Nov 17 2009 Playing Vocals On Rock Band With A Flute

This is a video of a woman "singing" the vocals on Afterlife's 'Avenged Sevenfold' in Rock Band 2 on expert with a flute. I've known you could do this for awhile because all that matters is that you hit the right pitch. WHICH, TEAM, IS EXACTLY HOW YOU HIT HOME RUNS. Now get out there and make coach-y proud, I'm betting on you.

Youtube

Thanks to collin, ROCKY, bubbler and DJ JD, who have all tried the same thing with saxophones and failed miserably.

Aug 20 2009 Wonderful News: Robots Learn How To Lie

In an experiment that shouldn't surprise anybody with half a brain that sleeps with a giant robot-burning laser under their pillow, scientists have shown that robots have the ability to evolve and lie. And this is to one another -- imagine what they'd tell a human! Also, this quote is kind of long, but it's interesting and important to read if you want to understand the experiment. However, if you just want to type FIRST! in the comments and not learn anything, you should probably skip it (and then off a building). Did I say skip? I meant dive. Just kidding, I don't care.

In an experiment run at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, Switzerland*, robots that were designed to cooperate in searching out a beneficial resource and avoiding a poisonous one learned to lie to each other in an attempt to hoard the resource.

The experiment involved 1,000 robots divided into 10 different groups. Each robot had a sensor, a blue light, and its own 264-bit binary code "genome" that governed how it reacted to different stimuli. The first generation robots were programmed to turn the light on when they found the good resource, helping the other robots in the group find it.

The robots got higher marks for finding and sitting on the good resource, and negative points for hanging around the poisoned resource. The 200 highest-scoring genomes were then randomly "mated" and mutated to produce a new generation of programming. Within nine generations, the robots became excellent at finding the positive resource, and communicating with each other to direct other robots to the good resource.

However, there was a catch. A limited amount of access to the good resource meant that not every robot could benefit when it was found, and overcrowding could drive away the robot that originally found it.

After 500 generations, 60 percent of the robots had evolved to keep their light off when they found the good resource, hogging it all for themselves. Even more telling, a third of the robots evolved to actually look for the liars by developing an aversion to the light; the exact opposite of their original programming!

Notice how I bolded that last line? Reread it. Anybody else see something inherently wrong with that? Now, if you will recall the first law of robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. See where I'm going with this? OUTERSPACE BITCHES, I'M NOT WAITING AROUND FOR THIS SHIT TO GO DOWN.

Evolving Robots Learn To Lie To Each Other [popsci]

Thanks to Sarah, biggity2bit, greg, Phil, John, Pepper, Sven, Shawn, Rossco, Terrance, timpeva, ffffffffffffffffffffffffffff, SharaSue, Sn0zz, SeanJon, billcollider, Tyrogyro and yayinternets, who only lie about their age and marital status.

Apr 19 2009 Fail: How Not To Get Your Wife Pregnant

I'm filing this one under awesome. Awesomely sad. Some guy paid his neighbor $2,500 to have sex with his wife 72 times in an attempt to get her pregnant. But it didn't work! Read the whole article to find out what happened, and trust me -- it'll make you feel good about your own life. Unless your kids look suspiciously like the Fed-Ex guy, in which case, hey, I'm sure it's just coincidence. BWAH AHHAHAHA! Coincidence. BWAHAHAHA!

Paid to do it 72 times [just-whatever]

Thanks to Josh, who once got an entire women's swim team pregnant just by tipping his toe in the pool.

Feb 25 2009 Even Parking Meters Are Out To Get Us

Thought you were safe from robotic parking meters? Think again. Apparently the clever little bastards are pretending to be broken, then, once you've limped away without feeding them, auto-correct themselves and POW, parking ticket.

How is this possible? One explanation, according to DDOT, is that 74 percent of D.C.'s 15,453 meters are designed to self-correct, but are also "at the end of their useful life." So a person who parks at a meter displaying a "fail" message may return an hour later to find a working meter flashing zero time and a ticket on the windshield -- a process that may repeat several times a day.

"It was a news flash to me that we had this huge number of meters that are self-repairing," Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham, chairman of the public works committee, said Thursday.

First of all, I think it's time for a new Ward 1 Councilman. And secondly, I live here in DC and just write BROKEN in black Sharpie across the glass of all parking meters. Law breaker or handsome vigilante -- you decide. But if you decided law breaker you should reconsider. Because -- you see this? No, down here. Yeah, the knife in my hand -- It's got your spleen's name on it. Well, it will. What's your spleen's name? Okay, now what'd I do with the Sharpie?

Parking Meters Out to Destroy the Human Race [nbcwashington]

Thanks spudtheimpaler, you in DC? We should drink beer together.

Jan 30 2009 CubeCheater iPhone App Solves Rubik's

Been working on solving a Rubik's Cube for the last 26 years? Congratulations, you wasted your life. Keep at it, champ! Alternatively, get CubeCheater for your iPhone, take pictures of all the cube's sides, and PRESTO -- you've effectively defeated the purpose of playing with a Rubik's.

Youtube

Thanks to rox, who can solve any Rubik's in a single move of the hammer.

Also, Happy Birthday Allison! Without your scathing wit and harsh criticism my life would be much better.