Category: Other Page 10 of 177

Master-Slave Manipulators

On 15 January 2025

As I continue on this train of trying to figure out how to build a low tech human powered version of the Elephant Robotics exoskeleton, I made an important discovery about historical robot types. My working definition of “robot” is of course somewhat broad, and some might argue that what I found is not really itself robotic… but I don’t care about that.

The more polite modern name for my discovery is a remote manipulator, and the older less politically correct name for it is a master-slave manipulator. They are also called waldos after a Heinlein short story. From the Wikipedia, as to origins around hazardous material handling:

In 1945, the company Central Research Laboratories was given the contract to develop a remote manipulator for the Argonne National Laboratory. The intent was to replace devices which manipulated highly radioactive materials from above a sealed chamber or hot cell, with a mechanism which operated through the side wall of the chamber, allowing a researcher to stand normally while working.

The result was the Master-Slave Manipulator Mk. 8, or MSM-8, which became the iconic remote manipulator seen in newsreels and movies, such as The Andromeda Strain or THX 1138.

For reference, here is the THX 1138 scene, though I barely remember that movie:

Note that a remote manipulator is distinct from a glovebox, like we see Homer Simpson using. In a glovebox, you stick your arms in, and they are shielded, but you’re using your own actual hands to manipulate objects. In remote manipulators – waldos – you are not. The action is at a distance, which is part of what makes this an intriguing thing to try to DIY.

I found a number of other videos on this topic of remote or telemanipulator systems, as they are also called. Or “Slave Hands” as they are called in the 1960 video:

Curiously, many of the promo materials for this technology often include the robotic hands lighting a cigarette for a woman, or serving her tea. In the one above, she’s even made to drink from the tea cup, which is a level of trust I would probably not have here were I them. The whole trend of that kind of imagery seems like a weird scientist sublimated puppetmaster/beauty & the beast erotic fantasy undercurrent somehow that I haven’t quite delved into, but definitely appears to be a “thing.” (It’s also on display here in another form in the 1948 GE Master-Slave Manipulator on Cybernetic Zoo – which has tons of related material, by the way).

A similar video from 1956:

1972, different form factor, but same basic idea:

Here’s a more modern demo of this type of technology from 6 years ago:

This heavy duty remote manipulator for large heavy objects is also amazing:

Okay, so the above is all well and good for industrial scale work, but I was hard pressed to find too many DIY examples of remote manipulators, with something that I might try to clone for home use. The below video demonstrates the closest analogue I’ve found to what I might try and build for the purposes of painting with it.

You can see the finished version of that My-Nuke coin operated nuclear reactor game machine by Tim Hunkins here.

For my purposes, the iteration he has around this form seems most relevant, labelled as Mark 2, starting around 0:32 in the video, here’s a still:

Just eyeballing it, that doesn’t look all that complicated… just some bar linkages to transmit forward/back motion. Unclear how the rest works exactly for the side to side motion – he kinda swings/rotates the arm? I can’t tell from the screen capture exactly how the grabber works, but now that I understand cable controls (kinda), that shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out. Anyway, a number of questions left here, but that’s the best simple DIY-style example I could find, and that gives me plenty of fuel for my own prototypes in this direction.

Grabbit Flapper Upgrade

By Tim B.

On 12 January 2025

In Other

I made today a small experimental upgrade to the “Grabbit-1” prototype all-wood robot grabber hand thing. For lack of a better name, I’m calling it the grabbit-flapper-1. More images and a video at the Imgur gallery here. (You can also see the ohara controllers in the background, from a separate unrelated build.)

Well, okay, there are two upgrades here, one is putting those plastic eyes onto the grabbit claw. The second is putting a flapping wing mechanism, cable-controlled, connected to a little hook at the bottom which is used to actuate the wings. The video linked above shows the best overview of how the mechanism is constructed.

I went through a lot of YouTube vids at high speed to figure out how to get the motion that I wanted, and I finally found it in this video of a scale model of Da Vinci’s ornithopter. (Or zoom in for a close up here.)

I haven’t been able to find a good reference from Leonardo’s actual drawings to verify this as a match, but the mechanism works – even if mine is extremely quick and janky, like all the rest of these experiments while I learn how the mechanisms work, and how to piece them together without too much expense or hassle.

I had intended for mine to actually send the wire to the back with the handle of the mouth wire too, but it wasn’t working with the tubing that I had, and preferred to get something simpler that works in all cases instead. And the action of this one as it is with the wings feels good in the hands.

Using Photoshop Remove Tool to Create New Paintings

By Tim B.

On 11 January 2025

In Other

Accidentally discovered something very interesting while messing around with the Photoshop remove tool, which on certain settings uses generative AI to replace out whatever you select with it.

In this case, was just playing around removing stuff from a photo of our living room, and saw that the tool was inventing paintings or posters that don’t exist:

That one in the corner, I zoomed in on and went through a few AI upscalers with and got this altogether vague still “detail” shot of:

It’s not on its own the greatest image ever seen, but there’s something spooky about how it looks and its ultimate provenance as an AI re-inventing my physical surroundings… almost has a ‘paranormal’ quality to me somehow. I had the idea of like, could I take these AI-imagined figments, and then do like I did with my Matisse copy and make human-done reproductions? Either as faithfully as possible to the original, or else with some enhancements by the human artist?

Here are some other examples. This photo was from about halfway through last year, and represented all the paintings I’d done lately (minus two in another room).

The funny part is, this original real photograph had a couple gaps where there was empty wall space. So I went in to those two areas (marked with arrows in image above) and used the Remove tool in Photoshop on them, and it invented these two other paintings that it thinks look natural there.

Eerily, the one on the left actually shares a lot of characteristics with a paintings which I did end up doing later on, this one, the Head of Hygiea:

Photoshop got the color scheme more or less exactly right, a good bit of the overall “vibe” but it just wasn’t able to see into the subject matter. But otherwise, I’d almost call that “prescient.”

Here’s one last one for the road, two paintings in storage in my small basement studio from over a decade ago (depicted at bottom half of image below). And alongside you can see the progressively extended painting that the Photoshop Remove tool created over a few rounds of trying.

The forms and mark-making on these AI-interpolations don’t quite ring true with my actual painted works, and they aren’t quite snazzy enough yet for me to simply want to replicate them manually. But these are just early accidents and experiments. There is much hyperspatial painting to be explored and uncovered here still.

Quoting Dave Winer on Not Reinventing the Wheel with Web Technologies

By Tim B.

On 7 January 2025

In Other

I appreciated these comments from Dave Winer about/against Bluesky’s having needlessly reinvented many wheels when it comes to web technologies in its pursuit of whatever. I’m not a Bluesky user, but this is absolutely an epidemic disease I’ve seen working as a product manager these past few years in crypto/blockchain…

BTW, in defense of Matt Mullenweg and the culture of the developer community he built over the last 20 years, for better or worse, they don’t do what Bluesky did. They look for prior art and implement it and they don’t deprecate. They’re still running the APIs we invented for blogging before WordPress even existed. The philosophy is “Let’s not argue about decisions made a long time ago, because we want interop.” People have all kinds of harsh things to say about their leadership, but unless you’re a developer you don’t understand that the reason it works is that they have a different code for their code, the only way we get interop is by not re-inventing. There are two competing ways to do things in tech. The blogging world has been taken over by the re-inventors, like the Bluesky people. They make a nice product, but honestly they don’t reallllly want us to work with them, or we wouldn’t be having this friction.

On the crypto side, for all the talk of decentralization, what I’ve seen is that the vasy majority of those projects just end up leaning on AWS in the end. That, of course, and a lot of needlessly complex architecture for rewards that are not always things people need or want. But no, I’m not cynical…

Grabbit-1 Wooden Gripper Experiment

By Tim B.

On 7 January 2025

In Other

My mind has been coming back again and again to this idea of making a fully manually-operated version of the Elephant Robotics exoskeleton for use as a drawing tool. I got one step closer to actualizing that a few days ago when I finished this very “minimum viable product” version of one type of gripper/grabber mechanism I am calling the grabbit-1.

I have a couple videos of it in operation at the Imgur link here. Here’s a static image:

I was dimly aware that cable controls were a thing you can do for mechanical puppetry, by way of this very retro video series on that topic:

But, like many four dimensional movements, this operation I found extremely difficult to understand without actually building a prototype. (Also see this other more contemporary example of someone using clear tubing and wire for a cable controlled puppet.)

Now, obviously I’m a long way off from the Elephant Robotics exoskeleton model here, but you have to start somewhere when you’re carving up complex physical problems like this. So understanding simply how grabbers/grippers worked seemed like a good enough place to start…

I often do these like chaotic jags through hyperspace when I’m figuring out a problem like this, usually through combinations of high speed skimming across tons of YouTube videos and image searches and asking ChatGPT for the names of things or principles that seem relevant. I end up with tons of good reference materials very chaotically organized though, and thought I’d want through some of them here for my own understanding if nothing else.

I actually found this one late in the process, but it is very helpful in demonstrating disassembly and functioning of one of those gripper dealies you might see senior citizens use, and which are actually surprisingly precise if you’ve ever used one:

There is something called Bowden cables, which are what makes the brakes on bikes work that is at play here, and in a very rudimentary way in my Grabbit-1 prototype. Where a cable or wire is inside of a length of tubing, and when one end of the wire is pulled (or pushed), that movement/force is transmitted through to the other end. It’s like if you connected two pieces together by a rigid rod, except its malleable, and the tubing lets you potentially put a bunch of these kinds of control cables together for different sets of discrete or connected movements. (Also see this guy’s interesting uses of Bowden cables in some kind of marble mechanism.) But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I wish they showed the other end of the cables controlling that motion, but I suppose it must be something like the frames with rings in the retro mechanical puppetry video above.

I also realized during this process that, as cool as it is to make hands that move in a lifelike way, depending on what I ultimately decide the exoskeleton project requires, I might or might not even need them. In one sense, a robotic human-ish hand is not really the ideal mechanism to hold a drawing device… Simply clipping a paint marker or whatever onto an arm or stylus or something is in many ways easier and a more reliable – but also somewhat less “awesome” looking than the above video, or this one which rules:

This is basically the same principle for cable controls, and the cables run through eyelets instead of tubing, and then they actuate levers linked to the larger arm joints. Here’s another video showing more or less the same setup in a different configuration. (This Instructable to build giant wooden hands is somewhat similar and has some close up photos. And this one is crazy in that it translates the hand motion down to a tiny scale articulated hand that has very creepy cool vibes.)

The basic grabber mechanism also appears in another important medical context: prosthetics for amputees. Some good example videos of how that works for body-controlled grippers:

And here are some related images of various kinds of hand prostheses I threw onto Imgur for reference.

I found out through that avenue of research that there are (at least) two types of gripper mechanisms like this, what’s called Voluntary Open (VO) and Voluntary Closed (VC). In voluntary open mechanisms, my understanding is they are in a default closed position and you need to exert effort which opens the mechanism. Voluntary closed is the opposite: they are default open and when effort is applied, they close. And then in either type, springs return the mechanism to its original state/position when the cable pressure is released.

This diagram helps somewhat:

As many diagrams, photos, and videos that I checked though, I couldn’t viscerally understand how these things function until I actually built it and tried it out and saw what happened.

For my design, you can see two videos at the original Imgur link at top of post, one where the Grabbit-1 functions normally (open by default, Voluntary Closed), and then another one where based on that prosthetic video above, I put a rubber band around the gripper, so that it would automatically be closed as its default, and actuating the little white knob (a cabinet handle repurposed) would make it open (e.g., Voluntary Open).

Now I get it after building it, which is what’s so valuable about doing these rudimentary exercises. Once I can feel how each thing functions in real space, and in comparison to my body, and to the finished art pieces that I produce with them, then I’m able to really fully absorb it, move onto the next, and eventually combine them all together in novel combinations (I haven’t even gotten to gears yet!).

Couple other things worth throwing in here at the end of this largely non-linear rant: there’s a type of arm in robotics referred to as the continuum or snake-arm which moves like a snake or robot trunk or tentacle.

Bear in mind, you can build one of these continuum robots like this which operates only mechanically, meaning no motors or electronics. It’s all just based on manipulating tension on cables. Here’s another one with less complex controller, and consequent less range of motion, but with wood parts:

I find all of this shit endlessly fascinating, and feel like this is such a healthy obsession to have and explore to its fullest as I continue building robots that can survive the coming Butlerian Jihad. Honestly, I’m having a lot more fun with this lately than with regular old boring generative AI. This all feels so much more basic and fundamental, and yet, speaks to many of the same questions in the end, but with the pieces on the board re-arranged in different configurations that throw new light – for me anyway – on the whole conflagration of issues around automation and extension technologies. A great deal more to say on that another day.

Also here is the very much obligatory Star Wars Luke’s robotic replacement hand video to end on:

Fish Carving with Dremel

By Tim B.

On 7 January 2025

In Other

I started this fish carving when I was 14, so some 31 years ago now. At the time, I lacked proper carving tools, so I wasn’t able to get too much dimension out of it… I should have taken a photo of it before I started the recent updates, but I didn’t. Here’s an in-progress shot of it today after going in with a Kutzall flame burr on my new Dremel tool, followed by a sanding barrel and carving knife. I have some other bits I will try out for more definition on it tomorrow, and then will probably just finish with some linseed oil as a sealer.

I also built a simple downdraft table for sanding, etc. which my shop vac plugs into to keep things clean(ish) during this process.

I’m excited to be able to get this level of detail, and imagine over time my technique will get a lot better. It will also be awesome to be able to combine more artistic carving with my wood robot & automata mechanisms. Stay tuned…

Ask An AI Guy: Handling Criticism & Pen Names As An AI-Assisted Writer

By Tim B.

On 6 January 2025

In Other

A reader sent me the following question, and gave me permission to post it and reply publicly here.

I found your Newsweek article from 2023, and it eventually led me here. I recently finished a 131,000-word manuscript using ChatGPT as a collaborator. While it’s not at a releasable quality yet, I’ve seen how AI can enhance creativity when paired with significant input.

I’m now breaking that manuscript into an into triloigy of 80,000-85,000 words for each book My process involves using AI to fill in smaller details while I focus on the larger creative elements. The result feels unique even compared to over 300 sci-fi books I’ve read.

I see a fair amount of backlash AI-generated work has.

Given your experience, I’d love your perspective:
• How do you handle criticism or backlash toward AI-assisted writing?
• Do you recommend addressing it directly, or letting the work speak for itself?
• Is using a pen name a good strategy, or does transparency have more value in this space?

AI is allowing me to channel creativity I wouldn’t have been able to do so otherwise. I have no idea where this will take me. Your thought would mean a lot as I continue this journey.

So I should preface this by saying I’m probably a very hard-headed person, or else the torrents of shame and hatred people have tried to rain down on me for doing what I am artistically would be maybe a bit too much to handle. Second, I also spent many years working in content moderation, and handling complaints for a platform. This habituated me to dealing with “anger at scale” and seeing philosophically but also very concretely how, no matter what happens in the world, and where you’re sitting in relation to it, there is no shortage of unhappy people who will come in and shit all over it. This is just what people do, and the world we live in. Everybody’s mad because everything sucks, and I’m obviously no different.

So I guess you could say I’ve had a lot of training and conditioning in dealing with this sort of vitriol. To the point where I pretty much don’t take any of it seriously anymore, and years ago gave up being the guy whose job is to try to somehow sort out and make sense of everyone else’s anger and frustrations. It’s just not my responsibility anymore – and it once was, so I know concretely and cleanly the difference, which might be harder to sort out if you’re new to this kind of extremely strong reaction what you’re describing is likely to engender.

So, more specifically, one concrete way I handle criticism is by not posting on social media accounts. If something of mine comes up on one of those networks, I might pop in as a guest and see what I can of the comments to understand what people are saying, and what their perspectives are, but I never try to engage people on those platforms, because it’s just not worth it. Angry people always feel they are right and justified in their anger. And they are emboldened when others do the same, so you can’t win in the places they congregate, imo. That’s why instead, I just write what I write here on my blog. Sometimes I respond to things I find elsewhere, but there are no comments here, so people can’t come here and dogpile me, and I am able to think in peace. People can, of course, follow links to email me directly. But I’ve never had a single person sit down to write me a thoughtful email that was angry or even a critique. Everyone who emails is curious and interested, so I take those kinds of communications to be much more important and valuable because they are person to person, and they are not social performance designed to enrage and attract likes.

I tend to address the criticisms directly when they seem interesting or spark a new way of thinking about these issues. And I agree there are issues with these technologies, a great many of them, and have spent a huge amount of time talking about them on my blog, in panel discussions, interviews, podcasts, etc. So yes, I think – for me, anyway – addressing them directly is important and necessary, and helps frame the conversation in better directions, even if these blog posts don’t garner likes on social media.

As to pen names, I think it depends on what your personal preferences and tolerances to criticism are. Because of my prior work handling complaints, moderating content, working in privacy/data protection, I didn’t put photos or video of myself online for years and years, and was extremely protective of my identity. Because I knew what kinds of horrible things people are capable of online. But then, eventually, I had the chance to talk about what I was doing, and if you want to play ball in the media, you have to use your face and your name, pretty much. Maybe there’s a way to get press anonymously or pseudonymously, but I think it be more difficult and greatly reduced compared to what I’ve been able to do by exposing myself and my person. I think also there’s something to be said for not being cowed, not being shamed or shouted down from the raging mobs, and simply being like, yeah, this is me, this is an art experiment I’m doing, etc. I’m not forcing anybody to like it, but I’m being true to my part of the dance, following my inspiration, battle testing the tools, finding the good and bad in all of it, and just sharing and being upfront about it.

That said, using another identity as a shield can be a very very good thing psychologically, and for other practical reasons. One benefit can be that it gives you a kind of mental distance – almost a ‘plausible deniability’ – for when the angry hordes come for you (and they will if you’re upfront about what you’re doing). This helps you to see that the people are reacting to the front you’re putting up about what you’re doing, and lets you get less hung up on reacting to like, oh they’re reacting to ME!! and they hate ME!! Like, okay, sure, they might “hate you” in the way that internet people hate everything, all the time, for any or no reason. But the people who complain most about my work haven’t read any of it, haven’t really read any of my articles or blog posts in any depth, haven’t listened meaningfully to my podcast or panel appearances, and haven’t actually engaged with anything I’m saying. They’re generally just reacting to a headline, and – dare I say – repeating popular talking points they heard elsewhere about why “AI bad” and how I’m just another example of ____[thing they already hate].

So, anyway, I don’t know if this is inspiring or even helpful or not, but it’s at least a true accounting of my experience. Your mileage, as ever, may vary.

Anyone else have any questions, feel free to email me, and assuming that’s okay with you, please provide permission to use the text of your email publicly. I will redact any personally identifying information from the text of your inquiry.

Cheers!

1978 War of the Worlds Musical

By Tim B.

On 5 January 2025

In Other

There’s a musical version of War of the Worlds from 1978 and nobody ever told me??? And it’s kind of awesome? Here’s the song I heard last night for the first time, am listening to the whole thing rn. Recommended.

If you like this genre, also check out Starmania, from Quebec, two years before in 1976. Happy New Year or whatever!

Quoting Jeff Koons On Not Using But Actually Using AI in Art

By Tim B.

On 2 January 2025

In Other

This article pretty much makes no sense, from the Guardian on Jeff Koons. First it quotes him as saying:

“I wouldn’t – for my own base work – be looking at AI to be developing my work.”

And then it turns around and quotes him saying exactly the opposite:

“I do not work with AI at this time directly other than to produce options. Here’s this table: could I see this table in a wood? And then, could I see this shape in, you know, a marble? I’d like to see it in reflected steel. Only in that scenario. I’ve been using AI as a tool, not as an agent.”

That’s… nonsense?

I don’t actually give much of a shit if Jeff Koons’ work isn’t physically made by him, but by employees and interns working on his behalf. I actually think that’s a historically coherent modality for productive workshops, which I went into a bit more here, and quoted someone from a random thread on Reddit:

To give you a wider explanation, artists worked as traders running workshops as a business. They would hire employees, assistants, and trainees, just like, say, modern plumbers.

So I’m personally fine with that, even if I think that Koons art is pretty much ugly and lifeless. I just think it’s a stupid claim to say you don’t use AI except for… all the times you do during the process.

Elephant Robotics Exoskeleton Controller

By Tim B.

On 1 January 2025

In Other

This is a couple years old, but seems very cool, from Elephant Robotics:

It’s a two-handed controller exoskeleton that can be paired with robotic arm elements. Watching this has got me thinking: couldn’t I make a low tech version of a wearable two-handed controller that works without any electronics? Like maybe something with some crazy configuration of pulleys, cords, rods, (syringe hydraulics?) etc… hooked up on the other end to a drawing mechanism that can execute the translated movements?