Is there something missing from your life; perhaps a dearth of robots. In the internet craze that is Tumblr, someone has come to the rescue, providing a daily does of robots scoured from the web.
Robots have been with us for a good while now at least in concept and in recent years, as a slowly developing reality. R.U.R (Rostrum’s Universal Robots), a play by Czech author Karel Čapek published in 1920, introduced the word robot to the English language and depicted robots in science fiction for the first time. Robots quickly became a science fiction staple, notably figuring into the works of Isaac Asimov who developed the Three Laws of Robotics, which governed the story lines of his works like I, Robot:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Until we can have our own Jetson’s Rosie (my dream! I also want one of their vacuum tube travel mechanisms) or a Lost in Space Robot (Class M-3 Model B9, General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot), we’ll have to suffice with pictures.
- via Year of the Robot
I have a friend who was commissioned to rewrite RUR for contemporary times and had it produced/performed in Baltimore last year as “RUR: Reboot.” It was good, funny in spots, and did interesting things with timelines and alternate universes. (I LOVE alternate timeline stuff.)
I’d recommend it, but I’m not sure where it might be produced next, or if there’s a video of its Baltimore debut. What I can say is that we made T-shirts commemorating its opening, which taught me that screenprinting and decorating T-shirts in general is a lot tougher of a craft to pick up than cross-stitching… ; )
Sounds right up my alley. I love alternate timelines too… and universes (slightly addicted to Fringe), not to mention alternate histories. OK, science fiction in general.
Screen printing is hard. In 4th grade our social studies teacher created a 6 month project called “Mr Frida’s Fun Factory” to teach us about business economy. We had to decide on a product, produce and sell it and then see if we made a profit or loss. Anyway, the thing we made included screen printing and that was only 1 color printing. Since then I’ve watched friends do multi color. Man, that’s a lot of work.
Still haven’t bought my binary cross stitch, but it’s in my virtual shopping cart for next month. I’ll eventually post about the results. It should be simple enough that it doesn’t end up in the closet with my craft projects that take 2+ years to make (I do usually finish).
BTW, love your cross stitches in general. Is the Zelda one new?
Ooh, sorry I didn’t see this before — I JUST confirmed that I wanted to receive follow-up comments. I’d shake my fist at Gmail but then I’d be stuck shaking my fist for the next thousand years at every email that’s worse, just out of fairness…so I’d better not start.
Ha! We had a business curriculum in 4th grade, too, although ours involved following the actual, no-kidding stock market. We could wager “circles,” which was the equivalent of brownie points, or we could wager even faker units of meaningless numbers (which, being a cautious kid, is what I did…I think I “invested” my doubly fake non-money in IBM).
It sounds like screen printing a T-shirt would have had more real-world value.
I’ve seen video of a T-shirt maker I like called Psycho Reindeer doing screen printing with a 4 color machine, and it DOES seem like a lot of work. I’m happy to pay him the $12, seeing a thing like that.
Also, thanks! re: my cross stitches. Just FYI, the kit in my shop isn’t (at least not yet) a binary one, though that’s easy enough to arrange if you’re looking for binary stuff. I used a “stock image” of a custom order I once did for the kit, since it was originally a custom order that someone asked for and never bought, which makes it confusing…I’ve since changed the photo because it’s obvious that was a poor choice.
The Zelda “dangerous/take this” is NOT new, actually, but I think I had to renew it, so it comes up as new in listings/my shop for awhile afterward. You’d be shocked — SHOCKED! — at how many people think a sequin-covered lime green frame is a dealbreaker. ; ) I don’t expect that particular “take this!” to be taken before, say, Christmas.