Miniature Robot Invader Threatens Denver

[JamesBr]

This story made my day.

 

[Sir Kemper]

Oh shit! I think I may have owned one of those things way back when.

They ran on treads, and had a little tray which they could place things on (which, alternatively, could be taken out and be used as a cup holder) and two hands intended to pick up junk to put onto said tray.


It also had tree foam missiles that would shoot out of it's chest.


In fact, let me find a video:


Still think I have this sitting somewhere...

 

[kouriichi]

"The bomb squad was sent in to negotiate with the robot, but they didn't want to take any chances."

Your kidding me right? I dont know if i should rofl myself to the hospital, or weep for humanity because they nuked a childrens toy. ((not just nuked, closed off the area, asked it demands, and then nuked it.))

 

[strum4h]

I want to know how they negotiated with it. Anyways I will submit to my robot overlords when the time comes.

 

[runedeadthA]

As I said, disguising explosives as toys and other foreign objects is an unfortunately real occurrence. The idea behind that of course being that you can get someone (apparently normally a child) to pick it up so you can kill them with it. I wouldn't say it's being 'out of the loop' or 'paranoid' so much as 'knowing a fuck of a lot more about bombing than people who only ever see videogame violence'.

...In Denver? Of course they mentioned that the toy was Cemented into the pillar which IS very suspicious. Why would you use cement like that unless you were hiding something?

 

[bam13302]

the comments of disguisng explosives in toys reminds me of the babystroller explosive in fallout 3

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

Fixed it for you

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

*equips tinfoil hat

GOD DAMN IT!
That was a test, 10 days from now that probe was suposed to return to the mother ship and report human activity on the planet. If it was met with hostility, then the probe's creators will come down to earth and elliminate us.
But if it was unharmed, then they would greet us with open arms into the galaxy.

I know all this because I intercepted one of thir transmissions, luckely it was all in perfect English.

WHY DENVER PD!? WHY!?

*unequips tinfoil hat

Thats some weird stuff, bomb squad vs toy. But, better safe than sorry.

 

[TheLiham]

Oh shit! I think I may have owned one of those things way back when.

They ran on treads, and had a little tray which they could place things on (which, alternatively, could be taken out and be used as a cup holder) and two hands intended to pick up junk to put onto said tray.


It also had tree foam missiles that would shoot out of it's chest.


In fact, let me find a video:


Still think I have this sitting somewhere...

WANT! O.O

 

[GamingAwesome1]

.......What?

 

[XIGBARx13]

See, this is what happens when there's a new report of a "bomb scare" every other week. People see a toy robot and immediately assume it's there to kill them all. Of course nobody thinks about the possibility of it being a Decepticon though...

 

[Grayjack]

.........The fuck?

Yes, I really am speechless beyond that.

Also, this reminds me of the Mooninite Invasion in 2007.

Spoiler

 

[Steve the Pocket]

The only freedom I can see being lost is the freedom to cement objects to public property.

This. Well, and the inconvenience suffered by those who planned to be in the area when they roped it off. Compared to USA PATRIOT and the shit going on at airports, this is pretty ho-hum.

 

[Dabox1]

thats freakin Rob 2.0! i had one, he was awesome! he shot darts and had a microphone so you could talk through the controller...

 

[Aphroditty]

Seriously, there has to be a better, easier way to find out whether something is dangerous than by just assuming it is and blowing it up.

There is. It's a bit primitive, but gets the job done, and in the end is far more elegant a solution than crude explosives.

First, everyone in the police department draws lots, but you rig the lots so that a person you're planning on firing anyway, or who you just hate, gets the short stick. They then go out and shake hands with whatever mysterious thing is out there in order to determine if it's safe. If it isn't, you've got some cleanup to do, but public safety is restored and a thorny personnel issue has been cleared up. If it is, then you're in the clear.

OT: I would say this is a fine move by the bomb squad. Alright, it's a robot, but so what? Bombs have been described as odder things--soda cans, etc. And it's not like it was just a robot placed on the sidewalk, like a kid forgot about it, the thing was cemented to a pillar. There are really two reasons I can think of to do that: 1) as a prank, or 2) bomb. Maybe detonating the thing was extreme, maybe there was a better way, but at the end of the day the whole process was inconsequential. So who cares?

I'm not talking about the freedom to cement shit to objects. I'm talking about the government's attitude toward terrorism in general: the whole "hide yo' kids, hide yo' wife, and hide yo' husbands" mentality, whereby, unless all freedoms are revoked, the terrorists have automatically won.

Freedom of information? Only if you want the terrorists to win.
Right to privacy? Only if you want the terrorists to win.
Freedom of religion? Only if you want the terrorists to win.
Right to cement something to a cinder block? Only if you want the terrorists to win.
Freedom to stand on a street corner? Only if you want the terrorists to win.
Oh, I'm sorry, is this your internet? Only if you want the terrorists to win.

Let's face it, the more freedoms we try and rescind, the more victories we're giving to the extremists anyway. After all, they don't like our 'freedoms.'

So I'm not entirely sure how you derived that my entire second paragraph in my original post was directly aimed at your cementing-stuff-to-public-property-argument.

His point was not that you were talking about the freedom to cement shit to objects. The point is that this is a relatively rational case of bomb squad intervention, and you're going into hysterics over fundamentalist right-wing they're-going-to-ban-the-fucking-internet propagandists. It's not that you're right, or that you're wrong, it's that everything you have bought to the table has been irrelevant to the topic at hand, a huge red herring. You sound like a whacked-out propagandist because you're completely failing to engage with the subject rationally, instead attempting to link it to a vast political zeitgeist which it has little or no connection to.

 

[Snake Plissken]

Thanks, Denver Post. Thanks for making my state look as dumb as Arkansas.