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April 6, 2005
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEPHANIE! Megan says the same!
Well, we all had a great barbecue at Brad and Margot's with all the trimmings and then came the ritual of birthday cake and presents! Steph was 11yrs. old this year---how time flies! Steph is growing like a weed, but one really pretty weed!!
I'll post some more pictures when I figure out where my photo gallery is! Guin left me an instruction sheet, but we didn't have time to practice it! I've also got some more photos to scan for my blog.
It's nice and warm today--around 15--roll on Spring!!
Here's some interesting tech news from Japan.The 2005 Aichi Expo opened in March and will run to
September. At the gates you will encounter a reception robot which looks like a Japanese woman, but which is clearly not human. Name Actroid, she, or it, is capable of understanding naturally spoken words, and can carry on a conversation with a guest in Chinese, Korean, English or Japanese. Other robots roam the site including those used for cleaning, security and transportation. But one of the most well-programmed and useful are PaPeRo child care robots. These amazing machines have a face recognition function that enables it to recognize a child's face and respond to facial expression changes. It is able to discern the speech patterns of different children and has a mobile phone link for staying in contact with the parents. It also reads stories, sings songs and organizes games--incredible!!
One more techie info. --Toyota Partner Robots which are humanoid in design, and will show off some of their talents by playing together in a jazz band. Ultimately though, the partner robots are to be used in assisting, especially the elderly at home and in hospitals, offices and factories.
Japan's famous Bullet Train reaches speed of 250 k/hr on raised tracks. It travels slowly while within the city limits of Tokyo but then speeds up when it's out in the country. There is a digital readout of its sped as it goes along. We travelled on it in 1983 from Tokyo to Nagoya Meals are served on the train in the form of either Western or Japanes style--you just point to the menu--there is a picture of the food! I tried a Japanese lunch which included sushi, noodles, etc. I asked our server for some milk and she said," Mirouk? Izor Hah!" Translate as milk--iced or hot!! It was funny but at least I got my milk!
In an article about sound producers they wrote about some interesting sources of getting sound effects for movies and video games.
To duplicate the sound of robot bees, one researcher finally hummed through a kazoo and ran an electric beard trimmer across the surface of his bath--voila! Robot bees!
To simulate a cock fight, the stock sound effects were all benign birds, the two stood around a microphone making angry clucking noises and later electronicallly altered--scraping the ground to fake talon noises and flicking towels to simulate the sound of wings!
One very interesting effect was produced for CSI Miami, they needed the sound of a bullet passing through human tissue. He recorded squirting a bowl of Jello with water, his own flapping cheeks and, to get the sound of a bullet striking home, Breaking lengths of rotting wood!
I'll bet that some of you Junior Bloggers would like to think about reating your own special sound effects!
Well, it's time for supper, so have a good day everyone!
Guin phoned yesterday and they are in Toronto at Allen's parents house -after the trip from Hell with the U-Haul! Guin and Allen will be doing posts about it soon
Love Mom, Grandma, Carol, Cas etc..xoxoxoxoxo and hugs to all!!
Posted by Cas at April 6, 2005 5:00 PM
Comments
Good blog post mom! Nice picture of Stephanie and Megan! They don't even have jackets on! I love spring. 
Posted by: Guinevere at April 6, 2005 6:02 PM
Hi Mom! It was a great birthday party for Stephanie! Also very special, that we were able to barbeque and eat outside! We missed Guin and Allen!
Posted by: Margot at April 7, 2005 7:45 PM