The Odyssey Begins

The date is announced (May 24-28). The place is unveiled (San Francisco, CA). The contestants are referring to it. It's Battlebots, and Hobbsblog II has a connection. Yes, this beast was built by my brother in law, Jeron Peter Leo Stiffler, and his buddies Ian Burt and Paul Boucher, and it is impressive.

[O]rbiting at over 18 times a second, the center of mass of the claws experiences an acceleration of V^2/radius = about 13000 feet/second^2. For laypeople, that means the hooks hold on at over 400 times earths gravity, thus they pull outward with over two tons of force. Not to mention the tips travel at about 115MPH with a rotating mass of 130 lb to back it up.

What I love the best about Tortoise is it is wholly homegrown. Unlike some of the other robots, this isn't the product of five figure endorsements, corporate money, or professional robotics designers. It's three twentysomething guys working in a garage, cobbling together a robot. But don't underestimate it. This beast is made of the best materials, good engineering, and nearly indestructible design. It debuted at the last Battlebots, and lost in a match that wasn't aired (suspiciously matched up against the robot with the ideal design to handle it. Hmm). Since then, the power has been ramped up immensely. This isn't a robot to be trifled with. In fact, I'm making the claim right now, that it's the "Most force delivered in Battlebots history.®" Back me up, guys! See the five minute, thirty four second, fourteen Megabyte Quicktime Movie here. More versions, including smaller highlight clips, to come.

Other site news

I've added an Atomz search engine for the site. Thus, people who visit me with their sicko searches like for "Regular Sized Teen Penis" can go straight to whatever I supposedly said (other cool disturbing search requests at Disturbing Search Requests, the blog. Well named, eh?). It's quite useful for me, which is enough of a reason to install it. Also, you'll notice in the top left that I have an ISSN. That stands for International Standard Serial Number, and it's the number that any registered periodical can get. I submitted my application right after seeing this Metafilter thread on the subject, so I may be one of the first hundred or so weblogs to get one. What does it mean? Libraries will have to keep track of me now, I think. Otherwise, it just means I'm an Offical Publication.

Normal Lunacy

I'm usually unimpressed when I see bloggers quoting poetry. However, when I saw a website of Dorothy Parker's poetry quoted on Wherever You Are, I knew it must be shared. Example:

The Flaw in Paganism

Drink and dance and laugh and lie,

Love, the reeling midnight through,

For tomorrow we shall die!

(But, alas, we never do.)


This is just rife with temporal irony.

Apparently there's this guy in Missouri who lives in a trailer park, who decided to build a website dedicated to Trailer Trash. I never realized what you could do with a couple of trailers. I kind of want the setup where two or three or four are connected. It reminds me of the space station, or maybe a few hamster cages connected by those tubes you run through.

Which reminds me, check out the Bad Astronomy page. It points out plenty of scientific impossibilities in TV and Movies, among other great things. For instance, Arm(pit)ageddon, a movie that earned no fewer than five "My Ass"'es (my rating system for bad movies. Movies get a "my ass" when they are completely implausible or blow the whole suspension of disbelief thing). Very classy.

Hobbsblog II thanks the Gael Fashingbauer Cooper empire of MNBLOGS, and as noted.