Old Is The New New

Harry Houdini carries on Ben Franklin’s battle versus killer robots.

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Excellent robot content from Dave Lester. Ah, but was it trained to smash your camera?

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The Athanasius Kircher Society presents an essential library of automata. (Though I also think Simon Schaffer’s work is essential.)

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They’ll kill us on the battlefield, they’ll play with our children. Scientific American describes The Year in Robots.

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That’s an actual NYT headline: Monkey’s Thoughts Propel Robot. Troubadour Jonathan Coulton is the sole voice of reason: “Is this really a good idea?”

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I prepare for the AHA, and robots prepare to torch Gene Autry. Plus some Cormac McCarthy hilarity.

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Go, Daddy, go! The syncopated world of swingtech, from the Ellington Locomotor to the unstoppable Lindy Drive.

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You loved/tolerated Steampunk Star Wars: now it’s Baroque Star Wars! (Plus a side order of Calamity Jon robots.)

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Slate article on “why the 1986 Transformers movie was better than Michael Bay’s” contains a marvelous quote from Orson Welles, who voiced the planet-eating planet Unicron (typecasting?) five days before his death: “I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I’m destroyed.”

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Totally awesome kid trick-or-treating in totally awesome costume, ca. 1971.

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