Robots on a Rampage

I’m a sucker for The Onion, especially when it picks on nerds. This week, robot fraternity hazing makes the front page. According to the article, three robots—a biped, a hexapod and one with treads—were kidnapped from their recharge cradles by human fraternity members and forced to perform dangerous and repetitive tasks. “The third robot, a tread-driven 38-inch-tall rover, is feared drowned after being forced to consume over 40 terabytes of data and then swim across the Charles River with a burning candle stuck in its rear port.” If convicted of first-degree botslaughter, the perpetrators face a maximum penalty of life banishment from the MIT Media Lab. —Martha Harbison