Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category
Holiday Video: Cute Quadrocopter Hovers Above Piano, Picks Out ‘Jingle Bells’
Merry Christmas from the flying robots of Switzerland. Watch as a Swiss quadrocopter named “Echo” plays a little something for the holidays.
The robot is a test subject at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology’s . Researchers put a piano in their Flying Machine Arena so Echo could play “Jingle Bells.”
Researchers study high-performance flight, fast-changing flight maneuvers and other topics using the quadrocopters. The piano isn’t a new notion — one of the lab’s researchers, Angela Schöllig, spends her time synchronizing quadrocopters’ flight to music.
Watch to the end and you'll see this wasn't easy to do.
Video: Wielding Sharp Knife, Robot De-Bones 500 Hams Per Hour
What could possibly go wrong?
HAMDAS-R represents a leap forward in the automation of food processing – the “variations in meat form and bone size” have heretofore been an obstacle in robotic processing of “irregularly shaped, soft foods” such as hams. This robot is able to consistently distinguish meat from bone. While the advance in technology is exciting, the automation of skilled labor is also another sad step toward the day the robots leave us all unemployed. Which would still be better than HAMDAS-R turning its ham de-boning knife on humans.
St.Patricks Day
What did St Patrick do to help Ireland?
He allegedly banned snakes from the island.
Though post-glacial Ireland never actually had snakes; one suggestion is that snakes referred to the serpent symbolism of the Druids of that time and place.
Legend also credits Patrick with teaching the Irish about the concept of the Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a 3-leaved clover, using it to highlight the Christian belief of 'three divine persons in the one God'
St Patrick’s Day Parade today
Downtown will be a sea of green today as the annual Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day Parade gets under way at 11 a.m.
The parade will go along Grand Boulevard from Pershing Road to Truman Road south of the highway loop. If you can’t be there, you can watch it live on KMBC-TV Channel 9.
At 9 a.m., Main Street will be closed between 20th and 27th streets. Parts of Pershing Road and McGee Street will be closed at 9 a.m. too.
At 10 a.m., the parade route portion of Grand Boulevard will be closed.