The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
A repeat of last year’s post:
Do you know what happened this week back in 1850, 159 years ago?
California became a state!
The State had no electricity.
The State had no money.
Almost everyone spoke Spanish.
There were gunfights in the streets.
So basically, it was just like it is today, except the women had real breasts and the men didn’t hold hands.
I think maybe I ought to drive home through Nevada.
And it ain’t Sunnyvale, California.
Remember the Cyberdyne Systems T-800?
It looks like it started out life as an exoskeleton designed to assist human beings:
Cyberdyne is shipping nearly 100 more exoskeletons this fall
17 August 2009—An army of exoskeletons is coming. And according to their inventor, Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai of the University of Tsukuba, in Japan, they’re making a difference in the lives of disabled people.
Speaking at the International Conference on Intelligent Robotic Technology and Business, held earlier this month in Taipei, Taiwan, Sankai proudly described how the robotic exoskeleton suit HAL (short for Hybrid Assistive Limb), helped a 46-year-old man whose left leg was withered by polio when he was 11 months old.
HAL reads electric signals at the surface of the skin that are generated by the muscle beneath and then uses them to guide the movement of robotic limbs strapped to a person’s real limbs, thereby multiplying their strength.
The polio patient’s withered left leg generated extremely weak bioelectric signals at first, and the robotic limb remained unmoved. Ten days later, with HAL’s assistance, the patient moved his left leg based on his own intention. “He cried,” says Sankai.
Sankai suspects that in the past 45 years, the patient’s brain had rarely generated the signals needed to move his left leg. After the patient used HAL, the levels of signals strengthened and became detectable. Sankai says that similar phenomena were observed when applying the HAL suit to patients with spinal cord injuries. Starting in late April, his team began measuring bioelectric signals in polio and stroke patients before and after using HAL. They hope to record data over a period of 8 to 12 months. An analysis of how the brain adapts to HAL will be taken into account to improve the exoskeleton’s operation, says Sankai.
In Japan, more than 20 sets of various HAL exoskeletons are in use at hospitals and rehabilitation centers, Sankai says. The facilities lease the robots from Sankai’s company, Cyberdyne, for about US $1700 per month on average.
“It’s worthwhile, because a suit can be used for eight patients per day,” he says, adding that the service could possibly be cheaper once the market for the exoskeletons increases.
Sankai, who is Cyberdyne’s CEO, expects to supply 80 to 90 suits in Japan in October. At the end of September, 10 sets of HAL suits will be delivered to Denmark to be used by nurses who care for elderly people. The suits should enhance the nurses’ strength, helping them to move patients.
More versions of HAL are in the works, says Sankai. Following HAL’s use by a man injured in a car wreck to climb the 4164-meter Breithorn Mountain, in Switzerland, the company decided to develop a weather-resistant outdoor exoskeleton. Sankai says the company will also be introducing a HAL with significantly smaller and lighter batteries this fall at an event in Kyoto.
Screw Terminators. I want a Mecha:
Open Carry ≠ Public Panic
Long ago another blogger (I won’t link to it now, but you can search this site if you’d like) said about citizens carrying firearms:
I just…I just blink my eyes in amazement everytime this crops up – actually watching people feel the need to carry a concealed weapon in public…
If I were to take a live, armed weapon and carry it on my person, in public, it would eat away at my sanity just as if it were emitting lethal radiation. To know that I carried an instrument of sure and certain death on my person, available and ready to be pulled out and used at a moment’s notice to possibly kill…a child. A homeless person. An innocent.
Tonight I had dinner with about thirty people at a packed Golden Corral restaurant in Phoenix.
And almost every one of us was open carrying. About half of us (me included) were toting 1911s. At least another third were carrying revolvers of various types, from Single-Action Army models to modern Smith & Wessons. Then there were a smattering of the various plastic-fantastic pistols – Glocks, Springfield XDs, etc.
There was no public panic. Lots of children running about the place. (I damn near stepped on the cutest little girl – so much for my situational awareness in a crowded restaurant! She came around me like John Force at the WinterNationals, only without the blast of nitromethane exhaust to warn me.) Lots of families. No one got shot at the salad bar. No one was winged at the dessert buffet. There were no duels over the last popcorn shrimp. No wild-west shootouts over the last parking space.
No one ran screaming from the restaurant in fear. No one (to our knowledge) complained about all the armed people in the place. The police were not summoned. The FBI did not put in an appearance.
And nobody robbed the place either. (Can you imagine what an epic failure of the victim-selection process that would have been?) All in all, it was a pleasant meal with good company – all members of The Gun Counter. And me. I’m not a member, but I got an invite anyway. It was a much bigger turnout that I expected.
UPDATE – 8/16/09: INSTALANCHE!! Welcome! Please do spend a little extra time perusing the site. I recommend checking out the “Best Posts” on the left column.
<——— (Over there! Scroll down a bit.)
But get a beverage and a snack first. Some of them run a little long. I call them “Überposts.” One reader, for example, said Of Laws and Sausages was a “13,000 word wall of text, but I assure you, it’s worthwhile.”
Thanks for visiting!
I Would LOVE to Work for This Company
As most of my longtime readers know, I like T-shirts. Specifically, offensive T-shirts, but T-shirts in general. I ordered a new one today. This one. I intend to wear it at least one day at the upcoming Gun Blogger’s Rendezvous.
Here’s the acknowledgement email I just received:
Thank you for your recent order from Despair, Inc.
I’d like to personally welcome you to our growing body of Dissatisfied Customers™, but to do so might evidence some actual concern for service and protocol. This might then lead to customer satisfaction, which would defeat the purpose altogether. That is why you have received this generic, form-generated email, written by some nameless lackey in our marketing department.
Having established that any pretense of consideration for *your* needs would be counter-productive to our raison d’etre at Despair Inc, let us now ponder a subject of greater interest to those among us who are worthy of both of our collective attentions – that person being me.
While you sit there wincing in disbelief at these bons mots of authentic insincerity and vexed by the intrinsic contradictions, I find I am beside myself with awe at the specimen of unparalleled angst that is the Despair, Inc. Blog.
Hardly a man given to superlatives, I must nevertheless assert with David-Lee-Rothian boldness that we are demonstrably without peer in the Relentless Pursuit of Dejection. Do not the weekly whinings of this anonymous Peon is in the Marketing Department inspire YOU to new lows?
“But I’m unstable enough as it is- why would I want to read the grousings of some other malcontent who is unhappy with his job?”, you might ask.
Because that very malcontent is also providing attentive Despair customers with rare, super-steep discounts, exclusive products, and occasionally an amusing slice of behind-the-scenes life at Despair. (Or so I’m told – I can’t be bothered to read that junk…)
At long last, after this lengthy exploitation of your attention for purely selfish marketing purposes, let us move on to yet another advertisement for our company.
In anticipation of your next question- “How can I subject myself to even further marketing attempts by Despair?” Well, you’re in luck! Because Despair offers several additional opportunities to be on the receiving end on a steady stream of angst wrapped inside advertisements and covered in coupons. Those willing to endure the agony of it all will find themselves rewarded often with savings and freebies beyond belief.
The Wailing List – (The Official E-Mail Newsletter of Despair)
http://www.despair.com/subscribe1.htmlThe Wailing List Twitter Feed (An Unofficial Experiment by a Marketing Peon in the Limits of Your Endurance- with an occasional coupon code thrown in…)
http://twitter.com/wailinglistAlas- if you find that even daily contact from the forces of Despair Marketing personnel is simply not enough to satisfy your needs, well… Seriously? You might need a hobby… The only people subjected to more frequent abuse at our hands are our employees- and take it from us, there is such a thing as too much of a bad thing…
If any of the information shown below is inaccurate, please notify us immediately using our Troubled Ticketing system.
http://www.despair.com/trti.html
We will rectify your error immediately, and on some occasions, without snickering.
It is the least we can do, which, as a matter of policy, is the most we can do.
Sincerely not really writing you this email,
E.L.E.L.Kersten, Ph.D.
Founder & COO,
Despair, Inc.
I hope it really is as fun to work there as it appears.
Deaths in the Family
Just . . . DAMN.
I’ve been reading Rachel Lucas since before I began blogging, and like everyone else, I laughed at her posts about her dogs Digger, Sunny, and lately Maggie. Digger died a while back, but Sunny passed just this Tuesday. Sunny holds a special place in my heart, for when I was selling the “F^*k It! McCain ’08” bumperstickers, Rachel said she’d pose Sunny with one on her head.
And she did:
I think that was good for at least 100 sales.
And today I found out that Chris Byrne and his family lost their companion Mac on Wednesday.
I had to put my dog down Feb. 14, 1996. I haven’t gotten another one. Still miss her.
Dammit.
I Spent Last Weekend in San Diego . . .
. . . and I missed THIS? (Well, it was our anniversary.)
Apparently no Femtroopers this year, though.
Words of Advice
My wife and I pulled into our driveway at 7:00PM this evening from our weekend in San Diego. I’m just now catching up on a few things on the intertubes. While I didn’t have a laptop with me in California, I did have my Ipod Touch which has WiFi, so I was able to check my email, comments, and traffic, plus surf for information (like Mitsuwa Marketplace and the Embarcadero / Seaport Village, plus where to buy dry ice for all the stuff that needed to be preserved on the six-hour drive home.
BUT – you can’t BLOG from an Ipod Touch. WRITING email is also a no-go. But it was plenty handy to have, plus it provided the soundtrack for the trip, too! Very handy device!
Oh, and the Japanese are some very odd people. In the Mitsuwa Marketplace I saw for sale an $850 toilet seat (marked down from the MSRP of $1,200). It’s available on the web for a much more reasonable $686.40. However, for very nearly $700 (or $850 retail), I believe I would be expecting something more than:
I’m fairly certain it would involve kinky sexual practices illegal in most countries.
And I might never leave the bathroom again.
Either that, or I’d run screaming from it.
You just don’t expect to encounter something like that in what is, after all, a grocery store . . . .
NO BLOG FOR YOU!
It’s Saturday. My wife and I have been in San Diego since late Thursday night, and I don’t have a computer with me. (It’s our 14th anniversary.) So NO BLOG FOR YOU!
I’ll be back in Tucson Sunday evening. Maybe something then.
Maybe not.
I love Blogger’s “delayed posting” function!
Congratulations, Nicki!
Nicki Fellenzer of The Liberty Zone is now the proud possessor of a Master’s Degree in National Security Studies.
Too bad the current administration doesn’t think we need anyone with that qualification.
A Conversation I’m Sorry I Missed
I had to do site work today, so I left a little early in order to stop at the best truck stop in Tucson on the way to the job site for a little breakfast.
As I approached the cash register to ring out, a gentleman a little older than I was in front of me. The cashier, in normal friendly terms, asked him if he’d enjoyed his breakfast. “It was good,” he said, “but too much food!” His accent marked him as European, at a guess French or Belgian. “It’s so wasteful when people are starving in Africa.”
Uh-oh.
Flo behind the counter responded with a nuke:
“It’s their karma.”
Phillipe was taken aback. Literally. He took a step back, as though Flo had farted in his general direction. At that point Flo noticed me, and told Phillipe that I probably didn’t want to stand around while they debated international aid issues, so he stepped out of the way so I could pay and be on my way.
But I wish I could have stayed. They went back at it as soon as I started walking away. I imagine that conversation got fascinating quite rapidly.
