Parasew's opinionated hot-shit

Love, Sex and Marriage. With Robots.

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:33:00 GMT

This is not about robots having sex with robots or robot libido. This is the fuckingmachines.com way of interaction with robots plus objectophilia.
David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher has a Ph.D. thesis at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands that is kind of – futuristic. “My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots.” (via primidi.com)
Here are my questions: does one have to pay a compensation when divorcing a robot? what is the definition of a robot? (can i marry my dishwasher?)
Lots of Questions, no answers until my copy of Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships arrives.

Yummy Duck Fetus

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:34:00 GMT

People are really eating strange things. At least that’s what i already know from the book Strange Foods. But a duck fetus? That’s something to try. Yummy!

Top Ass Dogs in Engrish

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 16:18:00 GMT

Chihuahuas, Beagles, Bobtails. We all know them from videos such as “Birds” from pleix, from tv and from nintendo. Now you can play with them without smelling like a wet dog afterwards and without owning a Nintendo DS! The cardgame TOP ASS HUNDE is out now!
In Austria, ASS refers to the card ACE (but it’s also a company name). Ok, i admit: i also bought the cardgame because of the funny english connotation. Besides Quartett there’s also another way to play the game: Supertrumpf. There you would compare the specs of your cards with other players. Mostly this game is played with cars, a more expensive vehicle means you win. But with dogs? Does a more expensive dog win the competition? Comparing the coolness of dogs with the price they cost is a strange concept to teach kids in my opinion.
Quartett ist known as Happy Families (UK), Jeu de familles (FR), Gioco delle famiglie (IT), Authors (UK and USA). (de.wikipedia)

Strangest japanese breast milk advertising ever!

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:48:00 GMT

No comment. Watch the video.

Captain Marvel vs. Captain Nazi

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:49:00 GMT

“The super-strong Captain Nazi (real name Albrecht Krieger) was genetically altered by his scientist father, and developed into the “perfect specimen” in order to fight for Adolf Hitler and the Axis Powers during World War II.” (via wikipedia)
This guy is pretty evil. Maybe if he wouldn’t wear stockings and a bathing suit, he would even look more scary (more like Arnold Schwarzenegger). I didn’t know “worlds worst villain”, although there are even Action Figures of that guy!

Cycling 74 is showing previews of Max/Msp 5

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:15:00 GMT

Max/Msp from cycling74 has been around for about 20 years now, and yes – the company already had the name back then, when not everyone had a name+number to compete with guys like 37signals etc.
Max is a graphical development environment for music and video, though “Max users do not think of themselves as working with sound, or images, or controllers. Instead, they see themselves as working with ideas.”
Max 5 will be released in the first quarter of 2008. Quoting David Zicarelli: “For current users, I would describe Max 5 as analogous to Apple’s transition from Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. “
The biggest change seems to be the visual representation. I have to admit that i liked the OS9 look of the application. But still all those new features and enhancements look very promising – although a lot of those new (visual) ideas seem to come from Ableton Live. Maybe that’s nothing special, but I expected more from the strategic partnership between cycling74 and ableton – maybe both products get interwired or more connected with Max 5 and Ableton Live 7?

The secrets of other people

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:17:00 GMT

“PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.” This site I like very much. I am always touched when reading the blog. Very nice collages, the content also changes quite often. Ah, and “The PostSecret website is the largest advertisement-free Blog on the web”. There seems to be no archive, so those secrets seem to be lost after some days. But there are already some Postsecret books published. I should order some.

The World Beard and Moustache Championships

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:41:00 GMT

Well, if that ain’t some nice piece of beard! This photograph shows only one of twenty bearded people that were taking part at the World Beard and Moustache Championships. This guy at the picture was even just a competitor in the “Freestyle Beard” category. There’s even more weird people than that!

The 22 Most Awful Moments in Science Fiction and why Star Wars has brought down the Soviet Union

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 11:09:00 GMT

“[...]All of the news graphics of green cylinders exploding red wireframe bullets next to planet earth struck fear into the hearts of the Russians. They believed that President Reagan had just declared star wars on them and he was prepared to muster all of America’s X-wings to wage war against their bullets. With that kind of firepower they knew they didn’t have a chance.”
Nice article from somethingawful.com – read it from the beginning to find out why George Lucas and Star Wars brought down the Soviet Union.

tee-hee to all you xing, linkedin or facebook schmoozers: 150 friends is the maximum your brain can handle

parasew@mutti.jp (Matthias Tarasiewicz) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:35:00 GMT

via commonsenseadvice.com: “Your brain is hard wired to pay attention to about 150 people. Try to have a relationship with any more than that, and your life will turn to pure crap. Just ask the Military, Gore-Tex, or Krippendorf’s tribe. They’ll all tell you the same thing. One fifty is the way to go. They’ve known for hundreds of years that people work best in groups of 150 or less. Now it’s your turn.”