BuzzFeed and Washington Post To Use Robots For RNC Coverage (engadget.com) 80
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Engadget: The Washington Post and Buzzfeed have sent robots to cover the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. The Washington Post is using a telepresence robot from Double Robotics that consists of an iPad mounted on a Segway-like base. It's objective: to roam around the convention, streaming live on Periscope. Those viewing the stream will be able to ask questions of delegates, politicians and other figures who stumble upon the robot. BuzzFeed is using a robot called 'BuzzBot.' It's a Facebook chat bot that collects and caters news from the convention to users' messaging feeds. All you have to do is add the channel to your Messenger app and it will deliver news updates from BuzzFeed reporters. Specifically, it will collect reports from delegates, protesters and others in Cleveland. You have the option to send pictures and other info to BuzzBot, but it may ask you questions about your experience. The questions it asks will be different depending on your location. For example, if you live in Cleveland it will want to know what kind of impact the RNC is having on your daily life. Meanwhile, with roughly 50,000 attendees and likely millions of viewers watching across the country and abroad, the RNC is preparing for cyberattacks that aim to disrupt the network.
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Life isn't ideal. People know this. Maladjusted adults think there's some sweet action-movie style alternative, as opposed to the kind of domestic war power vacuum ad-nauseum that happens in places all around the world. So again, do you want to vote for the candidate that is most likely to preserve your way of life, even if you feel you've been wronged so badly by the system? Or the candidate that espouses the kind of thing you really want to hear because he knows you're not worldly enough to know it's just
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Perhaps the problem is that you're trying to justify what amounts to laziness and apathy with what you think sounds like informed cynicism, but what to others sounds like playground-level petulance. When you boil it down, what you're really saying is a Cartmanesque "Screw you guys, I'm going home."
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Disclaimer: I am NOT a republican and I DO NOT support Trump even the slightest bit.
Perhaps the problem is that you're trying to justify what amounts to laziness and apathy with what you think sounds like informed cynicism, but what to others sounds like playground-level petulance. When you boil it down, what you're really saying is a Cartmanesque "Screw you guys, I'm going home."
There's wisdom in that. The political discourse in this country is really stupid, and it seems to mostly come from the left, but the right does it a little bit as well. For perfect case in point, why the FUCK would you protest a gathering of a political party? That is to say, what exactly are you protesting? Their right to peacefully assemble? Their right to speak their minds? I must be missing something huge because I reall
Re:No Thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
But what Trump and his supporters are railing against isn't a lack of free speech, it's the fact that there are consequences to saying certain things. What they really want is freedom from consequences. They want to say blatantly racist or bigoted things and not have anyone say "Hey wait a minute, that was horrible a prejudiced and wrong." They want CEOs to have the right to say "I hate homosexuals" and somehow not have boards of directors go "You're out of here."
No one is contesting anyone's right to say anything they want. Go for it. Say you hate Mexicans. Say you hate Muslims. Say you hate gay marriage. But to imagine that other members of society have to keep their mouths shut or that people can't condemn you for it, well that's not demanding free speech, that's demanding that only you have those kinds of freedoms, and everyone else just has to accept it and keep their mouths shut.
Trump doesn't represent some grand bastion of free speech. He represents an arrogant, rude, bigoted type of individual who wants to hold noxious beliefs, and then force everyone to simply pretend like the verbal diarrhea coming out of their mouth is just plain fine. So really it isn't about freedom of speech at all, it's about freedom from the consequences of speech.
Re:No Thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
They want to say blatantly racist or bigoted things and not have anyone say "Hey wait a minute, that was horrible a prejudiced and wrong."
Such as? Be specific.
And on that note, there are lots of things that are bigoted that the left doesn't seem to have a problem perpetuating. For example, it's considered totally acceptable to bash rednecks and Christians, even though doing so is by definition bigotry. How many times on an internet forum do you see people say "murica'"? Again, by definition that is bigotry. Have a look at the "unfair campaign"; again, bigotry. Need I go on? Why is bigotry acceptable so long as it's popular?
It also occurs to me that you yourself are being bigoted against the Trump camp.
Say you hate Mexicans. Say you hate Muslims.
I haven't seen any of these things out of the Trump camp. I've seen comments to the effect of restricting their entry into the country (and given the impact that the later is having on Europe, there may be wisdom to that -- I don't know -- but it would be a very clear cut violation of the first amendment, so it cannot be done.)
But to imagine that other members of society have to keep their mouths shut or that people can't condemn you for it, well that's not demanding free speech, that's demanding that only you have those kinds of freedoms, and everyone else just has to accept it and keep their mouths shut.
I haven't seen this out of them as well (and my comments about bigotry on the part of the left have nothing to do with this; rather, that is to point out that it's pretty hypocritical to call out bigotry on the part of others when I have yet to meet a single person who hasn't exhibited some form of bigotry, myself included.)
Trump doesn't represent some grand bastion of free speech.
I didn't say he does, rather I'm pointing out how idiotic (and indeed hypocritical) it is to protest a convention.
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Such as? Be specific.
Not OP but here [theblaze.com] is the first thing that comes to mind.
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"Christians" is not some homogeneous and monolithic entity, so the claim Democrats are bigoted against "Christians" is absurd. Is there some reason you think Evangelicals are representative of all Christians? Even among Catholics, a church that takes a decidedly anti-gay and very firm anti-abortion stance, many Catholics in the US are decidedly Liberal. So really, there is no Democrat anti-Christian sentiment, there's a negative perspective of certain branches of Christianity.
And being prejudiced against so
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"Christians" is not some homogeneous and monolithic entity
No shit. I never claimed otherwise.
And being prejudiced against something in and of itself is not bad, providing the prejudice is based on some sort of sound reasoning. For instance, I'm completely prejudiced against racists, but that hardly makes me a bigot.
I think you just did a really good job of demonstrating your own poor judgement. You've never lived their life, so you don't know why they might have a particular point of view. For example, think of a woman who has been repeatedly raped and now hates men; you aren't going to change this woman's mind by prejudging her.
As for myself, I'll have a beer with a black guy, a redneck, a kkk member, a black panther party member...so long as they're not being hostile to me, it does
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And on that note, there are lots of things that are bigoted that the left doesn't seem to have a problem perpetuating. For example, it's considered totally acceptable to bash rednecks and Christians, even though doing so is by definition bigotry. How many times on an internet forum do you see people say "murica'"? Again, by definition that is bigotry. Have a look at the "unfair campaign"; again, bigotry. Need I go on? Why is bigotry acceptable so long as it's popular?
If by "acceptable" you mean "most people don't have a problem with it, or at least don't find it appalling", then I think you just defined "popular". Still, that doesn't prevent you from being bothered by such things, and telling people why. Again, freedom of speech means we both get to have our opinions. If most of the country finds yours appalling, I'd postulate that's probably your problem, not theirs.
If you're curious specifically about those specific things, I'd suggest contemplating for a few minute
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If most of the country finds yours appalling, I'd postulate that's probably your problem, not theirs.
Absolutely not. If I mention a sensitive topic that has nothing to do with race, and somebody calls me a racist for it, that's their problem.
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Go back and review the comments regarding Brandon Eich, Cliven Bundy, that guy who owned the LA Lakers, that Duck Dynasty guy, and probably half of Steve King's remarks. You can even see it in the discussions here on Slashdot. If you've never observed that tendency, I can only say you may need to pay a bit more attention.
These are really dumb examples because none of them have been particularly set back by those comments, except for the Lakers guy who was set up by a jilted wife/girlfriend/whatever to say those things. If you just listen to the conversation, it's obvious the woman he was talking to was deliberately baiting him into saying those things, and it was very likely taken out of context as well.
Either way, he hasn't come forth demanding his right to be able to say those things without civil consequence, and neither
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For perfect case in point, why the FUCK would you protest a gathering of a political party? That is to say, what exactly are you protesting? Their right to peacefully assemble? Their right to speak their minds? I must be missing something huge
You are. They are protesting because they disagree with what is being said.
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First of all, how is protesting the convention of a political party infringing on anyone's freedom of association?
Second of all, how is the convention of a political party considered a private conversation? They are literally deciding the platform from which the party will (supposedly) derive its policies; they want it to be public, that's why they have a convention in the first place. Otherwise, what's all the press for?
Finally, what do you mean by "disrupt"? A protest isn't automatically disruptive just b
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I'll be skipping both the RNC & DNC....tired of voting for the lesser of two evils, and in this case, it's a dead heat...I don't care for either of them.
As Penn Jillette has said, When you vote for the lesser of two evils you are still supporting evil.
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Not that he's dumb, but Penn Jillette has empowered manchildren in a pretty fun way. Libertarians love him, because he's a libertarian, but this is the same block who is so quick to cut down celebrities who express political views. In other words, you're getting your talking points from a financially successful magician.
Re:No Thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that he's dumb, but Penn Jillette has empowered manchildren in a pretty fun way. Libertarians love him, because he's a libertarian, but this is the same block who is so quick to cut down celebrities who express political views. In other words, you're getting your talking points from a financially successful magician.
He cuts down celebrities who are being deceptive. This is something that the best magicians tend to be well known for, and indeed are responsible for effectively killing bunk sciences and professions like parapsychology, cryptozoology, psychics, faith healing, and exorcism. In this regard, Penn Jillette comes in the same vein as Harry Houdini and James Rhandi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If you have netflix (or torrent your movies) I recommend watching the movie "An Honest Liar", it's pretty entertaining to watch how he brought down the field of parapsychology and scammers like Peter Popoff.
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Not that he's dumb
but Penn Jillette has empowered manchildren in a pretty fun way. Libertarians love him, because he's a libertarian, but this is the same block who is so quick to cut down celebrities who express political views. In other words, you're getting your talking points from a financially successful magician.
Re:No Thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is ludicrous. Waiting for the perfect candidate is rather like waiting for the perfect spouse. Both are naive and overly romantic. All candidates are going to have flaws, and if you believe your favorite candidate doesn't have flaws and isn't going to be a forced into countless compromises, then you've ceased to have a political point of view, and have become a religious adherent.
I can't think of a single candidate for president in my entire life that wasn't at the very least one of the lesser evils in some way. If you're walking away because voting for the better/less bad candidate seems like a compromise of principles, then you're not acting like an adult, but rather like a petulant child.
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Waiting for the perfect candidate is rather like waiting for the perfect spouse. Both are naive and overly romantic.
The only person to say anything about perfection is you. Apparently in your world there is only evil and perfect, and apparently you use this bizarre idea to justify your continued supporting of evil.
All candidates are going to have flaws
Not all candidates are above the law. Not all candidates and perfect examples of white privilege playing kip service to trendy topics. Not all candidates are sexists. Yet both Trump are Hillary are all of these things.
These are not just imperfect people. These are some of the worst kind of people. The list
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Which is ludicrous. Waiting for the perfect candidate is rather like waiting for the perfect spouse. Both are naive and overly romantic. All candidates are going to have flaws, and if you believe your favorite candidate doesn't have flaws and isn't going to be a forced into countless compromises, then you've ceased to have a political point of view, and have become a religious adherent.
I'm voting for Gary Johnson. He is far from my ideal candidate, but I still agree with him much more than Clinton/Trump. I recently saw a post on FB with this quote, which I think sums it up really well:
"When someone tells you you're wasting your vote, recognize that they don't care about you. It's a selfish statement. They are saying your beliefs aren't worth being represented. That you should silence your voice so theirs can be louder. Vote your conscience, not someone else's politics."
So if you're suggesting that not voting for the Dem or Rep candidate (which is what the original post was referring to) is acting like a petulant child, maybe that's because you're being selfish.
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I'll pass (Score:1)
All you have to do is add the channel to your Messenger app and it will deliver news updates from BuzzFeed reporters
I'd rather get a root canal while simultaneously undergoing a cacti-rectal exam.
ED-209? (Score:2)
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I guess that depends. We need to ask congressman Steve King of Iowa if they're the right subgroup of robot.
Thanks, liberals... (Score:2)
for putting poor interns out of work, and endangering baby Republicans.
Not a bad idea (Score:2, Funny)
Good way to be there and not risk getting shot
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Good point, the Democrats are surprisingly willing to shoot people they don't like given their stance on gun control.
Or is that the new way to sell it? Give us your guns or we'll shoot you?
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I figured it would save the reporters hours of scrubbing the crazy off at the end of each day.
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Good way to be there and not risk getting shot
How many people were shot yesterday at the RNC? I mean, with all those guns around, somebody had to have gotten shot, right?
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I love all these washed celebrities who suddenly love Trump. "I totally support Donald Trump, and I'm also available for birthdays and bar mitzvahs."
It's almost like Trump can't find any real substantive supporters.
Re: understandable (Score:2)
Are you implying there are celebrities of substance?
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I believe he's implying, rather explicitly, that there are celebrities with careers, who can get paid to leave the house.
And then there are celebrities who will appear at the Republican National Convention.
And if this works ... (Score:3)
Even the Robots Don't Want to Be There (Score:2)
Would you?
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suggests a toxic environment... (Score:1)
Re:suggests a toxic environment... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, when your party is just about to nominate a man who has very little chance of actually becoming President, and worse, is likely to drive a wedge so deep between the major factions of the Republican party that it could deny the party the White House for several elections to come, yeah, I think that makes you bitter.
Everyone but the swirly eyed Trump supporters knows he can't beat Clinton. It's not clear that if the Dems had the love child of Pol Pot and Kim Jong-Il as their candidate that Trump could beat them. The likelihood of him closing the substantial electoral college lead Clinton enjoys is extremely small, and if some of the swing states that went to Obama in 2012 wouldn't stick with Mitt Romney, what in the name of holy fuck do you think they're going to do with Trump?
About the only thing to look forward to now is the concession speech, which, I'm sure, will involve Trump making absurd threats, demanding recounts and committing to being back in four years to try again.
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Everyone but the swirly eyed Trump supporters knows he can't beat Clinton.
They also said Bush Sr. couldn't beat Dukakis. The July polls were 37% for Bush vs 54% for Dukakis. The popular vote went 53% Bush 46% Dukakis. In terms of the electoral college it was a landslide, Bush getting 426 vs Dukakis 111.
What matters is not whether or not you are leading in July. What matters is whether or not your campaign arguments have legs. In the case of Dukakis, Bush kept hammering home that he is soft on crime. Dukakis had no defense. The arguments against him had legs and there was nothi
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And what the fuck do you think Donald Trump is, a modern day Ghandi? The man is a real estate scam artist who very likely massively overstated his wealth and business acumen.
Clinton will win. The GOP knows it, but it no longer has the will power to prevent his nomination.
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And what the fuck do you think Donald Trump is, a modern day Ghandi?
I said nothing of the sort, but apparently in your black-and-white-world, if you dont support Hillary you must support Trump......
Trump is someone that will take the fight to Hillary. Its over for her.
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", if you dont support Hillary you must support Trump": My daughter has a bumper sticker on her car with three check boxes: Democrat, Republican, and Awake. Awake is checked.
CNN, everybody else is sending robots! (Score:3)
What's new? (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the repetitive, scripted coverage of "news" by the media, I would assert that most journalists have practiced robotic performance for a long time.
Get $narrative
go to
Print %story
Cut out the middleman (Score:1)
What's the Buzz? (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure Buzzbot is Light Years ahead