Weekly Review #146 - Strandbeests, Equality vs Freedom, and Robot Burgers
I attended a immersive theater piece in Petaluma, with Romeo and Juliet taking place in a national park. It was well-done, but underdelivered on the 'immersive' aspect, reminding me of my disappointment with Sleep No More.
There, action happened everywhere, and you found it. Here, action moved, and you followed it. Neither truly capture the promise of immersive theater, as I see it - they merely move around where the action is happening.
True immersion requires interactivity. Have the actors interact with the audience, make them part of the play. Hard to scale, hard to tailor, but far more interesting.
I also caught the Exploratorium Strandbeest exhibit on its last day. Dutch artist Theo Janssen envisioned artificial beasts moving sand into dunes to protect the Netherlands from rising water, but over 25 years of iterative evolution, decided he'd rather build an animal that could roam on it's own indefinitely.
His beests are incredible, otherworldly things that turn the wind into walking crankshaft feet, complete with pneumatic nerves that can detect soft sand, surf, and how many steps it's taken. All with only PVC pipe!
Reminds me of Douglas Hofstader's I Am A Strange Loop, questioning what it takes for something to think. If it know how to walk and not drown and remember steps, what's left?!
Dear Brother, As You Begin High School, Remember This – Medium — medium.com
Wrote a few things for my brother entering high school and ended up with good advice for any age. Now I just have to follow my own advice
Tech
Momentum Machines robot-powered restaurant is opening in San Francisco - Tech Insider — www.techinsider.io
This robot can make 400 burgers an hour! Of course fast food is the first industry to be automated, but I didn't know they were this close!
Talkabot - The conference for botmakers.
Conference for messenger bot developers by howdy.ai. Clever to capitalize on this trend!
Lifehacks
SlideBot - Beautiful Slides Instantly
Autofinds beautiful stock photos to prettify your slide decks. Good powerpoints aren't hard, but finding good stock photos is. Smart!
Fun
Bork Busters - YouTube — www.youtube.com
Not much. Here's a dog singing Ghostbusters. (the entire channel is the dog singing things!)