Recommended Links of the Week (No. 650)

Assassin robots, Dirty Harry, Alexa versus a little girl, SPAM, and twenty-five European series to get stuck into. That's what this late edition of the Recommended Links of the Week contains. Because better late than never, even if it means working on a Sunday. Enjoy!

Sharp MZ-731 - The Strange Eighties Computer With Built-In Color Printer: "The Sharp MZ-700 series didn't differ in almost anything from other 8-bit microcomputers of the time; it included a Sharp LH-0080 microprocessor -compatible with the popular Zilog Z80 of the moment-, 64 Kilobytes of RAM, 4 Megahertz speed, and an integrated tape interface of 1,200 bits per second reading. But within that range, there was a peculiar model, the Sharp MZ-731, which, in addition to incorporating a tape interface in the keyboard, included a built-in printer."

“They're waiting for you, Gordon. In the test chamber.”: "The release of its first installment, in 1998, marked a before and after in the video game industry, becoming a benchmark and an example to follow in the FPS genre. So much so that it still serves as inspiration for many modern games. It also marked an entire generation of gamers, in a similar way that Pink Floyd did with our parents in 1979, when they released The Wall. Its success gave rise to several expansions, spin-offs, mods and sequels."

Virtua Racing (Mega Drive): "Built with the then quite unknown polygonal graphics, the sensation of three-dimensionality was sublime, which was accentuated when using the interior camera. (...) It didn't matter that the shapes of the cars and other elements were extremely simple and lacking all detail, because not even the best sprites could achieve the same sense of freedom of movement or allow us to change viewpoint with such a smooth transition without the action stopping for a single instant."

Killer robots are not science fiction. There's more pressure to ban them: "It may have seemed like an obscure United Nations conclave, but last week experts in artificial intelligence, military strategy, disarmament and humanitarian law attentively followed a meeting held in Geneva. The reason behind the interest? Killer robots —drones, weapons and bombs that decide on their own, with artificial brains, whether to attack and kill— and what should be done, if anything, to regulate or ban them."

Echo chambers, the dangerous shortcuts that algorithms cause in our minds: "Algorithms personalize the experience on social platforms by selecting the information most suited to our profile. To do this, data from previous behaviors is combined with data from the behavior of people with similar profiles and tastes, nearby content and, of course, current trends. Alongside the trends defined by the algorithms will be those selected personally. And with that we finish shaping the chamber."

Goliath, the Nazi suicide robot capable of carrying a hundred kilos of explosives: that's how Germany's "remote-controlled mine" was: "It lifted off the ground roughly the same as a tricycle and at first glance looked more like a child's toy than a deadly weapon, but when in the middle of World War II the Nazis had to decide how to christen the SdKfz —their latest device to attack Allied targets with explosives— they chose an epic name with biblical resonances: Goliath. Over time, for British troops it became, simply and plainly, the 'beetle tank'."

Why the canned meat that gave rise to the term "spam" breaks sales records: "The popularity it gained after World War II would turn it, years later, into a synonym for the unwanted email inbox. The reason, according to etymologist Graeme Donald, dates back to a sketch by the British comedy group Monty Python from the 1970s, in which a couple goes to a restaurant where every menu item has Spam as an ingredient. Although the woman makes clear she doesn't like canned food, the assistant repeats in a shrill voice: "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam ...""

What is the purpose in life? The same as that of the orbits of planets or dining room tables: "Asking whether life has a purpose is quite similar to asking whether the orbits of planets have any purpose. Or if a table has a purpose. In the case of orbits, purpose is only a kind of emergence: a set of forces, mixed with the planet's own mass and other variables finally converge, and from that convergence a movement emerges. In the end, the planet's orbit is just one more factor, like the planet's mass, or gravity, or the curvature of spacetime."

Dirty Harry - 50 years of the expeditive cop who made Clint Eastwood a star: "For one of the most important scholars of film noir, François Guerif, the film meant an alarm signal regarding the growth of urban violence in large American cities and the manifest inability of the system –police, politicians, judges– to curb it. The situation was ideal for the creation of a police officer with expeditive methods who works within the system but shows himself dissatisfied with it. Thus was born Harry Callahan, inspector with badge 2211 of the San Francisco homicide department."

The integrated psychopath: "The integrated psychopath does not commit (great) crimes and doesn't have behavior that could be classified as 'strange.' Another thing happens with those who belong to their intimate circle, who have seen them behave in many circumstances and in many cases are able to identify the real interest of their behaviors. It must be said that the integrated psychopath is always someone who harms. Not because it is their will, but precisely because their will is captive to a disorder. Sometimes they manage to camouflage their behavior so effectively that even those around them don't see them as sick, even though they are."

Twenty-five European series worth stopping for: "The proliferation of series on streaming platforms has helped bring to light series from all over the world. In this post we focus on those European series that have nothing to envy from those made on the other side of the pond. Spanish, British, Nordic, French, Italian series. Thrillers, mafia, dramas, humor. Not all that exist are included, since lists are subjective and limited, but all that are included are indeed there."

An Amazon device with Alexa challenged a 10-year-old girl to play with an outlet: "An Echo speaker with Alexa, the popular virtual assistant created by Amazon that gives answers and suggestions, proposed a dangerous recommendation to a minor. According to the Gizmodo portal, it all happened after a 10-year-old girl asked Alexa to propose a challenge. But the internet search led the virtual assistant to propose the 'Outlet Challenge,' a challenge popularized on TikTok. "The challenge is simple. Plug a phone charger halfway into a wall outlet, then touch the exposed prongs with a penny""

VIDEOS: Testing safety products, visit to the coldest city in the world, hens that feel the cold, "I'm Mr. Green Christmas, I'm High on Weed", what happens when you stop drinking alcohol, the existential horror of living in the Marvel Universe, walk along Serra De Arrabida beach, Japan's Terminator 2, Los Angeles in 1930 in color and with sound, Tesla turbine, the most useless megaprojects, orangutan driving a golf cart, "America, Fuck Yeah!", Donkey Kong's blind date, browsing Reddit on an Intel 8088 with a 60s modem, three horror shorts and New Year in North Korea live.

GALLERIES: miniature paintings, nature photographer awards, iconic redheads in pop culture, Comet Leonard captured by an amateur, giant cat, provocative digital art, Jim Henson Muppets, scary dolls, Viewsonic Colorpro awards, strange taxidermy, the Faroe Islands, Russian villages by Vladimir Lyubarov, the Vertedero Animado and the Tiradero Visual. There's a bonus: Click here for a surprise.

It's no secret that we've been having several technical problems in recent days. At the worst time of the year to get technical support! That's why the links came out so late. At least they came out! Anyway, I hope you enjoy them and... Happy New Year! And may this year be traveled with the least possible and convenient pain.