These robots were made for walking

Robots are awesome.
Walking is awesome too.

Therefore it follows that robots walking equals awesome squared:

Built by DARPA. The crazy thing is it’s a bit shocking when he kicks it on the ice. Even though it’s a robot. We just can’t help empathising with things if they look even a little bit alive, even if they’re obviously not

Theo Jansen’s Animaris Rhinoceros:

And how

Sony’s dancin’ robots:

But the skyhook hasn’t been built yet!!!

Not quite Neon Lights

I don’t even need to explain how awesome this is.

And even if I do. I’m not going to.

On the fricking map

I live in Brockley. It’s the sort of place people that makes people squint and say ‘where?’ when you tell them.

Well, not any more, buster! Check this latest version of the London Underground Tube Map:

Hell, yes. We are now an official place.

Move over Amersham, Brockley’s snapping at ya heels!

(p.s. does anyone know what the hell that ‘ELC’ with a bus symbol is??)

[Edit: I might add that a visit to Brockley Central is in order if you a) live in Brockley, b) are considering moving to Brockley, or c) are wondering ‘what the hell is this ‘Brockley’ place I keep hearing so much about?’)

Why blog?

My theory: people (well, blokes mainly) like to collect things. This is a fact.

A blog is like collecting your own experiences and thoughts, with a mild dose of egoism thrown in for good measure.  That’s why they’re so carefully filed using dates, tags, categories, etc, etc. It’s just the male collecting and filing instinct all over again.

If it ain’t alphabeticised CD collections it’s bloody blogs!

I guess this is why the more niche the blog is, the more successful it is: it’s just a collection really.

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visualising the blogosphere

‘Jed’s Other Poem’ by Grandaddy

This is exquisite:

Official site here (where the sound quality is better and the video is properly in time with the song)

Audrey Hepburn

I’m not one to bang on about how much better everything was in the past as it generally wasn’t – especially before science sorted out people’s health from the mid-20th Century onwards – but there are some things that seem better in retrospect.

The sophistication and glamour of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s vs the cheap & taudry world of Perez Hilton is one of them though:

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Yep. Beautiful.

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Not that I think BaT is the world’s greatest film, but it is nice and there ain’t nothing wrong with that once in a while.

As a side note it’s interesting to discover Blake Edwards obsession with hilarious oriental people, with the excruciating ‘blacked-up’ Mickey Rooney in BaT, and Kato (Bert Kwok) in the Pink Panther films. Perhaps it was just a staple of the time the films were made in, but boy, do they look misjudged now…

I am such a child

Ok, so I’ve been foolishly obsessed with this online version of Nintendo’s DS maths game as previously detailed.

On Friday I saw that a fellow calling himself TJH had been playing all day and dominated the leaderboard.

…now what kind of a cad would stroll in and after a couple of minutes, get the top time and name themselves thus:

Yeah, guilty as charged.