Super Japanese Poster

The World's Shortest Escalator

Following up on yesterday's post, now you can ride the world's shortest escalator, and you don't have to travel to Japan to do it! Ride it virtually here, all four steps of it in six seconds.

Real Live Monsters!

Well, okay, a real dead one.  This is a 96 tentacled octopus.  Each of it's tentacles branches out 8 times.  It's as if each of your fingers had five fingers on them.  Or something like that.  Make a note, you can visit this one the next time you are in Shima, Japan at the Shima Marineland Aquarium.

But this one lives!  This two headed Bearded Dragon Lizard just celebrated it's first birthday.  Say Happy Happy to "Zak n' Wheezie".

Recent Robot Roundup

Let's face it, the world needs more robots.  We certainly need more in our house and we have three or four.  We thought we'd have our own equivalent of cattle drive and run our favorites right into your home.  Which ones would win in the battle of the bots?

Of course, it's probably more useful just to have a bunch of robo pals to hang out and dance with, like these guys...

On the smaller scale there is the infamous Bristle-bot.  He is pretty cute. I dreamt that instead of cockroaches, our apartment was infested with them.

And what are you going to do when you just GOTTA have a new bot?  Our little creature runs here.

Although RadioShack now stocks these little guys and they are pretty cool.  And now the robo firm has come up with this shopper robot so the grown up can stay home and operate remotely via a phone and video hook up.

We just got a subscription to ROBOT magazine too, and find it full of things to spark the imagination.

Kami Robo!

Kami-Robo are robot fighters made from paper, measuring 15 to 20 cm. high.  They have joints at the hips, knees, shoulders, elbows and waists which allow them to bend and move quite freely.  About twenty-six years ago,  Tomohiro Yasui started designing and making these fighters, creating an extensive mythology and heirarchy in the process.  They fight in a ring, but it totally tops pro-wrestling with its drama and keen moves.  NOW the whole world is kami-robo crazed.  You can build your own, or even buy ready-made ones if you are a tad lazy -- or in a hurry to join in the fun (so far the only place we've found them is at the MOMA store.  There's lots of great videos on the web too.  This one below gives you a good intro course on their whole story.