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Wearable Muscles

ethz.ch

61–70 of 71 posts

Re: Wearable Muscles

#61
Huh, I also have Bethlem myopathy. Interesting to see it show up in the wild.

I’ve always suspected building a mech suit for myself was in my future - nice to see that I’m not the only one who had that idea.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also impressed everytime I lift weights and think about how close the muscles attach to the joint providing very little leverage. On a side note - this is why chimps f.x. are so strong - their muscles attach further from the joints and by that provide more leverage.

> chimps f.x. Just a small note, that abbreviation seems extremely rare to me. You might have better readability by saying "e.g." which means the same thing, or just writing it out. It took me a while to figure out whether you were referring some body part belonging to chimps or something

Depends on where in the world you hail from originally. I have also seek "fks" to mean the same thing. More common with non-native English speakers.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chimps f.x. Just a small note, that abbreviation seems extremely rare to me. You might have better readability by saying "e.g." which means the same thing, or just writing it out. It took me a while to figure out whether you were referring some body part belonging to chimps or something

seriously? I speak internally while writing and "for example" feels more fluent than "exempli gratia". that's why I prefer fx. I'm not a native speaker, though

I wish I could write or speak another language anywhere close to as well as you do English.

You're right! I certainly don't think of the words "exempli gratia" -- I literally think the letters "e g" as a mental shorthand for "for example". I often find myself writing "e.g." first, and then expanding it to "for example" when re-reading what I wrote.

Sorry. English is weird. "f.x." seems like it should be a preferable abbreviation for "for example", but it just isn't idiomatic. I figured out that was what you meant when reading it, but it definitely stood out in much the same level of wrongness as seeing code that isn't formatted correctly or that uses a non-idiomatic way of doing things (list comprehensions in Python).

Re: Wearable Muscles

#64
post #8

My immediate thought was: We could use those to power wings and fly! You see, I spent the last weeks reading up on Otto Lilienthal. And while we might think that we have already "cracked" flying, we actually haven't. Humans still cannot fly. We can only board. What we do not have achieved is the sense of "flying like a bird", which Lilienthal was after. The idea that you control your movements through the air directl…

Although technically it is gliding, but to me wingsuits look close enough to flying that adding the mechanism for flapping doesn't really increase the experience of flying by much. (Spoken from a point of view of a spectator and not someone who has done some form of flight besides in airliners.)

Re: Wearable Muscles

#65
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been massive struggles taken on by individuals and small teams to create ornithopters that can carry people. A solely human powered ornithopter was able to stay airborne for 19 seconds - using a mediatory lever to transfer push/pull leg power into wing motions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM9GJ3JOJv0 Then there is, of course, the story of the skycycle, which is rotational. https://www.nytimes.com/1979/…

Cool video. I wish they would have used an electric car for the camera man. As it is, the car's engine noise tremendously distracts from the grace of the ornithopter. To fly like a bird, you probably need more motion control over the wings than just "up and down". I believe birds can angle their wings, they can curve them, and they can sense differences in air speed and air pressure across the wing's surface. That's…

The video was taken about 10 years ago, I doubt an electric vehicle would have been a viable option. As it is today, one that can go that fast is pretty expensive right? It's a massive weakness to the 'thopter that it can't do an independent take off and landing.

Yes, I think you're right. The pilot for the skycycle was blown like a kilometer off course by a strong gust of wind and almost wanted to give up. If he'd had the level of control you talk about, he'd probably have been able to keep going the direction he wanted to in spite of the wind.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#66
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool video. I wish they would have used an electric car for the camera man. As it is, the car's engine noise tremendously distracts from the grace of the ornithopter. To fly like a bird, you probably need more motion control over the wings than just "up and down". I believe birds can angle their wings, they can curve them, and they can sense differences in air speed and air pressure across the wing's surface. That's…

The video was taken about 10 years ago, I doubt an electric vehicle would have been a viable option. As it is today, one that can go that fast is pretty expensive right? It's a massive weakness to the 'thopter that it can't do an independent take off and landing. Yes, I think you're right. The pilot for the skycycle was blown like a kilometer off course by a strong gust of wind and almost wanted to give up. If he'd h…

I’m sorry, I hadn’t seen that the video was 10 years old. Totally valid point. As of today, renting a Tesla for a day or two is easy and doesn’t cost that much either. The bigger problem is that you’ll want to own one afterwards, and feel silly in any other car.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#67
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seriously? I speak internally while writing and "for example" feels more fluent than "exempli gratia". that's why I prefer fx. I'm not a native speaker, though

I wish I could write or speak another language anywhere close to as well as you do English. You're right! I certainly don't think of the words "exempli gratia" -- I literally think the letters "e g" as a mental shorthand for "for example". I often find myself writing "e.g." first, and then expanding it to "for example" when re-reading what I wrote. Sorry. English is weird. "f.x." seems like it should be a preferable…

I always thought e.g. meant "example given"; there's also "i.e." which I presumed meant "in example".

anyway, "for example" takes two seconds to type (if that), if abbreviations cause confusion (in general, in any situation, especially professionally), avoid them.

Anyway I'll brb, I got an I&A meeting for our SAFe procedure, gotta get our CI's and DoD in order and make sure we execute LCM properly. No I don't know what any of these abbreviations mean, but this is the situation we find ourselves in, lmao

Re: Wearable Muscles

#68
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't fly by flapping wings like birds but we can certainly glide like raptor birds by para- or hand-gliding

Very true. But imagine you could strap on such the wings of a glider along with artificial muscles that map to, say, your arms and hands. You could take off and fly and land like a bird. No need for a cliff or runway or anything. You'd also be as silent as an eagle circling above the tree tops.

would be nice indeed !

Re: Wearable Muscles

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chimps f.x. Just a small note, that abbreviation seems extremely rare to me. You might have better readability by saying "e.g." which means the same thing, or just writing it out. It took me a while to figure out whether you were referring some body part belonging to chimps or something

seriously? I speak internally while writing and "for example" feels more fluent than "exempli gratia". that's why I prefer fx. I'm not a native speaker, though

FWIW the abbreviations listed in Wiktionary are f.e. and f.ex.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chimps f.x. Just a small note, that abbreviation seems extremely rare to me. You might have better readability by saying "e.g." which means the same thing, or just writing it out. It took me a while to figure out whether you were referring some body part belonging to chimps or something

seriously? I speak internally while writing and "for example" feels more fluent than "exempli gratia". that's why I prefer fx. I'm not a native speaker, though

If you know what e.g. stands for, you don't need to expand it. Native speakers just say "e.g.", as in, "ee gee". If you don't know what "fx" stands for then how would you expand it? It's not a common abbreviation at all
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