Media Report

I was on 60 Minutes! Okay, okay: 60 Minutes Wednesday, which I hear CBS is cancelling to make room for CSI: Tulsa or something.

Anyway, 60 Mintues II did a piece on security robots, which is a hot topic these days. I guess a hiker got killed by a security robot outside a bio-lab in Utah last year; I vaguely remember reading about that. Well, people were so pissed that Utah's State Legislature passed a law banning armed robots from the state, and a couple of other states are following suit. A Congressional sub-comittee has been formed to look into the issue.

Where do I come in? They had footage of my battle with the Insekt III robot, the one that went ape-shit in the rail yard in March. (see post Robot fu, 3/29/05) As CBS reporter Bob Simon narrates, you see me getting knocked around big time by the Insekt. Fortunately they did show me dismantling the fucking thing, so I think I came out looking okay.

Then they had an interview with an official from Roboteknen, the Pomeranian company that makes most of the security robots used today, who assures Simon that they've implemented new safeguards that would make it impossible for a robot to go ape-shit (my term, not his) again.

And what do you know, they have a brief interview with Interbionics VP Jason Delacroix, that sinister motherfucker, who defends his company's use of the Insekt robots in their facility outside of Spokane. "We've made changes in the way we do things," Delacroix says, absently stroking his Mephistopholean* beard. "We recognize the public concern about defense robotics, and we've worked with Roboteknen to make sure that the Insekt models are operating as they should." Translation: we added mortar launchers and laser death rays.

Anyway, national TV exposure is never bad for VM.

On an unrelated note, while I was gone it looks like the ECPD Paracrime Unit had their first big supervillain bust. They caught a guy named "Atlatl" skulking around the rooftops with his energy javelin things. I've never heard of the guy, but I guess he had several warrants out for his arrest.

Makes me wonder what he was doing in the E.C.

*Is "Mephistopholean" even a word? I don't know.