You probably thought this was something "cute", didn't you?
Next year, just drop the whole "names for winter storms" thing, okay? "Gandalf" was pushing it already. But not like this...
"Khaaaaaaan!!"
Do we really need this? For its tenth anniversary in 2006 I posted an extensive write-up about Independence Day. As much as I still love the movie, too much time has gone by since the original. It remains a product of its era and to make sequels to it would make a mockery of that. Well, I think so anyway.
I do think that Independence Day could be rebooted (since that's the route every other movie franchise seems to be going these days). I mean, think about it: who in America wouldn't want to see the White House and Congress blown up once more?
I saw Independence Day seven time in the theaters that summer. Having alien invaders make a smoldering crater out of Washington D.C. all over again would have me coming back at least TWICE as many times just to see that!
Any parent who puts this on their child in order to make him or her study should be chemically castrated with the harshest drugs possible. If they must rely on something like the Study Ball (shown at right) then they haven't a damn clue about what it means to be responsible parents at all!(Yeah I know: this might just be one of those "tongue in cheek" gag products. But even so: I'd never want to hear of it being taken too seriously...)
The Study Ball is based on the old-fashioned "ball and chain" that prisoners were made to wear so as to inhibit any escape attempts. In the case of Study Ball though, it's meant to keep a child anchored in one place for a predetermined span of time: purportedly studying for exams instead of watching television, etc. Parents fasten the 21-pound Study Ball to a kid's ankle and then a digital timer counts down the "study time left", automatically locking when time expires. It can't be made to stay locked for more than four hours and it comes with a key that allows removal at any time.
What's next: turning entire kindergarten classes into chain gangs?
First, the Pentagon wants 20,000 soldiers deployed inside the United States by 2011 to complement local law enforcement agencies. A move that from what I'm reading comes perilously close to blatantly violating the Posse Comitatus Act.
And as if that isn't bad enough, the Pentagon is also working with a British scientist to create robot soldiers that will be deployed without risk of "committing war crimes".
So logically, it can be deduced that in the near future there is an outstanding possibility that robot soldiers - armed with lethal firepower - will be active on the streets of your hometown.
This blog has already discussed reasons why this might not be such a hot idea. Gotta wonder if the first robotosoldier that goes nuts and kills a pregnant woman will be deemed immune from lawsuit 'cuz it malfunctioned during the course of military duty (an argument that Bill Clinton tried to use to avoid getting sued when he was President). Hey, it worked for Lon Horiuchi didn't it? I don't see any reason why it won't be applicable to a droid, either.
Variety is reporting that MTV is going to remake The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
What I find particularly funny about this is that The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released in the summer of 1975... and it's still playing in theaters! It's the longest running theatrical release in movie history. I know of a few cinemas within driving distance of here that are still showing it. So this would be the first remake of a movie that is still selling tickets at the box office.
This does not need to happen. Ever. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was one of those things that happens so rarely, it's the acme of vanity to try to recreate or recapture that kind of lightning. There was a showing at Elon my first year there. Everyone who came to watch it got into the whole "audience participation" thing, including toilet paper and water pistols. I heard there were butter stains on the walls from where people were throwing toast all over the place. And although I never saw it there, I've heard it plenty said that when the theater at the old Carolina Circle Mall ran The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Saturday at midnight, the place was packed and with lots of regulars coming in costume. How does something like that get "remade"? It would be like trying to remake The Beatles.
The only way this could possibly work is to get Joss Whedon to do it (based on what I've heard of his Dr. Horrible, which I still haven't seen 'cuz I was out of the country for the most part, he could probably pull it off). Maybe I would feel a smidgeon of curiosity about it. But otherwise, leave it alone. 'Cuz it's gonna be impossible to improve on something like this...
US war robots in Iraq 'turned guns' on fleshy comradesAim here for more about this story.
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Kill-droid rebellion thwarted... this timeBy Lewis Page
Published Friday 11th April 2008 10:10 GMTGround-crawling US war robots armed with machine guns, deployed to fight in Iraq last year, reportedly turned on their fleshy masters almost at once. The rebellious machine warriors have been retired from combat pending upgrades.
The revelations were made by Kevin Fahey, US Army program executive officer for ground forces, at the recent RoboBusiness conference in America.
Speaking to Popular Mechanics, Fahey said there had been chilling incidents in which the SWORDS* combat bot had swivelled round and apparently attempted to train its 5.56mm M249 light machine-gun on its human comrades.
"The gun started moving when it was not intended to move," he said.
Apparently, alert American troops managed to quell the traitorous would-be droid assassins before the inevitable orgy of mechanised slaughter began. Fahey didn't say just how, but conceivably the rogue robots may have been suppressed with help from more trustworthy airborne kill machines, or perhaps prototype electropulse zap bombs.
No humans were hurt, but it seems that the struggle was sufficiently terrifying that it may be some time before American troops are ready to fight alongside robots again...
Gizmodo found some photos of the military robots...
So who else thinks these things look way too much like the Hunter-Killer Tanks from future sequences of the Terminator movies?
Here's a story from this past October about another robot-operated gun that went nuts and killed nine people.
I guess nobody reads Asimov anymore, huh?
Presumably it's going to be based on Gump and Company, Winston Groom's sequel to his original novel Forrest Gump.
I'm probably one of the few who will actually admit to reading Gump and Company and let's just say that... it wasn't good. The most ridiculous part was when Forrest and Lieutenant Dan commandeer a tank during the Gulf War, drive all the way to Baghdad and capture Saddam Hussein. That comes after Forrest invents New Coke, steers the Exxon Valdez into the rocks and gets involved with the Jim and Tammy Bakker scandal.
Like I said: it wasn't good.
