Fatbob

3:28 "First the cars have to be fired" LMAO

Lasrick writes: Seth Baum reports on international efforts to ban 'killer robots' before they are used. China, Israel, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are apparently developing precursor technology. "Fully autonomous weapons are not unambiguously bad. They can reduce burdens on soldiers. Already, military robots are saving many service members' lives, for example by neutralizing improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan and Iraq. The more capabilities military robots have, the more they can keep soldiers from harm. They may also be able to complete missions that soldiers and non-autonomous weapons cannot." But Baum, who founded the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, goes on to outline the potential downsides, and there are quite a few.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

200 queue jumpers caught using 'backdoor'

Hundreds of entrepreneurial and impatient hackers have exploited a loophole to purchase early tickets to the Burning Man festival.…

As of Tuesday you can smoke a joint in Juneau, fire up in Fairbanks, or get blazed on the Bering Strait without running afoul of the law

But that doesn't mean you can have a doobie in Denali or meet Mary Jane up on Mount McKinley — because there's also a new smoking ban in effect in public places, such as state and national parks

Alaska's status as the third state to make marijuana legal for all adults was sealed last November, when 52% of voters decided to back legalization. That ballot initiative required pot to be legal 90 days after the results were certified — in other words, Feb. 24

More about Weed, Cannabis, Marijuana, Us World, and Us

Last night's episode of Looking, airing now on HBO in its second season, tackled the issue of Gordon Freeman's enduring Half-Life legacy. Is he a character, or merely a construct? Preparing for a Halloween party, series star Jonathan Groff dons his Gordon Freeman costume, much to the chagrin of his friend Agustín who asks "what are you supposed to be, a mailman from the future?"

Groff, who plays game developer Patrick in the show, retorts, "No! He's one of the most popular videogame characters of all time. He revolutionized first-person shooter games because you so rarely saw or heard him that you could better imagine yourself in the game."

"So your idea of being fun is a character with so little personality that he's basically nothing?"

Touche, Agustín.

Give 'til it hurts...

 

 

Source: Townhall

(YouTube link)

This person spends over three minutes cutting a carrot, but the end result is worth it. No, she’s not going to cut her fingers off, although that’s the impression you might get as that blade gets close to them. The artist is not identified, and I’m not even sure it’s a woman, but she has nice fingernails. The video is titled Cooking Class Heroes, but I would bet she’s a teacher instead of a student. You may want to skip through some of the middle parts, but do not miss the end. -via Boing Boing 

The last time anyone in a big city saw a dark and stormy night was when winds knocked out the power grid. Storm clouds looming over skyscrapers now glow orange with light pollution instead of providing the cover of darkness, a new study confirms.

"In a modern world, you would have to say it's a bright and stormy night," said Frank Hölker, a study co-author and ecologist at Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, Germany.

Light pollution is the skyglow from artificial lights, which contaminate the natural sky at night. Before the era of artificial lights, clouds hid the light coming from the stars. But now, because of light pollution, the sky grows brighter when clouds roll in. "That's a complete flip from the way things were," said Phil Langill, a study co-author and director of the University of Calgary's Rothney Astrophysical Observatory Read more...

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Okay, it's not exactly a robot—but I bet it's still the craziest thing you've seen all day. Japanese juice and ketchup company Kagome built a freaking wearable tomato dispenser for a runner at the Japan Marathon this weekend.

Read more...

Superfish, the most controversial company in tech, kicked me out on Friday.

The Palo Alto-based software company became notorious overnight when researchers announced on Thursday that one of Superfish's software programs, a piece of adware installed on Lenovo laptops late last year, not only breached a widely-used security communications protocol called HTTPS, but also let hackers spy on users.

Public vitriol was swift and worsened when Lenovo initially downplayed the situation, stating it had not found “any evidence to substantiate security concerns.” By Friday, Lenovo backpedaled: chief technology officer Peter Hortensius told Mashable the company would ensure the security debacle “doesn’t happen again.” Read more...

More about Microsoft, Malware, Lenovo, Tech, and Apps Software

Thanks Comedy Wizard

 

The post This just in… errr… OUT appeared first on Bits and Pieces.

 

The post Lightning – A direct hit! appeared first on Bits and Pieces.

submitted by Ts0 [link] [358 comments]

If you love pizza but wish your hands would get a little greasier while you eat it, it's a great time to be alive.

Little Caesars has unveiled the latest fast food item to make us question everything we know about grub — a new pizza with a crust made out of more than 3 1/2 feet of bacon. Because 4 feet even would be excessive.

The Bacon-Wrapped Crust Deep! Deep! Dish Pizza will be available for a limited time from Feb. 23 to late April

The pizza will be wrapped in two kinds of bacon and topped with pepperoni. On the off chance you have your heart set on trying it but are concerned for your health, each slice is approximately 450 calories. Read more...

More about Bacon, Pizza, Fast Food, Watercooler, and Conversations

(Photo: unknown)

This is Standard Reference Material No. 2387. It’s the finest peanut butter in the world—from a purely scientific point of view. The National Institute of Standards of Technology, an office of the US Department of Commerce, uses it as a baseline when analyzing the chemical properties of peanut butters. In 2003, New York Times food critic William Grimes got to the chance to sample this government-manufactured delicacy. He writes:

The government's peanut butter tastes a lot better than it looks, which is like dark-brown industrial paste. I wasn't sure whether to eat it or lay down some new bathroom tile. As a food product, it seemed to aim for dead average. The peanut flavor was muted, and it lacked the creamy, unctuous quality of storebought brands. If you like peanut butter to stick to the roof of your mouth, this is one for you.

At that price, I would hope so. For as Nicole Wakelin of That’s Nerdalicious writes, “choosy Moms choose Standard Reference Material No. 2387.”

submitted by Only_The_Punch_Line
[link] [127 comments]

It's been known for a while that the NSA will intercept and bug equipment to spy on its soon-to-be owners, but the intellgency agency's techniques are apparently more clever than first thought. Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered ap...