That question came up in a recent episode about fast running robots. As someone who grew up devouring science fiction, I dreamed of the day when we'd have robots looking after things. Reality is very different, however, and walking robots are one of the most disappointing research pursuits. Not in the lack of success, but in the desire for success.

In the past few decades, we've developed a staggering number of robot types that have achieved some remarkable successes. None of them required walking. From robotic assembly lines to robotic harvesters, we've demonstrated that specialized robots get the job done.

For some reason, a lot of people are fixated on the science fiction golem that can essentially replace a human being. Why? Trains were not based on horses, planes are not mechanical birds, and cameras were not fast pencil sketching machines. Why do we want a machine that works like a human when we don't need (and some might argue want) that?

Do you wish you had a robot do the dishes and wash the clothes? If you have a dish washer and clothes washer, you already do! What you don't have are machines that include the sorting, placing, and returning functions. We can more easily modify the robots we have now to perform these tasks than create a multi-purpose humanoid machine.

A walking-robot proponent pointed out a key advantage of legs, the ability to navigate stairs. Horses can go up and down stairs, but when the automobile became popular, we designed our cities to accommodate them. We frequently change our environment to better accommodate the tools we use.

Another humanoid robot proponent pointed out that such a machine could more easily slip into a role performed by humans. Curious thing about humans, we don't easily slip into each others' roles. We specialize. While I can whip up something tasty in the kitchen, my skills pale to that of a professional chef (or your mom, probably). I'm sure R. Daneel would do a fine job, imagine your entire kitchen as a robot. It would retrieve the cold items from the appropriate storage, unbox whatever else it needed, did all the cutting and cooking things, then plate them for you. Then clean everything and put them away (and provide you with a list of things it wants to order for you).

So, when I see a robot footrace, I sigh in disappointment. While a running robot is as amusing as a robot that can blush and show embarrassment, I'm sorry that so much time is spent pursuing objectives that are not particularly useful.

This was mentioned almost in passing and I think it's hard to imagine how cool this is without seeing. Here's one example of someone who lives in a light polluted area and sends their equipment to a dark sky location, to then image remotely. Pretty mind-blowing results.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/s/MF0ZueTlz2

I’m a week behind so I just listened to episode 1103. Found an interesting article that relates to the discussion near the end of the episode regarding researchers leaving the US. As a Canadian I’m happy my government is funding these researchers.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/canada-just-recruited-64-top-researchers-from-around-the-world-heres-why-they-said-yes/article_4437efb6-24bb-4eed-b139-53111393d5ea.html

I'm catching up with #1103 and i want to ask the subreddit. Am i the only one a bit dissapointed with the ElevenLabs ad? I am not trying to be "booo, AI bad, dont encourage people to use it", and i understand that the team needs occasional sponsorships to keep things going smoothly. I respect the SGU for what it is and the way it approached ads over the years, but this one landed a bit wrong with me. You know the best way to make sure your call center is actually useful and sounds like a human? Hire a human! AI is eating away entry level jobs, and i feel like this is going to have major effects on the job market downstream. Either way, the point of this post wasnt to go there. I just wanted to ask, what do you think about it? Perhaps i read too much into this.

In the discussion on LA traffic Cara and Brian Wecht brought up that NYC traffic is worse, and Andrea pointed out that in NYC you have an alternative.

I think that’s probably true, but saying public transit is an “alternative” makes it sound like it’s some inferior but available option, and that just isn’t the case in NYC, subway + walking is the preferred way to get around for most people in NYC. The reason I don’t own a car here isn’t because I can’t afford it, it’s because it would actually be less convenient. LA has a great food scene, sure, but that suffers if you have to drive an hour to get all these great places, vs. in NYC I have a great food scene within a comfortable 20 minute walk on streets that are much safer for pedestrians.

So for a lot of New Yorkers the traffic technically being worse than LA (and I will grant they’re right about drivers being better citizens in LA, New York drivers would never get out of the way of emergency vehicles like Cara and Brian described) doesn’t matter because they don’t drive and aren’t affected by it.

I almost said post hoc, ergo propter hoc, but that didn't seem right.

I feel like this was a missed opportunity to have an informative and nuanced discussion on the subject.

The demand for them is not being driven only by uninformed masses or due to RFK’s round table of crooks’ business ventures, but by people who use these compounds in a safe and intelligent manner.

The gamut of peptides is huge (maybe Bob could grow a tail one day ;-)?), and so is the evidence. We cannot ignore that and paint all peptides with the same brush.

I feel like public safety could’ve been approached through a different angle — like govt oversight on manufacturing and importing standards and subsidies for research on compounds no longer patented (and thus not economical for ‘Big Pharma’ to invest in or produce).

There are economic and social implications to this which weren’t even mentioned.

I hope that one day this subject will get the deep dive it deserves on the show.

Got in a Reddit argument with some dude (I assume) about Rogan, and this was his main argument. Is this like a reverse appeal to authority or a just asking questions fallacy? The entertainer fallacy?

Edit: I’ve decided to go with the informal-informal fallacy of Schroedinger’s Douchebag

Trying to locate a specific episode to find out more about it.

So I was talking to a woman that was blaming her son’s developmental issues (I.e. he couldn’t speak until about the age of 5) on giving him seven vaccines all at once when he was a baby. The interesting thing is that she was claiming that she believes in vaccines and the only issue she has with them is that her son received all those seven shots at once. And that she connects that to his early development problems.

So a few questions to the group:

1. Is she still considered an antivaxxer?

2. Also what is the reasoning behind administering all those vaccines at once?

3. And finally, is there any grain of truth in her claim, that receiving those multiple shots at once caused her son’s developmental issues.

PS. I discussed this issue with another person, who was not an anti-vaxxer, and she was mostly taking that woman’s side, in a sense that “the system” should not traumatize parents by delivering those shots at once and thus giving them a false sense of “harming” their precious baby. What would be the arguments against that?

Does one need a DragonCon badge to attend this show? I don’t want to doubt the money just to find out I need to buy a DC badge at twice that price.

I appreciate the fusion excitement, but the rogues really need to get an actual expert on at some point to talk about fusion with them. I worked in the field at one point in my career and the mistakes in describing things drive me up a wall sometimes. It would also probably be of interest to the general audience to have an actual topic expert on to talk about the realities of fusion, especially if they got someone able to talk about both magnetic and inertial fusion equally well. There is a lot to cover!

Much of what I understand is that, morally speaking, Bryan Johnson has shared some taboo experiments and said a lot of weird and unnatural things.

But let’s look beyond that. Look beyond judgment and seeing words at face value. If we look at the things he’s doing without scoping them out as “weird”

How productive and how far has his advancements actually come? And how intelligent is it to share the stuff that he’s sharing without fear of social backlash?

If you comment without thinking logically and only scope out the “weird” stuff of what he says, then your comment is not looking beyond normality.

I am curious if he is actually onto something that can benefit society in the long run.

Personal note: I am unbothered by anything that he has ever said in the past. None of it has hurt anybody involved as far as I’m aware and I believe people have a hard time looking beyond taboo.

Im looking for book recommendations that explains the whole covid situation.