Dear punkers With all the latest government and crime bill and clipper bandwidth being spent I thought you might find this message, posted to PACS-L interesting. -CR Short sig: The Internet does not belong to us. We belong to the Internet. - from Chief Seattle's "Earth" quote ------- Forwarded Message Message-Id: <9408232357.AB16213@mail-in.worldlink.com> Date: Tue, 23 Aug 1994 18:42:47 CDT To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU> From: Jack Kessler <kessler@well.sf.ca.us> Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU> Sender: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU> Subject: Robot Wars! ("robot wars"?) ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- re: Robot Wars! ("robot wars"?) August 20, 1994 -- San Francisco Where else in the world could you assemble 1000 paying members of the general public for a day to watch little mostly - metal machines rip, tear, shred, ram, saw, and blow each other apart? In California, of course -- the land of the crazies -- and in San Francisco, where all the truly crazy ones are. (I am San Franciscan.) Nearly every combination computer - nerd - machine - geek - homicidal - maniac in the electronic world -- one hopes that there are no more than 1000 of them -- is assembled here in San Francisco's Fort Mason today to watch "The First Annual Robot Wars", a full day of competitive events in which these little creations, 1) "Escort" each other around a trap - filled arena, then, 2) "Face - off", duel with each other one on one, and, finally, 3) "melee", engage in free - for - all group destruction. And they -- all of them including the robots -- are communicating back and forth using the same electronic technologies which I've been using for looking up books in libraries. This is a very live show, featuring home - made robots built by high school students, Industrial Light & Magic wizards (ILM's Marc Thorpe is the event's" Creator and President), and even some elderly (in their 40s) engineers. The crowd is on bleachers, surrounding an arena equipped with great pinball - style paddles, net - like traps which descend upon the unwary contestants, and a great swinging cannon - ball which arcs high over nervous spectators' heads, occasionally slamming into an unwary little competitor. There is a "Madonna Bra" entry: "Zomo" -- made from a suspended stainless steel mixing bowl mounted on something like a little remote control racing car, emblazoned with slogans like "Kiss Me", and "Revenge", scrawled in pink lipstick. There is an entry by the guy who invented SimCity: "Julie - bot", complete with war - painted Barbie Doll head -- "The Barbie from Hell!", the crowd cried. "AndyRoid", a Charlie McCarthy - style ventriloquist's doll mounted on a kid's plastic BigWheel trike -- trailing a lethal Coke can on a string which it/he uses to ensnare and destroy opponents -- screams "child abuse! child abuse!" when it/he is hit, and, after the swinging cannonball strikes it directly in the head, "tylenol! tylenol!". There are contestants with names like "Spiny Norman", "SlowMo", "PainMower", "The Beetle", and "The Master": sort of a cybernetic TV wrestling list. There are some bright people at this thing. A few of them are the folks who brought us films like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Cobra, Ghost, Terminator 2, Forrest Gump, and Mask. There are some international folks, camcorders and flipphones are everywhere, I see some press luminaries and at least one tv station, and there are plenty of mysteriously - important - looking people. Talk about a 1990s event. Technology, brutality, war, metal. Fitting, I guess, that it takes place on the piers from which the US made war on Japan a half century ago. Somebody should tell me whether this is cruelty or catharsis -- there were plenty of "thumbs down" signals being given, received, and acted upon -- and how far a robot has to be taken before it becomes anthropomorphic? I was interested because there are a lot of Entertainment Industry types involved in this, and I am curious about current predictions that the Entertainment Industry is about to take over information networking. Anyone who thinks this technology is tame either, a) hasn't read William F. Gibson, or, b) has read him but doesn't believe it, or, c) wasn't at "Robot Wars". More can be found out about present and future Robot Wars, I'm told, via e - mail to: robotwars@aol.com. Jack Kessler kessler@well.sf.ca.us ------- End of Forwarded Message