These canny engineers have at last realized that the proper model for robots is biological, and have built a soft-bodied walking robot. The future belongs to inflatable technology!
Have no fear. They’re mostly benign.
(Also on Sb)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Looks a lot like the last feeble flops of a fish dying on land.
I may hold off on welcoming those as the new overlords.
Do not diss the overlords, unless you really want sinister squishy tentacled things slithering into your bed when you least expect it.
Are those based on anomalocarids?
The fools! It’s ‘rabbits in the Precambrian’.
That’s why I always honor cephalopods, and, well, spiders, naturally–OK, the spiders I haven’t squished yet (hoping the live ones don’t notice the 8-legged corpses…).
Glen Davidson
Least expect? That’s № 1 on my Christmas list.
Ant Roach Huxley sounds like a Melvins song title.
I saw the elephant a few days ago, and thought it had too much starch in it’s underwear.
What do we have to do to ensure sinister squishy tentacled things slithering into bed when we least expect it?
Hey, you got squid on my robot!
No, you got robot on my squid!
Somehow, I’m totally unsurprised. It seems inevitable.
Brownian, that did it. I’m now in The Line.
I’ll start getting concerned once I stop seeing the tubes tethering them to the bulky external air/fluid supply.
You should check out the morphing blob robot too.
Somewhere in Hollywoodland, David Cronenberg is drafting his next screenplay.
Tentacled robots. I see.
For once, I’m delighted to live in the future, and look forward to progress!
*steps into The Line*
Would this be a good time to insert a joke about looking forward to advances in, um, inflatable technology?
So does the present.
What? Are you people mad?
Whenever people gush about computers and robots becoming more ubiquitous, I’m reminded of how much fucking time I spend now waiting for updates and drivers to install (both Adobe and Apple can go fuck themselves so hard) and how I have to find a mechanic with a degree in computing science so s/he can turn off the wrench icon on my dash when I get an oil change.
It’s going to get worse long before it gets better, and you’d better hope you registered your amorphous robotic assplug with the manufacturer because you naturally created a unique password (as you’re supposed to do) that you can’t possibly hope to remember while the thing is worming its way up your descending and you’re locked out of administrator-level access (is your laptop with the USB 3.0 port still with the Geek Squad?) and they only provide customer support to registered customers between the hours of 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM EST M-F because they just got bought out by motherfucking EA.
Inflatable technology? Sluggy Freelance is here.
Wait, what? So hentai is real?
*steps into The Line*
CBC’s “Quirks and Quarks” featured a robotic hand built on the same design concept as the morphing blob robot:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2010/11/05/fingerless-robot-grip.html
Built by Cornell. Based on those brick-like vacuum packed bags of ground coffee.