Writings by Diane

In the past few weeks in the news there has been the saga of HitchBOT . It started as a social experiment to see how many people would pick up the hitchhiking portable robot and take it across the country. HitchBOT was a passenger all across Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands. The two professors and creators of HitchBOT decided to drop it off in Boston, MA and see how far it could go, its destination communicated through its screen was San Francisco, CA. Unfortunately, HitchBOT was not allowed to record the image of the Golden Gate Bridge. After two weeks, it made it to Philadelphia PA where it was torn apart and left in pieces on the street.   However, the story does not end there. A group of inventors named The Hacktory from Philadelphia saw this news story and did not want the conclusion to be that people only want to destroy things. They reached out to the Canadian inventors and offered to help repair HitchBOT.   Another item that has come about is PopeBot , built by a

Months ago, as I was driving, I happened to noticed that Canyon Hearing Aid Center was torn down to make way for more parking for the next door convenience store. For some reason, I felt sad about this new turn of events. I should have been accustomed to this type of change of landscape.  Being from Las Vegas NV, I had seen many hotel and casino buildings disappearing off the face of the earth. For instance, I remember watching on television the implosions of the Landmark and the Sands Hotels. Years ago, I had been a guest at the Landmark , which was a fanciful building, true to its name. I also visited the Sands ’ kitchen facilities  when I was attending UNLV .  It was somber to see history be turned into dust.  At least these implosions made way for construction of larger hotels, supplying jobs and eventually more tourists.   Maybe the reason I was saddened by this destruction of Canyon Hearing Aid Center was that someone lost his livelihood. This land was just being used as a