Robotics

Teaching robots
Reverse curriculum: approaching the teaching of robots and automation.

Self sustaining robots
An interesting article was published in the new scientist on the 5th of November 2016. In this publication we read of self-sufficient soft robots. These are robots that digest food sources which provide them with the energy to do work.

They have a mouth made of a soft polymer membrane. The robot can suck in a whole belly full of water and biomatter. The system has an artificial gut, termed a microbial fuel cell. This microbial fuel cell is filled with microbes that  break down the biomass and convert chemical energy into electrical energy. This electrical energy then powers the robot.

In this way the robots provides itself with enough energy to be self sustainable. The advantages of a self sustaining robot is that it does not need to be charged or even have batteries. Its power source is consuming biomass.

Such machines will be able to exist in inhospitable environments. Huge potentials in collecting garbage. Also Feeding in agricultural, Irrigation Systems and application in applying chemicals to crops.

New Scientist, 5 November 2016, page 24

Film: Longing for some Essence

Metropolis: The ultimate by Fritz Lang

The ultimate in film, peer into the world of Metropolis -as it is with content, a universal message; forever carrying poetic into the age of technology. It is the best, especially in light of its prophetic nature.

Metropolis and Narcissus seeing beyond himself

The ultimate in film, peer into the world of Metropolis -as it is with content, a universal message; forever carrying poetic into the age of technology. It is the best, especially in light of its prophetic nature. I am fascinated esp., considering its production, use of limited tools; and considering that the film was released in the late 1920s. Expect to be blown away, with what it is, in essence.

However this production is cherished, as a combination, put together by artistic genius, its an expression that transcends  the limits of technics and time -underlining an essential point: effective use of primitive tools, based on essential truth,  blows aside facades -esp., the masked, the overly coloured superficiality of kitsch and false art and so forth (characteristic features of so many modern art forms).

Here we have the truly genuine i.e., searching for an essence, the needed expressed forms of life, discovering itself, in finding the mediator (industrial life angst). 

Metropolis is a reflection in the pool of Narcissus: though in this piece man transcends himself -finds expression, peers upon some essential truth, throughout the reel, the moving stream: onwards towards -life that is all colour, in as much as Metropolis, is all colour wanting to explode from the limits of its own greyness.

Though here, the spectator is lost, within an underlying colour in monochromaticity- in the whirling depths of its message. In essence, at the base, or crux -we observe this artistic piece from two ends. Within the depths, ever busy industrial dwarfs; above, the rainbow. 

In Metropolis you ought to find your pot of gold. The work's value is not a painted depiction of an eternal working fairy. It is the miraculous transformation of an idea into living form. It is the Creative Force, lying in things, the worker -the coordination, the movement of head and hand. 

Nostalgia: Tarkovsky

A film that looks at backward looking aspects in the urge to discover some hidden essence in the imagination.

Andrei Tarkovsky

Probably one of the masterpieces of film: here the Russian poet and translator go to Italy (a sort of spiritual homeland); they want to study the life of the composer of the eighteenth century. i.e., among the dereliction  old rusty forms -they look, trying to find some essence. 

The film explores something in the past, looks or provides a mirror into that missing essence that so many of us try to find in so many different ways. 

SALUTE: We congratulate the Spirit of Tarkovsky.

Its mental and visual, verbally profound and spatial framed in tones of sepia charming, in addition to a good detailed underlying tones. An excellent work.

Music: longing for some Essence

Nostalgic pieces of music, 

From the album NO WAR (released in 2014). An almost chant like piece  -remember that Pink Floyd piece (Wish you where here). This provides a touching,  Nostalgic wish, for some missing or lost essence - which is powerfully embedded into the living psyche.

Just try listen to this, appreciate what it bring up in you. It is what makes secret love, so powerful, translatable, a mechanism in artistic creativity and imaginative sense. It  provides a touching note, a nostalgic desire a return on some missed, or long lost essence. One thinks of how Rumi and other masters of creative forms translating the spirit in the same though different mystical sense. In the same way, Tarkovsky does it, in film.

Narratives are often found a dominant flow in the human act. Friend: play this over and over and then watch Tarkovsky's Nostalgia -with its perfect tones of subtle colours, filming perfection. I have posted a link for your appreciation.

Armand Amar: Poetry of Atoms

A marvelous piece, a touch of essential beauty here sound forms molecules of touching harmonics. An Expression of music by touching long notes, nostalgia, looking for the necessary.

I expect, my dear friends, that this piece can enhance your heartbeat with a transcendent note.