Idiocy on Parade! Friday 1PM to 2PM edition

[essentialsaltes]

Story 1:
Chicago gets crime-fighting robots. Too bad they're lame (as opposed to super-awesome). But I bring it up because of this sentence: "City officials are touting the arrival of three new robots the city will use to diffuse bombs."
Man, $135K for three robots and all they can do is use a Photoshop filter? Government waste is just appalling.

Story 2:
"At first, [the history teacher] denied he mixed in religion with his history lesson, and the adults in the room appeared to be buying it, [the student] said. But then he reached into his backpack and produced the CDs."

[Audio]: "...if you reject that, you belong in hell ... dinosaurs were on Noah's ark..."

PWNED!

(But it's a feel-good story for both sides of the issue, since the student is being ostracized.)

Comments

[ladyeuthanasia.livejournal.com]

"Matt set him up," Formosa said. "Mr. Paszkiewicz would al ways say (when he spoke about religion) 'In my opinion.' He never pushed his beliefs on anyone."

PAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

I'm encouraged to see that the future citizens of America know the definition of "coersion."

in my opinion...

[notjenschiz.livejournal.com]

"in my opinion" (as an authority figure, an educator, and the guy giving you your subjective grade in a history class) "you're GOING TO HELL" if you don't believe so on and so forth. That sounds like a pretty standard open call for healthy intellectual debate to me...

super ok robot go!

[notjenschiz.livejournal.com]

While I usually embrace your cynical skepticism, this time I have to disagree. The robots can do far more than just "use a photoshop filter," since they have X-ray capability, for one, which is automically going to be very expensive. They can also go up stairs and maneuver far more than a wheeled robot would be able to. Since we want to use these to go into dangerous situations, we'd feel REALLY stupid if they were super-awesome and then couldn't make their way over a 4 inch bump.
But even if they are sorta lame, $100k isn't that much for Uncle Sam, and a lot of that money (I'm sure) goes into the research aspect. That knowledge of how to build a better (robot) mousetrap sticks around, so much of that money was an investment. I bet that iRobot (makers of roomba) would have done better for cheaper. Of course (disclosure), I own stock in IRBT, so who am I to say... ;-)

Re: super ok robot go!

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

I wasn't harshing so much on the robots as I was on the newspaper. Hopefully, the robots are intended to defuse bombs, not diffuse them.

Re: super ok robot go!

[notjenschiz.livejournal.com]

but Mike, if we spread the bombs out over a larger area, they'll do less damage to any one area!

[mersh.livejournal.com]

Diffuse bombs sound like the ultimate weapons of mass destruction.