Repurposed “Dangers of Alcoholism” comic from the 60s or 70s. Hilarious!

She: “Let me in there, I need to check my auctions! Just because I outbid you on that …”

He: “The way people like you sell things are ruining the server economy, all you do is farm!”

- Anonymous: link.

Via Boing Boing.

Bruce Sterling rules! He was good from the beginning, and keeps getting better.

Here’s an excerpt from his new short story,
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google” –

Okay, sure: I know I sound pretty depressed. Us teenage poets depress easily. You know what they tell me whenever I rant like this? “Get a hobby.” Play imaginary fantasy computer games! That is allowed me! Wow, thanks! When she nursed me as a baby, my Mom dropped me right on my head to play Wonder-World of Witchcraft. I sure know where that story goes. If “religion is the opiate of the people”, then immersive multiplayer 3D virtual worlds are hard-core Afghani heroin. My Mom will never make it back into the labor force: Mom’s way too busy building herself up to 146th-level SuperMasonic Tolkien-Fantasy Ultra-Elf Queen. Like that helps!

[New Scientist: Link]

Via Boing Boing.

Google: Bruce Sterling.

You can lead a horse to water

But if you want to drown it

You have to do it with your own two hands.

Appallingly funny short animated film — a loving tribute, but mainly a brutal satire in the Peckinpah vein — not for young children or the faint of heart –

Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown

Via Boing Boing:

Adam sez, “Thought you might like to know that the “Ultra-violent Charlie Brown student film” … was made by Jim Reardon, a Simpsons director who’s currently working on a Pixar project. Another Simpsons director, Rich Moore (who was also a supervising director of Futurama), is mentioned in the credits as one of the voices for Charlie Brown.”

[Boing Boing: Link]

See also Charlie Brown.

Followup: June 26, 2006 —
Boing Boing reports: “FAA grounds LA Sheriffs’ plans for ’spy plane drones’ ”

Plans by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s to use small, RC-controlled drones for surveillance and rescue efforts have been grounded by the FAA.
[Link]

Original post –

The drones just keep on launching:

The unmanned aerial vehicle, which looks like a child’s remote control toy and weighs about five pounds (2.3 kilograms), is a prototype being tested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Police say the drone, called the SkySeer, will be able to accomplish tasks too dangerous for officers and free up helicopters for other missions.
[Link]

Via Slashdot. Excerpts from Slashdot comments –

OK, I’ll bite. We got pilotless aircraft flying low and slow over neighborhoods in Los Angeles, spying on people, and the authorities say that it’s for “finding missing children and lost hikers?
[Simonetta: Link]

This made me laugh:

I frequently go hiking in Los Angeles. The current ratio of Park Rangers to hikers is apalling, and certainly needs to be dealt with.
On one of my hikes, my careless smoking habits started a forest fire. It would have been nice to have a robot camera flying around to put out the fire. The only thing is, I’ve never lost a child so I think this technology sucks.
[avarice.cc: Link]

More about SkySeer
from Octatron Inc.:

Aircraft –
Wingspan: 6.5ft (1.98m)
Total weight: 3.125 lbs (1.42kg)
Endurance: 45-60 minutes at cruise speed
Cruise Speed: 23 mph (37 kph)
Range: 2 mi (3.2km) (extensible)
Pan/Tilt: 160° pan / 90° tilt

Ground Station –
Digital video: Store up to 20 hours of high quality MPEG-2 video
Real-time flight video and telemetry: See and record what the UAV sees in real-time
Video head: Real-time joystick control of UAV pan/tilt camera head
Autonomous flight: Point and click mission planning via GPS waypoints.
[Link]

SkySeer … SkySeer … are you thinking what I’m thinking …?

The SkySeersucker — a dirigible shaped like the Michelin man in a seersucker suit, floating over Los Angeles … scare the hell out of thieves, I bet … although it might also scare off missing children or lost hikers.

A future history of the media by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson, with music by Aaron McLeran.

In the year 2014, The New York Times has gone offline.

The Fourth Estate’s fortunes have waned.

What happened to the news?

And what is EPIC?

Thanks, Christian

boy the way consumers paid,
wars that made the hit parade,
guys like us we had it made,
those were the days,
and you know where you were then,
girls were girls and men were men,
mister we could use a man like Richard Nixon again,
didn’t need no welfare state
everybody pulled his weight,
gee our oil wells ran great,
those were the days!

(With apologies to All in the Family.)