lickety jackblog

Classy

another reason to vote for the corpse.

Labels: awesomeness

posted by ayatollah assahola @ 5:19 PM 1 Comments

This Week in Robots

The lives of robots and the routes by which they are being insinuated into our lives continue to be a topic of incredible interest. I've posted a lot about robots and their uses. Sometimes these uses are ingenious, sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious. Robots are patrolling streets and skies, they're building cars, exploring space, helping autistic children. They're battling pirates on the high seas.

And now they're hanging out with old people.

Well, "now" isn't really accurate. This article indicates that research of this type has been going on since 2002.

That's right. One of the many roles of robots in this Brave New World we're forging is to masquerade as dogs to alleviate the loneliness of the elderly. Frankly, it's touching. How could we go to war with these gentle dog-bots? They're our new best friends. They're watching our grandmothers and our grandfathers.

There's something very odd to me about the idea that the elderly would be among the first populations to co-habitate with robots. The world is a weird place, and I think it must be very weird to be old here. Appliances far less exotic than a robotic dog may well be enough to baffle elderly folks, or at least inspire the kind of ambivalence that comes from looking at something too alien to even consider. I think that for my 92 year old grandma, computers basically don't exist. But is it possible that in a few years she might be welcoming a robotic companion into her home? What kind of lifestyle are these people suddenly living? What, if anything, do they think about being soothed by robots? Maybe I'm not really indicating why I think this is so...strange. But strange it is. Imagine: There is a small dog yapping at my grandmother's ankles as she writes letters, plays a crossword or solitaire or watches Maury Povich. He's plastic. (He's a "he".) He's pretending to be hungry, but there's no food for him. My grandmother pats his head, her painted fingernails and rings and knobbly arthritic knuckles clacking on his head and she says to this machine "Shush, little dog, shush." A voice-recognition program relays this to a microchip that's programmed to understand English, but not too well. Just well enough. His small, red eyes dim and he lays and powers down. She goes back to her correspondence, writing to someone about someone else who has died, because they are old. She's so glad that a robot is sleeping on her floor. She's comforted.

Elsewhere, robots are digging up rocks on Mars.

Curiouser and curiouser.

posted by dan @ 11:09 AM 4 Comments

Lee Mercer Jr. for President.

dear ayatollah:

i understand you're unhappy with the current slate of presidential candidates. lucky for you, there's lee mercer, jr.:

As a part of my continuing eduaction, I am making my presidential campaign part of my ROTC Intelligence Academics to record the learnings, doings, and examples of the United States Government as a government consultant, community developer, and financial planner appointed by the United States Federal Congress to record my biography in the United States Government Presidential Election for 2008 from Electronic Surveillance to develop records on the United States Government Presidential Campaign because I am on an academic intelligence hotwire that can not be unhooked by anyone.

no presidential candidate has a more thorough platform. Among his 70 reasons for candidacy:

• 11. To prove the United States of America has two Presidents and I am one of them Jurisdiction in Eye Spy Community-Military Intelligence (All Three) Government # 1 in Business and Commerce Intelligence National and International.
• 34. To Prove the government owes me Zillions of Dollars in money and is refraining to pay me and my business Eye Spy Community-Military Intelligence (All Three) Business and Commerce Intelligence National and International.
• 66. to prove America is America

Labels: awesomeness, election 2008

posted by the cold cowboy @ 2:08 PM 3 Comments

ESPN Page 2

Page 2's prediction for the 08 Reds...

Ryan Freel is healthy. For the moment. Ryan Freel is to the Reds as John Belushi was to the world of '70s American comedy: all-out, reckless, entertaining as hell, and sadly, poetically, undeniably doomed. He will get hurt. He will go down. He will go Rodney McCray on some outfield wall, or Derek Jeter on some unsuspecting bystander, and he will end up wounded. It will be sad when it happens, as it is every year, but it will be noble and inspiring too. And we will comfort ourselves, as we do every year, with the memory of his style and spirit. (There are rumors, by the way, that Dusty Baker is contemplating someone other than Freel in his everyday lineup, and is still trolling for some rickety replacement like Kenny Lofton. Mark our words: If Baker goes this route, the baseball gods, who admire the Icarusian gusto with which young Freel so much as ties his shoes and administers his eye black, will make him pay dearly for his own temerity.)

posted by Vyux @ 11:54 PM 0 Comments

Democracy is for suckers.

from politico:

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.

I don't care if it's "legal" - that's some third world shit.

[xpost from amillionmonkeys]

posted by the cold cowboy @ 10:53 AM 4 Comments

China: "why delegates matter so much?"

in this time of uncertainty, confusion, and national division, thank xenu we have the foreign press to help us out.

posted by the cold cowboy @ 3:24 PM 2 Comments

Eastern College teaser trailer

Some of you have seen "Eastern College", some of you haven't, but in anticipation of working the festival circuit here in the next few months, I made a trailer for it.

posted by candycanesammy @ 8:48 PM 0 Comments

One candidate has it all....

Only one man can handle the tsunami that is our political climate right now...

posted by stridewideman @ 10:42 PM 2 Comments

dyin' on some syzrup

ah pimp c! we hardly knew we.

posted by the cold cowboy @ 3:34 PM 0 Comments