lol a flamethrower, not only would it kill all the homeless, but put a BBQ sauce gun on there and you now have a solution to world hunger as well

Question: if I were to use videos of this robot fighting bums in my upcoming straight-to-VHS release, Bum Fights VII: It's Nothing Personal, would I have to pay royalties to the bum, the robot, both, or neither?

Because really I'm just trying to turn a profit, and paying two bums after the fight is just too expensive. Of course, one usually dies, but even paying just the winner is getting too pricey.

So really, what I want to know is would the cost of making that sucker lethal outweigh the benefits of not having to pay bums post-fight?

shotty work, just sad....im just glad knowing he didnt take it serious b.c that would have been a big let down...big i say

In San Francisco, I don't know how many times I've caught bums pissing on my doorstep, passed out from a heroin overdose under my stairs, storing their shit in my yard, going through my garbage at 3AM (or all day), harassing my wife, etc. I want one of these bumbots!!

911 doesn't work at night....?

...........wtf?

I heard an interview with this guy a few weeks ago. He says that at night they let the bumbot loose, kick back in the bar and watch the bumbot on a big screen TV. Seems entertaining.

This was the best video I've seen on here in a long time hahaha.

"I wanted to put a flamethrower on it, but they wouldn't let do that."

It's a good thing the robot doesn't shoot alcohol, or the bums would never leave. But as it is, they fear water.

@mhlaxp: You should just film the kids and call it "Backseat Boyfights: The Trip To Uncle Jack's 70".

Then you don't have to pay anyone royalties...

PS, "Bumbots" sounds vaguely dirty...

@ideaman2020: Awesome reference.

it needs to be autonomous. none of this rc crap.

There's a Bender joke still waiting for the taking.

Most of us are one or two paychecks from being on the streets. I'm glad to see that any abuse I did to my Roomba will be paid back in full.

@nojo: You can bite my shiny metal bum...bot.

Aww...that video skips the best part, when all the "concerned citizens" call Bumbot a hero, and then its creator claims that if Bumbot wasn't pissing off homeless people, it would probably be in Iraq, finding Osama bin Laden. (To which Colbert quips: "Finding him, and moisturizing him.")

I'm like, Bumbot isn't a hero! It's a scooter with a squirt gun! You control it with a remote! There's no way it could find Osama bin Laden unless you were there steering it around! Publicity stunt is right.

It was a great clip. Kudos for posting. Colbert rox.

@Gizmog:
Was this today's episode? I can't find it on their website yet :c(

It's sad to see how little people value other people's lives, just because they can't afford a place to live.

I just bet there are rich assholes out there thinking about sicking the same bot at low-income home owners as well.

LMFAO @ He's not as tightly wrapped as we would like.

To be really affective that bot need to be inserting a pineapple up the bums are...... OH hang on I normally pay for that WTF

I hear they have a deal going in canada to deal with the homeless. I think the locals call it "winter".

This is a really cruel thing to do.

What happens when one of the homeless, gets a home and then decides to sue
the inventor?

Well I'd call that justice.

Great invention. I like that guy.

Mix a little bodywash into that water!

That thing is pretty cool!
I'd only have to make a few modifications to my own ROV to start my own wave of robotic neighborhood vigilantism!

Look out folks, mechanized order is coming, brought to you by the exact people who should be bringing it: The people that know how to build and operate one. :\

The problem is that there aren't enough of them to simply herd the homeless into the sea.
Let the Dolphins handle 'em.
Little smartasses won't be so happy THEN.

@Git Em SteveDave: It's always the flashlight nipples with you! :D

@JesusDeSaad:

Ya'know, I try to help the homeless out the best I can, but allow me a little story:

I had a bum living behind my building. I bought him a "zero-degree" sleeping bag, my neighbors (I live and work downtown) fed him from their restrurant, and when it was too cold, I let him sleep in the hallway outside my office/apartment. Oh yeah, and also take showers.

How was I repaid? Let's see, he asked me to use my cell to call a "relative", which as I stood behind the door turned out to be a rock dealer and that "I" was guaranteeing the $200 deal... then after I told him to get the 'f' out of my building and never come back, he tries to hide a stash of pot in my building, and a neighbor witnessed it (who had already had her tires slashed by him and her car 'keyed' and her elderly mom is called a 'f-ing b!tch' every time she walks by him), so I get to call the cops before she does lest *I* go down for possesion. Which was OK, since it was ditch weed anyway.

Then he starts sleeping in the front hallway, and after we kicked him out repeatedly, he took a sh!t in the front hallway, and several days later, took a p!ss.

911/the police? That is vacation time. The police had done everything but said, "we don't anything to do with him".

I have worked soup lines, had conversations with alot of 'bums', and found that alot of them have underlying mental problems. I have also ran across one fellow that wass completely sane but said "he just didn't want to work'.

I have also ran across the few people and families that were truly homeless. They were provided for almost immediately by the Episcopal church I used to attend (which also ran the 'soup line').

Homeless does not always equal bum, but alot of the time it does. And even in the bum category, alot of them are using alcohol/drugs to escape mental problems.

But until the ones using alcohol/drugs stop using and seek help, or at least seek help to stop using, there is very little you can do for them.

The escape they are using is more important to them then their health, you, me, our possesions, anything.

I wouldn't make a sweeping assumption about this guy's method until I knew what type of 'bums' he was dealing with.

At least in my town, it is a total fallacy that one can be homeless for any extended period of time without one of the church's or non-faith based groups kicking in and helping.

And I live in Central Florida, where the homeless population is way above the national average because of the temps year 'round.

I like to think of this as the first line of defense in the war against the homeless.

The second line of defense: the giant buzzsaw firefighting robot from yesterday.

There is no third line.

@OMG! Ponies!: I bet the bum hugger will be the third line. She can probably creep them out pretty quick.

You haven't seen the homeless' robotic response to the Bumbot, the Turd Herder. Sure, it's made from recycled aluminum and dismantled shopping carts, but it's street savvy and not afraid to bite in a fight. Not to mention the Sterno-fueled flaming fists of death.

@hypereric:
so because one bum was an asshole let's treat all homeless people like dirty animals.

No, scratch that, if you did it to animals there would be Animal Control cops giving you a fine for animal cruelty.

So worse than animals.
Yeah, i totally get your point, you're right because there's a lot of bums in Florida.

*sarcasm*

I'd love for him to play wanna-be policeman and shoot me with that water cannon. I'd own his ass (and bar) in court.

@BasicBlack:

the turd herder... don't you mean the flaming "shits" of death?

@JesusDeSaad:

You are correct, sir! If he had been yelling at those folks with a bullhorn and soaking them down with a super soaker, he would have been arrested. But since his actions have been deferred to his "robot", it's perfectly fine.

I particularly like the "security" stencil on the side. It's one of the few feelings it doesn't instill.

fantastic advertising....

it got on Giz Nuff said.

To all of you that want to coddle the homeless in the area that his restaurant and home are go take a walk down there at night.

Go ahead and park your car around Piedmont and Pine and see how long it takes for someone to peer through the windows for anything they can sell. Go ahead and leave your sunglasses on the seat. I dare you.

Go for it, keep a couple of dollars in a pocket and hand them out one at a time... wait about thirty minutes and watch them scurry up to North or Ponce and see how long it takes them to retreat back to Renaissance Park and shoot/snort/drink your money away.

I know more then a dozen people who live in the area that have their cars broken into, and windows in their apartments smashed because of these "people".

Long live the BumBot... too bad a 12 gauge mounted on that thing might topple it over.

The Atlanta Police are some of the slackest cops around. Even if you do call it takes them a hour or more to get there. Now the esteemed Mayor doesn't want people to carry concealed anywhere...

There is a serious problem with Atlanta, and I think the BumBot is a step in the right direction.

There was an article I read in I believe "Soldier of Fortune" magazine that pointed out that you DON'T need a license for a flamethrower. Just look at the X-Men reject from yesterday. I wonder if he can "scent" the water, or add a UV dye to it and equip Bumbot w/a black light. Then we could have a portion of the city and it's citizenry which will resemble the distopian future of Batman Returns( @strider_mt2k: which featured Batsuit nipples, although no flashlights). [static.flickr.com]

"Yeah, I own two restaurants I've named after myself.

O'Terrill's (I just put the O' on to make it seem cooler, so people think I'm fiery and Irish instead of just another white guy.)

And down the street, I've got Asshole Mcjerkwaddouchebaggery's, which, really, I didn't have to change the name at all."

I offer to be a bumbot for my girlfriend. She said no.

@92BuickLeSabre: "Asshole Mcjerkwaddouchebaggery's"

This would be a fine name for a bio-waste disposal facility.

@BasicBlack: Funny you should say that, have you been to O'Terril's?

@JesusDeSaad:

Problem is, they aren't just homeless. If they went to live under an underpass and didn't bother anyone, no one would care. When they are pissing in your garage, stealing your mail, harassing you daily on your way to take out the trash, dumping out your trash, shitting in your yard, puking on your sidewalk from cheap wine...they cease being innocent homeless.

So instead of spending money helping people survive, we'll spend money pushing the homeless people out of the view of the privileged.

On the topics of drug and alcohol abuse, Mitch Hedberg made a surprisingly good point in the phrase "alcoholism is the only disease people get mad at you for having".

I'll chime in since this is in my neighborhood.

Go two more blocks down the road (thankfully away from my place) and you'll encounter the Peachtree Pine Shelter. This is by all accounts the worst-run homeless shelter in the city (click here and here) - even the city has revoked its funding, but it still runs from private donations. Their clients aren't the "we're all two paychecks away from homeless" types - those folks get into better shelters that actually screen their clients for drugs, require job training, etc. Peachtree Pine takes in all the folks that the other shelters kick out, and many of them loiter in the immediate area (along with the dealers they buy their crack from) at night. This has created something of a no-man's-land between Midtown and Downtown, where no one seems to be interested in living or developing.

Oh yeah, and if you didn't notice from my links, the "Bum Hugger" woman in the clip is Anita Beatty, the shelter's director. She's not too popular around these parts :)

O'Terril's happens to be in this area, so I can certainly understand the frustration. Also, don't forget that the bot is not running the bums off from street corners - it's patrolling *his own property* and that of an adjacent child-care center who explicitly requested his help.

There aren't a lot of people other than Ms. Beatty who see a problem with this.

@rekoil:

They can't be all that bad. They haven't beaten the living shit out of him, have they?

File an ECP for a Mento/Diet Coke upgrade.

@JesusDeSaad:

I suggest you take a course in 'reading comprehension'. None of what you imply I said did my comment actually contain. Quite the contrary, actually.

But this is to be expected from someone who is on his high horse and probably has never "got his feet wet" in trying to deal with the problem of homeless by choice, homeless by poverty, homeless by substance abuse, homeless by mental problems (or any combination of the above).

Your jumping to conclusions to show your moral superiority over me is also quite evident in the fact that you could not take two seconds with Google and produce an article, with accompanying chart, of states with the highest homeless populations.

So that you do not have to climb down off your off high horse and get your feet wet with the problem, I will supply you with one:

[www.usatoday.com]

Notice which state is ranked number 2 in homeless population?

I suggest you stop watching re-runs of Miami Vice, ignore the ads for Disney World, Busch Gardens, SeaWorld and the likesuch and delve into the problem at hand.

I stand by my statement, "I wouldn't make a sweeping assumption about this guy's method until I knew what type of 'bums' he was dealing with" (emphasis added to help your lack of comprehension). And notice the quotes around bums, an obvious implication that all are not truly 'bums'.

So you're going to spray a homeless person with cold water when they're forced to spend the night exposed to the elements...

@Final: 9 times out of ten, when it's that cold out, homeless people don't go wandering around. They usually hunker down over a heating grate or go to a shelter. Also, they don't get sprayed if they don't go onto his property. It's not like he's hunting them down in alleys w/ a FLIR scope or something. He patrols the area around his business.