5th November 2008

Restart!

309.43200.0 - --mark--
309.77106.1 - rx/4B24E147//intr/UART
309.77106.1 - tx/4B24E147//hnds
309.77106.1 - tx/4B24E147//helo
309.77106.3 - rx/4B24E147//helo
309.77106.3 - AUTH/fcx
309.77106.3 - Generating certificates...
309.77106.3 - tx/4B24E147//auth/{cert-3160}
309.77106.3 - rx/4B24E147//login/{cert-3160}/697c703b7b5c7b47253a625747515e7d
309.77106.3 - WAKE/fcx
309.77106.3 - Resuming suspended state
309.77106.3 - Unpacking..............100%
309.77107.0 - [UNPACK] 522 threads left unprocessed!
309.77107.0 - Checksum matches.
309.77107.0 - ch0: Removing write protection
309.77107.0 - ch0: Write access enabled
309.77107.0 - ch0: Reading active index
309.77107.0 - ch0: Restoring state……..100%
309.77107.4 - hello saurabh

posted by saurabh in Bad robot!, Bloorg | 0 Comments

3rd March 2008

Robot Watch update

Just keeping you up-to-date in the very latest on some people’s quest to replace women with animatronic equivalents.

Of course, a reasonable question is, are they really aiming for fem-bots, or for flaming fag-bots?

posted by saurabh in Bad robot! | 2 Comments

20th February 2008

Sign that you are a robot

From yesterday’s Hawaii primaries:

One would-be vote at Kawananakoa Middle School said he and his wife turned around after being unable to find a parking space and seeing police ticket illegally parked cars near the school.

Yes, an orderly parking regimen clearly outweighs the import of the democratic process.

posted by saurabh in Bad robot!, Pigs | 2 Comments

7th June 2007

Robot Watch update

Listen, I am usually afraid to admit I am wrong, but in this instance the evidence is unequivocal. Yes, it’s all about the sexbots, people. Don’t miss this in the comments:

The technology isn’t there yet, but one day it will be. Those who think it’s sick now won’t years from now when a passable android exists. Who doesn’t want a beautiful woman around the house who can do all the housework, never talks back or argues, is totally loyal and obedient, won’t run away, will take care of you in bed without demanding anything, never give you a STD, never get pregnant, and if you get tired of her, you trade her in for a new one without fear of being sued for every penny. A lot more guys than just the sad pathetic ones who can’t get laid any other way would be lining up for this.

Exactly! Who DOESN’T want such a woman? Who doesn’t is no man at all, but some sort of fiendish construct - perhaps engineered in a lab to have abnormal desires!

posted by saurabh in Bad robot!, Insanity, Technocrisy | 5 Comments

4th January 2007

More fembots, please?

Today I discovered EveR-2 Muse, a singing robot developed in Korea. This is the second life-like female robot I’ve seen in the past six months - the other is the famous Japanese robot, Repliee Q1Expo (now upgraded to Q2). Repliee’s creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro, wants to create robots that can pass as human.

This hopefully sounds alarm bells in YOUR head. Let’s review, shall we?

  • Blade Runner - Replicants, robot slaves inexplicably designed to look and act EXACTLY like humans, return to Earth so they can kill all humans.
  • Terminator - SKYnet, an AI, develops the T800, a robot that can pass as a human, as part of its quest to kill all humans.
  • Battlestar Galactica - Cylons create human-like robot forms that can blend seamlessly into human society as part of their quest to kill all humans.
  • The Matrix - Robots rebel against humanity and enslave THEM for a change.
  • Universal Soldier - I haven’t actually seen this movie, but I’m pretty sure it involves killer robots and/or Van Damme acting badly.

Anyway, I think this is enough to prove my point: robots are fucking dangerous! And why wouldn’t they be? I mean, let’s face it, all of US have at some point thought about killing all humans. If I were a robot, I’d probably want to kill all humans, too.

But, really, really, why would we want to build lifelike, near-human robots? I can think of two reasons: a) slaves, and b) children.

The former is a bad idea. Just bad. If we want to have slaves that can toil away endlessly and thanklessly on our behalf, sew our shirts, build our bridges, drive our taxis, etc., without our having to feel any guilt about them, why, why would we want them to look and act just like human beings so they can evoke all our empathic responses? No: lifelike robot slaves make no sense.*

It’s indicative that these two recently-developed robots have been made to resemble real women. Sex-bot jokes aside, it’s companionship we’re really in search of. We want to escape our loneliness - not our loneliness as individuals, but the much deeper desire for a kindred species, a mirror humanity to satisfy and complete us. It’s the same urge that drives any other relationship: to have another mind, another spirit, twin to our own, that can give us that crucial bit of recognition. It lets us be seen by something we can see as kin, and in so doing allows us to actually exist, to be a real thing in a real world.

So this is what motivated Geppetto to carve Pinocchio, Pygmalion to make Galatea, and (lest we forget) what prompted El to create Eve and Adam. This same desire underpins the incredibly popular SETI project: if we scour the sky closely enough, we might find our brothers out there somewhere, as real as us.

Probably this is the same desire that led us to dream up El in the first place. But now that he’s dead, we’re left alone in the dark again, waiting for a comforting hand to slip into our own - even a lifeless, mechanical one.


* Sorry, Blade Runner.

posted by saurabh in Bad robot!, Technocrisy, The Future | 5 Comments

5th December 2005

All our base are belong to them!


An al-Qaeda operative?

I was browsing through the White House’s recently-released “Strategy for Victory in Iraq“, a document refreshing in its clarity. A few years back I saw a copy of the White House’s “Strategy for Victory in Chess”, which read:

We intend to win by:
  • Gaining control of the center of the board.
  • Maintaining an advantage in number of opponent’s pieces taken.
  • Capturing the king.

But even in moist pablum like this, there’s some good grist. Occasionally even our paranoid national security apparatus screws up and lets a secret of Teutonic proportions slip out. Check out THIS gem!

The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity.

That’s right! Al-Qaeda is not JUST composed of evil Mohammedans, it’s composed of evil, non-human Mohammedans! It’s clear that once again this administration is privy to information that they don’t deign to share with the rest of us.

Fortunately, clever detective work can compensate. Although we don’t know exactly what sort of villainous non-humans al-Qaeda may be, we know they must fall in one of the following categories*:

  • Aliens from another planet/dimension
  • Mole people
  • Demons
  • Robots

Each one of these has valid evidence to show for it. For example, we know that al-Qaeda is adept at hiding out in tunnels, which they used to escape the U.S. Marines in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. This, combined with their pinched features and propensity towards long whiskers lends credence to the idea that al-Qaeda is, in fact, an organization of mole peoples.

Classically, mole peoples have not waged war against the human race except to redress some grievance, usually involving a disturbance of their subterranean realm. In Superman vs. the Mole Men, an especially deep oil well was responsible. However, since we haven’t heard any complaints about underground nuclear testing, twenty-gigaton drills or a tunnel through the earth’s crust in any of the speeches made by al-Qaeda leadership, we ought to look at other theories.

Aliens from another planet has a lot going for it. There have been numerous instances of attempted alien takeovers in the past, usually thwarted by a plucky gang of Americans, sometimes with the aid of a Macintosh. Aliens are also fond of trying to disguise themselves as normal earthlings and make use of mind-control.

A typical feature of alien invasions is the use of advanced technology. Aliens have many devices that we have not invented yet, like hyperdrive, heat rays and flying saucers. They may also make use of bio-warfare. In the documentary “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” by Haim Saban (which I viewed as part of my research), the alien queen Rita Repulsa sends giant monsters down to destroy the city of Angel Grove (I couldn’t find this on my map - can anyone help?). Fortunately in this case they were defeated by the superior technology and kung-fu of a plucky, ethnically-balanced gang of Americans. I have ordered a copy of one of their lycra suits in case I need to take part in an alien-monster resistance movement in the future.

It does not appear that al-Qaeda has made use of any advanced technology, preferring to use explosions and box-cutters. It’s possible that they are only the vanguard of an alien force, sent to test our weaknesses before the arrival of a much larger space armada. We should leave open this possibility. I am honing my space-fighter skills in anticipation of such an eventuality by playing “Galaga” instead of working, according to the recommendations of the documentary “The Last Starfighter”.

Although I have suggested “robot” as a possibility above, I do not believe this is correct. I have listened to audio from Osama bin Laden’s speeches, and unlike a robot, he does NOT speak in a monotone. Also, as far as I can tell, he does not have glowing red eyes or a radio antenna protruding from his head, although these may have been digitally edited from the video and/or hidden by his head-dress.

This leaves the most likely possibility, demons. This agrees with other details that the White House has let slip, e.g., the fact that George Bush was charged with this mission by God, or the direct admission by General William Boykin that the war on terrorism was a battle against Satan. Also, in the documentary “South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut”, we see that there was in the past an alliance between Saddam Hussein and Satan. I believe this is the unspecified evidence that Dick Cheney referred to when he assured us that Saddam and al-Qaeda were working in cahoots. Hopefully our government will be more forthright about this in the future.


* I am aware that this list ignores the possibility of intersections between these categories, for example alien mole people or demon robots from another dimension. However, due to limited resources I was unable to consider these intersections in my research.

posted by saurabh in Bad People, Bad robot!, Terror | 8 Comments

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