{"id":4140,"date":"2009-04-15T10:00:46","date_gmt":"2009-04-15T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=4140"},"modified":"2009-04-15T10:00:46","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T14:00:46","slug":"another-reason-to-love-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/another-reason-to-love-nyc\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Reason to Love NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Tweenbot and fans\/helpers\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/tweenbot_people_sm.jpg?resize=275%2C394&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"394\" \/><a title=\"Kacie Kinzer's Tweenbots home page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tweenbots.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tweenbots<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.<\/p>\n<p>Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>My favorite bit:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, &#8220;You can&#8217;t go that way, it&#8217;s toward the road.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I hope that guy&#8217;s having a great day. He earned it with that little bit of altruism. (Ditto Kacie Kinzer, creator of the Tweenbot experiment.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tweenbots. Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,95,17,37],"tags":[341,1148,1149,1150],"class_list":{"0":"post-4140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-science-medicine","8":"category-04_technology","9":"category-onlineworld","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-tweenbots","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-altruism","14":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-14M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4140"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4145,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions\/4145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}