A faux-taxidermy hydra with three heads, designed as an amphibious creature in the 18th century "curiosity cabinet" style. To the right you can see a concept drawing — to view the work in progress, come visit the project page [coming soon].

In an effort to overthink the whole enterprise, I'm treating this as a second effort to fool the (long dead) "Prince of Botanists", Carl Linnaeus, who traveled to Hamburg in 1735 to view a hydra specimen. He saw through the fake easily, as it was cobbled together from common European animals. Surely, we could do better than that.

Someday I'll have real descriptions, links, and other info here, but that day is not today.

Shown above: three shots of a model pigeon (for a future calm robotics project) sewn from interfacing, and a picture of the author drawing a robot mural on the wall for the Recurse Center in Brooklyn, NY.

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Calm robotics is the concept of robotics without constant, self-interested surveillance and endless uncertainty about what “belongs” to you and what that means. It’s the idea of having autonomous, environment-aware computers in your space without having to choose between anxiety and apathy. [Read more...]