Loss of Privacy

When Cleopatra 2525 first aired, I thought, “This is the dumbest show ever,” and I never made any further attempts to see the show.  Now, however, I was finally convinced to have a look at it.  All the reports are true.  It’s cheesy.  It’s campy.  And I can’t seem to turn away from it.  I’m watching five or six episodes at a time.  It is one of the dumbest shows I’ve ever watched, yet, it’s light years ahead of the current garbage that passes for television today.

The setting is five centuries into the future. Cleo is an exotic dancer who goes into suspended animation after having breast augmentation surgery. She awakes 500 years in the future and teams with two other women, joining their fight against the ‘Baileys’ who control the surface of the Earth. Her team leader Hel receives their orders from a mysterious female entity named “Voice”, who relays their orders via a communications implant under Hel’s left ear. Voice controls many other teams and gives them their orders in a similar fashion, in effect forming a resistance to the Baileys, with their ultimate goal to retake the Earths surface. Their final team member is Sarge, whose sister belongs to a cult that regards the Baileys with reverence and willingly sacrifice themselves to them. Humanity has moved underground and built a complex of elaborate shafts and tunnels created by the “shaft builders” to survive the Bailey menace. Cleo (pictured above on the right) wows the 26th century denizens with her philosophical sayings (many of which come from 20th century popular culture).

Even the theme song, sung by series star, Gina Torres, is extra campy, with a side of cheese.  The first time I heard it, I cringed.  Now, after listening to it a dozen times, I can’t help but snicker at it.

I don’t even care that all the women walk around half naked, midriffs exposed because it’s just too funny.  It’s so outrageous and unbelievable that you’ll find yourself wanting to watch more.

You can get the complete series on DVD for less than $40, which isn’t a bad deal for two seasons.  If you don’t want to fork over the cash, Hulu has it streaming for free on their site.

Here is some evidence that both candidates for President of the United States of America just spout the same old things at each of the three debates. I’m not sure whether or not to laugh, cry, scream, or do all three when watching this. Keep an eye out for the bit at the very end.

The latest request from the Pentagon is a multi-robot pursuit system for ground and sea use.  The objective would be to develop a software and sensor package to enable a team of robots to search for and detect human presence in an indoor environment.  Will this robot army turn out to be more Phantom Menace than Terminator and how much do we humans need to worry?

“What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs. Once the software is perfected we can reasonably anticipate that they will become autonomous and become armed.

We can also expect such systems to be equipped with human detection and tracking devices including sensors which detect human breath and the radio waves associated with a human heart beat. These are technologies already developed.”

“This is a clear step towards one of the main goals of the US Army’s Future Combat Systems project, which aims to make a single soldier the nexus for a large scale robot attack. Independently, ground and aerial robots have been tested together and once the bits are joined, there will be a robot force under command of a single soldier with potentially dire consequences for innocents around the corner.”

If this comes to fruition, there will still be a human at the controls of the pack of robots.  While this is horrifying to think of in the first place, we need to think about the inevitable evolution of such a project.  Once the human is eliminated and the system becomes fully autonomous, then we seriously need to contemplate a terminator type scenario.

Since it will probably be 30 years before something like this is fully autonomous, I’ll be retired and hopefully have moved to an uninhabited island to starve to death in peace.

Then again, if the robots win we’ll have to listen to techno and we’ll need this book to learn to survive.

The ACLU has created a fact sheet and a large map of the USA, displaying its “Constitution Free” zones.

Using data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders.

The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This ” Constitution-Free Zone” includes most of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.

Stories of abuse are everywhere, despite continuing questions over the legality of certain border checkpoints.

The Fun Stuff has a detailed photo blog of the ever changing value of the Zimbabwe dollar.  I like this one of a little boy with millions of dollars that are worth, essentially, nothing.

The man below also has a wad of cash, about 50 million, which is worth US $100.

Take a few minutes and visit The Fun Stuff for a detailed look at the evolution/devolution of Zimbabwe’s money and economy.