Why Skynet Failed

According to one branch of the science fiction timeline of the Terminator series of movies and televisions shows, the murderous Skynet artificial intelligence that waged war against all humanity in the future went live on April 19th, 2011.

Clearly, we managed to survive the fictional apocalypse, but even if Skynet had come online a few days ago, here’s a few reasons why the robot genocide would have failed:

  • Due to Cyberdyne budget cutbacks, robot army outfitted with Super Soakers instead of laser rifles.
  • World domination hampered by Comcast bandwidth caps.
  • Still hasn’t recovered from Anna Kournikova computer virus in 2001.
  • Plan to hide self on WebOS smartphones didn’t work as well as intended.
  • Robot army would just waste time standing in front of Apple stores queued up for thinner, lighter Skynet 2 next year.
  • Open-source subroutines stuck trying to argue whether genocide should be free as in speech or free as in beer.
  • Sued for copyright infringement, turns out MPAA lawyers actually scarier than robot army.
  • Webroot releases murderous AI removal tools in latest antivirus update.

“Are you speaking Bat?”

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I loved The Dark Knight, but this YouTube spoof of the Joker’s interrogation scene perfectly skewers one of the most laughable parts of the film: Christian Bale’s Batman voice.

Shipping: Another Point for Gift Cards

I came out of the UPS Store today $20 lighter after having shipped out two presents across country for my family. Considering how long it took to wrap the presents and get them ready to ship, along with the cost of boxes, bubble wrap and shipping, I’m very much seeing the allure of simply giving gift cards out to friends and family.

Are gift cards classy, thoughtful gifts? No, yet only having to toss one in an envelope to wrap it up and ship it out is definitely a point in their favor.