Deena's Blog Challenge or How I ended up on Multiply

By the spring of 2004, I finally realized that one could get a Yahoo e-mail account without actually having to own a computer. So from August of that year until a year later, I could only use the computers in the library. This limited my use of computers to a great extent, but at least it was better than nothing.

A year later, I found out that my brother had a spare computer in his basement in Toronto, and this computer was eventually brought to me in Montreal, and connected to the Internet in late July 2005.

In September 2005, I found out that a Pagan online study group, Blackcauldron, was going to be starting soon, so I joined, not even sure if I would have the time for it. That is how I met Karen, who was leading the group.

A few months afterwards, I found out that Karen had a blog on Yahoo 360, so I started to follow that blog.

Around December 2005, Karen's blog went completely private (so that only she could read it). I missed reading this blog so much that I ended up starting my own Yahoo 360 page. I was quite active in 360 for close to two years.

Around October 2007, I began to hear from many sources that Yahoo was planning to discontinue 360. I started to tell everyone I knew about this.

More and more rumours began to circulate about possible effects from the impending closure of 360.

I had already started a Multiply page in the spring of 2007. So when a lot of people began to move from Yahoo to Multiply, I had already a back-up site.

Around this period, I mentioned to Karen that 360 was about to close. Karen investigated, and decided to switch to Multiply, along with a lot of her friends.

And thus, this group got formed.

Robot that looks like young girl unveiled

(from the Telegraph)

A life-like robot created to look like a five-year-old girl has been unveiled by scientists in Japan.

 

By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 3:07PM BST 08 Oct 2008

Life-like: The team at Osaka University's robotics department claim Repliee R-1 is the most realistic robot suit ever created Photo: TIGERLAND2222

The robogirl, known as Repliee R-1, has flexible silicone skin and contains dozens of sensors and motors, allowing it to move and interact with its surroundings like a human.

The robot even has eyes that blink and pig tails, creating a spooky effect has led to comparisons with the boy robot David in Steven Spielberg's 2001 science-fiction movie AI: Artificial Intelligence.

The team at Osaka University's robotics department behind Repliee R-1 claim it is the most realistic robot suit ever created.

It has been designed to do basic tasks for the elderly and disabled, such as fetching objects. The scientists hope that its life-like features will put people at their ease, and help them get over their reluctance to interact with a robot.

Cyberdyne, a robotics firm, hopes to start mass producing the models within days, according to reports.

An earlier version of the robot - Repliee Q1 – was unveiled by scientists in 2005, but was criticised for appearing to have "spasms" because of technical glitches. It was modeled on a young Japanese woman, complete with trouser suit.

At the time Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University predicted that robots would soon be so life-like that they could fool humans into thinking they were real.

"An android could get away with it for a short time, 5-10 seconds. However, if we carefully select the situation, we could extend that, to perhaps 10 minutes," he said.

"More importantly, we have found that people forget she is an android while interacting with her. Consciously, it is easy to see that she is an android, but unconsciously, we react to the android as if she were a woman."

Under the Bed

After my last blog entry, I began to get the idea to look under my bed to see what was underneath.

I did not know what to expect, but I already seemed to be in enough trouble as is. So on Sunday night, September 21, I started to look under my bed.

The first thing that I noticed was  a green plastic garbage bag. I did not think that much of importance was in there. But I was not prepared for the shock that soon faced me.

There were mainly papers in the bag, but what shocked me most was their extreme unimportance.

On opening the bag, the first thing that I saw was the guide booklet on how to do my provincial income tax return for 2003. In the same bag, there were a few phone and hydro bills going as far back as 1999 and even 1998.

So why was I saving this useless junk? To understand the situation, we must go back to the summer of 2004, when I first met Ouija.

In August 2004, they were doing a renovation of my apartment, which included replacing part of my bedroom floor. In order for them to do this, it was necessary to move a lot of stuff out of their way. So the papers, which had been on top of a small desk, were placed in a green garbage bag which was then stuffed under my bed for the time being. The Guide to doing the tax return for 2003 had been used within a couple of months of the period when the renovations began.

After getting rid of most of the contents of this bag of junk, I continued to look for more stuff under the bed over the next few days. I found a bag full of electric lights and extension cords, which were the remains of the lights that had been hung up over the plants in the kitchen prior to the 2004 renovations. Then I found some gardening stuff which had been removed from the kitchen when the renovation had been done in the kitchen. I was then able to extract an Adler electric typewriter from under the bed and put it in the hall of the apartment building.

              (to be continued)