Automata On The March

OldSchool writes "The Morris Museum (NJ) was recently awarded The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of 700 historic mechanical musical instruments and automata (mechanical figures). The extraordinary collection represents one of the most significant of its kind in the world. There's pictures, demos, and animation of these devices at the museum website."

The Most Toys

[f4llenang3l]

You just know that the museum director has gone mad and is currently hatching a diabolical scheme to get Data in that collection, too...

At Long Last!

[stupidninja]

My Formal Languages and Automata Theory class is finally going to be useful!

Re:um, yeah

[Trurl's Machine]

To begin with, to help all fellow nerds to understand that terms such as "cybernetics", "algorithm" or even "program" are not directly related to microchip-based modern computers. The term cyber- is often foolishly interpreted as "something computerlike" (especially in media buzzwords such as cyberporn or cyberbusiness) while it comes from ancient Greek (kybernetikos) and means actually "steering". I think it's good for any nerd worth its name to abstract sometimes from modern computer hardware and think of the whole theory of steering and algorithms in its pure form.

By the way: since pornography comes also from ancient Greek and means "depiction of a whore", cyberporn literally could be translated to "steering whore". Hmmmmm...

Re:um, yeah

[rts008]

"steering whore" Sounds like what I need for my bassboat! Oh yeah, and a "cooler Ho" to fetch me berrs! Hmmmm...*wakes up from daydream*

But...

[LostCauz]

It's in Jersey...

Re:But...

[databyss]

kinda... New Jersey is where the garbage from NY goes on vacation in the summer.

Re:But...

[Politburo]

It's okay. We don't want you here anyway. Same with the mod that marked this 'insightful'.

Re:But...

[rts008]

Wow! First time I've seen cultural center and New Jersey in the same sentence, and not joking! I guess some people really are that easy to please! Go figure.

Re:Oh No!

[rooijan]

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but flautist [reference.com] is a perfectly good synonym for flutist [reference.com].

Seriously though, a music playing ring does seem pretty bling-bling. An ancient cow-herders song is unlikely to impress the ladies though...

queue the NDFA jokes

[wwest4]

I wonderd if they have the skeleton of that little person [angelfire.com] they used in that automagic chess "machine?"

Obviously Incomplete...

[PornMaster]

It's got to be incomplete without an animatronic bear playing banjo and singing, "It's a small world after all."

Mechanical Toys...

[MosesJones]

Sounds like the DoD procurement department.

Automata?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm assuming they're finite state, otherwise that would make for a rather surreal museum experience.

Re:Automata?

[OblongPlatypus]

I hope they're not deterministic though, that would make for a boring museum experience.

Award?

[SlayerofGods]

Don't you have to win a reward?
Sounds more like they were just willed this stuff to show case.

I've seen some of this on display

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

In Ironforge, near Tinker Town. They have a mechaniod museum there with some interesting exhibits. I stopped in there before making another linen run - man I've been playing too much WoW since it came out last week...

Thats how it starts

[Timesprout]

Sept 27 2007 the little drummer boy becomes self aware

Re:Thats how it starts

[kabocox]

Sept 27 2007 the little drummer boy becomes self aware

Not to worry, all little drummer boys are defenseless, cute and not self ware by definition. IF they do gain self awarness, the first thing that they do is complain to their mom about how much of a dork that they look in the little drummer outfit. Instead of seeking the destruction of man kind, the self ware drummer boy well be seeking more stylish clothes.

York Museum of Automata

[makomk]

York in England used to have a museum of automata which I went to once, the York Museum of Automata, but it closed down - back in 1996, apparently. I wonder what happened to its collection - there were some impressive pieces...

Boing Boing

[Forthan Red]

This was posted 2 days ago on Boing Boing [boingboing.net].

Hmm

[HarveyBirdman]

The fine folks over at realdoll.com need to take a gander at this place.

Get moving, boys. We're wating for our sexbots.

Am I the only one...

[halivar]

...that looked at the title and thought "Cool! An interview with Hopcroft and Ullman."

Then I click and see the doll dusting the picture, and I go mad Cthluthlu-style.

Very amazing

[segmond]

Whever I look at those automatons, I can't help but think robotics and programming. The drums encoded the music and all. I wondered how much this inspired automata theory in computer science... I wonder if learning about automatons and watch making will give one an edge in robotics making today.

V.I.K.I. Calling

[Nom du Keyboard]

mechanical musical instruments and automata

And on the next USR download, they will take over the world!

Whereas today, they use computers,...

[Eternally optimistic]

hey, some of this compares favourably to what the music industry wants us to buy

Where is Vicki?

[samberdoo]

I wonder if they have all those wind-up and battery powered toys that were popular in the 50's and 60's. Go Robbie!

Ah, Automata . . .

[Badgerman]

As a geek, I always found the Automata fascinating, even from my youngest days. It was the science, it was the art, and it was the sheer ambition and talent that it took to create these things that amazed me. Art that moves and acts, science in motion.

I'm glad to see this and hope I can visit it. It's always good to understand one's technical past.

I wonder if there will be a museum of programming some day? Will there be ancient systems running Half-Life? Will people marvel that a PS2 could "do all that when it was so prmitive", etc. Will we, crotchey old geeks, go there and reminisce?

Re:

[account_deleted]

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Re:Holy crap

[taradfong]

Did you expect them to describe it as a "Lame, depressing, uninteresting place you'd never want to bother visiting unless you live ~5 minutes away" ?

Seriously, though, Morristown is great! I used to always go to the Calaloo(sp?) cafe, and you had a killer record store in the center of town.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Arts and Metiers in Paris has a couple of rooms

[HWheel]

The Musee des Arts and Metiers in Paris (France!) has a couple of rooms of automata. They show the objects and have movies of them working.
http://www.paris.org/Musees/Arts.Metiers /info.html

see also

[duckHole]

DeBence Antique Music World [debencemusicworld.com] has some great stuff along the same lines... and an antique website to match.

Gibson Neuromancer Connection

[taradfong]

Did anyone else wonder if they'd have an extremely elaborate mechanical head that would somehow explain the Neuromancer story?

interesting...

[torrents]

next time i'm in nj i'll (nevermind).... atlantic city wins again.