Apparently Jack Dempsey was his generation's Chuck Norris, who, as we know, doesn't read books but stares them down until he gets the information that he wants. Here he is in a 1934 Modern Mechanix article boasting how he can "whip any mechanical robot":
Of course, I still think it would hurt like hell to try to punch steel, regardless of how good a boxer you are.
More like this
Okay, I finally got to watch the NCBCPS press conference on their bible curriculum and it's even funnier than I imagined. You can download or stream the video by clicking here, but the video is very long, about 125 meg. I actually downloaded it. If you have broadband and a half hour to kill, I…
I think I'm going to be sick...
I am glad I studied the bible in school... although it was in the context of literature (we also read the Koran, etc.) This is a bit different. Chuck Norris is the spokesman for a religious organization with shady goals. It seems that they are saying one thing…
My friend Razib, who is one of my
fellow ScienceBloggers sent me
href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/cityofbrass/2009/01/is-evolution-sufficient.html">a
link to an interest attempt by creationist at arguing why evolution can't
possibly work.
I say interesting, because it's at least a little bit…
We've got another chittering weasel of a creationist raving in the comments, a fellow going by the name YesYouNeedJesus. He's also sending me email.
PZ, I first heard about you on Bob Enyart's radio show about the fact that you turned down an offer to debate Bob. I must say that my first impression…
Keep in mind Chuck Norris facts were all the rage in 2005 and that he's used that limelight to show to the world he's a creationist fundie.
Who cares? I found this amusing; so I posted it. ;-)
Y'know a boxing robot would be a great project for the DARPA challenge!!
Other than the problem of getting a robot that could do image-processing fast enough, it wouldn't be hard to make it able to deal out a pretty good uppercut. I'm imagining a computer-controlled back-hoe would be nothing you'd want to tangle with!
Well it was the 30's where the height of electronics was the vacuum tube, and the height of robotics was Elektro. The difficulty of a fight would have been along the lines of beating up C-3PO.
Send him up against even a modern industrial robot and not only would the robot punch through his defences, but probably his chest, the referee behind him, and a fair portion of the rings floor. And as for a Terminator endo-skeleton...well make sure you bring a wet-vac for the end of round 1.
I do notice though he had an out clause though- "....the average clever boxer, facing a robot constructed with two or three vulnerable points...".
Nah, he was the Will Smith of the 30s . . .
(I hated that movie... )
I'd like to see him battle one of the Army's MULES.
http://www.army.mil/fcs/mule.html
he'd lose, even against the unarmed versions.
Jack Dempsey may have been willing to fight a robot, but like most heavyweight champions of his era he wouldn't fight a black man and was able get away with refusing black challengers Jack Johnson was only had the opportunity to become champion because Tommy Burns (the lightest and shortest heavyweight champion), a Canadian was willing and eager to fight any challenger. Burns even fought 2 challengers in one day.
Burns has been largely overlooked by boxing historians of the his time because he allowed a black man to become champion.
"Other than the problem of getting a robot that could do image-processing fast enough"
It probably wouldn't be too hard to code something to look for the nostrils or pupils. We use a video eyetracker which is made to track pupils, but will occasionally lock onto the nostrils - like the pupil, the nostril is an elliptical region of flat black in a brighter background.
If you can find the nostrils or pupils, then you know where the face is, and you at least know where to punch. I doubt a human could effectively block a powerful mechanical punch.
On the Chuck Norris vein,
A bunch of users created Chuck Norris style put-downs about cryptographer Bruce Schneier
(ex: "NP pretends to be P when Bruce is nearby.", "Bruce Schneier once decrypted a box of AlphaBits" "When Bruce Schneier does modulo arithmetic, there are no remainders. Ever." "Paul Erdos only has a Schneier number of 2."
The website (which has some problems)
http://geekz.co.uk/schneierfacts/
Users posted their favorits:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/bruce_schneier.html