Slightly OT: Press Mention Of "Robot" Suicide

[Bigglez]

Greetings,

I have no further info beyond these news wire postings:

Cites:
The Age

London Times

Comments Welcome!

[dyarker]

That really is LIMITED information.

What kind of device would non-technical people call robotic?

Having heard the word robot from someone they interviewed, they used it to sensationalize the headline. Must have been a slow news day, and they had a space to fill.

C U L -

[Bigglez]

Greetings Dale,

That really is LIMITED information.
What kind of device would non-technical people call robotic?

I don't have much faith in journalism, most of the
newspapers reprint wire copy without varification. It
made the local AM radio show I listen to via podcast.

Its a bit of a slap in the face for us when the public is
told that the how-to details were "downloaded from the
internet".

Comments Welcome!

[Franklin97355]

Seems he attached a jigsaw to a semiauto pistol.

[Karl Williams]

I hate when they blame the robots - LOL.

The device sounds more like a Rube Goldberg contraption...

[jaem]

That's the sort of thing that really gets my proverbial goat. That article is worthy of Hollywood's "science" writers. However, it's the same old thing, they don't need to get their facts straight, because most of their audience (and thus everybody they care about) won't know any better. I often hear people talking about the latest 'danger" regarding the internet that they heard about on the news, and how terrible it is. Usually, they have no more knowledge on the matter than the news reporters, yet they repeat it at face value, and base their views and decisions on their [mis]information. Face it - the internet is like any other large-scale technological revolution: both beneficial and dangerous, depending on how it's used. Sensationalism and ignorance don't help the situation; if people sought out the truth about things, reported them accurately, and educated people about the real problems, maybe we'd actually get somewhere...