Printed Antimatter

Robots begin exercising their second amendment rights

Jeffrey O'Brien has a fascinating article in Fortune about some Silicon Valley geeks who have made the grave mistake of arming robots. (C'mon, guys, you've seen Terminator, do you really think this is a good idea?!) The idea is to deploy them in Iraq and get our men and women off the front lines, hence the headline "Killer Robots from Silicon Valley could replace soldiers."

Yeah, not much chance of that, as cool and deadly as the robots may be. Soldiers serve many functions besides spraying lead – That's why you can't solve every dust-up with air strikes. And a widespread deployment of robots in battle probably wouldn't even put a big dent in casualty rates, since the great majority of deaths over there are from IEDs, and a relative few are from fire fights.

Actually, the fact that the robots are going to be displayed in Blackwater's lobby gives me an idea – maybe they could replace private contractors in Iraq. That could go a long way toward reducing the number of Iraqi civilians lost to 'roid rages.

Check out this CG video of a hypothetical killer robot in action and celebrate the inevitable fusion of video games and military action.

McDonald's gets a McD-minus for advertising on report cards

Advertising Age reports on McDonald's latest attempt to recruit a new generation:

The Golden Arches picked up the $1,600 cost of printing report-card jackets for the 2007-2008 school year in Seminole County, Fla., in exchange for a Happy Meal coupon on the card's cover. With 27,000 elementary school kids taking their report-card jackets home to be signed three or four times a year, that's less than 2 cents per impression.

The plan sounds like an unmitigatedly bad idea, but surprisingly, Pizza Hut has been doing the same thing for years, advertising on those same report card jackets with nary a peep. So why the outrage now? Sounds like it was the coupon...

"My daughter worked so hard to get good grades this term and now she believes she is entitled to a prize from McDonald's," Susan Pagan, an Orlando parent, said in a press release distributed by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "And now I'm the bad guy because I had to explain that our family does not eat at fast-food chains."

Susan Pagan, what an awesome name! But my favorite quote in the article:

Michele Simon, author of "Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines our Health and How to Fight Back," said that the school district is "selling kids' health for chump change."

"They should be embarrassed," she said. "If you're going to sell out kids' health you might as well get something good for it."

Damn straight.

(Hat tip to Anne B.)

Born again

Welcome to Printed Antimatter, a weblog about design and stuff – formerly known as Seen and Not Seen back when it was underwritten by the now-defunct Business 2.0 magazine. Now we are corporate-sponsor-free and ad-free, but just as committed to delivering incisive commentary on a sporadic basis. Subscribe to our feed so you don't miss a single juicy post! (Yes, that's the editorial we.)