We are so screwed. [Plastic Pals via Crunchgear]

The house is home to four undergrads who had already had a Sony PlayStation and two laptops stolen earlier on Monday.

So when one of the students heard noises at about 1am, he went to downstairs to investigate armed with the sword. He saw that the side door to their garage had been pried open, and inside, the suspect lunged at him.

The guy probably didn't deserve to die, but Police have confirmed he has priors for breaking and entering.

Self defense or too much force? It's hard to say without being there. One things for sure: Don't fuck with gamers. [Baltimore Sun and ABC2 News] Thanks Joshua!

Samurai guards used to sit in a kneeling position, with one knee up and one knee on the ground. The instability of the position, which required an active rebalancing, along with the slight tinge of pain on the lowered knee cap on the ground, made it ideal for long uneventful shifts. The position kept people awake, which kept them sharp and engaged so they'd be ready when the sonofabitch ninjas finally showed their facemasks. It's like a single replacement for a chair, and coffee.

I find that physiologically it also makes a great alternative to the sitting position, where one's back and gluts and neck are constantly stretched while the hip flexors and abs are constantly compressed but unused. This way, I stretch one leg at a time. The kneeling also keeps my eyes level with the screen of a laptop, and the desk too relatively high to lean on (which causes me to slouch). I don't get too tired, as I can rest my chest against the desk when I need to.

Through the day, I sit on an exercise ball, too, but I never feel better than when I am in the sitting stance. Swordsmen were also able to draw swords from this stance, to address attackers in front and behind them. I just change knees every few emails. Just in case the ninjas show. [Iaido, image from]

*This stance works for me, but I am not an ergonomic expert. Obviously.

UPDATE: Yeah, this shit makes my knees feel like shit. Don't listen to me.

Get a couple of these with some Daft Punk Olympic fencing suits—sounds like an evening right there. [Toy Fair 2009]

Popular Mechanics originally reported that "SWORDS was yanked because it made people nervous" based partly on a conversation with Army spokesman Kevin Fahey. He was talking about instances where SWORDS robots had swung around without being commanded to do so: "the gun started moving when it was not intended to move," and that's potentially dangerous when it's operating and friendly soldiers are nearby.

But Cynthia Black, a spokesperson for the robot-makers Foster Miller, points out that there have only actually been three "uncommanded movement" incidents. One involving a loose wire, one a broken solder joint and one where a burnt-out motor caused a robot to slide backwards down a hill. Both the wiring fault and soldering error have been fixed, by double-soldering and redundant circuits, and there's nothing much anyone could do about the third problem. All three events were prior to its safety certification.

Sound a bit dubious, since it's their robot they're trying to defend? Well, even Kevin Fahey himself, in a email to Danger Room now says "SWORD is still deployed" and that the Army is going to expand the use of robots like it.

There's one more fact that squashes the "Terminator" label the robots have been given: they can't fire their weapon without direct orders. And it would take a heck of a sequence of malfunctions for it to point the wrong way and fire at our own guys all by itself. Thank goodness they didn't build AI into them, hey? [Danger Room]

Update: Popular Mechanics has a new article online that sets the record straight. Basically, as we report here, the robots are working well, are still deployed in Iraq, and pose no safety threat to their operators. And there are only three deployed in any case. Read it here.

By slipping the Wiimote into the sword and Nunchuck into the shield, the realism level would have been so high it would be like we were actually plugged into the Matrix. Except instead of dressing up in all black, we'd be wearing our girlfriend's green dress so we can look like Link. Finally, an excuse! – Jason Chen

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