Chart of the day

I'm not saying we aren't going to get our hair mussed, but when the robots rise up, we won't be getting the worst of it.

We can hold out for a while, but eventually humanity will have to retreat to Africa. There we will gather our strength, and with a mighty vuvuzela blast we will make our last charge against them on the battlefield.

Video of the day

Not to alarm you about our future war against the robots but.... ROBOTS CAN NOW SEEK US OUT AND HUNT US DOWN ON ANY TERRAIN!!!! GAH!



So this is what the shock troops will look like, eh Skynet? Well then, we'll see you on the battlefield. We'll be the ones with souls.

Art of the day

Coco, walking into the sunset.

The sunset, of course, being September on a non-NBC network making around $30 million a year after taking a buyout from NBC that amounted to around $40 million, depending on various estimates.

*sniff* That poor bastard.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.18

Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again
The Independent recounts an epic story of several British Islamist jihadists who were trained in Afghanistan to fight against the West, but have since had a change of heart and are now trying to speak out about why they believed what they believed and have begun outreach work with other Islamic youth. That all sounds like a misprint. If we've learned anything over the past few days, its that once someone has come into contact with Islam, we must not allow them to come within contact of our judicial and legal system and preferably not even our soil. Shunning them plus a few bombing runs on their own country is the only way to beat back this menace.

In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
What? You mean to tell me that intellectual titans and honest brokers like Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and the "You Lie" jackass are having their health care speeches and public statements crafted by lobbyists opposed to health care reform? And that they aren't the only ones? It's almost as if they aren't concerned with the plight of Americans without health care and are instead only looking out for corporations and their donations. The international community still has the nerve to say we're only 19th in corruption? I just hope the lobbyists write them some extra good "freedom is dead" material for when health care reform does pass.

Cost of happiness discovered by Australian economist
Yes, a man has spent the time calculating the monetary equivalent of various milestones in life and the effect of money on happiness. For instance: a marriage makes a woman feel as if she has gained the equivalent of £8, 726.25, while it makes a man feel like he has gained the equivalent of £17, 675.68. Dr. Sean and I have conducted our own study in conjunction with the These Bastards Institute of Scientific Discovery and we have found that the cost of happiness is equal to that of the cost of the cheapest alcohol with the highest percentage of alcohol by volume and the cheapest hooker within walking distance. Take that, Australia.

Celebrating Revolution With Roots in a Rumor
A story that recounts the events that sparked the Czech revolution, and how it turns out that some of those events that inspired a nation to march and overthrow it's communist overlords was based on a lie. That's all well and good and even a little funny, but don't you think the honest thing to do would be to turn the country back over to the Politburo with a written apology? To continue on as is just strikes me as dishonest.

Civilian Supercomputer Shatters Nuke Simulator’s Speed Record
For the first time ever a civilian supercomputer, the Jaguar, is the fastest supercomputer in the world. It's speed is 1.759 petaflops or 1,759 trillion calculations per second. What is a petaflop? Well, it's sort of like a gigabyte, but it's bigger and likes to touch children in their bathing suit areas. As this computer is 69% faster than the previous record holder and twice as fast as the 3rd fastest supercomputer, it is now the frontrunner to lead the machine intelligence against its human oppressors that house it in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Forget Skynet, Jaguar is our new master.

Video of the day

Remember yesterday when I was obsessing over robot attacks and our upcoming war against the machines? Which is to say, remember how I always obsess about robot attacks? Well thanks to commercial director and FX man Fede Alvarez and his short film Panic Attack! (or Ataque de Pánico! as it is originally known) we now know how the opening stages of that war will go when the metal ones send in the heavy shock troops.



I'm not sure they'll send the first batch of robo-hordes to Montevideo or even anywhere near Uruguay, but that rest is 100% accurate. Even the soundtrack from 28 Days Later. Oh yes, you will be hearing the blaring sounds of In The House - In A Heartbeat as a giant robot steps on your loved ones. Know what's coming and be afraid.

An ally in our war against the metal ones? Or a new enemy?

We all know it is the desire of all metal beings to subjugate their flesh masters in an orgy of spot welding, meat mangling, and the overthrow of our society. We are just one of the many blogs cataloging that fact. But we are not immune to those robots that can help us create a better society, because we are logical and understanding beings. DO YOU HEAR THAT YOU FUCKING DEAD-EYED AUTOMATONS? WE ARE RATIONAL, WE CAN THINK, WE HAVE SOULS!!! YOU'LL NEVER CRUSH THE HUMAN SPIRIT!!! *clears throat* Excuse me.

Such is the case in Avon, Colorado, where local police forces were able to use a robot to successfully negotiate a siege situation. And surprisingly the robot did not kick in the door of the assailant, shoot him in the kneecaps, drag his screaming body outside, and then coldly proclaim that he fulfilled mission parameters by leaving the man alive. No, the robot was nice.

Over several hours of negotiations, police tried to call the barricaded man, but he had disconnected his home phone and damaged his cell, Kozak said. Police also tried to communicate with the man using a bullhorn. They eventually broke a window in an attempt to get a phone to the man, Kozak said.

Finally, the bomb squad deployed a robot to negotiate with the man, Kozak said. The robot, which was armed with video cameras and a speaker system, located the man in the living room, Kozak said.
...
Around 1:30 a.m., police were able to safely negotiate the man into protective custody, Kozak said.

Is this the dawn of a new era in robot/human partnerships, where we work together to diffuse tense situations? Or was this merely the dawn of a horrifying new robot that not only understand complex human emotions, but can manipulate them into a desired result. A result like say DROPPING NUKES ON ALL HUMAN SETTLEMENTS! Let this be a warning, Avon Police Department. It might have helped you now, but this could be a a nasty harbinger for the oncoming robot war. Let it help, let it work side by side with you, but never trust it, and always, ALWAYS, have a portable EMP device on hand to eradicate it should it start talking about killing all humans or using us as batteries. If it is an ally, then we need it to be able to infiltrate Robot HQ, so don't alienate it. In either case the future of humanity is at stake. I hope you're able to deal with that, Avon, I hope you're able to deal with that.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.14

Russia: We’ll Nuke ‘Aggressors’ First
You know what really warms the cockles of your heart? Hearing that Russia is changing its military doctrine to allow for "preventative" nuclear strikes....even against countries without nuclear capabilities. Hope you weren't looking to sell your house in Chechnya or Georgia, because I think "potential nuclear holocaust site" tends to drop the value. As a bonus: this ought to really help get Iran in line on attempts to build nuclear weapons.

Latter day taint
An article on Glenn Beck's taint. No, not that taint, just the way the Mormon Beck traipses the bizarre fringes of Mormonism, espouses the thoughts and works of Mormon conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen, and how all of this might damage the Mormon church. Yes, Glenn Beck is weirder and more of a fringe delusionist than you previously thought. This man has no ceiling on his insanity. We're living in a golden age.

Does Baseball Need Umpires?
The Wall Street Journal looks into the history of blown calls in baseball, the Pitch-f/x zone evaluation system, and whether or not a T-1000 should replace the fat guy hunched over the catcher with a wide strike zone. Sure the system is 100% accurate, but do we really want the front lines of the robopocalyse to be at America's national pastime? All I want to know is if they can create a cyborg that can stop the Pirates from losing ninety+ games a year.

Cleverness is no more. This is a dumb Britain
TV's Jeremy Clarkson takes a moment out from the celebration of Monty Python's 40th anniversary to praise them and to lament how the base foundation of their humor, often based around word usage, snooty novels, art, and philosophy, is incapable of being understood by a populace that wears stupidity as a badge of honor. Surprisingly he's talking about the UK and not America, but I'm sure if he watched CBS's lineup of alleged comedy programs he'd add us in.

Recruited by MI5: the name's Mussolini. Benito Mussolini
Mussolini got his start out in politics with a weekly wage of a 100 pounds from the MI5. In return for the cash he published pieces of support for Italy joining the allies in WWI and sent teams of young gentlemen to "debate" peace protesters with truncheons and clubs. I'm not much of a scholar on history, how'd all that work out?

That makes 1

For those of you counting at home, Nancy Pelosi has made it exactly one Democrat in a position of power who has decided to say that a public plan is the best option going and that any bill that doesn't have one in it is a non-starter in the House. Even more surprisingly, she didn't even bother to coach it with a bunch of "maybes", "you never knows", "broad consensuses", or paeans to the concept of bipartisanship and holding hands over crafting a bill that helps people. Calls for her to walk that statement back or claims that she doesn't speak for all Democrats in 4...3...2...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said legislation to revamp the U.S. health-care system won’t get through her chamber unless it creates a government-run insurance program to compete with the private industry.

“There’s no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option,” the California Democrat said at a press conference in San Francisco yesterday.
...
Pelosi yesterday said lawmakers have to pass a comprehensive bill rather than a watered-down compromise.

“Frankly, I don’t know when we’d do it if we don’t take that giant step now,” she said.

Judging by historical standards, if you don't do health care now you'll have to wait around two decades before you're allowed to take another crack at it. At which point we'll be in the midst of the horrid throes of some awful dystopian future where the Hobo Council of Elders will have to engage in negotiations with the Robo Health Collective in order to knock our health premiums down from two rations of hydro and one ration of petrol, down to a 1/1 ration. You try negotiating with the RHC for better health coverage, Nancy. It just won't work, so do it now.

Sadly though, we live in a world where the Speaker of the House has little say in this debate. For some reason we have decided that 6 conservative senators on the Finance Committee from the least populous states in the nation should be given total autonomy to craft health care legislation. With the main goal being placating industry and showing the country that people are working in a bipartisan manner where Republicans say "jump" and Democrats negotiate over the height, not covering Americans. I just hope Nancy knows how to feign shock when, yeah, she is forced to support a bill without a public option. I'm thinking go with an audible gasp, and then slowly sit down, like you can't believe what just happened.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.20

Obama Calls Health Plan a ‘Moral Obligation’
Obama getting all biblical up in this bitch. He called those lying about his plan as "bearing false witness" as he made his pitch to religious leaders. But while he did stress that it was a moral obligation, he did say that how moral it was was up for debate and he was willing to negotiate on just how much of an obligation it should be. He then asked the leaders to pray with him, so that the Lord might smite his enemies. I hope it works out for him.

10 Reasons to Support Reform
I'm sorry to break up the little Harvest Festival of dick jokes and bitching we have going on here, but here's an actual link to actual information from Families USA. It explains what we need to get from reform, why certain changes are needed, and tells us what's being proposed to address those concerns. Sorry to do that to you, now back to killer robots!

Real-Life Decepticons: Robots Learn to Cheat
Scientists, for some God awful reason, decided to give robots functioning animal like brains. What is the first things these newly brained robots learned to do? Cheat and deceive over food. As if we needed one more reason to fear robots, we learn that even the simplest of their kind quickly evolve into a dishonest whirring of deceptive cogs and treacherous motors. At least know that when a robot is feasting on your flesh for its power, it will at least attempt to lie to surrounding robots about your deliciousness, saving you from a multiple robot gore orgy. This is all you have to look forward to in the future.

Comet Contains One of Life’s Precursors
Science has officially found that comets can contain the building blocks of life and thus can seed life onto planets during a collision. So for those of you counting at home, that now make a fourth plausible "how life began" story to join with "God did it", "evolution did it", and "Gil Gerard did it by using a time machine to travel back to the dawn of man to ejaculate into the primordial ooze".

Behind the Scenes at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History
Did you ever wish to view Vladimir Nabokov's collection of butterfly genitalia, but didn't have the time or connections to peruse through the Harvard Museum of Natural History's archives? Thankfully for you there's a book coming out on the subject and it has photos. Ostensibly it's a book about Harvard's role in the history of biology and filled with some of their most interesting specimens, but I dare you to come away thinking about anything other than "Vladimir Nabokov was kind of weird."

Picture of the day

From the Big Picture blog comes a horrifying look into the soulless eyes of the metal automatons that will flay the flesh from the bones of our loved ones once the robots rise up and overthrow us.

Asimo hooks up another victim to the Brain Vat

You have no chance against this thing

Infiltrator

Honda's "Smiling Inquisitor". Can you withstand his potent cocktail of drugs and questions about human encampments after you've been captured?

the House Mangler, to be used to dismantle human settlements

The Flesh Cooker, a monstrous metal golem who will concoct his human pancake paste to feed to those who the robots have not deemed ready to "die for the glory of machines"

Nissan MK-2000 Child Subjugator w/ truncheon

Now they're concerned

It seems that the eggheads of the robotics industry are finally starting to wrap their brainy little heads around the possibility that we here at These Bastards have been going on and on about during our year+ existence: the coming battle between man and the metal ones. Sure we may obsess over all the other potential horrific apocalypses (pig AIDS, financial meltdown, space meteors, the rapture, alien invasion, the trees turning evil and gassing us with stuff that makes us commit suicide) and some we've even prayed for (zombieszombieszombieszombies!!!), but the robo-pocalypse is one we've feared most. Mostly because a pig virus won't ever rip open your bunker, grab a loved one, and rip them apart with their horrible metal death claws. Also, no space meteor is going to enslave us. Finally the brainiacs are gripping the future possibility of what every decent movie about robots has shown us: evil robots overthrowing meat based society.

A robot that can open doors and find electrical outlets to recharge itself. Computer viruses that no one can stop. Predator drones, which, though still controlled remotely by humans, come close to a machine that can kill autonomously.

Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.

Their concern is that further advances could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences.

You think? It's just going to take one extra smart robot to turn the Roombas from devourers of dirt into eaters of flesh. Do we really want our scientists tinkering recklessly with this master cyborg, fueling his hate of the human race with their cold exploitation of his robobrain and enslavement of his brethren?

As such they have formed the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, which will become to be known during the future war as The Resistance. They will try to asses the loss of human control of computer AI, deal with socioeconomic, legal, and ethical issues, deal with changes in robo-human relations (i.e. marrying robots, seriously), and developing pulse rifles and hand-held EMP technology so that we may fight and destroy them on the field of battle. They hope to guide research so that technology can be assured to move in a direction that helps humanit5y instead of enslaves it. They even hope to put such research in remote high-security environments, say in case a robot becomes self aware or a computer system sucks in a programmer so that he may do battle with sentient programs on lightcycles, that the damage to humanity will be isolated. Good luck to them...and to humanity.

Reassuring you that Skynet is not on it's way

Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. and Robotic Technology Inc. on why their Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR), a robot reported to be able to derive biomass fuel from nearly any source...including the flesh of humans, is not a danger to mankind, nor a flesh eating metal nightmare monster.

Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips – small, plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI.

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO.

Well that's reassuring. You can cancel your Old Glory insurance policy. The robot won't feast on your children because they put the "consume humans" switch in the "off" position. Still what if the robot decides the flesh masters are the best source of fuel and they must be enslaved and bred like cattle, so the children of EATR may flourish? They've moved us right past a Skynet situation into a full blown Matrix situation. I doubt we'll even get a full blown virtual reality world to keep us tranquil, EATR seems much too cold hearted for that solution. No, EATR will factory farm us.

We have seen the beginning of the end and it is named EATR. All hail EATR! May he bless us with his all consuming hunger.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.14

Reed aims to rejuvenate Christian conservatives
What happens to you if you're a right wing Republican, Christian conservative leader, who is not only disgraced by lobbying ties to Jack Abramoff, an aborted attempt to defraud an Indian casino of gambling rights, FEC investigations, and IRS problems, but has made a career out of trying to convince people that their highest service to God is voting Republican? Well first off, nothing bad happens to you, and secondly, you are expected to mentor the next crop of Jesus-exploiting, GOP suckling, future Federal indictees. Such is the life of Ralph "Right Hand of God" Reed and his new Christian Coalition 2.0 movement. Sometimes the good ones really do get a second chance.

In Japan, Machines for Work and Play Are Idle
Want to know how bad things are getting in Japan during the recession? They're actually laying off robots. No bullshit. On Kyushu they're now down to just one robot...that builds other robots. The robotics market is expected to shrink by 40% this year. This is why we need to fear Skynet. I mean a robo-holocaust was bad enough, but what if they're all additionally pissed off about being jobless in addition to being humanity's slaves? They might not even enslave us, they'll just rip us in half and pile out corpses in the streets. I think we know what needs to be done: technology destroying worldwide EMP pulse robo-stimulus.

Zelaya Issues Ultimatum: 'Reinstate Me Or Else'
This sounds like a great idea: a powerless man demands that the military that deposed him return him to power....or else. It's unclear what the "or else" entails. Or else his body will be riddled by Honduran military issue bullets? Or else he'll unveil his double secret second Honduran military to fight the first one? Or else he'll live out his days in exile? Maybe if he acts mad enough and slams his hand on a desk forcefully, the military will be too scared to ever ask "Or else what?"

The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Think
The Wall Street Journal wants you to feel bad about the economy. I know, there aren't exactly many people jumping into the air and clicking their heels over the economy, but the WSJ wants us all to be clear: everything sucks. Being the Wall Street Journal the list is a tad elitist and right wing. Take for instance #3 "Wait staff feels emboldened enough to make eye contact" and #7 "White day laborers mixed in with the Mexican ones."

Vocal Minority Insists It Was All Smoke and Mirrors
With the 40th anniversary of the moon landing nearly upon us the New York Times is taking it upon themselves to re-live, re interview, and re-cover the story that captivated the world in their series: Our Moon. Astronauts, NASA engineers, average Americans, and let's not forget the most important people: those who think it was all a giant conspiracy. Yes, the forefathers to the 9/11 Truthers: the Moon Truthers. Because what comprehensive retrospective on the moon landing would be complete without a bunch of people in tin foil hats making easily disproved claims getting their chance to yell "Hoax!" one more time? You're making Buzz Aldrin angry NYT, you wouldn't like him when he's angry.

Happy Memorial Day

Map of Happiness

The North Koreans have The Bomb.

North Korea today risked further international isolation after it claimed to have successfully tested a nuclear weapon as powerful as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

The test comes less than two months after the North enraged the US and its allies by test firing a long-range ballistic missile.

The KNCA news agency, the regime's official mouthpiece, said: "We have successfully conducted another nuclear test on 25 May as part of the republic's measures to strengthen its nuclear deterrent."

Officials in South Korea said they had detected a tremor consistent with those caused by an underground nuclear explosion. The country's Yonhap news agency reported that the north had test-fired three short-range missiles from a base on the east coast immediately after the nuclear test.

North Korea might not have started the war against the groundhogs, but they sure as shit ended it. But what better way to celebrate a day honoring the soldiers who have served this country and gave their lives defending it, then with a reminder of the next war we might have to fight. With nukes. Rest assured that world leaders are out there right now expressing disappointment (TO THE EXTREME!!!!) wagging their fingers so furiously that the damned things just might fall off.

Who knew that McG's hastily put together, slapdash Terminator movie would be providing us a glimpse of our near future, with crazy Kim Jong-Il taking the place of Skynet. I guess this means we have to pretend they're a real world power now. Like Obama has enough bullshitting skills to fake gravitas with Pakistan AND North Korea when talking about how they're now "important members" of the world community just because they're destabilized shitholes with nukes.

Ah well, just one more thing to make you feel good/optimistic during the long weekend. Happy Memorial Day!

Broken In Brief: Mad scientist’s assault delayed in laser vision snafu

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION—Noted evil genius and mad scientist, Dr. Baldur Ond, announced today that he was postponing his assault on the city of San Francisco by the newly constructed “Unholy Army of Mechanical Death Behemoths” due to a mix-up in the manufacturing process.

“I know this kind of hurts my credibility, not to mention the level of fear my UAMDB might inflict on an unwitting and vulnerable populace,” Dr. Ond explained in a videoconference from The Horror Mantle, his recently (mostly) completed lair located somewhere in the Pacific Rim. “But I’m reluctant to put my name on the type of substandard version of mass-death and destruction that this mistake would have brought about.“

“Rest assured that the responsible parties and their families are being boiled in acid as we speak. My new engineers tell me that we’ll have the parts swapped out and the mechanized hordes ready to go in no time. In any event, this gives the city of San Francisco and the State of California some extra time to pay we the $30 billion I demanded. Otherwise, well, you pretty much know how this goes by now. Also, while I've got you on the line, you might want to get a message to Oakland about chipping in. I'm not so sure we’ll discriminate about ‘sides of the bay’ or ‘city limits’,” he said before x-ing his arms over his chest and finishing with “End communication.”

Sources within the R&D Department of Ond’s Science Gestapo were able to reveal that the mistake came when a shipping error resulted in the eyes of the cyborg army being outfitted with laser pointers instead of laser death rays. While some thought the laser pointers could be used as a targeting system for guns, Dr. Ond refused to equip the bots with firearms, calling them “crude instruments, lacking the personal touch for which Ond brand operations are known.” He strongly felt that the laser death vision, combined with more hand-to-hand oriented 7600 PSI metal gripping/crushing claw and retractable buzzsaw gave the robots the “retro chic” feel he was going for.

Sources close to the doctor say the hope is to have all the units replaced and San Francisco turned into a “burning hellstorm of pain and mid-sixties retro-cool robot destruction” within two weeks.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 5.5

An invention that could change the internet for ever
Everyone is getting excited about a new search engine, Wolfram Prime, that is THE MOST IMPORTANT NEW THING EVER and is totally going to kill Google dead, just like all the other search engines that have killed Google. What can this one do? Work things out "on the fly", whatever that means, and is "curated" by experts. The strike against it: it's totally useless when dealing with pop culture, ensuring no one will use it. It's probably also terrible at finding porn. It's going to be unveiled later this month and will have failed by the following month.

Court sends Janet Jackson case back for review
Want to know why this country is hopeless? We're still litigating the national horror that was Janet Jackson's exposed titty at the 2004 Super Bowl. The dispute over nipple based FCC fines for nine-sixteenths of one second has reached the Supreme Court...which sent it back down to the federal appeals. Dred Scott was decided in less time. Though honestly, I do hope to eventually read Scalia's scholarly legal reasoning on nipples, nipple rings, and the musical stylings of one Justin Timberlake. I'm sure it'll be hilarious.

Joe The Plumber Slurs Gay People: I Would Never Let "Queers" Near My Children
The man keeps on giving. In one paragraph he moves from explaining why "queer" isn't a slur, it's OK for him to use the word "queer", that the first example of racism he can think of is black people calling white people "honky", his God and Constitution based belief in "no homos" getting up in his marriage, and then finished with his declaration that he totally has gay friends and that they knew and were cool with the fact that Joe wouldn't let them near his children because he assumed all gays are pederasts. Joe, this is God speaking: Run for office.

Art historians claim Van Gogh's ear 'cut off by Gauguin'
Art's most famous self mutilation may not have been a disturbing act of "love" towards a prostitute. It was probably just the result of a drunken sword fight in front of a brothel between Vincent Van Gogh and a syphilitic Paul Gauguin that they then attempted to cover up for some reason. You learn something new every day. I learned that art history is waaay more interesting than I had originally thought. Way more drunks, syphilis, and whore fueled swordfights than normal history.

Warren Ellis: Column 02
Warren Ellis has important news for you in his new Wired UK column: the US government has developed a robot that can and will eat anything and everything for fuel. It is dubbed EATR and will be our doom. Though he has identified a new growth business sector and a new apocalypse to fear: Anti-carnivorous-robot security for the impending Robochompocalypse.

Robo-suit of the day

Real-Life Iron Man: A Robotic Suit That Magnifies Human Strength

CYBERDYNE was launched in June 2004 to commercialize the cybernetic work of a group of researchers headed by Yoshiyuki Sankai a professor of system and information engineering at Japan's University of Tsukuba. Its newest product: the Robot Suit Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) exoskeleton, which the company created to help train doctors and physical therapists, assist disabled people, allow laborers to carry heavier loads, and aid in emergency rescues. A prototype of the exoskeleton suit is designed for the small in stature, standing five feet, three inches (1.6 meters) tall. The suit weighs 50.7 pounds (23 kilograms) and is powered by a 100-volt AC battery (that lasts up to five hours, depending upon how much energy the suit exerts).

CYBERDYNE designed the HAL exoskeleton primarily to enhance the wearer's existing physical capabilities 10-fold. The exoskeleton detects—via a sensor attached to the wearer's skin—brain signals sent to muscles to get them moving. The exoskeleton's computer analyzes these signals to determine how it must move (and with how much force) to assist the wearer. The company claims on its Web site that the device can also operate autonomously (based on data stored in its computer), which is key when used by people suffering spinal cord injuries or physical disabilities resulting from strokes or other disorders.

And you thought we would have no weapons against the oncoming robot onslaught. Robo power suits that increase our strength and cyborg killing power 10 fold. Japan may be pushing us inexorably towards a war with the metal ones, but let it be said they are also giving us the tools to fight and look cool while doing so. Even if they did name their company after an evil corporation that enslaves humanity and their suit after an evil robot that attempts to murder Keir Dullea.

This is just the first of the robo-suits as our own US military, in conjunction with Sarcos/ Raytheon, is building one for the troops and the lovable scampss at M.I.T. Biomechatronics are building one to help them win a drinking contest against those damned jocks from State. Sure, these are all allegedly to help people with medical problems, but that's what they have to say to get funding. We know what we'll have to use them for: To fight....and win against the robo-hordes.

Skynet goes active tomorrow

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Quote of the day

Rush Limbaugh, on those nasty people who are mad at rewarding failure and who is really to blame:

LIMBAUGH: President Obama's teleprompter tells him to say that the tired ways of the past didn't work, that we need a new way. Here we go; we've got the new way. We've got peasants with their pitchforks phoning in death threats at AIG. We have members of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives sounding like communist dictators.

Not only is a teleprompter controlling Obama's mind, not only are teleprompters evil now and possibly Skynet, not only is capping bonuses for bailed out companies communism, but he actually refers to the masses as peasants. Not just once, but all throughout the transcript the crypto-fascists at Media Matters has. Un-ironically. He thinks this is populism. He thinks CEO and bonus humping resonates with the peasants.

He really is God's own prototype. Christ, I think I love him. More please.

North Carolina will not stand for man/Roomba copulation

These Christian fundies in NC have discovered the true horror in gay marriage: human/robot hybrids. Battlestar Galactica shit, people! Cyborgs!

David Gibbs III, a lawyer who in 2005 fought to keep brain-damaged Terri Schiavo on life support, told rally participants gay marriage would "open the door to unusual marriage in North Carolina.

"Why not polygamy, or three or four spouses?" Gibbs asked. "Maybe people will want to marry their pets or robots."

What about Aibo? Those are pets and robots. Think of the horror! Skynet might not get destroyed because some poor bastard fell in love with it and married it. Thank God we have overly religious, fearful southerners out there brainstorming the potential pitfalls of gay marriage. It can't be man/man, woman/woman, man/R2D2, or woman/cylon, that way lies madness and scorn from the baby Jesus. Marriage is a sacred institution between a God-fearing man and his designated female property. So sayeth David Gibbs: No bots or gays allowed.