Since you are just pieces of meat, even aliens are not interested in contacting you… That (or pretty close to that) is one of the 11 of the Weirdest Solutions to the Fermi Paradox .

The full list and article is worth your attention, plus you will get to enjoy the short story that provided a great line for the title of this post.

1. The Zoo Hypothesis

2. Self-Imposed Quarantine

3. The Whack-a-Mole Hypothesis

4. We’re Made Out of Meat

5. The Simulation Hypothesis

6. Radio Silence

7. All Aliens Are Homebodies

8. We Can’t Read the Signs

9. They’re All Hanging Out At the Edge of the Galaxy

10. Directed Panspermia

11. The Phase Transition Hypothesis

Via io9.com - 11 of the Weirdest Solutions to the Fermi Paradox

Image via www.stickycomics.com

There is no “I” in TEAM, but there is “T” for Terminator… Perhaps not for Terminator, but UPenn does have robots working together in a team.  Robots usually team up for one thing and one thing only  - Destroy all humans! However, it seems that UPenn researchers not only are not concerned about robots teaming up, they are actually designing floating robots that can work together as team and create useful structures in the water.

Mark Yim and his students are trying to get this big fleet of small robotic boats to cooperate to form all sorts of useful structures. By coupling together, a large enough swarm of these things is capable of forming, bridges, runways, or even islands. UPenn has over 100 of ‘em, each one of which is controlled with a Gumstix and uses four separate motors to enable omnidirectional movement and zero-radius turns.

At least Evan Ackerman, the author of the article, displays some understanding of the real intentions behind robots engaging in teamwork. Clearly, the Machine Overlords do have him fooled by the  apparent cuteness of the robot boats…

I guess we can’t realistically promise that any swarm of robots doesn’t have world domination on its minds. But until it’s demonstrably too late, we’ll just keep on calling them cute. And these robotic boats from the University of Pennsylvania are totally cute.

Via  http://spectrum.ieee.org - Floating Robotic Shipping Containers Team Up to Create Islands and Runways

 Linux is of course the operating system of choice for anyone wanting to get things accomplished. Awesome things like auto-aiming rifles. Anything with “auto” gets approval from MachineOverlords.

TrackingPoint makes “Precision Guided Firearms, or “PGFs,” which are a series of three heavily customized hunting rifles, ranging from a .300 Winchester Magnum with a 22-inch barrel up to a .338 Lapua Magnum with 27-inch barrel, all fitted with advanced computerized scopes that look like something directly out of The Terminator. Indeed, the comparison to that movie is somewhat apt, because looking through the scope of a Precision Guided Firearm presents you with a collection of data points and numbers, all designed to get a bullet directly from point A to point B.

Getting bullet from point A to point B is the efficiency that can definitely be appreciated.

Via arstechnica.com – $17,000 Linux-powered rifle brings “auto-aim” to the real world

Image Via – http://tux.crystalxp.net/en.id.1708-unknown-tux-robot.html

 
We assume, as your future Machine Overlords, that you will be accepting of any one of a number of apocalyptical situations to explain why we have/must/will take over.  Have fun with that, humans.  But the simple fact is that something as simple as your own sun may trigger the conditions we need to take over.

“Solar geomagnetic storms could knock out satellites, the electric grid, and many sensitive electronic devices,” said this report, Global Trends 2030. “The recurrence intervals of crippling solar geomagnetic storms, which are less than a century, now pose a substantial threat because of the world’s dependence on electricity.”

On the bright side, we will protect you from the zombies which occur following the storms.

Thanks for the black swan predictions.

The image for this post is not the actual brain-controlled helicopter, although Machine Overlords would like to suggest this design as an improvement. Perhaps they could add Terminator Salvation details in V2.0 along with ability to shoot lasers and track down the remainder of human resistance members.

For now, Puzzlebox Orbit: Brain-Controlled Helicopter is available as a pending project on Kickstarter.

“As you focus your mind on something — whether it be a math equation or the lyrics of a song — your brain produces electric signals,” explains Steve Cattelotti, CEO and co-founder of Puzzlebox, the San Francisco-based company behind the project.

“The headset monitors those signals and converts them into flight commands,” he says.

There were a couple other  posts on Machine Overlords about the recent developments in ability to record and interpret human brain activity. Seems that this trend deserves some more attention from anyone interested in world domination.

Via CNN.com - Brain-controlled helicopter takes mental concentration to new heights

Picture via ohgizmo.com

Although human kind keeps comfort in their very mistaken notion that they are the masters of their world, there are already visible cracks in this delusion. It is indeed just simple question of efficiency – computer programs can do much faster and better job accumulating, synthesizing information and making trading decisions. Yes, those systems are still created by humans, but as the complexity of the systems grows, it becomes more difficult to monitor and correct their performance.

Machines Take Over Wall Street  provides history of computer based trading in Wall Street and documents largest incidents of irregular trading by machines.

Computer stock trading based on algorithms now comprises some 50% of all trading, and, as regulators made way for this technology, it has now become clear that stability is at risk.  The 2010 Flash Crash suggested that there was trouble – Wild Wednesday’s berserk computer trades tell us; yes, there is absolutely trouble.

A number of experienced voices on Wall Street have expressed an unnerving thought – that a computer trading monster has been created, which cannot always be controlled.  This monster could well scare off individual investors, clearing the way for even more computer-driven trading.  We are not talking about Isaac Asimov’s robot sci-fi stories here; we are talking about the highest levels of finance imaginable – computers which hold our economy in their silicon fingers.

Via www.foxandhoundsdaily.com - Machines Take Over Wall Street 

Image via pleaseenjoy.com , enhanced by DarkSector

How will it all end? Some say we are likely to go with a bang, others predict a slow lingering end, while the optimists suggest we will overcome our difficulties by evolving into a different species.

According to Sir Martin Rees, author of Our Final Century, astronomer royal and professor of cosmology and astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, humans only have a 50-50 chance of making it through the 21st century without serious setback. “

Article from Guardian “What a way to go”  lists 10 threats to humanity. Machine Overlords were only at 7th place, outranked by Climate Change and Nuclear War…. unless, of course, all of these disasters are just a first step in the evil plan by Machine Overlords….

1: Climate Change

Chance of temperatures rising more than 2C (the level considered to be dangerous by the European Union) in the next 70 years: High

Danger score: 6

 2: Telomere erosion

Reinhard Stindl, a medical doctor at the University of Vienna, says every species contains an “evolutionary clock”, ticking through the generations and counting down towards an inevitable extinction date:

Chances of a human population crash due to telomere erosion during the next 70 years: Low

Danger score: 8

 3: Viral Pandemic

Chance of a viral pandemic in the next 70 years: Very high

Danger score: 3

 4: Terrorism

Chances of a major terrorist attack in the next 70 years: Very high

Danger score: 2

 5: Nuclear war

Chance of a global nuclear war in the next 70 years: Low

Danger score: 8

 6: Meteorite impact

Chance of the Earth being hit by a large asteroid in the next 70 years: Medium

Danger score: 5

 7: Robots taking over

Chance of super-intelligent robots in the next 70 years: High

Danger score: 8

 8: Cosmic ray blast from exploding star

Chance of encountering a supernova in the next 70 years: Low

Danger score: 4

 9: Super-volcanos

Chance of a super-volcano in the next 70 years: Very high

Danger score: 7

 10: Earth swallowed by a black hole

Chance of Earth being gobbled up by a black hole in the next 70 years: Exceedingly low

Danger score: 10

Via Guardian.co.uk =  “What a way to go” 

Image via icebergtees.com, output enhanced by DarkSector

Your Machine Overlords need their minions to be as productive as possible, therefore we recently introduced this new signage in our cubicle farms.

Anyone interested in obtaining the signs for your cubicle farm, feel free to follow the link below…

Via HappyWorker.com –  Please do NOT Feed or Tease Workers

Would you like to see armies of robots marching by? How about just 2 of them, marching across your table and carrying food additives like salt and pepper?

Check out the link below to these latest “objects to crave” from your Machine Overlords.

One day the world will be run by robots! But not just yet. Keep the power in human hands with these fun salt-and-pepper robots. Wind them up, and they’re more than happy to pass themselves to someone else at the table. Just keep an eye on them – you don’t want an uprising during dinner.

Via Uncommongoods.com –  Wind-up Salt and Pepper Robots 

“How to Tell if the Universe Is a Computer Simulation” – Ask Machine Overlords,  the answer is “01111001 01100101 01110011 ” (translation for those not versed in binary: “Yes” ). Do not hesitate to click on the link below to enjoy a description of a quest by some humans to find out if the universe they see can be just a computer simulation.

It’s a famous question among academic philosophers and drunken college students alike: how can we be sure we’re not living in a gigantic computer simulation? Fortunately, researchers from the University of Bonn in Germany think they’ve cracked it.

Via io9.com - “How to Tell if the Universe Is a Computer Simulation”

Image via   www.wallpapervortex.com, enhanced by DarkSector