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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

I wasn't aware that Spirit had been incommunicado for a full year. Yep, time to give it up. We got great value out of it.

I must resist the temptation to anthropomorphize it. No, I don't feel sad for the poor rover stuck in a cold sandtrap on another planet, cruelly abandoned after years of faithful service. I do not feel sorry for it. I know that it's no more alive than the computer on which I'm typing this, that it's just a few random bits of electronics and some electric motors.

And yet... sob

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http://xkcd.com/695/

We'll be back for ya, little guy ... it just may take a hundred or two earth years.

Well, it's solar panels look like bug wings, its stereo cameras certainly resemble two eyes, and it has arms on the front... of course it's going to be anthropomorphized.

Being that the rovers are both nice looking pieces of machinery and popular, I'm surprised they don't make more & better toys and models of them. I'd have a few sitting on my desk, if I could find any decent ones.

I'm excited for the Juno mission, launching in three months. In my opinion, it's the best-looking space probe that mankind has ever built. But it'll never be anthropomorphised.

No don't, Spirit hates being anthropomorphized. Robot pride and all that.

I cried while watching Wall-E.

>I must resist the temptation to anthropomorphize it

Why? What harm can it do? You don't have to give up or compromise any part of your prized identity as an rationalist and an empiricist in order to indulge your biological imperatives to relate with the world as the squishy meatbag that your are.

To deny your social instincts when you yourself admit that to do so does not come naturally is also irrational. Embrace your emotional drives and know thyself! We haven't hit the singularity yet ;)

EDIT: also calling it a rover wasn't a great help was it.

Well some people argue that a certain degree of anthropomophization of a piece of work actually increases the efficiency of an engineer, because he feels attached to his piece of work.

If it's any consolation, Spirit is now residing in Silicon Heaven, which is where all the calculators go when they die.

Mission overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_rover

http://spiritrover.livejournal.com/

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