Blog of a crazy man

Sony researchers have created several Aibo robot dogs that are capable of curiosity and learning. Using somthing called a metabrain the researchers gave the robots a curiosity about their surrondings, and an awareness of the value of learning.

The researchers placed the dogs in rooms with several small balls and, over the course of four to five hours, the dogs began to wiggle their legs, crawl, and eventully play with the balls. They were never programed to do any of those tasks. The robots were also given the ability to become bored when something didn’t have any thing new to offer them, thus driving a continuing desire to learn more about their surroundings. The researchers essentially created robot dogs with minds like real puppies.

Very creepy, but also very cool.

Link.

The Electronic Frontier Froundation (EFF) has published a legal guide for bloggers who aren’t sure how the law applies to them.

Obviously a necessary bookmark for any blogger.

Link.

Well, the last two birds died today. I ran out of worms some time this morning and was waiting for my brother to go buy some more or for it to rain so I could get some when the second bird died. Afraid of the other one dying my brother suggested that I give him some bread soaked in water, which I did. After that he wouldn’t eat anything, even worms. I wasn’t sure what was wrong and for the next three hours I could only wait and hope that he would eat.

Figuring that since he wouldn’t eat, he would die; I brought him outside to let him at least die in his natural environment. I just went outside a few minutes ago to check on him, and he was still alive. I picked him up and he opened his mouth revealing the piece of bread, still stuck in his throat. I tried as fast as I could to dig it out with a toothpick, the only thing I had available, but he died in my hands as I tried to save him.

I feel horrible.

One of the birds, who I named Runt because he was the runt, died sometime last night. He hadn’t been eating right and he kept falling asleap during the day. I hoped he would be able to live, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

I’m going to have a funeral for him in a short while.

My brother got a Jeep Cherokee the other day, to replace the one he destroyed in a flood, and inside the body was a bird’s nest, with three baby birds no momma. Well, after about a day we were finally able to get them out. Now they are sitting in a small cardboard box in my kitchen. I’ve been digging worms to feed them and they are devoring them, which is understandable considering they haven’t had any food in what must have been a couple of days.

They look pretty mature and mabye only a week away from when the would have been taken out of the nest. It looks like I have a project for the next few weeks. I hope they can survive.

I’ll post pictures soon.

Stop. Whatever dirty thoughts just ran through your mind, get them out you dirty pervert.

That said, this actually is about porn, so your dirty thoughts were somewhat justified.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has officially anounced that they will be offering an “xxx” domain name to adult websites. The domains will be offered on a voluntary basis only, porn sites can still use dot-com and others. The idea is to make it simple for parents to keep their children from viewing porn. The $30 yearly registry fee may limit its effectiveness, though, considering that dot-com goes for less than $10 a year from GoDaddy. Either way the move is a good step for supporting both free speech and personal censorship.

Link.