Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
What can you say about a person who has experienced North Korean hell. It’s probably about the same as someone who escaped Vietnam, Pol Pot, WWII, Hitler, and the list goes on to the current day.
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“Hi, I’m Terry and I’m manic depressive,” smiled the famously deadpan lead singer for The Specials during the spoken part of “Enjoy Yourself” at the end of Monday night’s return to Club Nokia. It was their second show there in 26 years–showing that the band didn’t just get heal up and get back together a few years ago but continue to actually enjoy themselves. Since the reformed band’s first stop in L.A. in 2010, the heavy parts during “International Jet Set,” “Stereotypes,” and “Man at C&A” got heavier and the light parts in between were just as light, with Terry Hall giving away tea bags and ginger from backstage (and making fun of American half & half) and Terry and guitarist Lynval Golding giving very conflicting reviews of Argo before playing “Concrete Jungle” (whether or not Ben Affleck is a “cunt”).
You thought online dating in LA was hard? Try being a single guy in China. You thought being a single guy in China was hard? Try being a dead single guy! China’s One Child policy has taken its toll on the straight male population now old enough to be goaded into marriage by eager parents. Chinese men are looking for foreign brides in the most non-traditional places. Even when they do find a bride, they still have to worry about authentic natural beauty. Dark days indeed. Now, the plight of the single and deceased. ABC News reports the sentencing of four grave robbers in Southwest China’s Sichuan province. They were digging up dead brides for dead bachelors. These matchmakers with dirt under their nails help broker “ghost marriages” for families who have lost unwed sons. In an effort to help their lost boys keep from wandering this earthly plane in search of “the one”, they marry them off to unwed girls who have met similar fates. The moral of the story: the toughest thing of all is being a woman in China. Alive or dead.
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TOKYO ~ Two years ago this week explosions and meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Genpatsu in northeastern Japan created this nation’s worst man-disaster. The ability to perform heavy duty repair work in the highly radioactive environs of a damaged nuclear reactor was one of the first obstacles that nuclear engineers faced at Fukushima Daiichi. To outside observers of Japan, the answer seemed simple: send in Japan vaunted robots. But the myth of Japanese robot supremacy was blown to bits by Fukushima Daiichi. Yes, Japan had talking robots, robot children, sexy fembots, robot pets and manufacturing robots, but it hadn’t produced machines mobile, powerful or agile enough to be of any use in a real world disaster scenario. So, the Japanese ate some humble pie and called Boston-based iRobot, maker of the vacuuming robot Roomba, which sent Japan its PackBot and Warrior robots which became the first robots to enter and inspect Fukushima’s Daiichi’s damaged reactors. [youtube]j7r29YxICBw[/youtube] But since Fukushima Daiichi, Japan has indeed stepped up its robotics game. Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Honda, Panasonic, and Toyota have all boosted funding and investments of their proprietary bot expertise, and the Japanese government has also increased support toward university robotics laboratories and private-public partnerships. So, if the triple meltdowns had a silver lining, it was the Japanese robotics industry’s new focus away from cute machines and toward capable ones. Akihabara News has a great article by Reno J. Tibke of how Fukushima sparked Japan’s robot renaissance. ~Rachel Roh
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OITA ~ “Skull Reaper Eiji” (transliterated as “Skull Reaper A-ji” by the Western press) was elected to the city council in this city on the southernmost Japanese island of Kyushu back in February promising local folks educational reform and improved social welfare facilities. He managed to garner only 2,828 votes, but that was enough to win him a seat. Eiji, 44, was supposed to attend his first council meeting this week, but his tight-assed council colleagues sucker-punched him by barring him from the meetings until he removed his wrestling mask. The Skull Reaper is the third masked politician elected to public office in Japan. [TIME ~ Politician Banned for Wearing Wrestling Mask] [youtube]Qid_vhLZPQ4[/youtube]
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