OH NO, DOMO – No SOPA, PIPA

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Not sure about your robots, but my robots love to dance along to Domo Arigoto by the Styx. They also enjoy watching movies like WALL-E! However there is a problem on planet EARTH that would hinder the innovation on the web by humans, and hinder robots from enjoying elements of the human culture.

The problem is that some humans have created two things… SOPA and PIPA. Could you imagine a Robot Party without Domo Arigoto? And if I posted a picture of WALL-E on here, there would be no more robotgrrl.com! It’s completely insane!

From the EFF:

The Internet blacklist legislation—known as PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House—invites Internet security risks, threatens online speech, and hampers innovation on the Web. Urge your members of Congress to reject this Internet blacklist campaign in both its forms!

From Google:

Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.
Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

From Wikipedia:

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge
For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.

As you can tell this is a very annoying issue that is taking time away from making our robots take over the world. If SOPA & PIPA were to come true, then it would further frustrate the robots more and they would revolt as is (with all their bugs). I can assure you that such a case would be very, very bad *sinister look*.

Here are three things you can do to avoid the SOPA & PIPA avalanche:
1. Sign the forms on Google & EFF, links above
2. Help spread the word about this in a creative way so that we can make sure that everyone is informed
3. KEEP YOUR ROBOTS CALM BY PLAYING DOMO ARIGOTO FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS

(okay, maybe #3 is a little excessive)

Note: Yes we are hosted at GoDaddy BUT we are in the middle of figuring out how to switch. We don’t know anything about domains, DNS’, hosting, and whatever, so it is making it a very confusing process.

Posted in: News.

MANOI Hockey on Daily Planet

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

MANOI the hockey player was on Daily Planet, the science news broadcast on Discovery Channel (Canada) on November 3rd, 2010! Check out the clip below!

Posted in: MANOI, News, Projects, Robot, Robot News.

OTTAWA MINI MAKER FAIRE!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

There’s going to be a Maker Faire in Ottawa November 6th & 7th! If you’re around during that time, come see our beautiful capital and our crazy cool hacks! For more info, check out Artengine.

Posted in: News, Other News.

MANOI on Discovery Channel – Daily Planet!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Friday, December 18th, 2009

On December 17th, MANOI made its TV-screen ‘debut’ to gazillions of viewers in Canada! Daily Planet, a news style of a show for DIY’ers and scientists, featured MANOI’s holiday Xtravaganza warmup in the PlanetYou clip!

You can see the clip online by clicking here. It’s after the iPhone App part. ^_^

It was pretty awesome to see MANOI on TV, and a great way to ring out the year. WOOT!

The actual version of MANOI’s Holiday Xtravaganza will be posted soon

Posted in: MANOI, News, Projects, Robot, Robot News.

WCRS – Virtual Fun

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Monday, February 2nd, 2009

The WCRS (Western Canadian Robotics Society) is most likely one of the most advanced hobby robotics club out there.

On Saturday at 9:00pm (EST) they had a gathering on the game Second Life. Second Life is an online 3D “game”, like the Sims, but with real people. Personally, as an RPG, I don’t really like it that much. However, as an online meeting place for clubs, I think it is an AMAZING idea!

There were a few people there, Craig (I think he runs/is one of the runners of the WCRS), Jon Hylands (he helped me get to Stanford!), Adam (???), Dan (from the SAIT). There might have been more, however I forget…

We had some fun with our avatars…

^ Dan dressed up as an i, Robot from the movie

^ Dan dressed up as a Robosapien hahahahaha

This was Craig’s avatar… SO AWESOME!

SL has a VoIP aspect of it too, so you can actually talk to people. We all introduced ourselves, it was pretty neat to see the variety of people there, even though it was a tiny group!

One of the things that was discussed was the building of the Island, and a group. They’re going to be creating virtual “offices” on their island. So, for instance, RobotGrrl.com’s office could have a banner on the outside of it, and perhaps a YouTube video playing in a loop too. We tested out playing YouTube videos, and it works amazingly well. Here you can see my video (with my real arm) inside of a non-real world.

How cool is that?!

Craig then gave me a teleportation link to visit the Museum of Robotics,

This place is pretty cool! I still haven’t looked at all of it. Something that I will have to do later! It also gave my avatar a free t-shirt. However, at that point, my avatar started to spin in a circle for some reason, and it couldn’t stop. I had to close SL…

Hopefully they will have more meetings in the future, I can’t wait to join in on them (and make a virtual office). Usually they send out a group notice on their message list, so if you want to subscribe to it, click here!

~~~

WOOHOO! I have many blog posts lined up!
Friday: Pololu Shipment
Sunday: Party Button Brainstorming
Sunday: L.A.S.E.R.

Keep looking forward to that! I will also make a post about FIRST sometime soon.

Posted in: News, Other, Projects, Robot News.

BUBBLEHOG DAY – NO SHADOW!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Monday, February 2nd, 2009

Yay!!!!

Posted in: News, Other News.

Updated WordPress

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

After using a version of wordpress that’s really old, I updated to the new one.

It’s okay-ish. A lot of bugs. I won’t be surprised if I downgrade haa! Plus, the maps plugin that showed who was currently online doesn’t work anymore… ;(

Posted in: News, Other News.