California inventor Matt McMullen, who makes the world’s most realistic life-sized female doll, the RealDoll (with exquisite skin texture and facial and body architecture, and which sells for $5,000 to $10,000, depending on customization), is working with engineers experienced in robotics to add animation to his creation — but according to a June New York Times report, he faces a built-in problem. As a pioneer Japanese robotics developer observed, robots that become too humanlike tend to disgust rather than satisfy. Hence, the more lifelike McMullen makes his RealDolls, the more likely the customer is to be creeped out rather than turned on — perhaps forcing the virtuoso McMullen to leave enough imperfection to reassure the customer that it’s just a doll.
Cultural diversity
• A low-caste minor girl was beaten up by several higher-caste women in the village of Ganeshpura, India, in June in retaliation for the girl’s having disrespected a male relative of the women — by allowing her shadow to partially cover the man. The girl’s family managed to get to a police station to file charges, but in some remote villages like Ganeshpura, higher-caste aggressors can intimidate the victims into silence and in this case, allegedly threatened to kill the girl and members of her family for the shadow-casting.
• Yunessan Spa House in Hakone, Japan, recently began offering guests supposedly soothing, skin-conditioning baths — of ramen noodles (elevating to health status what might be Japan’s national dish). The pork broth that fills the tub is genuine, but because of health department regulations, only synthetic noodles can be used, and it is not clear that the artificial ramen achieves the same (allegedly) beautifying collagen levels as actual noodles.
Sounds like a joke
In May, police in Anglesey, North Wales, called for a hostage negotiator to help with two suspects, aged 21 and 27, wanted for a series of relatively minor crimes and who were holed up on the roof of a building. However, the building was a one-story community center, and the men — whose feet were dangling over a gutter about 8 feet off the ground — had refused to come down. Even as a crowd gathered to watch, the men managed to hold out for 90 minutes before being talked down.
Florida!
Because the walkway in front of a Publix supermarket in Fort Lauderdale had seen its share of Girl Scout cookie sellers, Patrick Lanier apparently thought the venue a natural for his product. On June 4, he plopped down a live, 5-foot-long shark he had just captured, and which he hectored shoppers to buy, asking $100 (and occasionally tossing buckets of water on it to keep it shimmering). He had less success than the cookie-peddlers, and in short order loaded it back into his truck, took it to an inlet and released it. However, he did avoid the police; it is illegal to sell fish without a commercial license.
Least competent criminals
Marijuana is purported to make some heavy users paranoid, and the January arrest of alleged Bozeman, Montana, dealers Leland Ayala-Doliente, 21, and Craig Holland, 22, may have been a case in point. Passersby had reported the two men pacing along the side of Golden Beauty Drive in Rexburg, Idaho, and, when approached by a car, would throw their hands up until the vehicle passed. When police finally arrived, one suspect shouted: “We give up. We know we’re surrounded. The drugs (20 pounds of marijuana) are (over there).” According to the Idaho Falls Post Register, they were not surrounded, nor had they been followed by undercover officers — as the men claimed.
