April 13, 2006

"Something emotional in the relationship"...

... between a human being and her robot.

Posted by Ann Althouse at 8:36 PM
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5 comments:

chuck b. said...

I abhor the vacuum of a post with no comments.

I was disappointed to see the "robot" wasn't some kind new-fangled vibrator.

Art!

Feh!

I googled the artist, and I believe I'm making the first link ever to a
naked man from the Althouse comments.

Also, note MIT associate professor Wendy Jacob's delightful "Sqeeze Chase Lounge". I love it.

4/14/06, 11:51 PM
chuck b. said...

Looks like it is supposed to be Squeeze Chaise Lounge.

That makes two errors I found on MIT webpages.

"Oliver Sachs wrote about a woman named Temple Grandin, an animal scientist who is also autistic. Because of her condition, she can't tolerate the overstimulation of human touch, but she finds the sensation of tactile pressure reassuring. Grandin, who designs humane livestock handling facilities, noticed that animals were calmed when held firmly in the confinement of a "squeeze chute." So she designed her own personal squeeze machine to crawl into, with padded walls that close in and apply optimal pressure from shoulders to ankles."

I've read about this Temple Grandin woman before. By "lifestock handling facilities" they mean slaughterhouses.

4/14/06, 11:59 PM
Ann Althouse said...

Chuck, thanks for commenting.

I've read Temple Grandin's book "Thinking in Pictures." She is concerned with how animals feel (even as they are led to the slaughter) because of her own sense that she, as an autistic, feels the way an animal does. She feels calmed by squeezing, and she developed a squeezer device to hold cattle at the point when they receive the shock that destroys their consciousness.

4/15/06, 5:46 AM
Ann Althouse said...

If that quote about "Oliver Sachs" is from the MIT pages, that's another error. It's Oliver Sacks.

4/15/06, 5:47 AM
chuck b. said...

Yeah, I read that book too. I thought it was funny someone needed a euphemism for slaughterhouse. So sanitary!

4/15/06, 10:59 AM

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