Every couple of years it seems, some robotics researchers wire up one animal brain or another to a mechanical device: here a few neurons from a rat brain in a cart, there a monkey brain to a robot arm, here's another money-robot amalgam, the list goes on.
So I was driving back from Apalach last weekend, and was at a stoplight in what is more-or-less the automotive heart of Panama City, the junction of Hwy 98, Harrison Ave, and Hwy 231, which naturally has a railroad track running through the middle of it just for added hilarity. (Tally-Ho Corner, if you're local.) Naturally a text message came in, and I was about to reach for it (being stopped and all), but the light was getting ready to turn, so I only glanced in its direction then put my eyes back on the road. As if on cue and right in front of me, a minivan came scampering up Harrison out of downtown, through the yellow-changing-red light, did a U-turn, and scampered back down the way from which it came. "Scamper" is the exact word for what that van was doing because it had a comical wobbling motion to it the entire way through this maneuver, almost exactly like that rat brain-controled robot cart in the first video. To the best of my knowledge, nothing was hit by this careening collection of four wheels of trouble, but when it started going the other way I got out of the area fast.
I know, long story. But it was both funny and slightly alarming to watch. Can't be too careful on the road out there, folks
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment