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Satanica

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http://globalnews.ca/news/2143851/canadian-hitchhiking-robot-destroyed-on-trip-across-us/

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[....]
The Canadian researchers who created hitchBOT as a social experiment told The Associated Press that someone in Philadelphia damaged the robot beyond repair on Saturday, ending its first American tour after about two weeks.
[....]
The kid-size robot set out to travel cross-country after successfully hitchhiking across Canada in 26 days last year and parts of Europe. It is immobile on its own so gets from place to place by relying on the kindness of strangers.

It started in Marblehead, Massachusetts, on July 17[....]
The creators were sent an image of the vandalized robot Saturday but cannot track its location because the battery is dead. They said they don’t know who destroyed it or why. But co-creator Frauke Zeller said many children who adored the robot are now heartbroken.
 
He prolly just didn't like the way it looked at him, them Canadian robots are just too damned aggressive.
 
It really sucks that some huge asshole had to take something fun and destroy it. There's always one in the bunch. Irritating! :mad:
 
Wasn't sure where to post this with the new guidelines in Gen. News since we didn't have a "Crimes Against Robots" thread. Murdering a robot whose survival depended on human kindness is pretty damned mean, right? ;)


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For over a year, HitchBot travelled the world without working arms, legs, or wheels. It relied solely on human kindness to transport it and to keep its batteries charged, powering the smiling LED face, limited speech capabilities, and GPS tracker that reported to Twitter and the robot's creators where it was.

It brought joy to thousands of people all over the world for a year. Then, two weeks ago, it came to America, where it brought joy to some people on the East Coast before imparting some final satisfaction to whatever depraved individuals smashed it to pieces, decapitated it, and left it for dead in a trash-strewn Philadelphia alley. It is the Cecil the Lion of the robot world.

Its trip across Canada, and later Germany and the Netherlands, was an inspiration to the 50,000 people following it on Twitter and hundreds of thousands more who read about it online or heard about it on the news.

Great Twitter & Instagram travel pics @ link: http://www.someecards.com/news/dumb-crime/hitchbot-hitchhiking-robot-philadelphia/

And from phillymag.com:
You’re Welcome, America: We Killed hitchBOT

Most weekends I don’t leave South Philly, let alone the East Coast. But I spent the past couple days in Los Angeles, and I have to admit that by Saturday evening I started to entertain the idea of extending my stay.

Because really, California doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. It never snows and it barely rains. There’s a beach to the left and mountains to the right. If you forget your laptop in a coffee shop, it will be waiting for you behind the counter with a glowing barista who smells like sunshine and rainbows. What, I wondered, do I have against happiness? Why do I insist, year after year, on proving that I can survive Philadelphia?

’ve been homesick before, but never in the crystal clear, perfectly realized way that I was when I heard about the untimely demise of that Canadian robot. When I read about how — after traveling peacefully down the East Coast with the help of friendly humans — he was decapitated on the streets of Old City, I almost went to LAX and got the first flight back home.

Because things would have gone down differently in California. If hitchBOT had spent the weekend in Los Angeles, he would have had a perfectly nice time. Strangers would have asked how his day was going. Old friends would have filled him in on the wonders of the West Coast. New friends would have promised to hook him up with their buddies over at Google. Which is great, except that they wouldn’t have saved his number, and when hitchBOT was left to wait for his next ride, he’d have been as alone as ever in this cold dark world.​
 
n an interview with the CBC back in March, Smith said he hoped hitchBOT's journey would lead to some introspection on the way society works.

Maybe, he said, it could spark discussion on some big questions like: "What kind of people are we? Are we kind? Do we live in a safe world, you know, for the most part?"

Which leaves us with one question: What does this say about the U.S.?
 
It's ludicrous they even sent that thing to this country and expected it to survive, as it's been apparent for some time that we can't have nice things:shrug:
 
How was this thing a robot if it was immobile and didn't do anything? The damn thing was just a doll.

Oh, but it does piss me off the thing was successfully used in other countries and then, welcome to America, gets fucked up here. And you wonder why I want to move to Iceland.
 
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