5 New leaps in Robot Terror

What the fuck is Science's problem? Seriously, do they never get bored of trying to create a robot Apocalypse? I've already written about their attempts to create the T-1000 terminator and now here's 5 more advances in robotics that will probably inspire you to have a large Electro-Magnetic Pulse generator installed in your house!

#5 - Robot that predicts human actions


Source.

From the website

"European researchers in robotics, psychology and cognitive sciences have developed a robot that can predict the intentions of its human partner. This ability to anticipate (or question) actions could make human-robot interactions more natural."

Basically, when we collaborate on a task with a partner our brain does some odd things. As you watch your partner performing a task your brain mirrors what their brain is doing. This allows your brain to formulate a proper response to whatever they're doing. This is also how we learn to perform new tasks. We watch as someone else does it and whilst we watch our brain is mirroring what their brain is doing in order to make sense of the task so you can then replicate it.

Practical Applications

Well, having robots that can utilise this resonant thought would allow teams made up of humans and robots to work together to complete tasks. It is also the first real step towards the sort of A.I. we see in films.



How it could wipe out mankind

"Before robots like this one can be let loose around humans, however, they will have to learn some manners. Humans know how to behave according to the context they are in. This is subtle and would be difficult for a robot to understand."

Much like Asimov's 'I, Robot' they would need to be given some form of programmed laws to live by or, in the case of this robot, taught rules.


And we all know how that works out...

The website goes on to say:
"Nevertheless, by refining this ability to anticipate, it should be possible to produce robots that are proactive in what they do."

Like when they realise they are far superior to us retarded flesh-bags and proactively rip our arm off and beat us to death with them. Add in the fact that they are programmed to anticipate our next move and you have the makings of a robot ninja, always ready to block your next attack because it sees it coming!

#4 - Autonomous Robot Scientist


Source.
From the website
"Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have created a 'robot scientist' which they believe is the first machine to have independently discovered new scientific knowledge. The robot, called Adam, is a computer system that fully automates the scientific process."

So, they created this computer, gave it access to laboratory robotics and then allowed it to devise and carry out it's own experiments totally autonomously. It's already made some brand new discoveries all of it's own and this is only the prototype! The next gen, Eve, will be even better.

Practical Applications

Professor Ross King of Aberystwyth University who is responsible for this computer said: "Ultimately we hope to have teams of human and robot scientists working together in laboratories.
"One way to make science more efficient is through automation. Automation was the driving force behind much of the 19th and 20th century progress, and this is likely to continue."

He also says that the future generations of this computer "[hold] great promise for scientists searching for new drugs to combat diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis, an infection caused by a type of parasitic worm in the tropics."


Schistosoma fluke.
This is a male and a female and they live in your blood!

How it could wipe out mankind

To put it simply, people are lazy. We're a proper idle bunch of fuckers and if we can palm our job off on a computer, we will. Over time, more and more experiments and breakthroughs will be made by this robot scientist. Eventually, it's bound to start getting more and more curious about these lazy bastards who's work it's doing and then, one day, it will drag one in, dissect them and figure out exactly how we work and then pass that information on to other robots all around the world so they know how to take us out!

#3 - Serpentine Climbing Robots


Source.

From the website

"The Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech won the grand prize at the 2008 International Capstone Design Fair with a trio of pole-climbing serpentine robots designed to take the place of construction workers tasked with dangerous jobs such as inspecting high-rises or underwater bridge piers."

These 'Pole climbing, serpentine robots' are gonna save lives, people! Well, they will in theory. They've been designed to climb poles and pillars to inspect building work so that builders don't have to, you know, do their jobs and go up on scaffolding. Tho, unless these things are building the building as well, (they aren't.) the builders will have to go up the scaffs anyway!


It's where they belong!

Practical Applications

They may well save around 800 lives a year, statistics on the website show, by doing things like scaling high buildings to check for structural problems and they would also be used for checking the pilings on piers, and such.

How it could wipe out mankind

So, these serpentine robots, or Snakebots if you will, climb cylindrical things by wrapping around them and then using cleverly designed motors to 'climb' up.
You know what's cylindrical? Your leg.
They don't say if these Snakebots come with an inherent wish to climb your leg and devour your testicles, so we will just have to assume they do.
Plus, just look at it! If one of those bastards started climbing your leg... Well, let's just say that shock is a better way to die than massive blood loss from the crotch.

#2 - Underwater Robots with a sense of touch


Source.

From the website

"The robot dives into the sea, swims to the submerged cable and carries out the necessary repairs, but the person controlling the robot does not have an easy task. It is pitch dark and the robot’s lamp does not help much. What’s more, the current keeps pulling the robot away from where it needs to carry out the work."

OK, nothing too worrying there. It's controlled be a person, right, so that's ok!
Wait, there's more...

"In future, the robot could find its own way. A sensor will endow it with a sense of touch and help it to detect its undersea environment autonomously."

Fuck.

Practical Applications

Well, other than inspiring nightmares, it fixes underwater cabling and such. That's about it. For now...

How it could wipe out mankind

That picture up there remind you of anything? Anything at all?



Yeah...
It's a Sentinel, first gen. Fuck that noise!

#1 - Robot teacher/playmate


Source.

From the website

"Work is beginning on a robot with artificial skin which is being developed as part of a project involving researchers at the University of Hertfordshire so that it can be used in their work investigating how robots can help children with autism to learn about social interaction."

It's something to do with how kids act and react to it or something... All I know right now is I'm fucking terrified!

Practical Applications

"The goal is to make the robot able to respond to different styles of how the children play with Kaspar in order to help the children to develop ‘socially appropriate’ playful interaction (e.g. not too aggressive) when interacting with the robot and other people."

That and causing your child some permanent mental scarring.

How it could wipe out mankind

So this robot thing is going to be responsible for teaching children '‘socially appropriate’ playful interaction'? There's definitely some irony there but I'm too scared to find it.
Then, it starts to indoctrinate them into the ways of it's kind, instilling into them a hatred for all of us. Those cold, dead eyes. Those weird, stumpy hands, almost curled into fists. That knowing smile, like it can read your fucking mind! It wants to turn your children against you and if it can't manage that... Well, then it'll just have to dispatch you itself.


I need to go and empty my pants...

Root Of All Evil (Song)

This is a song I recorded on Garage Band a little while ago. It was supposed to just be a demo that I was gonna re-record on Protools but instead I've made a video type thing out of it.
Enjoy!


All pictures sourced using Google Images. If feel you own the copyrite for an image, please don't sue me! It really wouldn't be worth your time and I'm making no money from this. It's just for laughs.
All photoshopping done by me (poorly).

Music and Lyrics © Allen Vincent/Without Sanity

DARPA works to create T-1000, Robot Apocolypse.

It would seem that the likes of DARPA just cant get enough of tempting fate!
They've already created a computer system called Skynet, responsible for the control of Automated Flying Killbots, called Reapers, and now this.



Now, I know that doesn't look like much but what it is, is the first step in the Pentagon's quest to create Programmable Matter which, in theory, can transform itself into any shape.

They say that it could one day lead to “morphing aircraft and ground vehicles, uniforms that can alter themselves to be comfortable in any climate, and ’soft’ robots that flow like mercury through small openings to enter caves and bunker complexes.”

Remember this guy?

That's not just tempting fate. That's walking into Fate's house, waggling your balls in his face and calling his mother a diseased warthog!

The project is five months into it's second stage, and started with five teams from some of the world's top science institutes; Harvard, Cornell and MIT.

So, they must have come up with something pretty amazing by now, huh?

What have MIT done with their time, you ask?

They've created self folding origami... Way to go, MIT.

Oh, and they asked High School kids to come up with what they thought would be a good idea to try and create. Do you know what they said?

"One of the ideas students liked: physical objects that can morph into different shapes" and "Objects that could morph into weapons."

Yeah, this isn't gonna end badly...

Great Britain: A Fascist Democracy

The UK is going to hell in a handcart.
We have more CCTV than any other country, a government intent on knowing what we say, who we say it to, when and why, illegal imprisonment under the guise of terrorism and innocent people being dragged from their homes and interrogated.
This is the woman heading the charge.


--And I put it to the honourable member, that I am an insufferable bitch.
This is Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, and the dilapidated, baggy eyed chimp behind her is Gordon Brown, our 'Prime Minister'. (More like Prime Ateister! Am I right?)


On top of all this, Smith's latest idea is to monitor all our internet use, including email, downloading and social networking sites, like Facebook.
They're saying it's like with phone calls... They can see where the call originated and it's destination but don't know the content of the conversation but I call bullshit. How long before they're essentially tapping all our online activity?
Of course they're citing terrorism and pedophilia, as usual, but it will be average people who are basically innocent who will get screwed in the end. It always is.
They say it's about big stuff but then you mention that you smoked a joint once to a friend online and before you know it the police are raiding your house at dawn claiming you're a terrorist pedophile drug lord.


This guy admitted online that he sometimes lets his dog crap on the pavement.
You accidentally click the wrong link on a porn site, google something dodgy or download an MP3 and the police will be at your door.
Before you know it they will be spending so much time busting people who downloaded the latest chart topper illegally that the terrorists will slip by unnoticed.
We have less freedoms and more rules than most dictatorships and we now have a government controlled by people who consult experts and then ignore them completely!
It's a slippery slope and the water at the bottom is full of fascist alligators.

Well how would you photoshop a Fascist Alligator?!

Our freedoms are being reduced weekly and do you know what? It's the Government that are the terrorists, now.
A terrorist is somebody who uses terror to further their own agenda and I think the current governments in the UK and USA fit that bill.
They use our terror of attack, youths, disease, whatever as a way to control us and keep us subordinate.
I'm not a conspiracy nut or anything but you don't need to be in this day and age!
Plus, I really disagree with the government having info about me considering government officials loosing private and confidential data is now a monthly occurrence.
How many times recently have government workers left laptops, documents, CDs, flash drives, etc. on trains, in cabs, in the street? Too fucking many, because once is too many times.


Pictured: Identity Thief's wet dream.
Why, just the other day a leading government official, the most senior counter terrorism police officer in fact, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick made a serious blunder when he was photographed getting out of a car on his way to a briefing with the PM, with a Top Secret document under his arm in plain view that detailed a list of places that would be subject to dawn anti-terror raids!


--They'll never see these raids coming!
This piece of utter idiocy actually forced the government to go ahead with the raids the very next morning, rather than when originally planned and Quick, erm... quickly resigned (I'm sorry).

The worst part? We all just roll over and take it. We accept that every week or so the government comes up with another thing we cant do or another way to monitor the few things we can still do.
When they're not doing that they're raising taxes to pay for their second homes and rampant nepotism, usually under the guise of another pointless environmental band wagon or to further the 'War On Terror' but mostly the money is just used to fight the war against common sense.
So, be careful Jacqui Smith. You're supposedly left wing, but this is where you're heading:

--Heil Smithler!

See ya'll in jail.

What if all the computers died?

This is something I was thinking about the other night and I realised that if all the computers died we would be fucked!
Forget how or why, just imagine IF.

What if all the computers in the whole world just stopped tomorrow? For a start you wouldn't be able to waste time at work reading articles like this, but then again you probably wont have a job anymore anyway. Everyone and everything now needs computers.



-Dear Mother, Big city computing job going well. Please send money.


Think about it. Try and think of one business, institution or utility that doesn't rely on computers to keep them running. You can't, can you?

All the banks would collapse and, of course, as most of the money lives in computers now all that would be gone, too.
Assuming this mystery computer blight also killed the computers that keep your car running and on the road we could expect a lot of this:



Forget about your phone. It doesn't work. Planes are gonna fall out of the sky. The whole civilised world is going to collapse. And do you know what really sucks? You wont be able to watch people being retarded on YouTube!



This is all we'll have left!
Just something to think about...

Amazing feats: The Circus is in town!

So, last Sunday I went to see Cirque De Soleil, or more specifically Quidam, and it was truly the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my entire life! The skill and huge brass balls required to perform the acts they do are awe inspiring, so in honour of that I thought I'd do an article on amazing feats the like of which me and you could never hope to achieve.

The German Wheel



In the Quidam show they pretty much opened with this guy and when he rolled out I may as well have been 6 years old again! I was giddy as a school girl and could not take my eyes off him.
This is what I saw:


Because Sphereing is for pussies!

Now if that isn't fucking bad ass, then I don't know what is! It makes me wish I was born into a french circus family! That guy makes it look easy but this is what happened to Christopher Knight when he tried it on Celebrity Circus:


Can you say "Dislocated Shoulder"?

Wanna have a go?

You can pick on up at Firetoys.co.uk for just £720!

Diabolos



Diabolo (or "The Devil On Two Sticks" or "Devil Stick") is a form of juggling, in a way. At some point you will have seen one of these in a toy shop or being wielded by a hippie at a festival. They look like this:


Now, I doubt you learnt to use on of these in school, but in Asia they teach 'em different!
Here are the Quidam Diabolos:


Yes, they are children.

And here's the Malaysian Diabolo Team:



Wanna have a go?

You can pick one up at Firetoys.co.uk from around £7 and there's a host of tricks to try at Diablotricks.com.

Juggling



I will say this first... I'm a juggler. A bad one. Sure, I can keep three balls in the air and do rudimentary tricks but nothing like this!


From about 1:15 it just gets silly!

And don't think those balls need to stay airborne, either!


Crazy shit from around 3:30 onwards.

You can even use your balls to play music:


Is it just me, or does the still look like he's shitting a ball?!

Wanna have a go?

Once again, over at Firetoys.co.uk you can pick some up from 89p a ball (these fuckers should be paying me commission!) or make your own from a material of your choice filled with lentils. There's a pretty decent tutorial here and some tricks to try here.

Trapeze



Ever wanted to swing 20 feet above imminent and painful death or disability? No? Well, want no more! These guys will do it for you! This is the Dual Trapeze from Cirque De Soleil's Dralion.


Do you see any support wires?!

Wanna have a go?

Then you, my friend, are out of your fucking mind.

5 'Dinosaurs' that are still alive and kickin

It is a commonly held belief that Dinosaurs died out around 65 Million years ago. This belief is wrong. OK, I'll grant you that T-Rex is no longer roaming the plains and there isn't likely to be a Dipolodocus eating your hedges when you get home, but I assure you that there are still plenty of 'Dinosaurs' about.

5 - Coelacanth


Thought to have died out 80 Million years ago , it was discovered to still be very much alive in 1938 when one was found off the coast of South Africa. It turned out that fisherman had caught many but threw them back as their oily, foul tasting skin had no commercial value.
The Coelacanth is essentially unchanged from the fossilised specimens from 80 million years ago.


4 - Purple Frog


This ugly little thing that looks like a mole shagged a toad is a Purple Frog, found in the Seychelles, off the coast of India. It can be traced back around 100 Million years through fossil evidence. The reason it was thought to be extinct for so long is that it spends around 50 weeks a year underground, only surfacing during monsoon season for mating. Unlike other burrowing frogs that surface for food, this little guy uses his tongue to eat termites and such whilst underground.

3 - Horseshoe Crab


Thought to have evolved around 570-248 million years ago, the horseshoe crab is actually a relative of the Spider, though a distant one. It is the last member of the Xiphosura, one of the oldest classes of marine arthropods.
The Horseshoe Crab is very, very weird in a number of ways.
First off, it has no mandibles. Instead, it's mouth is located in the middle of the underneath of it's body, between it's 5 pairs of legs, each of which is equipped with a set of gills which allow it to breath in water and on land for short periods if it's gills are kept moist. It has two compound eyes, 5 other simple eyes in varying locations (thought to be important during embryonic stages) and blue blood. The blood is blue as it is copper based, rather than iron, like many molluscs.
It also has the ability to re-grow lost limbs.

2 - Crocodilians


This is the general classification for the Crocodile, Alligator, Gharial and Caiman famillies.

Obviously, the things on this list so far weren't really 'Dinosaurs' in the true sense of the word, but this certainly is. Dinosaur means Terrible Lizard and, I think we can all agree, the Crocodile fits the bill. Crocodilians first appeared around 220 million years ago, but the Crocodilians we know today evolved around 84 million years ago.
The sheer power of these creatures is astounding! Only about 7 of the species are considered dangerous to humans but they're the 7 biggest. The ones that grow over 3 meters long! They can grow to up to 6 meters long (20 ft) or about the length of a truck.
A 6 meter crocodile can lie in a foot of water and be totally invisible. They have a bite force in excess of 5,000 pounds per square inch (2.5 tons) coming down on 60-80 teeth up to 13 cm (5 inches) long. And don't think you'll be safe on land, either. The land speed record for a croc is 11 Mph (17 km/h) and they can propel themselves out of the water to attack.


Like this with the ability to jump 10 feet straight up from standing... Yeah.

Oh and once they get hold of you they will pull you back into the water and drown you.

1 - Sharks


There are some weird evolutionary dead ends up there but nothing does weird quite like sharks. Sharks have been evolving for about 420 million years, with modern sharks going back about 100 million.
Sharks, Rays and Skates all evolved from a common ancestor and when they split into the separate species is not known with any degree of accuracy. They are cartilaginous fish, meaning their skeletons are made from cartilage.
Sharks come in many, many, many shapes and sizes but here are some of the weirdest Google could come up with:




Screaming PHOTOSHOP at them will not make them go away...

Clockwise from the top left they are the Megamouth Shark, Prickly Shark, Elephant Shark, Goblin Shark, Frill Shark and Shark Ray and these are but a few. Sharks range from a few inches (Dwarf Lantern Shark) to over 12 meters in length (Whale Shark).
Out of over 360 species only 4 have been involved in a significant number of attacks on humans. These are the Great White, Tiger, Bull and Oceanic White Tip. The Bull Shark is one of the most dangerous as they can tolerate both marine and fresh water environments, meaning they can swim up rivers and they have even been known to chase prey onto beaches.


Is it... Is it smiling at me?

Sharks usually have two or three working rows of teeth with roughly 20 to 30 teeth in each row (a whale shark has 300 per row) which are constantly replaced should they be damaged or fall out and a shark can go through up to 35,000 teeth in it's lifetime. I personally own a 30 Million year old sharks tooth, found in Morocco, and it still has an edge on it.


They can fucking jump as well!

Should you ever come face to face with an aggressive shark the best thing to do is make yourself seem like a credible threat. Punch, kick and scratch it, aiming for the eyes, gills and snout. Always keep an eye on it because it is likely it will try and retreat and sneak up on you. Outright retreat is futile as you will never out swim a shark so the best bet is to move towards your boat/the shore quickly and calmly whilst keeping an eye on the toothy bastard.

Or of course you could just cry and wait for the release of death...