Episode 167 – Robotic Physics

  Michael and Michael start this episode with big robots.  As in extra huge robots.  Like Mecha-sized robots.  The articulation of the robot Jeff Bezos piloted was reminiscent of the one that the character Eileen Ripley piloted in the Aliens movies (see video above).  Michael R was also reminded of the NASA Valkyrie robot, and it’s mission to go to Mars ahead of humans to set up the environment for human habitation.  Walking on two legs, and being roughly human-sized, the form factor is well suited to ensuring that the habitat structure such robots would build would be on the … Continue reading

Episode 116 – Monster Bash

This week we are especially delighted to have two special guests on the show, Eric Mertens from Galois, Inc.  and Aaron Camerata from voidALPHA to share their insight and experience on the Verigames project with DARPA over that past couple of years. Aaron does a fantastic job explaining how playing the game Monster Proof helps improve code quality by players playing the game in his recent blog post “Games…for Science!”  http://voidalpha.com/blog/ce6a4/monster-proof—how-it-works . The concept here is pretty simple — can crowdsourced players playing a game perform formal verification / code testing faster and more cost-effectively than testers following the traditional development … Continue reading

Episode 58 – Zombies vs Mummies

Porter Stowell joins Phaedra and Michael M for a rockin’ good time across a broad set of topics for this week’s show. Phaedra shares her stories from the Serious Play Conference in Seattle earlier this week, highlighting how Ross Smith has created a building with personality to interact with the people who enter and use it. We playfully riff off of the idea that a water fountain may say “glad to be of service” and how other aspects of the building personality may interact with people, and how municipalities could interact with citizens, rewarding them for taking action to help maintain … Continue reading