cuddly killer bots

So, Washington is having a think about how they can make war robots that obey geneva conventions, and don't get "angry or frustated" when going into battle.

Quotes include:

Ronald Arkin, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech university, who is working on software for the army, has written a report that concludes that robots, while not "perfectly ethical in the battlefield" can "perform more ethically than human soldiers".

He said that robots "do not need to protect themselves" and "they can be designed without emotions that cloud their judgment or result in anger and frustration with ongoing battlefield events".

Here's an idea.. how about we try to work out how to, er, like stop wars - rather than building killing machines that won't shoot at ambulances? Call me crazy.

Chooks right to choose

"We need to ensure each bird has access to an open range, but it's a chicken's freedom of choice"

That goes into the nacsent collection as a gorgeous quotes from a seasoned (natch) PR person. From James Kellaway of Australian Egg Corporation, it was in response to the Shonky Awards by Australia's Choice magazine, reported in the SMH, which asserted:

most consumers were probably unaware that the scheme allowed up to 14 free-range birds to be packed into each square metre of barn - four birds fewer per square metre than that permitted for their caged hen cousins.

But James disagreed, saying:

the free-range scheme's 30 kilogram per square metre rule translated into about 12 slaughter-weight birds, not 14.

As for access to the open range, the corporation was not about to start strong-arming chickens out the barn door each morning.

Sorry Choice, but you were out-spun on that one. Chickens freedom of choice, heheh.

Tips for living

Extracts from a speech by writer David Foster Wallace, printed in the Guardian in Sept.

..most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line - maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.

--

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.