The week that was
Killer robots, tweaker monks, and the blind surfer goes big.
Greetings!
So NYC is looking for someone to deal with their rat situation and they put up a job posting that’s about as cheeky as you can get on a government website. I couldn’t help but annotate its brilliance.
Yesterday I was on the subway and the train stopped in between stations. Here’s is what the conductor said over the intercom:
“We have a report of an unauthorized person on the tracks ahead of us. We’re stopping here until they retrieve this person. Welcome to New York!”
Later he came on to report is that it was some “kids” and that they are being chased off.
After about 15 minutes we start rolling again. The conductor comes on once more with a sigh, “Never a dull moment as they say. For those of you who are concerned, the kids are safe, they were spotted up on the platform. Now, let’s get you home.”
Life in the big city.
On to the news.
After a raucous meeting, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a controversial directive allowing the SFPD to use armed robots against criminal suspects “after evaluating alternative force options or de-escalation tactics.”
Robot lawn mowers are industrial Roombas for your yard. The prices have come down to about six grand and Yarbo’s 3-in-1 Yard Robot comes with attachments so that it can serve as a snow or leaf blower. Because it’s modular, you can “upgrade the Yarbo for more purposes when you have the money or inclination.” Home sentry perhaps?
A Florida woman filed a class action lawsuit against Kraft, makers of Velveeta microwavable Shells & Cheese cups, claiming the additional steps such as removing the lid, adding the water, and stirring in the cheese render the ready in 3½ minutes statement on the box “false and misleading.”
Four Buddhist monks from a temple in Thailand have been shipped off to rehab after they all tested positive for meth.
It was a shitty day in Wisconsin.
The Brooklyn art collective MSCHF (the same ones that built Spot’s Revenge shown above) installed an ATM at Art Basel Miami which takes a photo and posts the customer’s account balance on a leaderboard for all to see.
Australian big wave surfer Matt Formston is taking on the world’s largest waves in Nazaré, Portugal next week. “Like his counterparts, the Sydney-born surfer has been in the water for decades, winning national and international titles and riding some of the best waves in the world. But unlike his counterparts, Formston is blind”