Welcome to Life

This doesn't sound like fun at all. Which is just how the robots like it.

Robot butt is the worst thing you'll see today

This is art. Just so we're clear. It's also creepy beyond the telling of it. And it will, of course, immediately be put into use by robot armies of the world to transfix us while they hook us up to the battery farms. After watching this, though, the sweet oblivion of life-long servitude will be a blessing. WARNING: Technically speaking it's not a human backside, but it looks like one. Also, not safe for life, not safe for your mental health, not safe for your dreams, not safe for my sobriety, not safe for puppies.

(Funnily enough) via Topless Robot.

How to survive a robot uprising

FINALLY! Information we can use! I feel so much better about the future after having watched this. That's a total lie. I never feel good about anything.

(Thank you, Victoria).

Hair-washing robot will probably suck out your brains

There are 24 fingers! Twenty-four fingers that could easily be equipped with 24 metal straws so as to better suck out your brains in less than 15 seconds, leaving you ready for the battery farm. Thank you, Panasonic, for adding to my list of go-to nightmares. On the upside, we'll all have clean, spring-fresh hair when we're hooked up to the energy-drain-cable.

Barbie look-alike will haunt your dreams

There's some debate over whether Valeria Lukyanova is in fact a real person, who has had a boatload of plastic surgery to achieve her goal of becoming creepier than Creepy Childbride and all the Toddlers and Tiaras kids combined, or whether this is some sort of hoax. We'll go with "real person" just because that makes it really awful.

Pics via Buzzfeed.

How to weaponize office supplies

This is probably the most useful video you will see all week. Keep it in a safe place for that day when your co-worker starts drooling at the mention of brains, or for that afternoon when you're working late and begin to suspect that the copier has attained consciousness and wants to fight. Because the apocalypse can come about at any moment and you're not always carrying your cross bow.  Sometimes all you have is a piece of paper and an old usb cable. Via io9.

Pop dispenser paves way for robot apocalypse with hugs

Sure. Yes. Hug the machine and receive a free Coke. Good one. Nice. Now next, let's try hugging this other machine which will dispense a calming shot of sedative so that you won't be inclined to argue when we hook you up to at the battery farm.

Robot really wants to cut off your ears

... because that way you can't hear your neighbours scream as they're taken away to the battery farms and you will be completely unprepared when the driver robots come to pick you up. It's a good plan. Via io9.

Also: If you want to relax in the midst of your move to a shed in the middle of a forest completely off the grid and you like to read terrifying articles about how a new data centre in the U.S. is nothing at all like Skynet, you should click on over to Big Think. Gah. (Thank you, Patrick).

Robots can now hunt you down even faster

Sometimes I worry that when they come to pick us up and send us to the battery farms, some of us may be able to escape. That would be tragic, because how will we survive in a world ruled by robots? What will we eat? Motor oil? No. Better to just give in and get hooked up and have it be over with. And now, thanks to the Cheetah Robot, which is made by Boston Dynamics and DARPA's Maximum Mobility and Manipulation Program aka Awesome Name for Villainous Faceless Entity in any number of post-apocalyptic movies, we will have no chance whatsoever. Because this hell-monster can run 18 miles an hour. It makes me sleep better. And as soon as each leg is outfitted with a compact heat-seeking missile all will be well indeed.

(Thank you, Ellen).

New robot strategy: distract us with music and dancing

This is the scariest thing I've seen all morning. (And there was a man on the subway cutting his fingernails, so you know what I'm talking about). According to io9, this is what's going on at University of Pennsylvania's GRASP Laboratory: "In this demonstration, the "stage" is in a room fitted with infrared lights and cameras. The nano quads all have reflectors on their struts, which allows the camera system to plot their exact position and relay that information wirelessly to each unit. Lab members can then assign each unit a series of waypoints in three-dimensional space that must be reached at an exact time. In this case, those times and places translate into notes on a keyboard or a strum of a guitar. Figuring out how to get from waypoint to waypoint most efficiently and without disturbing their neighbors is up to the robots."

That sounds very nice and scientific and I'm sure that the "lab members" will all be handsomely rewarded with non-robot-fodder well-paying positions by our future robot government. (Thank you, Patrick).