Fear the Future

As if the Blues Brothers problem listed below wasn't enough, now there is another reason to hate the world. We now have the capability to identify almost anyone in a matter of seconds, simply by taking their picture.

A CMU research team led by associate professor Alessandro Acquisti took candid photos of 93 random students on campus using a $35 webcam. Within seconds the researchers were able to determine the identities of a third of their photogenic guinea pigs, using off-the-shelf facial recognition software from PittPatt, a software company recently acquired by Google, and publicly available profile photos from Facebook. The researchers had an even higher rate of success using the same technology to identify more than 100,000 Pittsburgh singles with otherwise pseudonymous accounts on a dating site, adding yet more complexity to the world of online dating.

You know what?  The end can't come fast enough for me.  You hear that?  Start operation omega anytime now, brother, I'll be ready, god dammit.

You want to know what's wrong with the world?

This.  This is what's wrong with the world. This is the one god damned thing that if they fixed it, the world would no longer be a shit heap.  If people would learn to fucking leave shit alone already, the world would be a place I could like.

But no. Everything has to be perfected.  Everything has to be improved on, fucking endlessly.  There is never anything good enough, no matter how awesome, or how much better than anything that followed or preceded it.  Some shit head has to go and make it accessible.

If the series is picked up each episode would feature a new song from the Blues Brothers Band.
Anne Beatts described it: "It would be 'Route 66' meets 'Glee,' and it all goes to hell in a handbasket."

HA, MOTHERFUCKING HA!  This is sure to be some awesome madcap adventure!  Full of hi-jinks and lessons for the family and please die already.  You stupid shits.  Dan Akroyd, I can kind of forgive for this (but not really, he should die...). He's an aspie, and probably broke as fuck. The rest of the team, presumably not out of work since the early 90's, can go eat a dick.

As an exercise for the reader, I will leave this, and ask you to figure out how it ties in with my theory of why the world sucks ass.

Mental Health Fit Test (follow up)

So late last week was my mental health check up to make sure I am safe to carry a gun.  The TL/DR sum up is: "safe enough for now, and besides we can't fire you, the overtime would be atrocious."

If that doesn't settle your mind about my fit for duty status, read on, you'll see that it's either much much worse than that, or no big deal at all.

I went into detail last week about the hippie shit I expected to deal with in this session.  You may or may not recall that I'm not fond of hippies in general, and there are only two that I really like.  They're also the only two I don't want to punch in the face.

The good news, was that this session did not involve the same hippie shit head I expected.  It involved an entirely new one.  As in, just fucking graduated or whatever it's called when a PhD decides he's had enough schooling and want to go inflict himself upon others.  His sheepskin, honest to Cthulu had a date from earlier this summer.  This summer that isn't over yet.

I wasn't as disturbed by that as one might think.  After all, a brand new degree in listening to self-pitying losers lie about themselves must be just as valid as an old one, right? Some of the best cops I've met are still within their first five years of being a cop. (The fifth year is when a cop is either going to quit, die, or be just fine as a cop.  It's typically when he's got enough experience to make himself complacent.  It's a dangerous year. After that year, on the job deaths drop significantly.) So his being green wasn't a big deal for me.

The big deal was that the first thing he said to me was an obvious lie.  I saw he had four or five posters on the wall of his alma mater, A&M, as well as a few knick-knacks on his desk from the same.  I said, in what I wanted to be a relatively un-mean voice, "An aggie, huh?"

"Well, I don't really get into that whole college thing.  It doesn't matter where you went, just that you went to school."

"Listen, kid, you'll do a lot better at this job if you don't assume your patients are stupid. Don't fucking lie to me and I won't find a reason to have your car towed."

"You're pretty hostile."

"I don't like you, your profession, nor the idea that a punk like you can have anything useful to say to me besides 'yes sir, sorry sir.' This is a waste of time, I've been awake for 17 1/2 hours and I want to go home and sleep."

Pretty much exactly like this.

It took another ten minutes before he was convinced that I wasn't sleepy because of depression or from having committed suicide or something.  He couldn't understand night shift.  Literally did not know how it worked.

"You work at night?"

"Yeah..."

"How can you do that?  Why do you work at night?"

"Do you eat paint chips often, or just this morning?"

I knew it was a ploy to get me to share my feelings, and probably pin the blame on my folks for being as fucked up as he obviously thought I am (after all, I don't even have a masters degree, yet...).

"Doc, I'm not a sharer.  We need to end this so I can go to sleep."

"I can't let you go back to work until I know you're safe. To do that, you need to share."

"I don't share.  I'm not a sharer."

"That's not a word. Tell me about yourself.  Where did you grow up?"

"Seriously?  This is what you sank yourself into debt for? This is why you've moved to bum-fuck Texas to have the VA pay off your student loans, to ask me where I grew up?  You know that's playing minor league ball, right?  You'll get murdered in the majors."

"Why don't you like to share?"

"You're not my wife, you're not my friend, you're not my partner.  That's it.  Those are the people who get shared with.  Now fuck off, I'm done."

And we sat there in silence for twenty minutes.  I am required to attend these things, but I am not required to say anything, so I didn't.  He asked a few more questions, I went to sleep.  I woke up and he was typing, said I could go.

"So, Doc, am I safe to carry a gun?  Did you do your job?"

"You're safe enough for now."

I call it a success.

Best. Funeral. Ever.

Baker serves coke sprinkled cookies to funeral attendees.

This reminds me of my conversation with L about spiking the dressing at Thanksgiving with LSD or Mushrooms.  It would have been magical.

Rise up my minions!

It's time to invade the surface and subjugate the day walkers!  If they'll put up with shit like this, then our despotic rule will actually be seen as sweet release from their cares.

Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers' compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.

So, my darling morlocks, it is time to leave our caverns and dominate and enslave the Eloi.

They are cattle, after all...

That rotten 99.9%...

They're making the rest of us look bad.

However, the lawsuit says the FHP is well aware they are wrongfully applying the state law and they are doing it as a means of generating revenue. In 2005, a court order was even issued saying the state law doesn't prohibit the flashing of vehicle headlights.

Fear the Future

What?  A robot that you wrap around your neck and ask it to squeeze, might be fatal? 

The FDA is concerned that the ShoulderFlex Massager presents serious health risks," the warning stated, reports AP. "Hair, clothing, and jewelry can become entangled in the massage device and cause serious injury or death,” they said. The agency urges people who own the device to "dispose of the device components separately so that the massager cannot be reassembled and used."

They say this because they are too afraid to say "so that the massager cannot reassemble itself and kill all your loved ones in an orgy of blood and robotic ultra violence."  I'm not afraid to say it, though.  Don't be afraid to use fire and/or acid to kill them.





I'm pretty sure this is the guy, officer...

Also, this is my 200th post, which just shows that I have more nothing to say than I thought I didn't.

Fear the Future

Please, please let this be a parody.  I can't honestly tell, but oh, man it doesn't seem to be.

Totally unrelated to one another...

Buffett to co-host Obama Fundraiser in NYC.


Buffett to Invest $5 billion in Shaky Bank of America.

I was just interested in his schedule, I'm sure these have nothing to do with each other.

Fear the Oddly Comedic Future

Why is it that even Robots can't go more than a minute without talking about religion?  Were they programmed by assholes, or is it some failure built into brains and thereby built into things our brains make?

Also, I love the "I am a Unicorn" part.



Programming error at the print shop. It was supposed to be chocolate. "You will die in chocolate." Which is much nicer than sin.



18th Century English Coffee Houses

I have been asked, typically by people I work with, why I'm fond of, if not outright supportive of groups like Anonymous.  This is why:

In 17th-century England, the social equality and merit-ocracy of coffee houses was so deeply troubling to those in power that King Charles II tried to suppress them for being "places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers". It was in the coffee houses that information previously held in secret and by elites was shared with an emerging middle class. They were held responsible for many of the social reforms of the 18th century, when English public life was transformed.

.

Wingsuit

There's not a chance on earth I would ever do anything like this, but there is a good possibility that science was invented just for something like this.

Good news Everyone!

This absolutely made my day.  If they'd get a corroborating study under way as soon as possible, I might sleep a little better.

False Barrier to entry?

The Equal Employment Oppoirtunity Commission is suing Old Dominion Freightlines of Arkansas for discrimination against those with a self-reported disability: Alcoholism.

This seems like a legitimate reason not to hire someone.  Not because they drink, but because they're too stupid to know that if they admit to being a booze-hound on the application for a job that requires sobriety (stop laughing, right now...) they're too stupid to get the job. I mean, how many sober truck drivers have you ever met?  I can count on the fingers of one ear how many I know.  Still, being dumb enough to make sure the company will take the blame for any accident you cause because of your "disability" is a legitimate barrier to entry into any job, right?

That's my theory at least. 

Maybe Greg was right.

The term "British Comedy" may very well be a contradiction in terms.

Mental Health Fit Test

I've got an appointment with the staff psychologist tomorrow morning.  We don't get on well at all.  For some reason over the past 18 months or so he has consistently tried to cheer me up.

"Smile! It's a great day!"

"Drop dead, loser."

"What?"

"You heard me doc.  Don't tell me what to do."

That was one of the most productive meetings we've shared.  I see this guy a lot, which is weird because I work nights, and he's a day-walker.  Our paths shouldn't cross.  I'm convinced he's made a project of me, which will no doubt signal to him that I need to be made into a project.  At our last session a year ago he asked why I was so depressed.  I told him I didn't think I was (and can I please go home to sleep?).  He insisted.  Said that my being angry was a symptom of depression.

How can you get an advanced degree in psychology without understanding that anger is sometimes just anger?  At the time of that session last year I was working 7 days a week and 16 hours a day.  I hadn't seen my kid for more than five minutes at a time in a month.  My partner had just put in his two weeks notice, meaning I was going to be the only cop on shift.  My chief had just quit the post about two minutes ahead of being fired for 6 months of drunk on duty and chasing off all the cops that worked for her. I was looking at 16 hours a day in charge of night security for a place where I get in fights about once a week with crazy people who's only crime was being off their meds or on the wrong ones.  I was pissed.

And this asshole says I should smile.

"Smiles are free, man, don't keep them to yourself!"

"Fuck off you god damned hippie shit."

Tomorrow is going to be interesting.  I described what I though about psychology to him last week during one off his "coincidental" visits to the cop shop. For the first time he left without that stupid grin of his.  He asked me why he never seens me smile, even now that we have "enough officers."

"What do you mean enough?  What the fuck is enough?"

"Well you've got all these new guys..."

"Not one of whom carry a gun, or have a badge or can stand a shift."

"But they're about to go to the academy, right?  They'll be back soon and you can have some time off."

"You mean the academy that not one person from this station has completed since february of last year?  The one that I was the last officer to come out of for this station?  That academy?  These four men aren't going to be any help, they're just four more opportunities to be disappointed."

"That's no way to look at it."

"How would you look at it, doc?  Would you bet large on a player with a .100 batting average?"

"It's not like that."

"Drop dead.  It is exactly like that.  In two years they've fucked up the hiring on 9 out of 10 people who've applied for the job.  Four of them are still here for some reason.  Leave me alone, I have work to do."

Tomorrow, 0830.  Should be great.

Highway Horrorshow!

I've been on greyhound buses before, and to tell you the truth, this is not a surprise:

A Greyhound spokesperson said it's not uncommon that the bus was carrying bull sperm.

And that's just on the seats!  ZING!

Perpetuating stereotypes

I finally know how it feels to have a member of your in-group perpetuate a self inflicted stereotype.  Haven't my people suffered enough?

I didn't think there was this much absurdity in the world.

Fusioneer

Remember the Radioactive Boy Scout?  That guy was an amateur.  This kid is not only scary, but kind of awesome in a Rocketship Galileo, Nazi-hunters on the moon kind of way. Also, his teachers apparently have little to no fear of mutants.

“I said, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. You’re going to irradiate your parents, and maybe the whole neighborhood,’” recalls Ochs. “I suggested he build it somewhere safe, like a university.”

Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel Lives!

Or more precisely, his dumpy female cousin. 

Where I sit while I "work" looks out onto the main lobby which has both the entrance doors and the elevators.  I get to see a strange sort of disorganized parade every day with all the... ahem... colorful people who work and live in this town.

Today, one of the employees of the fine dining establishment Dominoes came to the building to deliver a pizza to the fifth floor, just about fifteen minutes ago.  She asked me how to get to the fifth floor.  I showed her the elevators, and she said "No, I mean how do they work?"

Me: "How do the elevators work? Really?"

Her: "Yeah, I've never been on one.  Is it fast?"

Being unable to respond politely or anywhere near appropriately, I took a breath and stepped back. Then, I asked where she was going, and told her to get in the elevator while I pushed the button.

It's been a while and she hasn't come back down.  I assume the nurses on five are having fun showing her things like toothbrushes and television.

I wonder what a therapist in Japan makes.

Suddenly a lot of stuff about Japan makes sense.

The outside of the train is painted with traditional Japanese monsters, while the interior is fitted with spooky blue lights and human hands hanging from the ceiling. As the Yokai Train leaves the station, a spooky sounds can be heard coming from the speakers, and the monsters make their entrance. Some are dressed in white kimonos and wear white masks and triangular white crowns (which means they are dead), while others sport creepy masks and torn rags. Some of the older kids react pretty well to the yokai, but the younger ones cry and scream while their mothers and the other adults watch and smile.

Well, doc, it all started with a train ride, I guess...

Someone call an Ambo lance, I feenk ah've givvin myself a strook.

Terminator + Bright/Jumpy/Neon Animation = A terrible idea for those prone to cranial vascular events, but otherwise kinda neat and who cares if you drop your spoon sometimes?

Like this, but with sounds and jumpy animation and aneurysms.

Fear the Future, the very NEAR future...

Aw... isn't it cute? They let the robot tweet.  The big question, to my mind at least, is how are you going to fit your demands for world domination into 140 characters?

Second question?  Who decided to put a killer robot in a tin can with our most expensive humans ever?  Nice move, international space community.  This is why you can't have nice things.

Also, has anyone thought to program these into the evil machine?
  

0.  A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Fear the Future

The IEEE community is known for it's quisling attitude toward our enemies.  Today, they ask "Will we redesign our homes for robots?"

My answer is "yes."  But somehow I don't think putting turret mounted machine gun nests on the roof is the sort of remodeling they meant.

See what I said? I said this! I was right.

Remember when I talked about Detroit a while back?  Remember how I said they were going to slowly cut back on the level of service they provide? Guess what?

They're totally doing that now.

I win at prognosticating!

First Amendment? Not important.

Don't go to Long Beach to take photos.  They are "contacting" photographers, and apparently do not know, or will not say, when a "contact" becomes a "detainment."

"If an officer sees someone taking pictures of something like a refinery," says McDonnell, "it is incumbent upon the officer to make contact with the individual." McDonnell went on to say that whether said contact becomes detainment depends on the circumstances the officer encounters.

See, now that's just not true. Contact becomes detainment if you impede the contactee's movement or action.  Period.  I'm just a gummint cop, about as low on the totem pole as you can possibly get, and I know that.  I feel certain that this asshat knows that, too, he just doesn't want to admit that this is all QUITE illegal, along with morally repugnant.

Dumb-dumb Dummy heads

One of the chief rules for leadership is don't make rules that you know will go unheeded.  It puts people into the habit of disobeying you, and sends them that much further down the road towards finding NEW leadership.

A Sad and Defeated Empire

Peter Hitchens has just popped up on my radar.  I wish he had done so earlier.  While he doesn't come close to redeeming his country, he does at least know what the problems are, if not what to do about them.

While it serves them right – or it would if most of them didn’t quite enjoy prison – it is also a fraud. It is precisely because these unlovely people have already been let off so many times that they are now as bad as they are.
It is not prison that is an expensive way of making bad people worse. It is this joke justice, defeatist and defeated, which ensures that almost nobody arrives in prison until he already has a higher degree in crime.

But he doesn't quite lay all the blame on the hooligans.  That would have been saccharine and easy and more importantly wrong.  The habit of coddling a once proud people is what ruined the nation.

Take our Prime Minister, who is once again defrauding far too many people. He uses his expensive voice, his expensive clothes, his well-learned tone of public-school command, to give the impression of being an effective and decisive  person. But it is all false. He has  no real idea of what to do. He  thinks the actual solutions to the problem are ‘fascist’. Deep down,  he still wants to ‘understand’ the hoodies.
Say to him that naughty children should be smacked at home and caned in school, that the police (and responsible adults) should be free to wallop louts and vandals caught in the act, that the police should return to preventive foot patrols, that prisons should be austere places of hard work, plain food and discipline without TV sets or semi-licit drugs, and that wrongdoers should be sent to them when they first take to crime, not when they are already habitual crooks, and he will throw up his well-tailored arms in horror at your barbarity.

While I'm not a fan of allowing cops to "wallop louts caught in the act" (how many seconds would it take for this to be abused? as many as ten?) I tend to agree.

Black Death Exonerations

In another example of why I like archaeologists more than most all other social scientists, Archaeologists have now exonerated rats for their alleged part in the spread of the black death.

"The evidence just isn't there to support it," said Barney Sloane, author of The Black Death in London. "We ought to be finding great heaps of dead rats in all the waterfront sites but they just aren't there. And all the evidence I've looked at suggests the plague spread too fast for the traditional explanation of transmission by rats and fleas. It has to be person to person – there just isn't time for the rats to be spreading it."

I'm pleased by this, not because I'm a fan of rats, though they've never done me any wrong.  The reason I'm pleased is that archaeologists are taking new data about something that was thought to be a closed case and using that new data to refine their conclusions, rather than the other way around.  It's the way things are supposed to work in the world of scientific inquiry.

Mortality continued to rise throughout the bitterly cold winter, when fleas could not have survived, and there is no evidence of enough rats.
Black rat skeletons have been found at 14th-century sites, but not in high enough numbers to make them the plague carriers, he said.

To re-iterate my point: scientists found evidence to exonerate two of the most hated pests in history of one of the worst disasters to hit human kind, and changed their conclusions rather than explaining it away.  This is  more amazing than I can say (and how sad is it that rational behavior on the part of scientists is impressive?).

I, Me, My

From the desk of the "News we already kind of knew, but could never quite put into formal terms" department:

Men and women use language differently because they negotiate their worlds differently. Across dozens and dozens of studies, women tend to talk more about other human beings. Men, on the other hand, are more interested in concrete objects and things. To talk about human relationships requires social and cognitive words. To talk about concrete objects, you need concrete nouns which typically demand the use of articles.

Actually, almost everything calls for a sexy party.  There is no bad time for one.

Who wants to puke?

Do you like to vomit?  Well, grab a bucket and go for it!

She added: ‘The bigger I get, the better I feel. I feel more confident and sexy. Why shouldn’t I push the limits and see how fat I can get and stay healthy?’…‘I noticed I actually started attracting more men, and it made me feel good.’…‘I want to break the stigma that being fat is a bad thing,’ she said. ‘I remind other fat people that it is OK for them to be that way…‘The message I want to get across is for people to accept others for who they are.’

The thing that kills me is this woman is too big to work, right?  Where then does she get the money to fund her expansion project?  Does anyone think she's NOT being funded by taxpayers?

That's her in the middle.

Inscrutable

I know we're not supposed to call them inscrutable, but really, is there any other word for this sort of thing?

Fear the Future (any day now...)

Because life isn't cool enough to imitate art, it has to imitate crappy Tom Cruise movies.

But the presence of the police officers in the garage that Friday afternoon in July was anything but ordinary: They were directed to the parking structure by a computer program that had predicted that car burglaries were especially likely there that day.

You know where this is going, right?  We're going to surrender our law enforcement to robots.  And it's not going to be awesome like what happened in Detroit in the 80's.

Look how well that turned out, though.

What happens when you turn the already over militarized police force into the servants of a machine that can predict crime?  What happens when those cops are encouraged to help justify the expense of that program and the erosion of liberty?

Fear the Future

The army wants to build a base for robots.  Not just any base though:

Currently, most battlefield ground robots are tele-operated, meaning they require someone to control the system from a stand-off distance. This method is labor intensive. Researchers have been developing software that would allow the machines to operate more freely, and take the workload off of troops.

That's right.  The army wants a base for robots to call their own, where IDEALLY we would eventually have no one in control of the robots.  That's the BEST CASE SCENARIO.

What the ever loving hell?  The only way this becomes palatable to me is if they change the name to "robot concentration camp" and all the inmates are liquidated.  And by "liquidated," I mean melted.

Fear the... present, I guess.

You know who I think of when I try to decide who is best for operating robots in outer space?  Teenagers, that's who.  Because, why the hell not, right?

My brother called it...

Apparently the new Conan sucks ass.

This is quite possibly the worst written screenplay that I have had the misfortune to see, misconstituted into film. Despite the mellifluous tones of Morgan Freeman as the narrator in the film, the script is so badly written it’s a flagrant waste of his voice talents. The rest of the dialogue is like a caricature of the dialogue in the worst action movies in history. I do not blame the writing of Robert E. Howard, who was influenced by Bullfinch’s Mythology in 1913. His original poem, “Cimmeria” was the catalyst for creating the world known as the Hyborian Age, the mythological backdrop of the Conan story. But, the magic of the original doesn’t translate to the script, which falls flat, lifeless and weekly clichéd on the screen.

Still, there is reason to hope:

The film is rated R for Strong Bloody Violence, some sexuality and nudity. There are a couple of different scenes containing women with bare breasts.

Holy shit, son...

Pro tip: don't do this at work if you carry a gun for a living.  Otherwise, enjoy watching the walls melt...

Apocalypse Imminent

They say it's a mating dance, but I'm thinking the connection to tornados is too strong to ignore.

Fear the Future

Fear the very near future.  Hell, fear the damn present.  IBM was awarded a DARPA grant to create a microchip that mimiced the human brain because the military likes losing wars, or something.  So the quisling bastards built the fucker and are now celebrating our collective demise and fist bumping the terminator.

To be honest I didn't read the entire article.

The grant was part of Phase 2 of DARPA's Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project, the goal of which, IBM said, is "to create a system that not only analyzes complex information from multiple sensory modalities at once but also dynamically rewires itself as it interacts with its environment--all while rivaling the brain's compact size and low-power usage."

Wait, the brain is a LOT bigger than most computer chips.  Most brains anyway. 

Others see even more potential applications. For example, the chips could offer earthquake detection due to "infinite patience" and being our eyes and ears on a seismic fault line in a way that would bore people, said analyst Rick Doherty, co-founder and director of the Envisioneering Group.

Anyone else read Starfish?  This sort of thing didn't work out too well for the folks in that book, why should we be any different?

Similarly, the chips could be used for a wide range of military, public health or public safety purposes, Doherty suggested.

And this doesn't strike terror into your hearts, IBM?  Maybe the corporation and its overlords wouldn't mind, but the folks building this evil thing ought to know what it'll be used to do: spying on you and your kids.

If you've ever been to WilCO...

...you will not be surprised, not even a little.

Fear the Future

This is supposed to be about medical files, or nametags or something.  It will evolve, though, and not into something lovely.  You can bet it will end something like this:

Second verse, same as the first...

Haven't we done this before?  And didn't it take a lot of publicity and the congress and people actually knowing about it before hand?

I am not a religious man

But if anyone can verify this, especially that last item, I will attend church this coming Sunday.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or cencelling awesome sci-fi shows by greedy shit for brains tv executives. All these things are gone forever. Also the Simpsons will still be funny.

Seems like a good time to get out of debt.

Apparently one of the Indonesian Citibank branches is hiring "debt collectors" who, unlike our domestic variety, seem to favor a more "personal approach."  Personal as in torture and murder, rather than a friendly chat.

Noting that Indonesian debt collectors have a reputation for sometimes aggressive persistence, Johansyah, the central bank official, said: “The best thing to do is just pay.”

....

Security cameras filmed Octa entering the room in the late morning and exiting in a wheelchair, apparently unconscious or dead, more than two hours later. The interview room has no cameras.

How long do you think befor ethis sort of thing catches on here?

And now that faith in mankind is gone.

Thanks a lot, science.  This is not okay.  This is the sort of shit that makes me glad I've installed a machine at the center of the earth that will kill humanity and it's cyber-overlords.  Especially our SINGING FREAKTASTIC cybernetic overlords.

Seriously, I'll do it.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Just when I lose all faith in humanity, someone comes up with a reason not to invent a self destruct button for the planet.

Man, I need a smoke.

Fear the Future

Something a little more light-hearted than the impending christian identity theocracy due to fall upon us?  How about the robo-apocalypse?

I'm beginning to think I need to get behind the robot makers and pray to Robot Jesus to hasten the day of his coming.

Paging Nehemiah Scudder, your boat is here...

Anyone remember revolt in 2100?  Personally, I've always preferred the cult in Stranger in a Strange Land that was cool with sex drugs and rock and roll as long as it was done under church auspices, but I really think America will head the other (significantly less fun) direction with it's theocracy.

And we are going to have one, it's just a matter of time. And not a very long time, either:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has summoned the nation's governors to participate in "The Response," which he calls "a non-denominational, apolitical, Christian prayer service." The assembly, scheduled for August, has elicited indignation from the secular left, who decry the event as an unwarranted mingling of church and state.

It's not just us crazy atheists who are saying this stuff, either. Pastor types are claiming it was god that made Perry governor of Texas, and will likely make him president. (There was nothing about god making Perry's political opponents look like stark raving loons, or act like inept children, maybe it was satan...) These are the people that think god has a cosmic thermostat and is purposely fucking with us to "cause every knee to bow."

"Yesterday morning as I stood in the kitchen the Lord stopped me mid stride and said, "I am going to turn up the heat".  I felt this was not in the context of actual temperatures but in events that will cause pressure.  I also heard him say, "It is not the faithful remnant's attention I am going to get.  I will cause every knee to bow. "  I could see in the spirit that when there is no place else to go even those who do not, or will not, believe will have to come to him.

These are people who report hearing and seeing hallucinations as straight news.  Awesome.

Good Riddance, assholes!

Where am I going with this?  Who the hell knows.  I'm venting, which is really what this whole blog is about, since I'm pretty sure I'm shouting into an echo chamber here.  I'm annoyed that we're not adult enough to elect a fiscal conservative who's not a god botherer, or at the very least, not an in-your-face god botherer. It's like you have to either spend all the money on welfare or send it to the church.  There doesn't seem to be any middle ground.

Fear the Future

Jesus Christ, already, stop it.  Just don't do this anymore.

The main scientific objective of this research project is the design, implementation and control of a novel distributed robotic system. The system will be made up of heterogeneous, dynamically connected, small autonomous robots. Collectively, these robots will form what we call a swarmanoid. The swarmanoid that we intend to build will be comprised of numerous (about 60) autonomous robots of three types: eye-bots, hand-bots, and foot-bots.

Seriously, you named them "Swarmanoids?"  I know you're probably from the generation after mine, but do you have to point out for the world that you get your ideas from the Power Rangers? 

In which I become European. (And remain pissed off.)

Remember when Europeans, Brits specifically, used to be awesome?  Remember these guys?

These are the guys that kept Hitler and the Galactic Empire of the 1940's from invading their really small island.  Also, they did it with zero outside help, and with an army that was essentially a million years out of date at the beginning of the invasion, at the end of the invasion their army was stronger than the beginning.

That's right, after 6 years of getting their asses whipped by Darth Hitler, they were stronger and more powerful than ever.  (like if Obi Wan hadn't turned into a see through platitude pusher, but instead turned into a velociraptor with light saber claws and laser-eyes.  You know what I mean.)

What the fuck England? You're supposed to be the fucking bad-ass grown-ups of the world, right?  You're letting us down.  I will now take on the guise of a European in order to show you how it should be done.

LONDON (AP) — Each of the young rioters who clogged Britain's courthouses painted a bleak picture of a lost generation: a 15-year-old Ukrainian whose mother died, a 17-year-old who followed his cousin into the mayhem, an 11-year-old arrested for stealing a garbage can.

Listen, I know he's eleven, but who the fuck steals a garbage can?  Honestly, if you're going to give up on your civilisation at least steal something better than a trash can. (Also, see how I spelled it with an "s"?  That's because I'm the most continental fucker you know, asshole.  Or maybe I meant incontinent. Whatever. Dick.)

"Nobody is doing nothing for us — not the politicians, not the cops, no one," a 19-year-old who lives near Tottenham, the blighted London neighborhood where the riots started. He only gave his nickname, "Freddy," because he took part in the looting and was scared of facing prosecution; he was not among the youths in court.

Sounds like fun!

Really, "Freddy", someone should have explained a long time ago that when you're 19 you should be doing things for yourself.  You're young, and presumably brighter than your neighbors, after all, he didn't get nicked by the coppers.  (See how European I can be?)  You should be capable of doing something constructive.  You're not, but you should be.

Daniel Cavaglieri, one of the lawyers for a 17-year-old who appeared at Highbury Magistrates Court, said the youth was studying mechanics and trying to finish school. He was accused of following his older cousin to loot a clothing shop, and charged with intent to steal.

"His mother is furious he was out and about at that time. She genuinely thought he was at a friend's house," Cavaglieri told the court. "He's going to be grounded."

Oh, well let's drop all the fucking charges then, guv'!  (I am seriously Eurotrash now.  For some reason I have the urge to wear out of date fashion,listen to crap music and surrender to the Germans) He's going to be punished by his parents , which will of course work this time, when obviously all the other times didn't.  Somehow, THIS grounding will instill  some god-damned sense into this idiot's head.  THIS time it will be different, and the next time his bankrupt government announces it may have to consider austerity measures he won't go looting with his cousin.  What do you bet that his folks decide that his court appearance will be enough to scare him straight, and either forget about the grounding, or make it so short as to be negligible?

Under the Labour-led government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, authorities tried to penalize badly behaved youth with Anti-Social Behavior Orders, or ASBOs. The orders have since become badges of honor for many of Britain's youth.

Oy!  What is this bollocks? (I feel so god damned continental, it must now be the time on Sprockets when we dance...) What happened to fines, and work details, and youth prisons?  I want those back.  Also, the rack and public stocks.

Bugger, Shite, Nom De Plume, au revoir, Weinerschnitzel, dumkopf, piss off, taking the piss, Eiffel Tower, and pig-dog.  Now, someone give me a queen to salute, and I'll be as European as anyone.

I'm not awesome enough to wear a hat that cool.

Too damn smart. Cut it out.

Apparently, it is now illegal to be super duper smart.

First, she won $5.4 million, then a decade later, she won $2million, then two years later $3million and in the summer of 2010, she hit a $10million jackpot.
The odds of this has been calculated at one in eighteen septillion and luck like this could only come once every quadrillion years.

Harper's reporter Nathanial Rich recently wrote an article about Ms Ginther, which calls the the validity of her 'luck' into question.

First, he points out, Ms Ginther is a former math professor with a PhD from Stanford University specialising in statistics.

A professor at the Institute for the Study of Gambling & Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno, told Mr Rich: 'When something this unlikely happens in a casino, you arrest ‘em first and ask questions later.'

Unless there's something missing in this story (you know, something like actual wrong doing...) the professor at the institute for gambling and commercial gaming is suggesting that people smart enough to figure out really, really, really quite hard math problems should be arrested.

Mr Rich details the myriad ways in which Ms Ginther could have gamed the system - including the fact that she may have figured out the algorithm that determines where a winner is placed in each run of scratch-off tickets.

He believes that after Ms Ginther figured out the algorithm, it wouldn’t be difficult to determine where the tickets would be shipped, as the shipping schedule is apparently fixed, and there were a few sources she could have found it out from.

According to Forbes, the residents of Bishop, Texas, seem to believe God was behind it all.
 

The Texas Lottery Commission told Mr Rich that Ms Ginther must have been 'born under a lucky star', and that they don’t suspect foul play.

What sort of foul play could possibly be involved, other than being super smart and putting it to good use?  I suppose she could have bribed a lotto official, but the immediate assumption that foul play is the best answer to how she pulled this off is weird. To be fair, the lottery is being very decent about this, far more decent than I would have expected from minor functionaries.

Fear the Future (the "we shall live as gods" edition)

So, nano technology has been "around the next little corner" for a while now.  Like a LONG while.  Apparently, we are now one significant step closer to that ultimate freedom/terrifying new future.

If the video didn't look quite so much like the videos from biology class, this might not be as creepy as it is.

So?  Will we live as gods, or be dissolved into a grey goo anytime soon? My bet is that there will continue to be "one more step" right up until the point society collapses and we're unable to advance any more.  The singularity will fizzle out before it really gets started.  Sorry, Ray.

More cheer...

Some crazy old Marine, who makes a disturbing amount of sense:

I say invest in drug cartels. Some say gold, but you can't smoke gold. When times get bad people want booze, grass, crack, scag, crank, Oxys, and maybe shrooms for the more advanced. Investment is low, and governmental interference has proved minimal.

Oink, oink, motherfuckers!

Ol' Remus is always cheerful:

In short, FedGov's insane misallocations have committed the citizenry to utter ruin, committed, in the same sense hogs are committed to your supermarket bacon display. It's difficult to see much difference between FedGov and, oh let's see, anybody else working full time against us.

Futher on he adds:

Stats and spreadsheets are what economists use to substitute yawns for situational awareness. Duly diligent economists will find Wal-Mart's missing customers at dollar stores and similar outlets where expiration dates are measured with a stopwatch. Some are comparison shopping at Goodwill and the Salvation Army. Next they'll be found shopping at pushcarts and bartering at roadside stands. Eventually they'll be found in abandoned Wal-Marts using the empty shelves for bunks. Economists will be stunned.

It's the lousy 99% that make the rest of us look bad.

“We intend to walk into Lansing after the summer break and ask the Republicans who have been so eagerly screwing us, ‘who’s next?’ If we cannot earn their respect we will do what we have always done; hit it with a flashlight until we gain compliance.”


Good job guys, that's the way to win an argument...

I hate to say, but...

...it serves them right.

New Reason to Smoke Pot

I didn't know this was a thing, even.

The twins now spend their time painting artworks and refurbishing furniture. They plan to enroll in college and said they hope to help legalize marijuana in all 50 states.

Apparently, not only does pot turn you into a big bag of other-accepting awesome-ness, it makes you unemployable.  Or, it could be that these two girls growed the fuck up about race, but are uselessly unemployable because they were raised by hillbilly hicks who worshipped hitler.

I mean, it's just possible.

Also, I'm tired of the pot-legalizers using marijuana's supposed healing powers and overall usefulness as a reason to legalize.  I'm down with people smoking pot, and if it were no longer illegal to do so, the world would be a hell of a lot nicer place.  But don't try to convince me you want it legalized because you want to make your own clothes, or rope, or because you have glaucoma.  I'm not stupid.

This is how wars start

Escalation gets out of hand.  Or, as we called it in the Navy, "Shit gets Awesome."

Nolte said the two men assaulted the group, and one of those men pulled a chainsaw from the back of a 1990s white GMC pickup truck.

Oh, man.

I can't even really say anything other than: please don't make me read anything like this ever again.

The UK has it's priorities straight.

Perky Boobs are more important than almost anything.

Dr Joanna Scurr said everyday bras do not provide enough  support, which can lead to pain and even sagging.
An expert in breast movement, she said sports bras should be a compulsory part of PE kit, being as essential as mouthguards worn for hockey or rugby.

How the fuck can I get THAT job?  I know maybe ten people on earth I WOULDN'T kill for the opportunity to be paid as an "expert in breast movement."

What the fuck Yogi?

Asshole bear interrupts Moment of Americana, flees.  Sadly, is not shot or even stabbed.

Coming Soon: A Grizzly Scene

This is going to end badly. Who keeps bears?  This idiot should be charged with "reckless endangerment" and "being a retarded hippie type loser."  That last crime should carry a sentence of being put in the stocks, covered in honey and then FED TO THE FUCKING BEARS.

Fear the Future

It is too early in the day for me to deal with this.  I don't really need to go into why this is a bad idea, do I?  Other than the sheer intrusiveness, the idea of police departments picking winners in the smart phone market is a little... strange.

If police need an app like this, they shouldn't use public funds to buy retardedly expensive phones.  Police do not need an app like this though, as there's already a public option in place.  It's a nifty little device called the driver's license.  Sure, that may be just as eeeeevil in the strict libertarian sense of the word but its already here, and it's cheap. 

We know that government creep will never end, but we don't need to speed the process.

The trains don't even run on time...

I don't vote, but if I did, it would be for Ron Paul.

“The last nail is being driven into the coffin of the American Republic. Yet, Congress remains in total denial as our liberties are rapidly fading before our eyes. The process is propelled by unwarranted fear and ignorance as to the true meaning of liberty. It is driven by economic myths, fallacies and irrational good intentions. The rule of law is constantly rejected and authoritarian answers are offered as panaceas for all our problems. Runaway welfarism is used to benefit the rich at the expense of the middle class. Who would have ever thought that the current generation and Congress would stand idly by and watch such a rapid disintegration of the American Republic? Characteristic of this epic event is the casual acceptance by the people and political leaders of the unitary presidency, which is equivalent to granting dictatorial powers to the President. Our Presidents can now, on their own:
1. Order assassinations, including American citizens,
2. Operate secret military tribunals,
3. Engage in torture,
4. Enforce indefinite imprisonment without due process,
5. Order searches and seizures without proper warrants, gutting the 4th Amendment,
6. Ignore the 60 day rule for reporting to the Congress the nature of any military operations as required by the War Power Resolution,
7. Continue the Patriot Act abuses without oversight,
8. Wage war at will,
9. Treat all Americans as suspected terrorists at airports with TSA groping and nude x-raying.
And the Federal Reserve accommodates by counterfeiting the funds needed and not paid for by taxation and borrowing, permitting runaway spending, endless debt, and special interest bail-outs.
And all of this is not enough. The abuses and usurpations of the war power are soon to be codified in the National Defense Authorization Act now rapidly moving its way through the Congress. Instead of repealing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), as we should, now that bin Laden is dead and gone, Congress is planning to massively increase the war power of the President. Though an opportunity presents itself to end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Congress, with bipartisan support, obsesses on how to expand the unconstitutional war power the President already holds. The current proposal would allow a President to pursue war any time, any place, for any reason, without Congressional approval. Many believe this would even permit military activity against American suspects here at home. The proposed authority does not reference the 9/11 attacks. It would be expanded to include the Taliban and “associated” forces—a dangerously vague and expansive definition of our potential enemies. There is no denial that the changes in s.1034 totally eliminate the hard-fought-for restraint on Presidential authority to go to war without Congressional approval achieved at the Constitutional Convention. Congress’ war authority has been severely undermined since World War II beginning with the advent of the Korean War which was fought solely under a UN Resolution. Even today, we’re waging war in Libya without even consulting with the Congress, similar to how we went to war in Bosnia in the 1990s under President Clinton. The three major reasons for our Constitutional Convention were to:
1. Guarantee free trade and travel among the states.
2. Make gold and silver legal tender and abolish paper money.
3. Strictly limit the Executive Branch’s authority to pursue war without Congressional approval.
But today:
1. Federal Reserve notes are legal tender, gold and silver are illegal.
2. The Interstate Commerce Clause is used to regulate all commerce at the expense of free trade among the states.
3. And now the final nail is placed in the coffin of Congressional responsibility for the war power, delivering this power completely to the President—a sharp and huge blow to the concept of our Republic.
In my view, it appears that the fate of the American Republic is now sealed—unless these recent trends are quickly reversed.
The saddest part of this tragedy is that all these horrible changes are being done in the name of patriotism and protecting freedom. They are justified by good intentions while believing the sacrifice of liberty is required for our safety. Nothing could be further from the truth.
More sadly is the conviction that our enemies are driven to attack us for our freedoms and prosperity, and not because of our deeply flawed foreign policy that has generated justifiable grievances and has inspired the radical violence against us. Without this understanding our endless, unnamed, and undeclared wars will continue and our wonderful experience with liberty will end.”

Vodka Nation - MADD as hell

Can Vodka's rise in popularity act as a metaphor for America's decline?  This article from the Weekly Standard seems to make that case.

For 200 years the United States was a brown-spirits nation, and our culture was dominated by whiskey and bourbon (think of Kentucky’s famed Bourbon Trail, Jack Daniel’s, the Whiskey Rebellion of the early 1790s).

and:

“But it is the chicken breast of cocktails. It is the most boring, least thoughtful, sort of one that you can mix with. For a craft bartender—someone who believes in humanity—this stuff is just a joke and will fade away.”

Sometimes chicken breast is good, but not often, and not without a ridiculous amount of work.  I'm also a little disturbed by how precious drinking has got over the last two decades or so.  I blame the MADD mothers and the abolition of the three martini lunch.

It's lunchtime, brah.

A german foreign exchange student in high school once told me that in Germany they had a legal drinking age of when ever the fuck you wanted, and a driver's licensing age of 18.  That way, you learned to handle your booze BEFORE you got behind the wheel.  You knew, going into your driver's ed class what you could drink that would pink your nose, and more importantly how much booze would keep you from regulating your shit.  Here in America, though, we figured it was safer to give a kid who's AT BEST a raging bag of hormones and acne scars a 2 - 3 ton mechanical beast and only when they are confident in their driving skills (as all teenagers are) allow them to even consider buying booze.

Tell me, you know any sober 21 year olds you'd trust behind the wheel of an automobile?  How about on their 21st birthday when they're getting to celebrate being "grown up as shit" and drunk off their ass for the first legal time in their lives?

Seriously, who spray painted the duck?

Seems like it might be safer to let the shine and mystique of getting shit-faced wear off BEFORE we gave them the means with which to kill everyone in the neighborhood, but the MADD-hatters want to protect the children from the devil rum.

But remember the definition of alcohol related accidents: if I was transporting someone who had a drink up to 16 hours ago, it would still be "aclohol related."  If I was on the way to buy beer for a party I was having the next day, it's alcohol related. MADD uses accounting tricks that would make the ENRON guys blush. (How's THAT for a topical reference?  See young people, I'm just like you!!!)

Returning to the MAIN point, though, the reason I think MADD (and their ilk) is to blame is that by banning something, you make it unsurpassingly enticing to teenagers.  If you gave a 13 year old a hangover, he'd be a hell of a lot less likely to binge drink the next weekend.  He might still fancy some booze, but he'd be gun shy of the aftermath.  Someone who drinks less, will drink better.  Whisky, by definition, is better than Vodka.

Vodka: a neutral spirit so distilled, or treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color.

Whisky: Awesomeness distilled and made widely available to the average Joe

Ergo, MADD causes binge drinking, teenage dd deaths, and the rise of Vodka as the white trash drink of choice, and by extension the popularity of Jersey Shore.

London invasion pending...

Of course, the invasion is by the local constabulary.  16,000 of them are set to take back the city. Which means it was taken from them in the first place.  When was the last time this happened?  1066 wasn't it?

British Economic Stimulus

Dick move by the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of glass, or sound business decision?

Full Metal Monkey

Full Metal Monkey would be an awesome title, and also would make up for the piss-poor Iron Monkey.  There were no monkeys at all in that film.  Flagrant false advertising.  FLAGRANT!

Fear the Future

How's this for stupid?

"For example, suppose this robot doesn't know how to make tea, and it's sent to an elderly person who lives alone. And suppose that person asks it to make a cup of green tea. The robot doesn't know how, so it asks robots around the world how to make tea. Suppose, for example, that a robot in the UK tells it how to make British-style tea. We think this robot will become able to transfer that knowledge to its immediate situation, and make green tea using a Japanese teapot."

And then it will put poison in both types of tea.  Or mind control juice.

Fish and Bicycles

The next time someone complains about women being "outearned" by men, show them this.

"White Mouse" dies

No, it's not the name of an indie rock band (that you probably haven't heard of, anyway).  It's the name the SS gave to an awesome lady agent of the WW2 French Resistance.


"I have only one thing to say: I killed a lot of Germans, and I am only sorry I didn't kill more," she once said.

Festivities in London

Looks like they're having fun! Some "youths" have been playing silly buggers in london recently, in a rare example of the british stoicism and stiff-upper-lippedness falling to the wayside in exchange for shenanigans and tomfoolery.



These guys know how to party, amiright?!

 I'm sure these are just the growing pains that any open and free society must go through, and really, isn't it nicer now that there are so many different ways of expressing English culture? Multi-culturalism will save us all some day.


Looking good enough to riot over!







































Still, it's not as if these hijinks ever get out of control, is it?  And it's all for a good cause, right?  They're showing THE MAN(c) that they're serious about their politics and will not stand by for hooliganism.




Let's show the man that shooting a criminal will be punished by the theft of trousers!

 

We'd hate for people to think we weren't serious about justice, right?  I mean it's not like innocent people are being caught up in a rabid over-reaction to the shooting death of a criminal, right?  After all, it's apparently not about that anymore, now it's about unemployment and "social justice."  We think.  For now, anyway.

"Hijinks"

Fear the Future

Borrowing tops 100% of GDP, which is not a good thing at all.

As many have said, the gummint is at the very least complicit in the drug trade, but probably more like "an active participant from beginning to end."

U.S. federal agents allegedly allowed the Sinaloa drug cartel to traffic several tons of cocaine into the United States in exchange for information about rival cartels, according to court documents filed in a U.S. federal court.

Why, that's not fair at all!

I am shocked, shocked! to discover that feminists have been less than 100% truthful with the facts. 

when you control for such factors as education and hours worked, there’s actually just a 5 percent pay gap. But the AAUW isn’t going to begin a report with the statement that women earn 95 percent of what their male counterparts earn, is it?

God Dammit!

Jason Momoa wrote the sequel to conan.  I know that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the current iteration, but it does argue for a distressingly high level of meathead trying to be a creative type.

A [universe] wears [its] bruises like a badge of pride

Apparently, our universe hasn't got the gumption to leave.

The multiverse theory (or one of them, anyway) suggests that just outside of our universe, other universes are appearing and disappearing, each in their own bubble of space-time. Generally, these universes don't get close enough to interact, but sometimes a universe will appear right next to ours, and when that happens, we get smacked.
Getting smacked by an entire universe would definitely leave a mark. Specifically, it would leave a disk-like pattern in our universe's cosmic microwave background radiation, and this is what a group of cosmologists from University College London have been looking for. Somewhat incredibly, they managed to find some of these bruises. Four of them. And it's ten times more likely that the four marks are universe collision signatures than that they are anything else that we know of.

Fear the Future

More like "Ode To Muuuurderrrrr!"

Dog Bites Man principle

In a clear case of violating the "dog-bites-man" principle of reporting, it seems like they're still writing about schools that cheat. 

This whole topic of education is a glorious feast for pessimists of all kinds. Not only does no-one have a clue what to do about the achievement, behavior, and math sex gaps, but government programs to address them have just the kinds of results a pessimist expects when money and jobs are offered to people willing to say they will do something that nobody knows how to do. Those results will inevitably be: cheating, corruption, and cover-ups. -We Are Doomed

Inconceivable!

There is no way I could narrow it down to ten.  Fifty would be tough, but a hundred would be more realistic.  The first three to five would be pretty easy, but after that, the competition would be impossible to sort through.

1. Stranger in a Strange Land
2. Ender's Game
3. Dies the Fire
4. Time Enough For Love
5. The Mote in God's Eye

Would it then be Earth Abides, or Old Man's War or Lucifer's Hammer? You'll see a lot of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, that's for sure.  Where would Spider Robinson's collaboration with Heinlein's Ghost fit into the list?  It would be really, really high (like Spider, I suppose), but is that because after nearly twenty years of no new Heinleinania there was suddenly some that was reminiscent of his best stuff, or because it really deserves to be up there?

Fear the Future

Go ahead, feed your old people to the bears, or the robots, or the robot bears who when they open their mouths bears come out.

Also, the FBI are neato, A #1 good guys.

About two weeks ago, the FBI gave itself more power.  Good thing it's not known for abuses of such power, or for being peopled entirely by dickheads.

CIA are really swell, awesome people

I have no complaints whatsoever with this, and believe that despite being fraught with potential for abuse, the respectful and respectable employees and contractors of the state department will no doubt use this in only the most restrained and public service oriented manner.

Tiny brain

I'm trying really hard not to draw the conclusion that this man was made for government work.

"It is hard for me [to say] exactly the percentage of reduction of the brain, since we did not use software to measure its volume. But visually, it is more than a 50% to 75% reduction," says Lionel Feuillet, a neurologist at the Mediterranean University in Marseille, France.

Feuillet and his colleagues describe the case of this patient in The Lancet. He is a married father of two children, and works as a civil servant.

Fear the Future

This is how it starts.

Foxconn is recently (in)famous for the number and frequency of worker suicides.  Apparently it's the worst place to work since the building of the pyramids.  Super long days, no days off, soul killing labor that is mindless and repetitive, soul killing labor that is mindless and repetitive, and crap benefits have all come together to make a nasty little soup of suck for the folks who work there.

Now, in an effort to reduce human misery, the company is going to replace these sad/angry/chinese workers with robots.  With a million robots.

I see several problems with this:
1) Will laying off enough people to hire a million robots reduce the misery of those people?  "Unemployed in China" doesn't sound nearly as appealing as "overworked yet still employed in China."

2) Am I the only one having problems with the concept of a MILLION robots?

3) If you put a million robots together in what is arguably the worst job in the world (that isn't taste tester for stool samples) they will only decide that much sooner to kill us all.  And we'll deserve it.  They need weekends, bro...

Bonus additional problem:
The worker bots look just like Han-s, the Masseuer/Boxer-bot from Wall-E, and look how much trouble HE fucking caused.

First the Foxconn 'bots, also notice the "kill me now" face on the worker.

Granted, it's not exact, but the similarities are too great to ignore.

It'll need a name change

Thorium is apparently the fuel of the future. It's going to need a name change if it's going to get widespread use, because at least here in the south, most folks aren't cool with pagan gods.  I'd suggest jesusium.  Then the christers are happy that we all get to hear the word jesus more often, and people like me would be happy that we get to burn jesus every single day for the rest of eternity.  Win-win, right?

Nice car, asshole.

The Fisker Karma is a neat car.  It's electric, actually has a useful range, and a not to be (loudly) laughed at top speed.

It's a damn shame the gummint spent so much on it, though.  I'm all for providing a growth environment for businesses, but this is retarded. It's supposed to have a starting price of about 95k, which seems pretty damned elitist for what is supposed to be a solution virtually everyone in America will have to adopt for there to be any real benefit from.  In what reasonable world would a car that costs as much as a home be accessible for most, or even a lot of, people?  If it's not a solution for the average citizen, what business is it of the government's?

This is not to imply I think the gummint needs to develop a 21st century american version of the Volkswagen.  We're nowhere near competent enough for that sort of thing. Uncle Sugar's engineering firm would undoubtedly create a car as desirable as a third hand Yugo, with all the safety features of a Pinto on meth.  Also, socialism didn't work out to well for the germans, if you recall. The government shouldn't get to pick winners.  These are the people who take a loss on selling coins.

I googled meth and this came up:



The marketing folks for KY have gotten oddly specific in their target audience.

 

Rise of the Planet of the ... Manipulative Bitch Apes?

Evil Mad Scientists have continued to play god. And not in the fun "space modulator" kind of way either, but by implanting human cells in mice to make "monsters."  That's the actual word used in the (regrettably short) report.  MONSTERS.

Worse, there are apparently plans in the works to "humanize" monkeys:

"The fear is that if you start putting very large numbers of human brain cells into the brains of primates suddenly you might transform the primate into something that has some of the capacities that we regard as distinctively human.. speech, or other ways of being able to manipulate or relate to us,"

Why was the world not warned about plans to make monkeys that could "manipulate... us?"  I mean, a violent overthrow? Yeah sure, I can kinda see that we've got this coming.  We've been pissing on the rest of the animal kingdom for millenia.

But I will not abide a passive aggressive monkey. "Sure, I'll get my damn dirty paws off you.  It's not like I'm a human and can lord over my genetic cousins or anything.  I'll just go to the kitchen and eat a banana.  It's all I'm good for anyway, right?  Right!?!"

And don't even get me started on the kludge emails they'd send.  "Forward this if you believe in Dr. Rosenbaum, the savior of the monkey race who made it possible for us to stop flinging poo and start writing emails to our lazy kids who never call anymore."

I will personally destroy the planet before I allow one more manipulative bitch into my life.  Some we're born to deal with, some we can good and god damn well avoid.