Interview: Made of Meat, But with a Robotic Hand.
MK
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As always, listen to Andy’s 8tracks mix while you read!
SOTD: What is the weirdest thing about you?
ANDY: I can’t produce a good answer to that on the spot like this.
SOTD: A way of thinking perhaps?
ANDY: I think that there have been too many reports from folks with no reason to lie about supernatural activity for it to be completely false, and I think the only reason we aren’t finding out more about it is because we don’t have the right scientific tools yet, to even begin to understand it. I think eventually it will be understood, and exploited like any other scientific phenomenon. I’ve never heard that attitude from anyone at all.
SOTD: Yeah, most people either believe, or just, don’t at all.
ANDY: Yeah, they think it’s some kind of other world that can never be understood, and then there are the skeptics who think that’s ridiculous, and it is.
SOTD: What is the most major thing on your mind, an issue, or entertainment, anything you think everyone should think about?
ANDY: Can I do two things?
SOTD: The more the better!
ANDY: One of them is kind of a relaxation in expectations of features in products. I want to be able to go out and get a really stripped down car, new. And I can’t do that here. Part of the reason is safety standards, and those are nice to have. But it’s also because a whole lot of design goes into the seats and the interior that I might wish hadn’t happened. And that’s just one example, cars, there are lots of things like that. As far as entertainment, what’s neat that I wish more folks would look into, Die Antwoord. They’re all over the internets, boingboing posted about them. I want to download their albums but I’m having a hard time finding them. I also want to get a Die Antwoord t shirt but they’re not selling those.
SOTD: I guess you could make one.
ANDY: Yeah, but I want to wear it and know that I gave them money for it.
SOTD: What do you do to unwind/have fun?
ANDY: I used to go on really long walks, but then I had a foot injury a while back, so I can’t do that. Watch movies I guess. I still go on walks or ride a bike, or surf the net. Just random things. I cook sometimes too. It isn’t an intentional unwinding thing. If I have a lot of time I’ll make my cooking take that much time.
SOTD: What’s the last movie that you watched?
ANDY: I’m halfway through it, “Secretary.” I’ve been wanting to watch that for a long time because it’s “Secretary,” and the plot synopsis sounded *great* but every time I’d go to rent it, they’d never have any copies because people keep stealing it.
SOTD: Favorite saved by the bell character?
ANDY: I guess Screech
SOTD: What did you want to be when you grew up when you were a child.
ANDY:When I was in high school, about 15 or 16 I was really into an RPG called Cyberpunk, The idea of having cybernetic body parts, whether it be eyes, or an arm or a leg that are as good or better than nature.. it would require more maintenance obviously, was really awesome to me and I wasn’t too interested in the robotic aspect, I knew that would move along by itself. I wanted to be the guy who comes up with the neural interface that makes it possible to be able to experience touch, heat, cold, in addition to being able to get really fine motor control in that robotic hand. That I didn’t see a whole lot of fast development on. Robotics are shooting ahead, but not that. I went to a college to a place that actually had a pretty good biomedical engineering program. I didn’t understand that to do that was biomedical engineering, that was not biology, although biology would help. I didn’t want to be an engineer.
SOTD: So then you’re like “next”
ANDY: And that’s where I’ve been ever since. I’ve kind of figured it out. Engineering technician. It’s like the bridge between being a machinist and being an engineer. Pretty good money but half the math.
SOTD: I guess when the science programs aren’t designed to let you do what you want to do, the thing to do is sneakily do it in your mad scientist lab at home.
ANDY: Yeah! I recently found out about that. there’s sort of a.. I forget the word, just home biologists. Coming up with novel modifications for bacteria and home methods for doing lab work that would normally cost thousand s and thousands of dollars in equipment. Instead of buying a whole gel plate to run gels, to sort out DNA into size chunks these folks said “OK, take a bunch of drinking straws, cram them into a drinking glass, fill that up with your gel, let it set, take them out and put a 9 volt battery into each end that just runs it out, and you dunk it into hot water, push the thing out, you have this thing that cost you 99 cents.
SOTD: It’s really cool and really scary. you have people in their basement labs producing things that we don’t know about.
ANDY:Yeah. And the tough thing is, it’s the scary part that got latched on to. You hear about the guy who was doing some art? It wasn’t even really science… art. Incorporating biology and gene tweaking and that kind of thing. His wife died, of course he called the authorities, cops came in, San Francisco I think, Saw his equipment, freaked out, arrested him, so his wife just died and he spent weeks in jail charged with terrorism and what not.
SOTD: We’re in the future, and everyone is scared of it.
ANDY: I wish it were different. Also, I haven’t done any home biology. this is something I have a problem with. Being really interested in stuff, and finding it cool, and not actually doing it myself.
SOTD: Most ridiculous thing a stranger has ever said to you?
ANDY: Crossing the 405 bridge, on Burnside, this woman, about 5′10″ kind of thin, overcoat, like she could have just come from working in one of the towers downtown, good posture and everything, expensive haircut… She was having some kind of episode. she was just y’know gesturing and talking to me in like this derisive tone and making comments about some 70s author I’d never heard about, and she ended most of her statements with, “like your prostitute!” I’m with my friend John and I like, I just looked at him and gave him the “I want to find out more about this” kind of look. And so I started trying to ask her more questions about that, and she just got offended, like, “Oh, I expected that from you, like your prostitute!”
SOTD: Have you ever been in a physical altercation?
ANDY: It’s been a long time, Jr. High. We ended up on the same swimming team and we weren’t super good friends. We didn’t call each other or hang out on the weekends, but we got along just fine. A total of four punches, and we were waiting in the principal’s office afterward and he apologized to me. You get him away from being pressured by his friends and he was a nice guy.
SOTD: Ever make prank phone calls?
ANDY: Only a couple. Just calling up a hotel and trying to make a reservation and just inventing a visa number.
SOTD: Do you follow celebrity gossip?
ANDY: Yeah, it’s amusing. I don’t seek it out but I absorb it through osmosis.
SOTD: Favorite right now?
ANDY: I am fond of Lady Gaga, I’ve seen the…. just her and a keyboard playing Poker face in kind of a loungy jazzy pace. She’s talented.
SOTD: She’s crazy, talented and crazy some more.
ANDY: Hard working too. You hear that a lot. There’s an article in the tribune, one of her backup dancers is from Lake Oswego. They did a big interview with her, she was kind of intimidated by her. She worked harder than anyone.
SOTD: Where can someone find out more about you using nothing but the power of the internet?
ANDY: My Livejournal.
(MK’s note) there was a really good five minute chunk accidentally left off the end of this. look for it in the days coming!)
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