Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!decwrl!csus.edu!netcomsv!seer!tomk
From: tomk@seer.gentoo.com (Tom Kunich)
Subject: Re: MIT Insect Robots
Message-ID: <1992Jun11.171227.9107@seer.gentoo.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1992 17:12:27 GMT
References: <1992Jun8.075950.12341@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Jun9.041637.10084@reed.edu>
Organization: Brad Lanam,  Walnut Creek, CA
Lines: 31

In article <1992Jun9.041637.10084@reed.edu> orpheus@reed.edu (P. Hawthorne) writes:
>
>  There are, as I am sure you would agree, other factors such as safety,
>ecology, pragmatism and so forth that should be considered as well.
>
Why do I have the idea that you think that the only reason we don't have
robots doing all of the work necessary is because there is a conspiracy
amoung 'them'?

>  One could argue that we never really had the idea of capital investment,
>and that the Yankee spirit of technical innovation arises largely from
>noticing that there are deals to be done, if only we had the tech. 

I'll sure say that this couldn't be a more opaque statement. I guess
you think that the large companies in this country that are now
completely crippled by taxation never made any capital acqusitions.
>
>  For instance, the American clipper ships were designed and built because
>the triangular trade routes were just waiting to be run, and everyone
>involved stood to gain. Rather than a detailed plan culminating in final
>achievement, merchant captains noticed opportunity and set to work.

Clipper Ships as such didn't appear until after the slave trade was 
eliminated. Please read the several books written by Chapelle.
>
>  Matsushita already does, and we already are. Motorola, a Matsushita limb,
>has put the 68HC11 on the drawing board for a fuzzy inference overhaul.
>
Can you suggest what super improvement fuzzy inference (which is
nothing more than rounding off) has over many other methods?

