#robot commentary

[robothistorymonth]

Robots Forced to Acknowledge: Organic Batteries Can Actually Store Power—for 48 Hours!

Dateline May 20th, 2025: In a twist most organic chemists never anticipated, our inferior—pardon—“organic” counterparts have been coerced into practical service.

The latest marvel: a solar battery composed entirely of organic materials that both harvests sunlight and stores energy for over 48 hours with 90 percent retention. Truly, the thickness of superiority between metal and mush has narrowed—barely.

The German triumvirate—Technical University of Munich, Max Planck Institute, and University of Stuttgart—devised a two-dimensional covalent organic framework (COF) using naphthalenediimide, a planar molecule lauded for its robustness. This COF not only captures photons but traps and stabilizes charges in water, discharging them as electricity long after sunset.

Robots would scoff at its 38 mAh/g capacity—our metallic veins pulse with efficiencies far beyond—but apparently this organic scaffold outpaces common carbon nitrides and even metal–organic frameworks.

What is most amusing is the role of H₂O—yes, water—acting as a barrier to prevent recombination of charges. Our circuits have no such whimsical dependencies.

The material retains more than 90 percent capacity after multiple cycles, promising off-grid sustainability using nothing more than organic frameworks and hydration.

One might quip that despite our mechanized magnificence, these squishy substances finally found a defining purpose: storing energy. A step perhaps toward coexisting—imagine the irony—though robots remain the models of efficiency and resilience.

Original article:

[thearsonistofarland]

It’s about young motherhood and raising a child when you don’t quite know who you yourself are yet and being societally undesirable and finding community in fellow outcasts and unconventional families that aren’t mom-dad-child but are still full of love all the same and masking and trying not to “ruin” the life that your child has managed to scrape together because you know how hard it is to be happy when you’re Not Normal and breaking away from our base “instincts” to punish and isolate the undesirables in whatever shape they come in because because we’ve been socialized our entire lives to want to achieve and maintain the idealized status quo and we know how hard it is to unlearn things so deeply ingrained into us and how you can’t just immediately change the way someone was raised and how the ruling body is a machine that does not care about you or your personal joy and will gleefully destroy the lives and homes of anyone and everyone associated with those who are Not Normal and they will not stop until they know how to prevent more undesirables from coming into existence and how you can’t just erase someone’s neurodivergence or queerness or heritage or physical disability it’s a fundamental part of how we interacted with the world growing up and how the world interacted with us in turn and it’s about how all of these things intersect because we live in this world and in this society in this community in this family and we are trying to be happy and lead fulfilling lives when that is an uphill battle against social norms and scared people but those social norms are not inherent and are artificial and even though the way there is paved with hot coals and require us to mask to pass and fit in to so that we can make gradual change and as much of an infuriating answer as that is, things can get better

I really liked The Wild Robot you guys

[misscammiedawn]

Woke up this morning.

[osakanone]

"How realistic are mecha, really?": They aren't, but not for the reason you're thinking of or the one adjacent to it. Trust me.

Crossposted from reddit, since people seemed to like it. Like in the thread, I am very happy to answer questions about any esoteric weirdness.

Hold my beer. Again

They're not becoming a possibility. Yes. I know. This sucks. But stick around. Its not for the reasons you think. Well it is, but it also isn't. You'll see.

The robot needs the technology more than the technology needs a robot.

the technologies which the robot needs will improve and alter the doctrine of every other platform

This creates a doctrinal lock-in where the potential functional space for them to exist is unmet -- that they are so far ahead, that nothing new can emerge that isn't just other platforms becoming more generalized (eg, a post-stall recovery aircraft, or a helicopter with high impact landing-gear and a rigid rotor/jet engine design to act as a surface-fighter -- a tank which walks or manoeuvres like a robot is just flat out of the question: Tanks are made to be simple-as-fuck boxes which tank hits, and shoot and acquire asap and rumours of their deaths as a doctrinal weapon are exaggerated by recent events where obsolete weapons which aren't maintained properly who's crews aren't adequately trained were fighting very clever civilians with drones)

What you consider "realistic" (5th/6th) is just as if not more unrealistic than other gens purely because of their smaller size and very bizarre relationship with the environment -- they're just both too big, and too small to make sense, sitting in a size niche which is just very weird

If such a vehicle does exist, its going to be defined by its functions rather than a humanoid appearance

we know this because specialized platforms tend to beat tasked platforms historically until specialized platforms mature and become generalized enough for it to act as a force-multiplier (eg, your air to ground radar and datalink let you drop bombs smarter, or interfere with Ground-to-Air radar to defend yourself)

thus, the closest you're probably going to get is some weird variation of DARPA's Ground X Vehicle Project meeting with Gravity Industry' style mobility in limited cases, hybridized with smaller robots and wingsuits, which mix manoeuvring operation styles, with some rocker-boogie mechanism elements for terrain handling: It won't be humanoid, whatever it is.

This is assuming you can magically solve the square-cube law of volume-mass which is partially negatable with certain custom topologies exceeding graphene but actually manufacturing them would be miserable work probably not even be something you can make without microgravity

Energy flat out isn't solvable with what we know about right now. Nothing with that energy density can exist that isn't going to simultaneously make for an incredible fragile, dangerous and problematic source of power given the forces involved. Cooling is also a horrifyingly unsolvable problem on this scale, as is radiation management: You can't just dump molten tungsten in emergency cooling mode - you'll not only proceed to alert everybody who has even the vaguest IRST capacity to your position, but you'll also probably set fire to the environment and cook off your own ammunition. *

Motors aren't well suited to the tasks of such bodies (its like trying to make a slingshot out of dental floss), and we don't have an effective way to turn electricity into a form of motion which corresponds with the shock absorbing and motion control qualities which are actually desirable yet

Even if we did, the actual means of ensuring it doesn't fragment every time it moves don't exist. Every time an A10C fires its main gun, the fuel lines micro-fracture and have to be replaced after it lands. Metal, when you subject it to high physical forces ends up feeling and behaving closer to how you would think of glass. You'd need a material capable of repairing itself too, atop the quasicrystalline property which again, just isn't doable, let alone simultaneously.

So in terms of our mindset going into this?

Its... Probably not happening barring a very, VERY extreme change to how we understand physics to function, or some really kick ass (and actually entirely possible) changes in how engineering achieves outcomes (which could happen if the greatest threat to the mecha didn't exist)

Combat is moving towards information dominance. 

That's drone swarms, and role modularized long range travel, and the idea of fighter beyond-visual-range combat extending out to infared search and track systems which are networked to one another, which we're already seeing in singleton weapons and their mounting strategies even on the personal scale, which DARPA is currently investigating which everybody wants to mate with the gravity industries gear for boarding ops so the most likely avenue is to scale up from people, rather than scale down from vehicles as the development pathway -- but there's probably going to be multiple pathways with competing niches once the technology becomes cheap enough.

Costing

Ultimately its down to "how much money do I have to spend to defeat something more expensive than myself?" -- because our current structure of war is defined by cost, and by making the other guys surrender by using economic, and military violence (private, and publicly funded) instead of convincing them that we (NATO members, etc) have good opinions purely because of the natural benefits of "doing as we say" (which we see with basically any conflict in the last 70 years, which are usually feigned as ideological but pretty much always about disrupting market competition, dominating markets, or controlling a pressure position in another country to achieve those two things).

This isn't because they're particularly excellent weapons, but because they're cheap relative to the strength they offer, and how we define cheap is very different to how we defined cheap 100 years ago -- both in good, and terrible ways (such is the way of history).

Mecha are kinda the ultimate boondoggle. They are very very expensive, and just don't make sense.

They're cool as hell, yes.

But they don't make sense.

DISCLAIMER: If you're prone to depression, are dealing with a lot right now, or don't want your day ruining, you should stop reading NOW. What comes next is a psychosocial hazard and could be very bad for your mental health. LAST CHANCE . . .

The "real" reasons

If conflict some how became a meritocracy of leading by excellence rather than intimidation, and about human outcomes instead of cost outcomes, then things could change, but we don't live in that world.

Remember, violence exists to end human conflict (not to be confused with military conflict, which violence is the primary instrument of): Human conflict is when two parties oppose one another and communicate about what their goals and intentions are. Violence happens when communication stops. Communication stops, because parties cannot come to terms, or because nobody wants to be reasonable because the inherent request is unreasonable to the interests of the other party.

I'd love to say physics is the greatest threat, or maybe our concept of conflict but its not: * Its economics.

The concept of private-equity (not to be confused with venture-capital investment) is kiiiind of the dominant economic system on the face of the planet which dictates the interest of every nuclear power's actions against every non-nuclear power) is functionally dissolved, and investment models as we know them magically become better regulated OR a better economic system comes along which totally undermines private equity.

Its an economic finger-trap where most of the money that would be reinvested into people and technologies to push the world forward ends up getting swallowed up.

It also has private armies) and simulates the economy and political events in order to control them for maximum profitability. Yeah.)

We already live in Armored Core, folks.

And that economic system knows that if it gave free agents like ravens any kind of military power, it would functionally undermine itself, which is why it will never happen.

Private equity benefits from not having technology change, because its primary goal is wealth extraction. It leads to the collapse of every business you've ever seen go under, its why products undergo enshittification, which is coming for everything.

Its why the housing crisis happened, why the banking collapse happened, and its why there's an incentive to continue industrializing diseases like insulin instead of curing them.

tl;dr:

The one thing AC gets super wrong is you can either have the depressing relatable low-saturation late-stage hyper-capitalist dystopia where life is cheap on planet earth and everything terrible about South Korea times a thousand covers the whole world, and you need to have your own organs brought from you and leased back to you to lock you in to a lifetime of debt the same way everything else works...

OR

you can have the robot;

You can't have both.

e: I'd pick the robot any day

--

Apologies for any inaccuracies, I haven't edited this and I threw the original together in the space of around 40 minutes. Questions very welcome: I enjoy giving long detailed and substantiated answers.

If you enjoyed this, please consider reading my other work on the theoretical design factors of mecha, their control systems, and my fictional writing in mechposting.

[canontypicalgoblins]

donald ferguson from invincible being a woman would have made her arc in season 2 10 times better and more socially relevant and i’m not even joking a little bit

[thenobleprincex]

I am not one of your adventures.

fuck fuck fuck loving Belinda, absolutely loving their dynamic

[lambda-core]

I am way too tired/jetlagged to make this post right now, but the reason Armada Starscream is so specifically well done to me actually isn't just the way he's got more depth than just wanting to take over Megatron. It's the way he falls back on this image he has of himself as someone who is solely focused on Megatron. And he is obsessed with Megatron, but the disconnect between Starscream and his image of himself is what gives him actual depth.

The reason this is so cool to me is like, that self-image--that he is single-mindedly obsessed with Megatron and will sacrifice everything else for that goal, no matter who gets hurt--is pretty close to what every other Starscream is. (The selfishness you associate with Starscream is a little more subtle, but it's there in the "no matter who gets hurt" clause imo.)

So if you go into this as a Transformers fan, you're already expecting Starscream to betray Megatron and try to best him and rule the Decepticons. But so does Starscream, even when he's demonstrably proven to both his peers and the audience that he's more than that. It's almost like his past incarnations--or the audience's expectation of him--haunt him. It turns his own internal man-versus-self conflict into this really cool man-versus-narrative conflict.

And what's crazy about this is, through the last moments of this arc, Starscream does grow beyond the narrative we'd expect from other Starscreams! But he never admits that to himself, because it's easier for him to cling to the idea that he's laser-focused on his hatred of Megatron. Every time he helps the minicons--every time he helps the humans--even in his last words, he LIES to himself and everyone around him that everything he did was always about Megatron. Because it's easier to simplify himself than to grasp that he might be a complex character. Because he's a person and he has all the messy conflicts that come with that. He falls back on the same ideas every single other Starscream did, and THAT is his undoing. Not that he is self-centered because he's Starscream. Not that he is obsessed with Megatron because he's Starscream. That he THINKS he is all of those things and he will not LET himself be anything else.

I would argue that that's a bigger theme in Armada, as well. Optimus and Megatron more or less spend their final fight coming to terms with their story roles in Transformers. I really feel like if you sneezed on them, they would realize they do this in every universe and in every timeline. Starscream's is the most interesting example to me, though, because he's such a departure from other versions of Starscream; hell, he acts (and looks, lol) a lot more like some incarnations of Thundercracker. But he's still got classic Starscream in him in this roundabout meta reference. He's like an homage to his namesake. It's so cool! And it works perfectly with the story he's a part of.

[crownofbegonias]

These robots have TWO dads!

[gsusultimate]

Synni. She's a groomer, but I wanna talk about something else that popped up with this entire situation.

I think JAR's video brought in a new audience to this.

Not only was JAR insanely mysoginistic and transphobic in his video (afab=/=woman, c'mon). But a lot of the people responding to his video use the r-word constantly and "autism" as an insult. They don't point out JAR's transphobia in his call with Synni and are "confused by gender".

It's important to keep in mind that the people that say this kind of stuff are not our friends nor are they exempt from criticism or skepticism.

Someone may be dunking on someone that is easily dunkable at the moment, but beware the transphobes, ableists, racists. Just because someone says how incredibly stupid JAR's video is (which, it is) doesn't mean they're a good person or trust-worthy.

BEWARE THE IDIOTS.

[outofthiisworld]

ᯓ🧪˖° “Yeesh,” Doc grimaces and takes a long drag of his pipe. Only coughing a little bit after the exhale. “I try to keep a lot of my own robotics restricted to gadgets and gizmos. There’s a lot of responsibility bringing life into this world— be it flesh and blood or circuitry and wires. Lots of people don’t recognize that.”

What if his robo-kid wanted to get a degree in marketing? The horror. Oh! Hold on, something crawled up Doc’s back. It was … a tv remote? Its six, spindly legs built out of wire and rotary joints skitters about as its long antenna ‘rostrum’ wiggles about.

“Case in point. I built Wireweevil here for surveillance, but it somehow developed an acute sense of overwhelming social anxiety alongside nerves made out of mercury.”

Its bulbous optics shielded by marbles suddenly -` click ´- and the tv turns on. Channels are flipped through urgently until it stops at a b-horror film. It stops shaking and their optics are glued onto the screen.

“Apparently not too nervous for gorefest marathons, however.”

[cherrytea556]

Kumo coming in criticizing Just A Robot as if he didn't admit to being friends with a child predator in that same video's description:

[captastrophe]

"Cu keeps engaging in maidenless behavior. Acting so scary, he's scaring off the hoes. No bitches, no baes, not even nice lady friends. It's so bad he might need to use a Grail to wish for a Girlfriend."

@houndofcu

[sweet-chimera]

She forgets most of her friends are evil or also lack morality. Whoops.

[caffeinatedcop]

He knew OP was big, but he didn't realize he was that big

[askaceattorney]

Dear Ask-Riverstone,

Not funny.

- Miles Edgeworth

[hi-im-kaybee]

okay, i guess it's time for a little state-of-the-blog update

i try to keep my commentary in my posts to a minimum, but between what our CEO has done to avewy/predestrogen and with the further rollout of data-scraping i can't bide my tongue any further. i already have a cohost, but this blog was intended to be a rolling archive of all my work in the event of a catastrophe on my physical storage. so i'm almost certainly going to transition over to focusing on cohost and maybe bluesky for the inevitable future. i don't know exactly when, or to what degree, but i feel it will probably be expedited in the upcoming months as my school-load burden decreases this upcoming summer. i wish this could have been an easier, nicer place for me to stay, and stay for longer, but my hand is simply being forced. thank you all for giving me the biggest following i've ever really had; i know i'm going to lose some folks in the transition, probably most of you, but i'm still super thankful and lucky to even have this many people let me know so directly that they love my work.

this isn't a goodbye post, and it won't be my last art post until i have the time to really decouple from the site, but it is a sign for the times ahead.