Comments on: The Shocking Truth Behind the Robot Soccer World Cup

By: off-shell

off-shell — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:40:47 +0000

Obviously, for whatever reason, the programmers were unable to teach the android goalkeeper to read the penalty taker's body, but at least they compensated by teaching it to slyly roll the ball back over the goaline. Now all they need to do now is put extra joints on the legs and put it in "Grobbelaar mode".

"But what if there's another explanation? After reading the oddly translated, somehow beat-missing English on the RoboCup website, taking in its inflexibly deadpan, purpose-driven style, and watching the crowds in these videos, I'm working on a new theory. What if the real robots are the people running the competition? What if, instead of us performing experiments on them, they're performing experiments on us?"

There's one stand-out devastatingly-frightening consequence of this conjecture, and it involves the words "Crouch" and "Peter".

By: Dave's Football Blog

Dave's Football Blog — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:37:07 +0000

I would say something here about how far the DARPA Grand Challenge, an autonomous vehicle race, had advanced in the course of three years (2004 to 2007), but really, driving a car isn't quite as hard as stopping a PK.

As for the competition against the robot dogs, we'll just have to legalize handballs in such a game. It worked for Nicolas Anelka in Blackburn today.

By: Brian Phillips

Brian Phillips — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 01:49:30 +0000

And just wait till they get their rocket arms and shoulder-mounted laser cannons. It could get ugly.

By: laurie

laurie — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 01:23:09 +0000

I'm surprisingly troubled by the fact that the dogs can use all four feet, thus making the handball call obsolete. Isn't this anti-human bias? That 2050 WC team doesn't stand a chance if this kind of thing is allowed to stand.

By: mafu

mafu — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:53:57 +0000

that robot dog was blatantly offside