guest post by Jackson West
UPDDATE: Turns out this was an elaborate hoax.
The Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, or EATR, from Maryland’s RTI is a fully autonomous robot that can actual forage for combustible, organic material to fuel its steam-powered engine. And by “forage,” I mean “eat corpses.” And since the project is being funded by the Pentagon, and potential uses include “mobile gunship,” it could operate indefinitely — or at least until it ran out of ammunition (then again, it could just switch to the included chain saw and hobble any live “fuel” with a whack to the shins). Your tax dollars at work, America.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh great, so now Skynet can just eat us for power?
C’mon Jackson – gotta be a prank. Please????
Ray Bradbury wrote a great story in the early 60’s about a garbage man pondering the memo from his DPW/Sanitation superiors detailing how trucks and staff would be directed to pick up corpses in the event of a nuclear incident. He got obsessed with how to properly stack the bodies in the truck in the most efficient manner allowing the optimum/maximum number of bodies per load. I don’t recall the title, but that story (like many by Bradbury) burrowed into my subconscious and rears it’s ugly head on occasion.
The link states this machine is “vegetarian.” However, the following quote was priceless:
“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO.
That’s too good to be true.
Need a few ready in time for 2012… otherwise its gonna get pretty stinky round here.
I can only argue that the place where the whole corpse-powered argument was played up was Fox News — which isn’t exactly a critic of the American military “machine.” Though I agree, that may say more about Fox than about the ‘bot.
But really, if the thing feeds off the grasses livestock graze or the food we eat, it’s only a more indirect assault on humanity. So I, for one, welcome our new EATR overlords, and beg them for mercy!
(Crossing fingers that this isn’t one really, really elaborate prank)
Okay, so now even Fox is distancing itself from the “animal and human remains” claim.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,533382,00.html
I’m happy to admit I bit hook, line and sinker. Calls to RTI turned up a robo-voiced answering machine message, and a call to Cyclone Power just got me a dozen rings and a busy tone.
So, yeah, I smell Joey Skaggs or his blessed ilk. Apologies!