Well this is probably a record even by my abysmally low standards. The problem is that I’ve more or less given up reading newspapers, which makes finding Brainmail material more difficult. Why have I given up? Partly it’s because there’s next to nothing of interest in them nowadays and partly because what is in them depresses me. But I have found a solution. Read newspapers when they are a week or even a month old. It’s much easier to scan and filter them and also somewhat Zen. The antics of Trump, Putin, Jean Claude Junkers and Kim Jong-un somehow don’t worry me when it’s all yesterday’s news.

Two bits of recent news that did appeal to me concern two rogue robots. The first was an autonomous K5 security robot that drowned itself in a water feature inside an office complex in Washington DC. Evidence of true artificial intelligence surely? The second was a security robot, also a K5, hired by an animal shelter in San Francisco to scare off homeless people. (Surely they need a K9? Geddit?). I’m still processing that thought. A robot hired to scare away homeless people from a shelter for homeless animals. Nope, I still can’t cope with that thought.

Anyway, here’s the new brainmail (issue 105 no less).

Issue links:
http://brainmail.nowandnext.com/brainmail_issue105.txt
Or re-sized to read on your phone
http://brainmail.nowandnext.com/brainmail_issue105i.txt