Thursday, January 31, 2008

My Robot and I


Hello, everybody… in the year of 2180 the world is a lot better than in the past. Nowadays, we have one robot per human, they are very useful because they protect us and they do anything that we want. My robot is the new and most efficient model that has ever been built. My robot is a SSK 3100 of a robot company called SSK robots.

I gave him a name, I called him Georgino. My robot plays trumpet quite well. He wakes me up in the morning, then I ask him for the newspaper and five minutes later he appears with it. He makes everything to make me happy. My mother has a robot for herself, and her robot is the one who makes me breakfast. I ask him for a song or film and he downloads it at the moment. In work buildings the robots are not allowed to enter. So when I’m at school, Georgino takes care of my room, at home. To the kids who read this… the things are not changed, we continue going to school. We have to study, too.

My advice to the people of the 21st century is: do not destroy your planet because you will suffer the consequences in the future.

My robot and I















My Robot and I

Rufia is a female robot, which is a little retarded. She is high. Her eyes are blue, without no hair and her skin is silver. She is a new robot. She is very sentimental and sometimes we have to argue with her because she’s a little retarded and she thinks always with her heart and not with her chip. We always take care of her like a baby so maybe it is our fault.
She cleans the house daily, prepares the meals, and makes the beds, all the “boring and minor” stuff. After that, when the children arrive, she helps them with their homework, plays games, etc. At the week-ends, she does some exercise with us, and does a lot of funny things, like going to the cinema and other things. She is a very good psychologist and listens to all that we have to say. She is a very good friend. Unfortunately her batteries are just for five years and when we change it, she’ll lose all her memories. When that happens, we will be sad for at least three weeks before replacing her battery for another.

João Cruz

Rafael Loureiro

My Robot and I


Our robot is very nice, and he looks like a human. It is a man, a very handsome one. He has got feelings, we just needed to install it and he started describing everything he felt. He helps us with our housework - he is very good at it. He helps us with our homework too (he knows everything about maths and chemistry and speaks 7 languages – English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian and Russian). He gives us a lot of advice about our life and watches TV with us. He loves taking us to school and walk with us at the park.
He has got blue eyes in the summer and they change into green during the spring. He is tall, with a very athletic body – just like a model should be. His hair is blond, medium length and he loves to go to the hairdresser’s – he is very vain. He looks like that famous Japanese cartoons.
He loves to live with us and he is very funny. He can’t eat, but he stays with us at the table until we finish our meals.
He works at a store, a bookstore, and he is very competent.

Written by Ema and Sabrina

My Robots and I...

My robots and I… I have a robot, she is a model SVB123 but I called her Mary because she looks like Marylin Monroe. She is blond and she has blue eyes just like her.
She isn’t like other robots because she has a chip in the neck and when I’m sick of her I turn her off.
She is very useful because she helps me with my maths homework and sometimes cleans my room without my father knowing about it… please don’t tell him! =D
She is 20 years old but she is with me since my 3rd birthday. In spite of her age she is a very advanced model for this era, she speaks 15 different languages and can do all types of things!
She has a robot-friend whose name is James…
I also have a robot pet…he is a dog, small and very sweet and it has an advantage, he doesn’t make the house dirty because he doesn’t need to go out to do anything, if you know what I mean… and he does a lot of foolish things and makes me smile when I am down.
I love my robots, they are a very important part of my life. I couldn’t live without them!




Written by: Fábio Amaral and Verónica Loureiro :D

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

My Robot and I

My Robot and I

My Robot’s name is Oscar, he is big, he has big red eyes and his body is silver. He can do anything but the best thing he can do is flying. He loves to fly and I love to fly on him. We go everywhere, we already went to the clouds. He is very special for me because I always talk to him when I have any problem. He has lots of friends “robot friends” in another country so we fly a lot to those countries. The other day we went to visit our friend in Paris and we went to Euro Disney, but the fantastic thing was that we didn’t pay the entrance because we just flew… My robot also likes to play with my dog Sylvester! I really like him very much but sometimes our “love” is so much that we get into fights but then we realise that we are being stupid and we become friends again!!!
I really love him very much…I think I would never been able to have a better friend than him even if it was human.


Written by Jessica and Daniel (10th O)

Saturday, January 26, 2008

A Talkative Public Bathroom

Leaving Minnesota for Colorado, I decide to make a stop at one of those rest areas on the side of the road. I go in the washroom. The first stall was taken so I went in the second stall. I just sat down when I hear a voice from the next stall...
- "Hi there, how is it going?"
Okay, I am not the type to strike conversations with strangers in washrooms on the side of the road. I didn't know what to say so finally I say:
- "Not bad..."
Then the voice says:
- "So, what are you doing?"
I am starting to find that a bit weird, but I say:
- "Well, I'm going back to Colorado..."
Then I hear the person say all flustered:
- "Look I'll call you back, every time I ask you a question this idiot in the next stall keeps answering me."

http://www.basicjokes.com/djoke.php?id=382

Automation?


Automation?

With HIPAA regulations in full force, this hospital IT technician reminds users that when they print reports containing patient information, those reports can't be left in the printer tray. "They must be either secured under lock and key or shredded," he says.
But one user has a problem: "I don't always have time to pick up my reports from the printer. Is there any way I can set up my PC so I can send my documents directly to the shredder?"

http://www.basicjokes.com/djoke.php?id=3781

Technology Mistakes

Technology Mistakes

"Who in their right mind would ever need more than 640k of ram!?" -- Bill Gates, 1981

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"But what ... is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." --Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marecha Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

http://www.basicjokes.com/djoke.php?id=3781

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy



I hope you enjoy it!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy




Remember the text we read last lesson? Its name is "Marvin, the Depressed Robot" and it was written by Douglas Adams. Here you can find lots of information about it. You should know that there is a film about it, too. I'll post it for you as soon as I can.


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This page is about the franchise. You may be looking for the book, film, computer game, radio series or TV series.
"Hitchhiker's Guide" redirects here. For other uses, see Hitchhiker's Guide (disambiguation).

The cover of the first novel in the Hitchhiker's series, from a late 1990s printing. The cover features the 42 Puzzle devised by Douglas Adams.The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon. Adaptations have included stage shows, a series of five books first published between 1979 and 1992 (the first of which was titled The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), a 1981 TV series, a 1984 computer game, and three series of three-part comic book adaptations of the first three novels published by DC Comics between 1993 and 1996. There were also two series of novels, produced by Beer-Davies, that are considered by some fans to be an "official version" of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as they include text from the first novel.[1][2] A Hollywood-funded film version, produced and filmed in the UK, was released in April 2005, and adaptations of the last three books to radio were broadcast from 2004 to 2005. Many of these adaptations, including the novels, the TV series, the computer game, and the earliest drafts of the Hollywood film's screenplay, were all done by Adams himself, and some of the stage shows introduced new material written by Adams.

The title The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[3] is often abbreviated "HHGTTG" (as used on fan websites) or "H2G2" (first used by Neil Gaiman as a chapter title in Don't Panic and later by the online guide run by the BBC). The series is also often referred to as "The Hitchhiker's Guide", "Hitchhiker's", or simply "[The] Guide." This title can refer to any of the various incarnations of the story of which the books are the most widely distributed, having been translated into more than 30 languages by 2005.[4] The title can also refer to the fictional guidebook The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an eccentric electronic encyclopedia that features in the series.

The various versions follow the same basic plot, they are in many places mutually contradictory, as Adams rewrote the story substantially for each new adaptation. In all versions, the series follows the adventures of Arthur Dent, a hapless Englishman who, with his friend Ford Prefect, an alien from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and researcher for the eponymous guidebook, escapes the demolition of Earth by a bureaucratic alien race called the Vogons. Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford's semi-cousin and the Galactic President, unknowingly saves the pair from certain death. He brings them aboard his stolen spaceship, the Heart of Gold, whose crew rounds out the main cast of characters: Marvin, the Paranoid Android, a depressed robot, and Trillian, formerly known as Tricia McMillan, a woman Arthur once met at a party who he soon realises is the only other survivor of Earth's destruction. After this, the characters embark on a quest to find the legendary planet of Magrathea and the Question to the Ultimate Answer.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Nice thoughts about technology

Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ~C.P. Snow, New York Times, 15 March 1971

Elbert Green Hubbard


Elbert Hubbard
AKA Elbert Green Hubbard

Born: 19-Jun-1856
Birthplace: Bloomington, IL
Died: 7-May-1915
Location of death: Lusitania, off the coast of Ireland
Cause of death: War


Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Author

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Founder of Roycroft Press

Founded the Roycroft Press in 1895, East Aurora, NY.

Father: (country doctor)
Wife: Bertha C. Crawford
Wife: Alice Moore (d. 7-May-1915 on the Lusitania)


University: MA, Tufts University


Author of books:
Little Journeys (1915, 14 volumes)
Seelected Writings (1923, 14 volumes)
Scrap Book (1923)
Note Book (1927)

Quotes on Technology

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams, 1923

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence soundtrack

Artificial Intelligence _ Plot Summary

Plot summary for
Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
advertisement photos board trailer details

In the not-so-far future the polar ice caps have melted and the resulting raise of the ocean waters has drowned all the coastal cities of the world. Withdrawn to the interior of the continents, the human race keeps advancing, reaching to the point of creating realistic robots (called mechas) to serve him. One of the mecha-producing companies builds David, an artificial kid which is the first to have real feelings, especially a never-ending love for his "mother", Monica. Monica is the woman who adopted him as a substitute for her real son, who remains in cryo-stasis, stricken by an incurable disease. David is living happily with Monica and her husband, but when their real son returns home after a cure is discovered, his life changes dramatically. A futuristic adaptation of the tale of Pinocchio, with David being the "fake" boy who desperately wants to become "real".

Written by Chris Makrozahopoulos {makzax@hotmail.com}

Artificial Intelligence

Blade Runner Vangelis

Blade Runner-Love Theme

Blade Runner (vangelis)

Thursday, January 17, 2008

"It's a Technological World"

Summary Plot : Blade Runner


At the beginning of the 21st century, the Tyrell Corporation makes an breakthrough in the robotic technology for the Nexus phase, which allows it to create beings similar to human beings, known as replicants. Replicants Nexus 6 are superior in force and agility to any human being. Their intelligence is equivalent to the one of the genetic engineers who had created them. These androids are used as slaves in the dangerous exploration and settling of other planets. After the revolt of a force of combat Nexus 6 in one of these colonies, replicants are considered illegal on Earth and have to be exterminated. Therefore special forces are created, called Blade Runner, specialized in the location and extermination of replicants. The action takes place in Los Angeles, in November, 2019. Leon Kowalski, one replicant, is submitted to the Voight-Kampff test (V.K.). Feeling difficulties in answering some questions, the replicant kills the Blade Runner that interrogates him. As a consequence to this fact, the former-Blade Runner, captain Deckard, is obliged against his will to come back as a policeman. His mission is to hunt four replicants especially dangerous that had assaulted a swing in a colony and had come to Earth: Leon, Roy, Zhora and Pris. Deckard is informed that one of the replicants can develop emotions and at the same time they had a memory device. However, there is another chip that limits their life time up to four years. As Deckard goes to the Tyrell Corporation, he meets the owner of the company and Rachel, to whom he makes the V.K test. The results of the test show that she is a replicant. But this was not easy to detect, as Tyrell had implanted memories of his niece, making her believe she really had a past and a family.

Later, Deckard goes to Leon's house, where he finds photographs and a scale of an artificial snake that will help to locate Zhora later. Deckard goes to the bar where Zhora works. After a persecution, he finally kills her. Shortly afterwards, he is informed that he has to kill Rachel.

Leon tries to kill Deckard, but Rachel, saves him by killing Leon with a shot. The two go to the policeman's house. Rachel confesses her fear of being pursued by Deckard or another Blade Runner. Deckard says he would never persecute her. Deckard and Rachel kiss.

Roy goes to meet Pris at Sebastian's house, who finds out that they are Nexus 6. Roy persuades him to help them contact Dr. Tyrell. When questioning Dr. Tyrell, Roy comes to know that it is impossible to change his time of life. Then, he kisses and kills him. Sebastian was also killed.

Deckard goes to Sebastian's house. There he is attacked by Pris but he kills her.

Roy comes at Sebastain's house and fights against Deckard, breaking three fingers from his hand. When running away from Roy, Deckard tries to jump out of a terrace to another one, but he is not successful. While he is falling, he manages to grab a metal bar, which ends up saving his life.

Amazingly Roy saves Deckard from a certain death. Deckard is astonished. Roy explains his gesture in the following words: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.Time to die." Roy dies. Deckard heads to his house, where he finds Rachel and he realises that another Blade Runner had been there. But knowing about Rachel's relationship with Deckard, he didn't kill her. After all, she had a limit of life of four years.

Deckard and Rachel run away to somewhere far from the city, in one of the few scenes with sun and the only one where the set is the natural landscape.

See Trailler (Click)

"It's a Technological World"

Blade Runner


Directed by: Ridley Scott

Produced by: Michael DeeleyBud Yorkin

Written by:

Screenplay - Hampton FancherDavid Peoples

Novel - Philip K. Dick

Starring - Harrison Ford
Rutger Hauer
Sean Young
Edward James Olmos
Daryl Hannah
Brion James
Joanna Cassidy

Music by: Vangelis

Cinematography: Jordan Cronenweth

Editing by : Terry RawlingsMarsha NakashimaLes Healey (dir. cut)

Distributed by: Warner Bros.

Release date(s): June 25, 1982 (USA)

Running time: 117 min. (dom. cut)
118 min. (intl. cut)
115 min. (dir. cut)
117 min. (final cut)

Country: United States

Language: English

"It's a Technological World"

Blade Runner


Tuesday, January 15, 2008

First Post !

Welcome to our blog!
We've decided to start a blog this term, to be continued next year. We hope to learn a lot and look foward to having your opinions about it. Please, let us know what do you think about it and send us song lyrics, or even poems or any kind of text written by you, or somebody else. Anything you think may be interesting and fun. You can send it to thelasttought@hotmail.com.
Thank you for your time. Now follow us, please. :)