Updated movie poster for WW84
The “Do I have Tomato Paste” Drone Has Arrived!
Amazon has announced their new Ring Always Home Cam – designed to help people monitor many more parts of their home so they don’t need to install security cameras everywhere. Let me point out that I had this idea already, several years ago, thank you very much. But it was called the “Do I have Tomato Paste? Drone” – I wanted to be able to remotely fly a drone in my house into my pantry to tell me if I had tomato paste while I was at the grocery store. But now, thanks to Amazon, you can have your home-inventory management robo-drone! Maybe!
The commercial shows the drone being triggered when an intruder comes in the home but the drone can also be set to deploy to a specific spot in your home. Correct me if I’m wrong, dear reader but I think the future is now.
Though, you won’t be able to manually control the drone – it appears the drone will only take a pre-determined flight path. From Amazon:
When you go through the setup process and set your preferred flight paths, you are ensuring that the Always Home Cam will only fly where you want it to go. It cannot be manually controlled, ensuring that it will only record and see what is important to you.
So when you go through the pre-determined flight path setup process, be sure to walk it past your pantry or your workbench or any other spot in your home you occasionally shop for – because the future of home-inventory-robo-drone-management is here!
Movie Review for Movies I Haven’t Seen: TENET
TENET – WHAT DOES IT MEAN? The title sparks imagination, being a palindrome – does it take place in a parallel-universe? The poster leads me to believe so.
Well I haven’t seen the film at all and I’m very excited to try to explain it to you. TENET is an acronym that stands for TO EACH: NITROUS. EVENTUALLY, TENET.
That’s right — everyone requires nitrous oxide to travel through time, and the actual acronym is part of the acronym’s definition, as clearly depicted by the main character’s clone.
In this film, time manipulation is involved somehow, someway. Time manipulation is involved somehow, someway. You see what I did there? You thought you went back in time for a second, reading the same sentence again. That’s the movie TENET. But slightly cooler than repeating sentences. Slightly cooler than repeating sentences.
Let’s rewatch the trailer to get some more hints:
Here’s what we learned:
- “Tenet opens the right doors and wrong doors” — a power that can be used for good & evil?
- It has Wind Power, Boats, a cool Audi — these are all things I would require in a futuristic, time-manipulated universe.
- Jumping up buildings (or jumping in TIME up buildings?)
- Telekinesis – time reversal?
- Russian spy Kenneth Branagh
- Communicating with the future
- Backwards Car Chases
- Reversing the Flow of Time?
These are the very brief but core concepts that I captured.
So to summarize, TENET is an incredible film and that I absolutely loved, even though I haven’t seen it yet. Inception, Interstellar, Memento – we all know that Chris Nolan has proved to be a master at manipulating time in films and there’s no question he will surpass all expectations with this hit about time traveling nitrous addicts.
I love palindrome films I’ve haven’t seen yet and even more excited for the sequels:
TENET: RACECAR and the prequel: TENET: WAS IT A CAT I SAW?
The Robots Came From Below: The DARPA SubTerranean (SubT) Challenge 2020
This year DARPA is launching: SubT – a nice, short way to say: DARPA Subterranean Challenge.
Why is this important? What are some applications for underground robots?
From DARPA:
The goal of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge is to discover innovative solutions to rapidly and remotely map, navigate, and search complex underground environments, including human-made tunnel systems, urban and municipal underground infrastructure, and natural cave networks.
So basically bots for helping law enforcement with drug-smuggling tunnels – check. Human trafficking – tunnels? Check.
There will be three circuit events for this SubT challenge – teams will compete to operate in 1. Human-made tunnels 2. Municipal style tunnels (think subway-style) 3. Naturally occuring cave networks (think Tremors — well, maybe more like Luray Caverns)
What does an underground robot look like? And will there be one named “DigDug”?
Underground robots help with all kinds of rescue operations, think “well rescue” or even archaeology. In 2018, a robotics team helped archaeologists with exploring pre-Incan civilizations with their camera equipped robots.
For the DARPA SubT, registration opens August 15:
More information on the DARPA page
Sources:
https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/robots-help-archaeologists-explore-pre-incan-ruins-peru