All Watched Over By Machines of Juggling Grace

October 19, 2022 7:35 AM

Juggling ROBOT or NOT??? [via the Ironic Sans substack, which also mentions Dipert, Moschen, Kennedy and more]
posted by chavenet (7 comments total)

Just here to give props for this outstanding post title, noice!

(Also, the video went in a totally different direction than I thought, and actually makes good points.)
posted by LooseFilter at 7:44 AM on October 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

I liked this video more than I expected - but I find it interesting that his taxonomy's terminology varies what the entity is, not what it does. That is to say, they are all Juggling _______ with nouns from "apparatus" to "robot" filling in the blank, rather than saying they're all machines, and varying in their description what they do. While in fact, what they do is the main factor that is being described! To a certain extent, this implies that the degree to which an entity can juggle is fundamental to who or what they even are! Which, for professional jugglers, may reasonably be one lens through which they sometimes see the world!
posted by aubilenon at 8:14 AM on October 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Given this detailed taxonomy, I wonder where I would fit in to it. I know I’m incapable of juggling, no movement is a repetition of a previous movement, the start and stop occur simultaneously, and a human, myself, is required.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:20 AM on October 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Google Patents > juggling device.

(No videos, alas.)
posted by cenoxo at 9:37 AM on October 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

There's no mention of juggling without mentioning juggling otters.
posted by cenoxo at 12:49 PM on October 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Boston Dynamics robot unintentionally juggles box (YT).
posted by cenoxo at 1:08 PM on October 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

Cute otters aren’t the only jugglers in the animal kingdom. The International Jugglers’ Association article Animal Juggling Acts, Sept 15, 2012 mentions juggling on or by (not of) horses, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, cows, monkeys, dogs, bears, and chimpanzees.
posted by cenoxo at 5:14 AM on October 22, 2022