From Wired: It’s Alive!
WHEN I FIRST MEET PLEO, the tiny dinosaur is curled up on a kitchen table, its long tail and big head pulled inward. It’s snoring quietly, emitting a strangely soothing sound, almost like the amplified purring of a guinea pig. I’m tempted to reach out and touch it – but it looks so peaceful, I can’t bring myself to disturb it. | Then I realize what I’m doing: I’m worrying about waking up a robot. | Caleb Chung seems to understand my reluctance. “It’s OK,” the toy’s inventor says, motioning to the little green lizard. “You can touch him.” But before I do, Pleo wakes up on its own, fluttering open its doelike eyes and lifting its head. There’s a barely perceptible whizzing as its 14 internal motors spring into action and it struggles upright, stretching itself to get the kinks out. “You know, all your dogs do that,” Chung says as Pleo begins to poke around the table. “They wake up in the morning and go ‘ummmm’ – just like that.” The dino lets out a long, creaky honk.
“I think he wants to play,” Chung suggests, so I tentatively stroke the nubbly rubber skin on its back. It moos happily. A laptop on the kitchen table is monitoring Pleo’s internal state. As I trigger the touch sensors embedded in the toy, its “arousal” numbers start rising: 16, 23, 27, 28. It’s like a Matrix view of Pleo’s subconscious. I poke its left leg, and it cranes its neck curiously to see what just happened. I’m impressed. This feels less like interacting with a piece of machinery and more like playing with a kitten.
Chung knows how to create emotional connections to toys. Ten years ago, the bushy-haired, hyperkinetic inventor conceived Furby, selling more than 40 million of the yammering gremlins in a worldwide craze that launched the now-booming industry of robotic pets. A string of artificial companions have since trundled off the production line: the FurReal cat, the Roboraptor, the Robosapien, the Aibo and its litter of me-too electronic pooches. Household robots have arrived – not as servants doing our laundry but as helpless, babylike things that demand we take care of them.
Still, all of them have acted like, well, robots. But Chung, now 50, has a different idea: He wants to create “an artificial life-form” – something that looks eerily alive and is affected by its environment. Pleo begins as a baby, and its personality is forged by how you treat it. If it uses a high-pitched squeak and you feed it, it will learn to repeat that noise to get fed. Be nice to it and it will become mellow and friendly; mistreat it and you will evolve a bitter, annoyed robot. Theoretically, no two Pleos – Pleii? – will end up with the same personality.
Retail is expected to be about $250 for your kid’s pet baby dinosaur. Start putting aside cash now.
The genius of Terry Pratchett in “Thud! ” is not his deft blending of serious themes with comedy, nor his light touch while social issues with mystery novels, nor even his wildly inventive worldbuilding. Pratchett is able to do what few contemporary writers are able to do, in that he continues to crank out novels that absolutely function as the latest installment in a serialized long-form novel — elements of “Going Postal,” “The Truth,” all the guards novels, the wizard novels and more all appear in “Thud!” — yet stands alone perfectly well.
One doesn’t need to have followed Sam Vimes’ journey from street cop to duke to understand his relationship with the city’s ruler, his wife, his fellow cops or the community. If you have read it, it adds an extra richness to the proceedings, but if you haven’t, Pratchett touches on everything just enough so that even new readers won’t be lost. Every Discworld novel is someone’s first, and if they jump on board with “Thud!” not only will they not be disappointed or lost, they’ll have read a strong comedy that speaks to a number of the major issues of the setting — as well as to the real-world issues of ethnic strife and the ability for ancient history to cause blood to continue to be spilled over the centuries — they’ll likely want to pick up all the other novels as well.
For committed Discworld fans, “Thud!” is a romp which finally pulls the dwarf/troll ethnic hatred to the forefront, discusses its roots, its mythical and religious dimensions, how it manifests itself in the realpolitik of Discworld and how it manifests in the teaming streets of Ankh-Morpork. Pratchett isn’t so tied down with his metaphor as to make it possible to draw lines from the conflict to the Middle East or Northern Ireland or Bosnia or any other real world group. Instead, he works on the major elements of all ethnic strife, including demagoguery and the ability of people to suddenly turn on neighbors who were just fine a week before. He also addresses the fairly thorny issue of people not feeling true to their groups unless they manifest these sorts of deep-seated hatreds in a serious way.
The story also includes a potential major change for the setting in the closing pages, potentially even bigger than the arrival of the clacks many books back. Even if one isn’t a fan of the dwarf/troll relationship or the guards’ storyline, it’d likely be worth reading the novel just to understand the future changes to the setting, which could potentially be dramatic.
“Thud!” is one of Pratchett’s best Discworld novels to date and is enthusiastically recommended for fans of the setting, as well as fantasy novel fans in general.
This may be the biggest thing with newspapers and the Web yet. Today, January 2, the Wall Street Journal is free, both online and on paper. And you’ll want to check them both out, because they’re no longer identical products.
The Journal’s staff figured out that they could never compete with the real-time aspect of the Internet as far as breaking news in the paper goes, so they decided to stop worrying about it. From now on, all breaking news will be on the Internet only, while the paper edition will be nothing but longer analysis pieces.
This is brilliant. By offering two different products in two different places, Journal readers have a reason to read both products, so the advertisers will want to be in both places. The split products now play to their individual strengths.
More importantly, I think this is a model that can work for every daily. Given the Journal’s visibility, if this takes off, I bet we’ll have a cascade effect and see every major daily doing this within two years.
It’s that time of year, where I reset the old iPod’s play count to zero. But before I start tracking what I’m listening to the most in 2007, here’s a look back at what the top 100 songs I listened to in 2006. (Here’s the 2005 list.)
- Los Angeles – Sugarcult
- One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula – Dengue Fever
- I Don’t Want to Fall in Love – She Wants Revenge
- Ladylike – Storm Large and the Balls (featuring Dave Navarro)
- Crazy – Gnarls Barkley
- Tell Me Baby – Red Hot Chili Peppers
- What Girls Want – Material Issue
- The Adventure – Angels & Airwaves
- Love Found Me – DecembeRadio
- Shot Shot – Gomez
- In the Morning – Junior Boys
- Here It Goes Again – O.K. Go
- Do Ya – Peaches
- Fidelity – Regina Spektor
- All Good – Zeroleen
- 4 Leaf Clover – Old 97’s
- Master Plan – Signal Hill Transmission
- Original Fire – Audioslave
- Yours to Keep – Teddybears
- Cubicle – Rinôçérôse
- When You Were Young – The Killers
- Finding Out True Love is Blind – Louis XIV
- Would You … ? – Touch and Go
- Suzie – Boy Kill Boy
- Bisexual Chick – John Oszajca
- Love Me Like You Do – The Magic Numbers
- Tahitian Moon – Porno for Pyros
- Dani California – Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Island in the Sun – Weezer
- Bang Bang You’re Dead – Dirty Pretty Things
- Town Called Malice – The Jam
- In the Morning – Razorlight
- True Affection – The Blow
- Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt – We Are Scientists
- Leave Before the Lights Come On – Arctic Monkeys
- Black Horse and the Cherry Tree – KT Tunstall
- Store Bought Bones – The Raconteurs
- Tear You Apart – She Wants Revenge
- Is It Any Wonder? – Keane
- Barely Listening – Pilot Speed
- Against All Odds – The Postal Service
- Steady, As She Goes – The Raconteurs
- Bom Bom Bom – The Living Things
- Plan B – Mute Math
- Girl and the Sea – The Presets
- Smile – Lily Allen
- Takin’ Care of Business – Bachman Turner Overdrive
- My Heart is the Bums on the Street – Marah
- Voodoo Cadillac – Southern Culture on the Skids
- Riot Radio – The Dead 60s
- Strict Machine – Goldfrapp
- Ooh La La – Goldfrapp
- I’m No Angel – Gregg Allman
- Long Cool Woman (in a Black Dress) – The Hollies
- Throw it Away – Juke Kartel with Toby Rand
- Walt Whitman Bridge – Marah
- The Ugly Truth – Matthew Sweet
- I Predict a Riot – The Kaiser Chiefs
- L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever) – Kasabian
- New York Girls – Morningwood
- Fille atomique – Nous Non Plus
- Meet Ze Monstra – PJ Harvey
- Medicine – Sons & Daughters
- Mama’s Room – Under the Influence of Giants
- DOA – Foo Fighters
- Koop Island Blues – Koop
- Lonely Train – Black Stone Cherry
- You’re My Kind – Elektrochemie
- Junior Kickstart – The Go! Team
- Sick of Myself – Matthew Sweet
- Living Alone – The Procession
- Mama Told Me (Not to Come) – Three Dog Night
- Suicide Sally & Johnny Guitar – Primal Scream
- Dance Me In – Sons & Daughters
- Are You With Me? – Vaux
- My Doorbell – The White Stripes
- 6 A.M. Jullandar Square – Cornershop
- Hold On, Hold On – Neko Case
- Welcome to the Show – Pigeon John
- Monsters – Sons & Daughters
- I Turn My Camera On – Spoon
- Blue Orchid – The White Stripes
- Would You Come With Me – The Elected
- Mother’s Little Helper – Liz Phair
- Youth – Matisyahu
- Black Betty – Spiderbait
- The Fallen – Franz Ferdinand
- Bad Things – Jace Everett
- Black Devil Car – Jamiroquai
- Don’t Have Time – Liz Phair
- Sooner or Later – Marah
- Girlfriend – Matthew Sweet
- Gold Lion – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- Year of the Cat – Al Stewart
- Not Ready to Make Nice – The Dixie Chicks
- Munich – The Editors
- Jetsetter – Morningwood
- Beautiful Thing – Patrice Pike
- Sweet Lady – What Made Milwaukee Famous
- Accidental Death – Rilo Kiley
Several of 2005’s top 100 charted again:
- “Bom Bom Bom” by The Living Things dropped 11 places, from #34 to #43.
- “I’m No Angel” by Gregg Allman went up, from #78 to #53.
- “I Predict a Riot” by The Kaiser Chiefs dropped 10 places, from #48 to #58.
- “Dance Me In” by the criminally underappreciated Sons & Daughters rose from #97 to #74.
- “Blue Orchid” by The White Stripes went from #14 all the way down to #82, a plummet only exceeded by …
- “Black Betty” by Spiderbait dropping from #9 to #86.
- And perennial favorite “Girlfriend” by Matthew Sweet went from #69 to #92.
For other really great end-of-year lists/shows, check out the Best of 2006 shows at Dave Cusick’s Post Modern Rock Show and the Coverville Countdown shows at Coverville.
The iPod’s play counts have all been reset. I’ll see you back here on January 1, 2008.
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