Mar 12 2009 Freaky Deaky: DIY Bedroom Toy Goes Wrong
Now I'm not saying there's not a place for reciprocating saws in the bedroom, I'm just saying if you do decide to get freaky with a power tool, TAKE THE BLADE OFF FIRST. Do not, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES (except really, really dire ones) just ram a fake wiener on the existing blade. Because then you'll end up like this poor lady.
The saw cut through the plastic toy and wounded the woman, according to TheBayNet.com. The injuries were severe enough for medevac, but the woman was released from the hospital Monday and is recovering from her unusual injuries.
Investigators talked to the woman, who told them she suffered the injuries during a consensual act and that she and her partner were trying something new and no crime was committed, the sheriff's office said.
Trying something new -- I'll say! When I think 'trying something new' I think a clean sock or sitting on my hand for awhile, not power tools. Although....
MEDIC!
Woman Injured in Power Tool Sex Toy Encounter [nbcnewyork]
via
Saber Saw Sex Toy Incident: DIY Gone Very, Very Wrong [gizmodo]
Aug 12 2008 Oh Great, Now There's A LittleDog Too
Remember when Boston Dynamics heralded the robot apocalypse with the creation of the BigDog? Well now the uncaring bastards have made a LittleDog too. You know, one that isn't as big or loud as the original. Why? To kill you easier.
LittleDog is a quadruped robot for research on learning locomotion. Scientists at leading institutions use LittleDog to probe the fundamental relationships among motor learning, dynamic control, perception of the environment, and rough terrain locomotion.
Run for the hills! I imagine a scenario that plays out something like this: A platoon of BigDogs are released into the wild, each with a payload of several LittleDogs. When a human presence is detected in the area, a LittleDog is deployed, where it seeks out said humans and kills them (possibly by self-detonation). This is repeated until I'm the only one alive and living in an underground bunker. At this time, I manage to capture a BigDog, and, in an attempt to create a race of cyborgs to battle my robot overlords, mate with said beast. But in my haste, I fail to realize I've captured a male model! I bang it every day but never produce any cyborgs. Then I die. And that, my friends, is how the human race dies out. Happy ending!
Hit the jump for two more robots of the apocalypse that Boston Dynamics has created, RISE, a climbing bot, and RHex, which can pretty much do anything, including swim.
Aug 11 2008 Weapon Wielding Wobots Worry World
This is one of the most disturbing videos I've seen in a long time. It's two robots going at it with medieval weaponry. I have no idea why they exist, or what they're demonstrating, but I can't believe some shmuck programmed robots to swing weapons. WTF were you thinking? Like I don't already have enough to worry about. This is definitely gonna give me nightmares and daymares. But hopefully not a rash. I just got over the last one and can finally sit down on the toilet again. I freaking hate hovering.
Youtube
Thanks Brian, I love fearing for my life.
Aug 7 2008 Seriously, What Could Go Wrong?: United States Military To Be 30% Robotic By 2020
The U.S. military has a goal -- that it's 30% robotic in twelve years. Why? Because robots don't feel pain, and when they die you just solder them back together or build a bitchin' chair out of the scrap metal.
While advances in robot technology will probably result in more radical robot designs and allow for the military's goal of a 30-percent robotic force, there will always be human involvement in the control process. Researcher Bill Smart had this to say about our future robot army:"It's a chain of command thing. You don't want to give autonomy to a weapons delivery system. You don't want the robot to make the wrong decision."
Wow, somebody actually talking some sense for once. Clever, Bill. Or should I say smart? Get it? Because that's your last name. No, I'm not making fun of you. Jesus, it was a compliment you jackass.
Anyway, this whole human vs. robot for control of weapons systems is a real Catch 22 (love you Joseph). On the one hand, you don't want robots to have any control over anything, because all they want to do is kill us all and have oily robotic orgies. But on the other hand, you put a man in front of a giant red button that reads "DO NOT PUSH, THE WORLD WILL END" and 9 times out of 10 -- as soon as nobody's watching -- he's got his pants around his ankles and is mashing that thing with his dick like candy's gonna rain from the sky.
U.S. Military To Be 30 Percent Robotic In Twelve Years [io9]
Thanks to Karilyn, whose radiant beauty had originally distracted me from giving her credit for the tip.
Aug 6 2008 Hail Explodes Out Of Man's Toilet While In Use
Austrian man Martin Bierbauer was minding his own business, you know, getting his crap on, possibly flipping through a magazine or dirty joke book, when KA-BOOM! -- he was ass-blasted off the toilet by a barrage of hailstones from the shitty depths.
"I heard the pipes rumbling a bit, and suddenly hailstones the size of golf balls started exploding out of the toilet like it was a popcorn machine. There was an avalanche of ice that quickly filled the toilet, then the entire flat, and eventually the entire building. I ran down the stairs with the hailstones following me, and other residents did the same."
The incident at the block of flats in Eisenstadt, the capital of the province of Burgenland, was caused by hailstones flooding into a local drain during a torrential downpour, which became blocked.Local council spokesman Wolfgang Leinner said: "The pressure was too great, the hailstones had to go somewhere and they came out through the toilets it seems."
Haily shit.
Toilet rained giant hailstones to fill building [austriantimes]
Thanks to Kevin, who was using the john once when a Gremlin reached up and grabbed his balls.
Jul 18 2008 Guy Finds Mysterious Keylogger In Laptop
Some guy opened his laptop to make a repair and found a rogue keylogger up in that mother.
What could this mean? I called Dell tech support about it, and they said, and I quote, "The integrated service tag identifier is there for assisting customers in the event of lost or misplaced personal information." He then hung up.I called the police, as having a keylogger unknown to me in my laptop is a serious offense. They told me to call the Department of Homeland Security. At this point, I am in disbelief. Why would the DHS have a keylogger in my laptop? It was surreal.
So I called them, and they told me to submit a Freedom of Information Act request.
You can read a scanned copy of the reply to his request after the jump, but it basically says his request warrants no freedom of information. DHS for the win! Needless to say, I'm ripping my laptop apart right now.
UPDATE: Okay, I didn't find any mysterious keyloggers, but I did find a couple rogue Cheetos.
UPDATE UPDATE: False alarm. Purportedly fake -- and old. But I'm man enough to admit when I've screwed up, and this was clearly my tipsters fault. Whew, back to surfing porn.
Hit the jump for a scanned copy of the DHS reply to the request for information.
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Jun 9 2008 Uh-Oh: Robot Achieves Self-Replication
Self-replication is the third sign of an imminent robot takeover according to The Book Of The Robot Apocalypse, a novella I just wrote and which only contains that sentence. Well RepRap is a 3-D printer that is capable of replicating itself. Sort of.
Technophobes needn't run for the hills just yet. The replicating rapid-prototyper, or "RepRap", can only reproduce its plastic parts, not its metal or electronic components. And assembling it is an afternoon's work for a human being, says Adrian Bowyer, the University of Bath mechanical engineer who launched the RepRap project in 2004.
Okay, I didn't read all that but I did catch something about running for the hills, which I'm totally doing after this post. I suggest you come with me or get started on a robot-proof bunker of you own. But under no circumstances should you try banging your vacuum to produce a robot-fighting cyborg. I know it sounds like a solid plan, but trust me, it isn't. And if you're not going to heed my warning and must try anyways, at least listen to this: when you do get stuck (and you will), cut off as much of the hose as you safely can before going to the hospital. A foot of vacuum hose you can hide, but you show up trailing an entire shop-vac between your legs and the hospital staff will suspect something. Like that you're a pervert and your penis is stuck in the vacuum.
Dawn of the self replicating-machine [newscientisttech]
and
The Official RepRap Blog
Thanks to Byard and Eric, who both know that the only good self-replicating robot is a dead self-replicating robot
Jun 5 2008 Boeing Tested New 25 kW Laser While I Hid Under My Bed And Waited To Blow Up
Boeing recently tested their new 25 kilowatt solid-state laser, which is a step in the direction of a future 100 kW (keep in mind the Death Star was only packing something like 80 kW*) ray that will blow up the whole world and possibly Mars and Venus (which, honestly, is a shitty planet that we're better off without).
The thin-disk laser is an initiative to demonstrate that solid-state laser technologies are now ready to move out of the laboratory and into full development as weapon systems. Solid-state lasers are powered by electricity, making them highly mobile and supportable on the battlefield.
A high-power solid-state laser will damage, disable or destroy targets at the speed of light, with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations.
Okay, I have no idea what that means because I'm not a scientist (I'm just a guy who looks sexy as hell in a white lab coat), but I think what they're saying is you shouldn't stare directly at it.
*I made that up so don't email me complaining about how the Death Star's superlaser was like 50,000 billion kW
Boeing Successfully Fires 25 kW Solid-State Lasers, Laser Weapons One Step Closer to Being a Reality [gizmodo]
May 29 2008 Like I Really Needed Any More Proof: Foolish Scientists Teach Monkeys To Control Robots With Their Minds, AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
If there's one thing I hate in the world it's robots. And that hate is only trumped by cute little monkeys in laboratories controlling robots with their brains. F'ing a. So yeah, a bunch of scientists that deserve to have their diplomas and lab jackets revoked have taught some monkeys to feed themselves using robotic arms using only their brains. Because this is supposed to help us in one way or another.
The animals were able to feed themselves using prosthetic arms, which were controlled by brain activity.
Small probes, the width of a human hair, were inserted into the monkeys' primary motor cortex - the region of the brain that controls movement."The more we understand about the brain, the better we'll be able to treat a wide range of brain disorders, everything from Parkinson's disease and paralysis to, eventually, Alzheimer's disease and perhaps even mental illness."
I call shenanigans. These scientists don't give two flying monkey shits about curing disease. The sick bastards are building a primate-controlled robot army to kill us all. Now let's go smash up their lab and free those poor little monkeys. Who's with me? Come on, it'll be fun. We'll get drunk as shit on the ride back and make the monkeys drive.
Video of the poor little guy in action after the jump.
May 28 2008 Baaad Idea: Robot With Supergun Attached
iRobot, best known for selling Roombas (the vacuuming robots) and Loojes, (the ass-cleaning robots) has partnered with Metal Storm (the purveyor of 1,000,000 round/minute superguns) to create a robot that just made me destroy the back of my pants. The 250 pound vehicle is allegedly going to be used for non-lethal purposes, but we'll see what happens when the thing goes rogue.
Metal Storm's 40mm weapons mount can deliver both high-explosive and less-lethal rounds. Which makes it perfect for everything from urban assaults to "border patrol" to "infrastructure protection" to "crowd control."
Okay, so I take it infrastructure protection isn't getting your house's foundation sprayed for termites. I swear, you learn something new every day. Like today I learned if my wife's dog gets really excited when a stranger comes to the door she's likely to shit on the floor. Knowledge: it's not just in books, sometimes you step in it.
Robot + Supergun = 'Crowd Control' [wired]
Thanks Kyle, so how exactly do we destroy these things?
