Oct 23 2009 Man Pleads Guilty In La-Z-Boy DWI Case

62-year old Dennis Anderson of Bumfunk, Minnesota was arrested last year for drunkenly driving his motorized La-Z-Boy into a parked car. Anderson's blood alcohol content was 0.29, which is impressive for a sexagenarian, but if mine falls below that I start to feel sick.

Anderson's customized vehicle, seen in the police evidence photos on the following pages, is powered by an eight horsepower Kohler lawnmower engine, and has a stereo, headlights, a built-in cup holder, and a "Hell Yeah It's Fast" bumper sticker. The ride, however, does not have a seat belt. Anderson, pictured above, controlled the La-Z-Boy via a steering wheel protruding from its seat cushion. The vehicle's headrest was adorned with the logo of the National Hot Rod Association. Following his guilty plea, Anderson was sentenced to 180 days in jail and ordered to pay a $2000 fine. A judge stayed Anderson's jail term in lieu of his successful completion of a two-year supervised probation term.

First of all, I can't believe it doesn't have a pop-out leg rest. And secondly, I can't believe it doesn't have a built in cooler. Where the hell was Anderson getting all the beers? And don't tell me a beer tree because I'mma rent a backhoe and uproot that tree. I wanna know where the beer at. I want the beer. Gimme the beer -- I want the beer.

Man Pleads To La-Z-Boy DWI [smoking gun]

Thanks to Closet Nerd, Occasional Reader, Kevin, B-Rad and Lord Tarl, who would have been smart enough to kick up the leg rest (because they would have built theirs with leg rests) and nap it off.

Jul 10 2009 Robot Teaches Itself To Smile, Next: Targeting

The fools at the University of California, San Diego have created a robot that can learn new facial expressions on it's own. Next, its gonna learn how to drive itself to the shooting range.

To begin teaching the robot, the researchers stuck Einstein in front of a mirror and instructed the robot to "body babble" by contorting its face into random positions. A video camera connected to facial recognition software gave the robot feedback: When it made a movement that resembled a "real" expression, it received a reward signal.

"It's an iterative process," said facial recognition expert Marian Bartlett, a co-author of the study. "It starts out completely random and then gets feedback. Next time the robot picks an expression, there's a bias towards putting the motors in the right configuration."

Now I'm no terrorist, BUT IF I WAS, Machine Perception Laboratory, just sayin'.

Robot Teaches Itself to Smile [wired]

Thanks to Dirk, Dennie and RealLifeFup, who asked it to smile for the camera and then shot it because it wasn't really a camera, it was a gun.

Jun 11 2009 Tell Me How This Is Okay: Robots With Guns

May 12 2009 Not For The Faint: Robots Beating The Ever Living Hell Out Of Crash Test Dummies

This is some really disturbing footage from the German Aerospace Center's Institute of Robotics and Mechtronics (soon be known as a pile of rubble. Minions -- attack!) showing robots beating the ever living hell out of crash test dummies. FOR FUN. WHILE SOME SICKOS LAUGH IN THE BACKGROUND. Allegedly the experiments were conducted in an attempt to help make robots safer, but guess what -- THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A SAFE ROBOT. Just sayin', my roommate lost three toes to a Roomba and can now only walk in circles.

Robots crash into dummies, identify human weaknesses [engadget]

Thanks to billcollider, Chase is First, Barry, Nelson and Wout, who have each taken out like 40 robots and even dated a few long term. You guys make me sick.

May 6 2009 Just What We Need: Robots On Facebook

That's right folks, Facebook, long considered one of humanity's last strongholds, is being breached by robots. Warning: under no circumstances should you accept a robot's friend request. And don't let them fool you with Superpokes and Virtual Drinks, THEY SHOULD BE CONSIDERED METALIZED AND DANGEROUS.

Researchers are giving a robot its own Facebook profile page to help foster meaningful relationships with people. The page will be populated with interactions the robot has with people as well as photos of the time it spends in human company.

Its creators hope that embedding it in a social web will give rise to a sustainable friendship can grow up between man and machine.

Umm, how about NO THANKS. Now how in the hell are we supposed to tell friend from robotic foe? I swear, if I catch that robobastard trying to infiltrate the Geekologie Fan page, it is GAME OVER AND LIGHTS OUT. Then lights back on while I find my stuffed dinosaur. THEN LIGHTS OUT AGAIN AND A BUNCH OF GROANING AND RAWR!

Robot to create Facebook profile [bbcnews]

Thanks to ffffffffffffffffff, Aaron, Bilal, Gareth, Kim and Dylan "Free Sex!", who should totally take the 'What Disney Princess Are You' quiz that I just did. I'm Belle!

Apr 23 2009 Scary: A Childhood Photo From The Future

This is a childhood photo FROM THE FUTURE. Don't ask me how I got it, but suffice it to say I got some wires crossed when I was building my time machine (read: I showed up in 2120 with a trash bag full of dinosaur-sized condoms). Anyway, I brought this back to show you how not cool the future is. You want your kids growing up with robot pals? No, no you don't. And if you do, well, *ffffubt*. Oh that? Nothing -- just a little contraceptive blowdart.

Hit the jump for a worthwhile picture of some African robots.

Continue Reading " Scary: A Childhood Photo From The Future "

Apr 21 2009 Boston Dynamics: Possibly My Biggest Enemy

Boston Dynamics, purveyor of such hellhounds of the robot apocalypse as BigDog, LittleDog, and BullDog, are back at it, this time at the opposite end of the spectrum: robotic bugs called Squishbots.

SquishBot is a program to develop a new class of soft, shape-changing robot. The goal is to design systems that can transform themselves from hard to soft and from soft to hard, upon command. Another goal is to create systems that change their critical dimensions by large amounts, as much as 10x. Such robots will be like soft animals that can squeeze themselves through small openings and into tight places.

Okay, I want to see a show of hands of who's cool with a robotic centipede burrowing in their ass. Now, everyone look around the room. You see the people with their hands raised? Perverts. The worst kind too: roboboners.

Terrifying robot image of the day: Boston Dynamics' SquishBot [bbgadgets]

Thanks to Greg, who once found a robotic silverfish trying to climb into his ear at night so it could read his mind. Thankfully, Greg huffs Raid and had a can by the bed.