UNIQLO has never been afraid to inovate the shopping experience (think: UT Loop, grid playground and the concept t-shirt store) but this time they are adding a robot to their stores. Yep, you read right a robot named Wakamaru. Designed by Toshiyuki Kita and engineered by Mitsubishi, the robot can make eye contact with you, have simple conversations and help you shop for some Japanese animation t-shirts. But there is a catch, the robot is being described as neither human nor machine. The only thing we can think of that fits that catagory is robocop, which could end up to be a huge PR problem for UNIQLO if anyone saw Robocop 3. Look for Wakamaru to make his/her first appearnce at the Soho store in NYC sometime in the second week of September.

UNIQLO’s Wakamaru - Josh Spear, Trendspotting

...when you've been fucking around with something for days trying to figure it out and finally the last part of the puzzle clicks into place and BAM! It works!

I love that moment. Particularly when it occurs at 7:24 PM on a Friday and I can go enjoy my weekend without this particular project hanging over my head.

The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law.

Best of luck to a member of our little debate club who is actually doing something about his convictions rather than just talking about them.

Mike for Missouri 15

McCain became the butt of jokes online and on the The Colbert Report this June after delivering a speech in Louisiana where the stage backdrop was a nauseating green. That spawned Stephen Colbert's "Green Screen Challenge" to make McCain's presentation more exciting. Some of the rather entertaining results can be seen below.

McCain Uses Walter Reed Middle School, Not Army Hospital, as Backdrop | Threat Level from Wired.com

noteworthy wrote:
This is cute, and nicely packaged, but hardly revelatory. We're talking about Karl Rove here.

A selection from the archive:

I wonder, when was the last time a talk show changed a mind?

When I see well educated libertarians literally falling over backwards to find some angle to proclaim Palin, a very conservative christian, as one of theirs, I have to say, it hardly seems worth talking about politics. Objective discussion about policy cannot be fruitful if people cannot accept reality as a starting point and the greatest weakness of human beings is our ability to deceive ourselves when we want something to be true.

RE: Daily Show on Republican hypocrisy - Boing Boing

Joe Biden is not a "moderate" when it comes to crime issues. His hard-line authoritarian record speaks for itself, runs out of breath, and then speaks for itself some more....

I can only assume this profound mischaracterization of Biden's record was arrived at through the tired assumption that democrats are "soft" on crime, republicans are "tough," and therefore "moderates" are democrats who support harsh laws. Joe Biden is exactly the reason such stereotypes should be avoided by responsible journalists.

Perhaps they felt he'd appeal to Clinton supporters.

Biden is a 'Moderate' on Crime Issues? | Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)

Biden was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and introduced the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act in the 90s, requiring carriers of encrypted communications to turn the keys over to law enforcement, according to McCullagh.

Biden's bill spurred Philip Zimmerman to invent the PGP algorithm and publish it for free, McCullagh notes.

The Comprehensive Counter-Terrroism act was defeated, but Biden followed up with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement (ACT), which became law in 1994, says McCullagh.

In his favor, he did speak out against the Communications Decency Act.

Biden supported Manditory Goverment Key Escrow and CALEA

The bill was sponsored by Senator Joseph Biden

You can read MemeStreams discussions about this bill here and here. When a politician writes up a paranoid, funhouse mirror description of a widespread youth counterculture and attaches to it to a bill intended to target and shut down that culture, well, those youth ought to remind him of that when he desires their vote for political office.

RAVE Act was Biden's idea

In honor of Jack and Doris Cross

Alzheimer's Diagnosis

Get a Web Ribbon

Posting these to MemeStreams alters the structure of the html code, so I created another ribbon and posted it here.

Its silly that this campaign doesn't also directly entice you to donate more money, but you can do that here.

Alzheimer's Web Ribbon

His shots of 189 secret spy satellites are the subject of a new exhibit -- despite the fact that, officially speaking, the satellites don't exist. The Other Night Sky, on display at the University of California at Berkeley Art Museum through September 14, is only a small selection from the 1,500 astrophotographs Paglen has taken thus far.

Photographer Documents Secret Satellites -- All 189 of Them