Hard Drives and Artificial Skin (Paul's Thoughts)

I'm new here so if there is already a thread about this then tell me.

I'll break this post down into two parts so it won't be confusing.


First Topic: Why Dorothy can't possibly be using a hard drive. (I mean for permanent storage, not the head band drive.)

Dorothy can't be running of a hard drive cus there are several points in the series where if she did, it would have been corrupted several times over. Hard Drives use small magnetic charges on a spinning disk platter to store data which means that every time she got stuck to a magnet averything on the hard disk would be messed up. Secondly, the read/ write head on a hard drive floats less then a millimeter off the disk surface so any sudden movement when the disk is operating would cause it to collide with the disk and corrupt the data. Also, Hard drives have a very dismal archival life (5 years average i think). Instead, I have reason to beleive she actually runs off a advanced version of flash drive technology. Contrary to common belief, flash drives can hold just as much as hard drives. The only problem with flash drives is that they cost several times more per gigabyte then hard drives do(1 gig of flash drive costs about as much as 160gigs of hard drive) but i think when she was built cost was not an object.


Second Topic: Artificial skin.

Dorothy's skin can indeed be soft like a humans but still have the properties of hardness under certain conditions. This idea occurred to me when I was fiddling with a practice golfball. The practice golfball had a soft surface with hard metal core about the size of a ball bearing. I found that if the force acting on it were strong or sudden enough, then the soft foam surface would take on some of the properties of the metal underneath allowing it to sound like a regular golf ball despite the fact it was 70% soft foam. Dorothy's skin can also act like this, taking on the properties of metal whenever it is acted on by a sudden force. Actually human skin can also have these properties but I wouldn't suggest trying it because the result is often painful and gives you a bruise.


So what do you guys think?

Bye the way, in case you are wondering, these particular practice golf balls were "shortflytes"(I think that's how you spell it). I purchased them at my local driving range so I could practice golf in my backyard.

quote:

Originally posted by paul1290 Second Topic: Artificial skin. Dorothy's skin can indeed be soft like a humans but still have the properties of hardness under certain conditions. This idea occurred to me when I was fiddling with a practice golfball. The practice golfball had a soft surface with hard metal core about the size of a ball bearing. I found that if the force acting on it were strong or sudden enough, then the soft foam surface would take on some of the properties of the metal underneath allowing it to sound like a regular golf ball despite the fact it was 70% soft foam. Dorothy's skin can also act like this, taking on the properties of metal whenever it is acted on by a sudden force. Actually human skin can also have these properties but I wouldn't suggest trying it because the result is often painful and gives you a bruise.

That's some excellent thinking there, Paul. I've just got a few questions:

1. Is there any evidence from the series that specifically tells that Dorothy's skin is soft? I can't recall any particular scene that does.

2. What exactly do you mean by "take the properties of metal"? Just in hardness/rigidness, or additional properties as well? How such a proposed skin would function would also depend on what Dorothy is made of (not all metals would respond the same). It seems to me that the outer part of Dorothy seems to be made of some advanced ceramic material (though some significant part of her has to be metal, as magnetics do attract her).

Ok TanookiJoe I'll answer your questions.

1. Well actually it's really a texture thing because if Roger thought she was human at first glance then her skin would have to have the same texture as human skin. Now it is possible to make a metal surface that looks like a soft texture, but that requires manipulating it's structure at a molecular level, a technology that I doubt that Timothy had memories of or would be able to get the materials for. Also that brings up another point, if her skin was hard how does she move without obvious joints.

2. I ment surface hardness and rigidness. And it can't be ceramic because the material would have to stretch in order to allow her to move.

quote:

Originally posted by paul1290 Ok TanookiJoe I'll answer your questions. 1. Well actually it's really a texture thing because if Roger thought she was human at first glance then her skin would have to have the same texture as human skin. Now it is possible to make a metal surface that looks like a soft texture, but that requires manipulating it's structure at a molecular level, a technology that I doubt that Timothy had memories of or would be able to get the materials for. Also that brings up another point, if her skin was hard how does she move without obvious joints.

Good points. Though I think it would be easier to create the illusion of visual texture than you maintain. Tactile texture would be nearly impossible to fake though.

quote:

2. I ment surface hardness and rigidness. And it can't be ceramic because the material would have to stretch in order to allow her to move.

Hmm. Could it be that the artifical skin is actually rather thin and so would feel soft to the touch, but would allow her to use the hardness of her underlying structure if necessary? Dorothy, after all, has very slight build. She looks about the same as the unfinished robot in Wayneright's lab, only that robot lacked skin and seemed to have no metal (as the robot was not attacted to the Magnet whereas Dorothy was). The robot in the lab seemed to be made out of ceramic material, that would have lain directly under the skin if she had been finished.

Good thinking though, Paul.

There is also the "uncanny valley" that Timothy would have to avoid. The uncanny valley is a rule that states that as you get closer and closer to imitating a human, there is a point at which the result will be perceived by the human mind as unhumanlike and threatening. This principal is also the reason why the zombies from horror movies are scary.

If Timothy made Dorothy's skin out of a hard ceramic or metallic material, he would have risked plunging her into that valley, making her seem highly unnatural.


Oh ya, it seems that there is a way to observe those properties in human skin without giving yourself a major hurting. Just tap your knuckles on a table. I can't beleive I didn't think of that earlier!


Many people don't know this but human skin does not completely reflect light, light actually passes through skin a short distance before being reflected. The human brain is really good at detecting this small refraction of light, that's why you can't dress up the surface of somthing to imitate the look of human skin that easily, there has to be an entire layer of material imitating skin in order for it to work. That's why you can see veins on the back or your hand through your skin.

It occurred to me just now that Dorothy's skeleton is probably identical to a human's exept it's made of metal. It the episode called "Hydra" (i forgot the number), when she goes to Roger after the battle, you can clearly see the outlines of her shoulder blades on her back.

maybe her skin was artificially grown skin (like stem cell or w/e) over a metal, like in the Terminator.

quote:

Originally posted by paul1290 There is also the "uncanny valley" that Timothy would have to avoid. The uncanny valley is a rule that states that as you get closer and closer to imitating a human, there is a point at which the result will be perceived by the human mind as unhumanlike and threatening. This principal is also the reason why the zombies from horror movies are scary.

Actually, now that you mention that, R. Dorothy might actually lie within that valley. Like you said, the closer to humans a thing gets, the more unhumanlike they are percieved; therefore, if people found out Dorothy was a robot, her high level of versimilitude to a human would freak them out even more.

(This is akin to the way people see R. Daneel in Asimov's Robot stories, another human-replica robot. The writers seem to have been aware of this, seeing as they adopted Asimov's convention of putting R. in front of an android's name to distinguish them from humans.)

Of course, the people of Paradigm City do not react the same way we would to androids. The do not seem bothered by them. To them, androids would have always existed and would not seem unnatural.

And good point about the semitrasparency of skin. That's why computer-generated people never seem quite real, as this quality is very hard to replicate.

Paul has come back to check on this thread and finds it...
...unusually empty?
Darn! I knew I should have put Dorothy in the title of this thread,then all the dorothy fans would post here!


Come to think of it, Tanooki is right, she is kind of inhuman in terms of personality. However, my reference to the uncanny valley was based entirely on appearance. Good point though. Her personality might actually halfway up the other side of the valley, very very close to human but not quite natural. That actually brings up another point, has anyone noticed that other androids like instro tend to show more emotion then Dorothy, I think that's rather odd.

As for Captain Maw, that may be a possibility, however I don't think so because that would mean she would need some sort of blood or a substitute for blood in order to keep the skin alive, and she wasn't bleeding when Alan shot her. Possible yes, but unlikely.

Awesome I really like these ideas! ^_^"" I love how you put so much thought and detail into it! Thats awesome! Keep up the most excellent work! ^_^"

-Beth