“Automata” is the plural. The singular is “automaton.”
Nope. “Automata” is the preferred term of art from kinetic sculpture builders to describe the singular instances of what they build.
Huh, so it is. Now I’m slightly less out of touch (and less likely to try to be an online pedant).
[quote=“doctorow, post:3, topic:70200, full:true”]
Nope. “Automata” is the preferred term of art from kinetic sculpture builders to describe the singular instances of what they build.
[/quote]That seems like a perverse misuse of a standard plural (what’s the plural of automata?), and google shows plenty of references to building automata or building an automaton. The guy who built this doesn’t seem to use the term at all.
That’s my reaction too. How was @benb suddenly enlightened on this point?
You mean builderses of sculptureses?
Lovely concept! I like how the body and boulder and legs all move well in unison. I feel if I ever tried to build something like that from scratch, the parts would be torn asunder in great fury, when the upper body tries to move behind the legs, or somesuch.
I like that he puts the plans for his stuff online, I always had problems trying to build the suggestions that lego would put only pictures of on the boxes of their kits.
Not that I’ve owned the requisite lego for 30 years but I’d love to have a go at getting the boulder to turn and adding some kind of individual hand pushing-motions, maybe linked to the same gear/interval as the legs.
What a revolting phenomena. What, exactly, is the criteria for changing this rule after all these centuries?
I like it but I really think he should be placed at an angle so he’s pushing it uphill.
Sometimes the pendula just swings that way.
It’s wonderful and maybe next time computationally derived people in hammocks who can perpetually read, nap, visit and share food?
That’s easy, now that we have freed up the other word: http://boingboing.net/2015/07/07/kickstarting-custom-cellular-a.html
Fabienne Serriere, a hacker and machine knitting enthusiast, is running a Kickstarter currently for provably unique mathematical scarves modeled off of cellular automaton and made of Merino wool.
I prefer ‘Automatey Thingy’ myself, but that’s more syllables, so I’m cool with any the variants.
(The English Language needs a lot more abuse, it takes itself far too seriously)
Whats the plural of sheep?
Sheeples
Also we need the stone of triumph. (Browser not playing ball have no picture see stone cutters).
Should of opened my eyes to see that.
You say automata, I say automahta…
