience for those shows are the scifi geeks. And they all know how to download pirated copies. Buy your DVDs if you want your show to stay on the air.

I went out and bought all the box sets of Stargate, in a hope for revival.



Settlers of Star Trek

“Will you give me two Dilithium for one Tritanium?” This might be a question you’ll be asking sooner than you think! A new edition of the classic strategy board game Settlers of Catan is primed for release in March, so be ready to get your Red Shirts on ladies and gentlemen geeks, for Star Trek Catan will soon be here!

Of course, while every Trekkie and board gamer may be clamoring for this release, it is unfortunately going to be available only in Germany for now. The good news is that because of this, you now have both the time and a reason to brush up on your German language skills! “Lebe lang und erfolgreich!”

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Game of Thrones Season II Production Video

Go on set in Iceland as they film Season 2 of “Game Of Thrones,” which will premiere on April 1st, 2012. Oh, and no, this is no April Fools’ day joke. :)

Oh, and for those who are interested, the box set for season 1 is coming out in just 3 weeks. You can pre-order it right here on Amazon.com (44% Off).

[HBO]

Now We’re Printing Houses Too!

The Man Who Prints Houses is a documentary about the self-styled “stone alchemist” robotics scientist who embarks on an epic quest to achieve his ultimate dream: to 3D print an entire house.

The documentary is supposed to follow his heart-wrenching story, plagued by financial trouble and family estrangement, while he remains focused on achieving his goal.

He has built the largest 3D printer in the world, has created the largest structure in the world to be printed, and has lost so much of his life to this project that he has no choice but to finish it, or deem most of his life a failure.

I’m excited to see it, though it doesn’t seem clear anywhere on the website when the film will be released.

But think of it: one day we may be able to design our houses on The Sims and have them printed out, ready to go!

[Via The Man Who Prints Houses]

The Robot Invasion Begins With A Buzz

It’s not going to be the I, Robot machines, not the Cylons, not even Skynet: it’s going to be the RoboBees that will lead the AI insurgence. Inspired by the artisan’s touch in origami constructions, a new fabrication technique is allowing doctoral candidates at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) to advance ever further in the RoboBee project, to create robots that can fly and behave autonomously as a colony (shudder).

The product is the size of a U.S. quarter and only 2.4 millimeters tall, yet it incorporates complex machinery made from carbon fiber, Kapton (a plastic film), titanium, brass, ceramic, and adhesive sheets laminated together in a complex laser-cut design.

On top of that, it’s designed such that the product can be assembled all in one movement, like a pop-up book.

Previously, the method used to fold, align, and secure the teeny tiny parts of the robots was inefficient and pretty much ineffective. It was a more artistic method, for sure, where the human had to construct the device with the precision of an artist and the delicacy of a surgeon. This new method allows the machinery to construct the robots without human error, using cured carbon fiber, which is far more rigid and easy to align than the ‘wet tissue paper’ that is uncured carbon fiber.

But the method discovered reaches much further than just man-made bugs. The same technique can be used for high-power switching, optical systems, and other tightly integrated electromechanical devices that have tiny parts, since it can incorporate any material along with integrated electronics. In a device this small, no part of the mechanism can be purely structural: everything must serve an electrical function and this method now allows them to shove in sensors and control actuators all over the materials.

While it sounds scary to say that big robots are building littler robots (robot children!?) the truth is that designing how it all fits together is still up to the creative and expert human mind. CAD tools currently can’t support devices that combine flat, layered circuit board and 3D object design. But that’s all the human is required for in the process – once designed, the system is completely automated and more precise than we can even measure!

Let’s just hope that they don’t create an artificial intelligence that can learn creativity, because with a zero failure rate of the automated machines producing robot bugs on an assembly line, they’ll outnumber us in no time.

I’ll take a real mosquito any day.

Some Device Stats:

  • Folding Joints: 22
  • Assembly scaffold folding joins: 115
  • Total device folding joints: 137
  • Number of brass pads for “glue” points: 52
  • Total number of “glue” points: 24
  • Mass: 90mg
  • By mass, one U.S. quarter = 63 Harvard Monolithic Bees (what a name!)

[Via Science Daily]