Move over Skynet, hello Boston Dynamics.

It's funny how he talks about the dynamic range of CDs, when producers decided pretty quickly that range was for pussies and What We Needed Was MOAR LOUDNESS!!

Regarding the scratch proof thing, apparently, the original spec for the CD was very fault tolerant. You could actually burn a cigarette hole through it and it would still play. However, it only held 60 minutes of music and the head of audio at Phillips demanded that it could hold 74m for one of Beethovens symphonies (I forget which one).

That story is probably apocryphal though.

When it comes to flying, if you get it wrong it mostly leads to death. This is not something you learn by just doing. Even the wright brothers had a fair grasp of aerodynamic, thermal dynamics, and if they took to the sky how they would get down before attempting their first flights.

Frankly getting into the air is the easy part, the landing is the hard part. Thankfully the plane was small light but rigged enough that it didn't crumple on a hard landing.

But does it have dynamic beard growth?

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Boston-Dynamics-Atlas-Escapes

Boston Dynamics - Atlas Escapes has been added as a related post - related requested by ant.

By far the best class I took while getting my Computer Science degree was "Software Engineering Project". We got assigned a project and divided up into teams including CS, CIS, and MIS majors. The MIS people managed and divided up assignments, and the CS people handled different aspects of the programming, like data structures / algorithms / UI / whatever.

This looks like an extremely fun and interesting extension of that. There's CS guys programming, EE guys doing hardware / sensors / haptic panels, full-on Engineering guys doing fluid dynamics, etc.

Destin seems like a great "jack of all trades" type that can get in there and ask really smart questions off the cuff. All the guys geeking out and being impressed with his intuitions and yet hesitant to confirm anything is hilarious to watch.

I mean... dynamic lift is a thing. why are they shocked?

Of course, there's a line.

If some dude patted my behind, I probably wouldn't take it as sexual.

It's about context. I am not generally in a situation where there is a power dynamic working against me.

If a mate jokingly patted my behind, I probably wouldn't care.
If my boss patted my behind, I'd certainly tell him that's not ok.

But if I felt it WAS creepy and especially if I felt whoever it was a) might do it again and b) was frequently in a position to do so to vulnerable people... yeah, I'd report it.

I wouldn't try to have them convicted of rape because that's not what they did.

I still want to know whose life is being "ruined" over "nothing".

Weinstein? Spacey? It's certainly not nothing and their lives are far from ruined. They're still incredibly wealthy people living (admittedly a little less now) comfortable lives. Are their reputations sullied? Yep, and deservedly so. They've certainly gotten off easier than their victims.

Aziz? Ok, that's a bit more nuanced.

First, is his life "ruined"? Eh, not really. His reputation has taken a hit, but plenty of people have actually come out in support of him.

Second, was what he did "nothing, or at most an innocent misunderstanding not corrected"? Well, it wasn't Weinstein-level harassment and it certainly wasn't rape. We can all agree on that. But was it "nothing"? Would you be ok with someone treating you like that? Do you really think what he did was acceptable behaviour?

He shouldn't go to jail for it, definitely. And there are far worse people out there... one of them is in the white house.

In all honesty, I think he's been unlucky to end up as the cautionary tale of how not to treat your date. Maybe "Grace" could have handled it better.

But on balance, if I have to choose between his actions and her actions, I think his are worse.

Wow, Sony. Your Aibo 2 is too little too late. Or should I say that about Boston Dynamics? At any rate, I for one welcome the technology race to build a robotic stand-in for puppies worldwide.

I'd like to see a Boston Dynamics quadruped robot with a travel mode other than "jog" or "bounce".

What this company (snapperstech.com) did is put together an upgraded control "rig" to manipulate facial expressions, taking into account muscle limits and interactions, skin elasticity, etc.

A little more info in the video's YT desc :
-Adaptive rig: which allows combining any number of expressions using optimized list of blendshapes.
-Real facial muscles constraints: the advanced rig logic simulates real facial muscles constraints.
-Advanced skin shader (for Maya and Unreal): holds up to 16 wrinkles maps and 16 dynamic diffuse maps with micro details and pores stretching.
-Easy to manipulate using facial controllers and/or GUI.
-Compatible with all game engines and animation packages.
-Smooth transition between all the expressions.
-Adjustment layer: freeform manipulation of multiple regions of the face to create unlimited variations of the same expression.

The real-time rendering part is achieved by the Unreal engine itself. The final rendering performance still relies mainly on the hardware used.