Robots

Wow, it has been a LONG time since I posted here ... please accept my profuse apologies

It started with the Jetsons, I think.
I remember the robot maid and other time- & labor-saving appliances used in the cartoons I watched as a child.

Then came Asimov -- he had me hooked as I voraciously consumed his stories about the future and all things robotic during my teen years: I, Robot

In college, I remember Hajime Sorayama's robot creations adorning the walls to my room:

Shortly after the turn of the century, I remember a friend telling me about this uber-cool robotic vacuum cleaner he had bought called a Roomba and how it was the shape of things to come:

In 2004 came the (loose) movie adaptation of Asimov's vision: I, Robot

Fast-forward to 2014. Where are the robots today?

I feel a bit let-down, even though I hear of advances such as medical assistant robots and future robotic assistants, such as Jibo, which are slowly advancing towards a robotic future.

I found the following article illuminating, especially since the title agrees with my question above: iRobot CEO decries the slow advance of robotics.

Here's an interesting insight from the article:

Pam Henderson, a former assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University and co-founder and CEO of consulting firm NewEdge, Inc., agreed, adding that too many roboticists are in love with their own ideas.

"Some of you have one idea you are in love with and you are going to ride that thing until it goes to market or it kills you," Henderson said during a keynote talk at RoboBusiness. "Robotics is not the industry. Appliances are the industry. Home health care is the industry. The need isn't for a robot.... What's the opportunity? No opportunity? Don't build. Be pretty crisp on the applications before you do the development."

In the end, it comes down to money:

"It takes $20 million or more to build a legitimate robot. It's a much bigger check to write to get to play," said Colin Angle, CEO and co-founder of iRobot (the maker of the Roomba vacuum cleaners).

Allow me to add my personal appeal to all the Angel Investors out there:

Please don't overlook the robots!

The Blame Game

I read an article in the Nov. 26 issue of The Economist, titled "A downgrade for Congress". 
It begins: "It was not a very ambitious target.  All that the congressional "supercommittee" was required to do was to figure out a list of measures that would reduce America's budget deficits by $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.  That sounds like a lot, until you realise it is only 0.6% of GDP, not even a quarter of the $5 trillion or so that is really needed to right the books in Washington, and less than 3% of the $44 trillion that the federal goverment is expected to spend over that period.  To reach a goal that a business cost-cutter would regard as desultory, the bipartisan committee of 12 senators and congressmen was accorded exceptional powers.  Its work was to be subject to a simple up-or-down vote, with no possibility of amendment; and the Senate would not be able to use its power to filibuster.  Yet on November 21st, after three months of deliberation, the team was forced to admit that it had failed."

And the Blame Game kicked into high gear, the Democrats blamed the Republicans, the Republicans blamed the Democrats and the public was left shaking our collective heads at the degree of dysfunction we witness daily amongst our elected officials and the partisanship which has been elevated to a new level.

The article concludes with one suggestion why the supercommittee might have failed to meet its goal = no real sense of urgency.  "America is not Italy: this week, its ten-year government bonds were trading at well below 2%, the lowest levels for over half a century ..."

Which brings me to the last point I wanted to make regarding the "Blame Game."
I was thoroughly disgusted with all the blame being heaped upon little ole Greece during the summer and early Autumn.  Yes, the Greek politicians had managed (mismanaged sounds better) to completely over-leverage their country and had dug a massive hole for themselves -- and the various bankers were all-too-happy to saddle them with bailouts, which, it should be pointed-out, are not "gifts", but rather additional loans with crushing terms.  Massive austerity measures were depressing everything and everybody in Greece and the rest of the world was using it as a scapegoat for the mess the Europeans were finding themselves in ... blame it all on the Greeks!

That's where the other shoe dropped.  Wait a minute ... perhaps Italy has an economic problem, oh and Spain too.  Italy isn't a small economy, like Greece, they are the #3 economy in the Euro zone.
Now all of a sudden the European economic powerhouses are calling an emergency meeting early next week to figure a way out of the looming economic meltdown ...

I wonder who will be blamed next.
More importantly, I hope the Blame Game stops and we start seeing the politicians and the bankers working cooperatively to bring the world economy back to health.

Shutdown

It has been all over the news the last few days.
The deadline of midnight tonight (Friday, April 8, 2011) looms over the political landscape, as a Federal government shutdown becomes a possibility. 
In a game of political "Brinksmanship" the Republican-controlled Congress is pushing the Democrat-controlled White House to either make drastic budget cuts, or face the prospect of not getting a mid-year budget passed by the deadline, which will shut down the government.

There are an estimated 800,000 Federal workers who may not go to work on Monday and who face the prospect of going without a paycheck.
- Do you need a passport?  Sorry, those Federal workers who process passports are likely going to be considered "non-essential" personnel and they will be sent home if the government shuts down.
- Do you feel like visiting a national monument, or one of the national parks?  Sorry, the same goes for the folks who work there.
- April 15 is the deadline for Americans to file their 2010 Federal, State (and for some of us Local) tax returns.  If you are scheduled to receive a tax refund and you filed your return electronically, you will likely receive a credit to your account, but if you mailed-in your tax return, you could be waiting for that refund check for a long time.

Politicians are trying to score points for their parties, refusing to compromise, all the while weighing how their actions today will affect their re-election campaigns in the future. 
Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people are holding their breaths, hoping for an avoidance of a government shutdown, quite literally at the eleventh hour. 
Is this what they call a Democracy? 

I think back to the comedian Johnny Carson and the following line which is attributed to him:
"Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead. And, unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective political party; it means having two ineffective political parties."