According to this article, the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has a team working on a "power assist robot suit" for agricultural workers. According to the article, they expect the suit to be in use by 2012.
--The Twisted One"If you wish to converse with me, define your terms."
--Voltaire
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."

--Voltaire

HI folks!
Pardon the gleeful cackling...I have some good news to impart.
I made it! WOOHOOO!!! ^_^
Today at 3:30 PM approximately, myself and three other folks from my karate class successfully completed the 1st-dan grading test, and are now officially 'Sho-Dan' black belts. ^_^
I think I'm going to go collapse now. XD
Later!
Bert V.V.
skyknight@sentex.net

Researchers create rideable walking robot. With video that looks almost too good to be true.

-- Bob
---------
I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life, and I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen and incessant quotations from Now We Are Six through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head. So theeeeeere....

...that I keep mentioning whenever I get an opportunity?
Well, if you missed the chance to get the first volume of manga and the tv series for not much more than what just a volume of manga usually costs...
You can read the first volume for free at CPM's website. Among other things. Unfortunately, the part I think is one of the most well done dramatic scenes in any manga ever is in volume 2, you won't be able to see it there...
(Now, I just wish I knew if CPM was still a live company that I could expect to get volume 5 translated someday...)
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)

y-fish.livejournal.com/106512.html
Really, really well done MV. And commented on by Joss himself. O_O
whedonesque.com/comments/15174

I've finished reading my copy of Oh My Goddess! First End. It has an intriguing premise - something goes terribly wrong and the only way to make it right again is to turn back time, but that isn't as easy to do as they think... I won't say anything more about the plot, since I expect many other folks here likely want to read the novel as well.
In many ways, it reads like a fanfic written by an Urd fangirl - there are quite a few references to events in the manga clumped together in the first few chapters, as if to show that the writer really does know the setting. But that's a minor annoyance. It's a good fanfic; the author's favourite character doesn't get all the good scenes. More than her share of them, yes, but not all of them. And Skuld doesn't get the mistreatment she often does in stories written by Urd fans.
(Of course, the novel was written by an Urd fangirl; Yumi Tohma is Urd's only Japanese voice actress, and it's obvious that she loves her character.)
Two characters I would have liked to have seen didn't appear, but there was no real way to include one of them and the absence of the other is necessary to the plot, so I shouldn't complain.
And the ending doesn't spell everything out - Tohma-san assumes you have a brain. I like that...
I'd recommend the book to any OMG fan.
-Rob Kelk
"Actually, my goal is to write neat stories. The money just makes it possible for me to write them faster and then buy neat toys."
Ryk E. Spoor, 7 November 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

... probably will look like this.
Whether it wants to or not.

-- Bob
---------
I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life, and I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen and incessant quotations from Now We Are Six through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head. So theeeeeere....

Because Amazon.com is now selling DRM-free MP3s from all four major labels -- see this article.
I'm not sure whether this is premature or not, but it does look hopeful.

-- Bob
---------
I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life, and I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen and incessant quotations from Now We Are Six through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head. So theeeeeere....

Would anyone on Justice redside be interested in a Booty Bay expedition, or the Tarikoss strike force, at some point? It's probably too early for most of our toons, but it'd be nice to plan it out.
My most open hours are Fridays and Saturdays, from 4 Pacific (7 Eastern).
--Sam
"If you're so evil... EAT THIS KITTEN!"

Hello,
I stopped by because I googled my author name and saw a few mentions in the other people's fanfiction section. I post under the name JBern, but that was already taken on ez-board, so I added ffa for fanficauthors (dot) net which is one of the sites I post at.
Interesting little corner of the world wide web you have here.
I write a good deal, which leaves me little time for actual reading these days and even less for anything resembling gaming whether it is online or the old fashioned rolling the dice variety. I might even have some of the GURPS stuff out in the garage - along with all the old Battletech and even some rare games that never really caught on. (Anyone recall something called The Morrow Project?)
When I'm not writing fanfics, I'm working on original material. I have 4 completed shorts stories and a half finished novel that I am coauthoring. The short stories have already begun collecting rejection letters, but I remain hopeful for my first real sale. Right now I'm waiting on rejection letters from Shroud Magazine and Analog, though you never know when lightning will strike and I'll catch that first break.
The novel already has a small independent publisher waiting on it. I hope to have the rough draft of the manuscript completed by end of February, revisions by April and publication in early to mid summer. Of course this slows down my fanfic writing, but it is a necessary trade off.
These days, a successful independent book sells a mere 5000 copies. Call me shameless, but hopefully by building up a large enough fanbase for my fan fics, I will easily eclipse that number before starting to market beyond a fan base.
For a better description of my original writing, it can be found here.
jbern.fanficauthors.net/i...hp?nid=187