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Robotron 2084

In 1982 Williams Electronics, Inc. changed my world of video games forever. It was only a couple of short years after Pac-Man (1980) made the “more than 2 directional” joystick famous that Robotron introduced the first widely accepted 2-joystick game, one for movement and one for fire. Now I’m sure many of you are screaming at me that I don’t know what I’m talking about and that there were tons of games with joysticks before Pac-Man and other games preceding Robotron with two joysticks. Before you yell at me, calm down take a chill. I am aware of this. I am speaking about the Video Game world at large back in the early 1980s. The average person who played these games was not a game researcher with Google at their side, they were casual players that had fun playing the games. So, that said don’t bust my chops about details, I’m trying to convey an experience.  Continue reading Robotron 2084

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Electric Skin created at Berkeley and Stanford

There have been so many news stories lately that convince me we will finally be able to check off cyborg on that list of things my generation is still waiting for. Zhenan Bao, a chemist at Stanford, has used a method called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to create a pressure sensitive skin that is 1000 times more responsive than human skin. Meanwhile at Berkeley inSan Fransisco, researchers there weaved nanowire semiconductors with rubber to form a low power pressure sensitive synthetic skin.  Continue reading Electric Skin created at Berkeley and Stanford

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Artificial memories created with mouse tissue

“Mnemonic Representations of Transient Stimuli and Temporal Sequences in Rodent Hippocampus In Vitro“. That’s the name of the article published describing how a group of scientists have used pieces of a mouse brain to build a neural circuit that recorded and played back a short term memory similar to a name or place for 10 seconds.  Continue reading Artificial memories created with mouse tissue

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You have made no effort to take a good picture

If you think you’ve ever made a considerable effort to take a cool picture, think again. A 19 year old British teen named Adam Cudworth has launched a homemade balloon and camera into space to take some pictures. The whole project consisting of a balloon, camera, transmitter, etc. cost him under $350 to build. Not bad if you ask me to acquire some truly impressive amateur pictures of earth from a high altitude. Not bad at all.

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Able to literally see alien life within 40 years?

According to Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, with the advancements in technology at the current rates, it is not unreasonable that we will be able to litterally see alien worlds close up in the not too distant future. According to the astronomer by as early as 2025 he suspects the human race will have the ability to view planets close up outside our solar system and that if there is life we might just be able to detect it.  Continue reading Able to literally see alien life within 40 years?

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Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney

I used to get all worked up over politics with my neighbor Tony. We would have long debates about what I think is wrong with the country. He is a die hard Catholic Republican with strong leanings to the right and church. Me on the other hand, I’m anAtheist who considers myself in the middle. I lean a little left on civil liberties (more on this misconception later) and I lean a little right on things like smaller federal government. It really always depends on the issue to me, I don’t give a shit about supporting a political “team”. This concept actually is alien to me.  Continue reading Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney