Miscellaneous Linkage

Slate has a pretty good article about robotic's "Uncanny Valley" and the connection to games. In brief, there is a belief in robotics that when you try to get "too humanlike" there is a threshold where humans reject things that are REALLY close to human. So there is a point where your robot will be more accepted if it is less humanoid - enough so that we comfortably classify it as "robot" and not as "creepy human". So the Slate article posits that graphics are getting good enough that we are entering the Uncanny Valley. Not the first time that's been said, but an interesting read nonetheless.

Wired has a cool article about little jet-powered robots NASA is researching for possible use on the ISS.

UPDATE: I forgot this link, but it's a good one. I have no idea what the Japanese says, but these are some awesome bento boxes.
Lastly, I happen to have gotten my mitts on a gmail account invite, so you can email me at timothy.sanders@gmail.com So far it looks pretty cool - I like the conversational threading they do. With only like 3 emails in it I can't say much about the search yet. :-)