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April 25th, 2024

Diversions

Meanwhile, Overseas

News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published August 31, 2016

Meanwhile, Overseas

(1) Voters in June in the village of Draguseni, Romania, elected Vasile Cepoi mayor -- no, not the Vasile Cepoi who lost, or the other Vasile Cepoi who lost. The winner was the incumbent mayor, Vasile Cepoi. (There was also a fourth candidate, who was not named Vasile Cepoi.)

(2) In June, an "artificial intelligence" robot ("IR77") being taught to "avoid obstacles" while moving around the Promobot lab in Perm, Russia, apparently "learned" how to walk out the door undetected, causing a downtown traffic jam when its batteries died. Handlers modified the computer script, but IR77 "escaped" again several days later, and engineers said they may have to dismantle the program and start over. [New York Times, 6-14-2016] [RT.com (Moscow), 6-23-2016]