O boy, this was the kind of thing I wanted to make when I was about nine or ten, after watching too many episodes of Dr Who and Lost in Space, but found my imagination hindered by a lack of Meccano, and an excess of cardboard boxes and sticky-back plastic. Now it seems my childhood dream has come true as one of the UK’s first ever humanoid robots has been revived after spending forty-five years gathering dust in a garage.

Robot George wasn’t made by some sci-fi obsessed kid, but by a former spy catcher and RAF officer Tony Sale, who built this baby for around $25, using scrap metal form a crashed Wellington Bomber plane, back in 1950. 

Sale was a fresh-faced 19-year-old at the time and his incredible, radio-controlled, man-sized robot, which looks like something from Flash Gordon, or even Flesh Gordon, could walk, apparently talk and carry out simplistic chores, as the Daily Telegraph reports:

“I made him in my spare time. He was 6ft tall and I put light sensitive cells in his eyes which enabled him to home in on an illuminated beer bottle,” he said.

“He was brought out and demonstrated at all the open days at RAF Debden and featured on Pathe News.”

The robot, which is powered by two motorcycle batteries can be made to walk, turn his head, move an arm and sit down. He can operate up to 30 feet from his controls.

He caught the imagination of the press and was featured in numerous papers as one of the earliest humanoid robots built in the UK.

George was pictured carrying the shopping, hoovering and even mowing the lawn.

“I think he really impressed people because he looked so lifelike,” said Mr Sale.

“Unfortunately I wasn’t able to improve him any further as computers weren’t developed enough at the time.

“He has no memory and there were no computers small enough to enable him to become an intelligent robot, so he was put away.

“He was left to languish until I found him again in my garage, where he hadn’t been touched for 45 years.”

However Robot George wasn’t Mr. Sale’s first attempt at building a robot, as this interview with the BBC explains:

Remarkably, George was not the first robot that Mr Sale had built. In fact, he was the fifth incarnation of a mechanical man that the young electronics wizard had put together.

Creating any kind of working robot in the early 1950s was an incredible feat, especially as Mr Sale was under 20 at the time. The version he produced then has a claim to be among the earliest humanoid robots built in the UK.

Mr Sale’s prowess with a spanner and soldering iron remained undimmed.

He was the driving force behind the rebuild of the famous Colossus computer and one of the founders of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, as well as being a British spy-catcher.

 
Who needs drugs when life as it is is this trippy?

This video presented by the Enoshima Aquarium shows the bioluminescent mantle of a flame scallop (Ctenoides ales, a.k.a. noble file clam or electric eye scallop), a bivalve mollusk found around reefs in shallow tropical waters. The purpose of the flashing lips remains a mystery.

Ah, sweet mystery of life.
 

 

Via Pink Tentacle

 
Illinois Rep. John Shimkus—candidate for chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee—is sure that climate change is no big whup. How does he know this? The Bible tells him so: God promises Noah he’ll never again destroy the earth and all living things. Whew! We’re all safe! Even us unbelievers!

Progress Illinois gives more reasons why Shimkus, of course a Republican, is probably not the best man for the job:

During a discussion at a hearing about the Environmental Protection Agency’s ruling that greenhouse gases threaten public health and the environment, Shimkus noted that carbon dioxide is a natural result of breathing and asked, “Does EPA propose we stop breathing?” (They do not.) At a dinner held by the Sangamon County Republicans in February, Shimkus suggested that the sight of farmers “ice-fishing on ponds in Southern Illinois” is the latest evidence that global warming is a “hoax.” Oh, and let’s not forget the time Shimkus expressed fear that curbing carbon emissions would “take away plant food.” (Scientists disagree.)

This idiot should be pointed at and laughed at. Instead we elect ignoramuses like this to Congress! We’re doomed!

Via Gawker

  
The restored digital 4K version of Dr. Strangelove will be screening at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin November 15-18. The Alamo has installed a new 4K projection system and the results are awesome. I saw The Bridge On The River Kwai in a 4K presentation this past Monday and it was stunning. 4K is a 10 megapixel image with a native resolution of 4,096 x 2,400—more than four times the resolution of HD. If your local theater has a 4K system (they’re not cheap) and you have a chance to see a newly restored classic in that format, go for it. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly will be screening at the Alamo later this month also in a 4K restored version and in its original aspect ratio. The flies, the sweat, the squinting eyes, the dust, the nostrils…all digitally restored. I can’t wait.

Watching the restored The Bridge On The River Kwai was a reminder of just how breathtakingly beautiful technicolor films can be when presented in pristine condition. While the digital presentation is not quite the same as celluloid, I still felt I was viewing the film in all of its original splendor (I saw the film as a child and remember it well). The color, detail, depth of field were all enhanced and take on an almost lysergic clarity. And there’s still some grain. Simply gorgeous. Apart from the beauty of the film, the story is powerfully anti-war. Even as a child, I picked up on that. I’m quite sure that my father, a Naval officer, took me to the film expecting a patriotic message. Little did he know.

I’m hoping that this new 4K technology and the digital restoration of classic films introduces them to a new audience. There’s nothing like seeing a widescreen David Lean or Sergio Leone movie on the big screen, nothing.
 
Animated gif from IWDRM

 
Hatsune Miku, the holographic J-Pop superstar from Japan, commands legions of fans who go totally nuts for her, almost exactly the same way fans of Miley Cyrus do for her.  As cool as this technology is (and it’s very cool), I just can’t imagine an audience going so crazy for something like this on these shores. It would be like freaking out over The Archies.

 
Thanks, Juan Monasterio!

 
Since Perseus escaped the gorgons with his helm of invisibility, the idea of a cap or cloak of invisibility has been a fixture of myth and fairy tale. A helmet of invisibility appears in Norse mythology, and the first mention of an invisibility cloak occurs in Welsh folklore, with the story of Caswallawn (the historical Cassivellaunus), who used one to murder Caradog ap Bran and his fellow chieftains. From then via H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man through Jack the Giant Killer, via science-fiction to Harry Potter, invisibility has been the stuff of fantasy.

Now scientists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland maybe about to change all that, as they have created a material which could be used to create an invisibility cloak. The material, called Metaflex, may provide a way to manipulate light to render objects invisible.

Metamaterials have already been developed, which bend and channel light to render objects invisible at longer wavelengths, but visible light poses a greater challenge because its short wavelength means the metamaterial atoms have to be very small. So far such small light-bending atoms have only been produced on flat, hard surfaces unsuitable for use in clothing.

In 2006, a group of US/UK scientists announced they had devised a way of cloaking that made solid objects disappear from sight.   At the time, Sir John Pendry, the theoretical physicist at Imperial College London, who developed the idea, said cloaking devices to hide vehicles from radar were only a matter of years away, but as Pendry explained, “Our device is more an invisibility shed than an invisibility cloak.”

Today newspapers report scientists at St Andrews believe they may have overcome this problem, as:

They have produced flexible metamaterial “membranes” using a new technique that frees the meta-atoms from the hard surface they are constructed on. Metaflex can operate at wavelengths of around 620 nanometres, within the visible light region.

Stacking the membranes together could produce a flexible “smart fabric” that may provide the basis of an invisibility cloak, the scientists believe. Other applications could include “superlenses” that are far more efficient than conventional lenses.

Describing their work in the New Journal of Physics, the researchers write: “Arguably, one of the most exciting applications of Metaflex is to fabricate three-dimensional flexible MMs (metamaterials) in the optical range, which can be achieved by stacking several Metaflex membranes on top of one another…

“These results confirm that it is possible to realise MMs on flexible substrates and operating in the visible regime, which we believe are ideal building blocks for future generations of three-dimensional flexible MMs at optical wavelengths.”

Lead scientist Dr Andrea Di Falco said: “Metamaterials give us the ultimate handle on manipulating the behaviour of light.”

The full report from the New Journal of Physics can be read here.
 

Basic restoration kit.
 
The first cut is the deepest.

Want your foreskin back? Check out RestoringForeskin.org, a social networking site for men who wish to participate in a community devoted to foreskin restoration.

There are different methods of restoring your foreskin. One method is tugging. You can tug manually or you can use tape or a strap.
 

 

Tugging is not dangerous.  But, tuggers can often be their own worst enemy. I have heard of guys hurting themselves.  Usually, if there is an injury it is either because the person is tugging too hard (too much tension or tugging for too many hours at a time) or fell asleep while tugging and either slept through the pain or had a nocturnal erection. Fortunately, most injuries are only skin tears that will heal in a short time.  But, there is no reason to ever injure yourself. Just tug in moderation and avoid sleeping while tugging until you have the experience to do it properly, if you do it at all. If you tug properly and have normal skin, you will not get stretch marks! My first concern when I started was that I would get stretch marks. Never happened. In fact, it rarely happens to anyone. Stretch marks occur when there is too much tension for a long period of time. If you are tugging that hard, you will see other signs before you get to the point of having stretch marks. If you see your skin getting red, raw, or you are getting sore or feeling pain, STOP! You are tugging too hard.

Here’s a clip on tugging from three tugging experts, James Haughey, Roland Clark and Ron Low.
 

 
No comment. You can decide.

(via Cynical-C)

 
Psychedelic cumshot.

Lab footage of human sperm cells transformed via Adobe After Effects.
 

 
A YouTube commenter says, “Kill it before it finishes its death dance!”

I have to agree.

(via Pink Tentacle)