Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Genesis of the Matrix


The Realm of Possibility contributor, Brett, sent this enlightening article entitled Robot Attacked Swedish Factory Worker. His comment was:

"This is how it starts... Our first step toward the Matrix."

Or, I might add, toward the Terminator series. This is fascinating stuff (bolding is my emphasis):

The incident took place in June 2007 at a factory in BĂ„lsta, north of Stockholm, when the industrial worker was trying to carry out maintenance on a defective machine generally used to lift heavy rocks. Thinking he had cut off the power supply, the man approached the robot with no sense of trepidation.

But the robot suddenly came to life and grabbed a tight hold of the victim's head. The man succeeded in defending himself but not before suffering serious injuries.

"The man was very lucky. He broke four ribs and came close to losing his life," said Leif Johansson.

Whattayathink?

"I'll be baaaaack!"

5 comments:

Rich said...

I've labeled it under current events, although the incident itself is two years old. It's actually the lawsuit that is current.

DougALug said...

I think that the Swedes have lame safety rules around heavy machinery... or this guy didn't follow the safety rules for this device.

If it is the latter, then after he 'heals' he should be fined and/or demoted to a position where he won't do this again.

It is way way too easy to blame this on the machine rather than some lame-o programmer or a laxed safety process.

-Doug

DougALug said...

BTW,

From Rich I see posts like this or Elizabethtown. Ken? ==> Zero Flush?

We need more stuff Ken so get cracking Blog-boy!

God Bless
-Doug

Rich said...

Good points, Doug.

Oh, I don't mean about the programmers, robots, or safety rules -- I mean about Ken.

Very well-written, very astute points.

Rich said...

Except for the fact that this was really Brett's post.

Again, though, your points about Ken are well-taken.