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Well, I’ve been pretty quiet as of late. I haven’t moved to a different country, taken a different job or grown an extra arm — so to some extent, its been pretty boring. But in other regards, things are always changing little by little.

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I know I promised photos, and they are on their way, i just can’t find my damn camera right now. Besides, I’m too busy shopping for a Freeview box, a dvd player, and at least one of those to have a hard drive in it so I can record stuff. I dunno if anybody has any opinion on this sort of thing, but if you do, drop me a line. And quick! Cause I’ve got the fever and nothing will stop me from buying…

(This entire post from Wired blog.  He wrote it funnier than I could have.) 

Let the robot holocaust commence: robots think we taste like bacon.

Researchers at NEC System technologies and Mie University have designed the cute little guy to the right: a metal man gastronomist, “an electromechanical sommelier”, capable of identifying wines, cheeses, meats and hors d’oeuvres. Upon being given a sample, he will speak up in a childlike voice and identify what he has just been fed. The idea is that wineries can tell if a wine is authentic without even opening the bottle, amongst other more obscure uses…like “tell me what this strange grayish lump at the back of my freezer is/was.”

But when some smart aleck reporter placed his hand in the robot’s omnivorous clanking jaw, he was identified as bacon. A cameraman then tried and was identified as prosciutto.

Absolutely horrifying. Like cows, once robots taste blood, their hunger for human flesh can never be satiated. Japanese unveil robot wine steward [South Coast Today]

Here’s a fun set of animated shorts that are on tv here. They’re only 5 minutes long each so there’s no excuse to not watch them. The key thing to keep in mind is that these are actual recordings of a radio call in show that are recorded, and then animated, sorta like Creature Comforts, but Northern Irish. So good luck with the accents!

Well I guess they aren’t all that mellow most of the time, but they are yellow : July 2007

 ”Doh, a deer, a female deer.”

Where I live.

Where I work.

We’re going on a bus tour of Belfast today so hopefuly I’ll have some good pictures for ya’ll later…