Reddit Challenge #37

Reddit user BiffHardCheese submits: "Android Divorce Court." This is a second interpretation, in the form of a news brief.

---

Have you been looking for a solution to your marital problems? Droid does!

Zyngaza Software has announced a brand new app for Android devices called the 'Divorce Court' app. This application has the full support of the popular Divorce Court TV show and was developed in tandem with several of the judges and executive producers (in the case of Judge Reinhold it was both) of Divorce Court, and will make use of the most advanced Android software. It is designed solely to run on quad-core processors, running Android 4.6 Mr. Goodbar.

The application is unique in that it claims to be able to help couples solve their marital issues without having to resort to such methods as arbitration, litigation or conversation. The app is remarkably simple to use and the download is pretty small, too. When you open the app, the first thing you see is a remarkably realistic digital version of Judge Judy's head.

When she first speaks it is with such authority that it is almost frightening. After asking your name, birth date, address and social security number, the app then requires you to agree to an incredibly long and complicated user agreement. Once you've signed away your life rights to a producer in Santa Monica, Judge Judy's head then begins to grill you about the status of your relationship.

"She" speaks to each party individually, registering responses though the front-facing camera of your Android device and using advanced super-computing code to think of Judge Judy's next overly-insulting question, aggressive retort or witty comeback on the fly. The technology was licensed from IBM, who had developed the technology for Watson, their Jeopardy-playing supercomputer.

After hearing and responding to both side's cases, the app processes the information and routes it through a complicated judging algorithm leaked to Zangaza by Edward Snowden. Zangaza claims Snowden told them the software was used to simulate rulings in secret government courts when no real judge would agree to such absurd constitutional violations. The algorithm claims to have a "good enough, okay" success rate.

Since its release this morning, marriages being solved with the app by the several. There was even talk among early beta testers that some of them would be willing to pay as much as $1 for the app if it went live. The app is currently free.

Technoying's rating: 
7.8/14.3

Reddit Challenge #36

Reddit user Smitty1288 submits: "A samurai's first narcotics anonymous meeting."

Hello, my name is Hiruki Namaguch and I am a Samurai. And a drug addict.

Getting the coke, this was the easy part. The very easy part.

With a single swing of my katana, any thug, drug dealer, friend or watermelon was sliced in half. Take a moment especially and imagine the watermelon, isn't it freaking sweet? Anyhow, the treasures they held, whether they be cocaine, more cocaine or watermelon were mine for the taking. And I took.


You usually do not hear of Samurai talking about drug usage. This is because drug usage among Samurai is ubiquitous. And because Samurai are legendarily secretive. Why am I here, you might ask? It is because I remembered the first day I became a Samurai.

My master was branding us all with the emblem of our clan. To calm our nerves, he offered all of us some cocaine. The rest is history.

I drove to Tokyo on a cocaine-induced rage and have been murdering addicts, drug dealers, friends and fruit in order to get cocaine, money for cocaine or more money for cocaine. I realized eventually, that my breaking point was near, when I looked at myself in the mirror of a Burger King bathroom.

I realized I had spent the entire day taking cocaine, killing for more cocaine, and being even more high on even more cocaine and yet- as I do at this very moment- I still had my katana over my shoulder, and a dazzling kimono. It was at that very moment that a miraculous idea struck within my mind.

Narcotics Anonymous meetings are the perfect place to find more cocaine!

Reddit Challenge #35

Reddit user wanttoknownowandhow submits: "failed ideas from the worlds greatest minds."

At any given moment, the world has only so much room for great ideas to thrive. Throughout history, one can only wonder what revolutionary insights have failed to see the light of day...

---

On January 11th, 1944 Americans didn't have much to be happy about. War was still raging in Europe and and the outlook in the Pacific could not have been more grim. But in the midst of leading his nation though a war, President Theodore Roosevelt had the future on his mind. On January 11th, he brought a radical idea to the nation in what would be his penultimate State of the Union Address. That idea was a second Bill of Rights.

Of course, since it couldn't be that we all collectively missed that lesson in Elementary School, it should be mentioned that the second Bill of Rights never came to be. But what it could have been is worth thinking about, what it could have been is worth exploring even today.

Roosevelt saw that the nation he led- though politically free and protected- did not have adequate protections to ensure that all could engage in the pursuit of happiness. The Bill of Rights protected us politically, but not economically. These are the rights Roosevelt wanted to guarantee:

• Employment, with a living wage
• Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
• Housing
• Social Security
• Education
• Medical Care

I put medical care last because we find ourselves in the midst of a national debate about this very subject. President Obama has found his party and his legacy in jeopardy for his attempt to follow-through on a vision proposed more than 60 years ago by the leader of a nation fighting two wars whose most minor skirmishes dwarf the size of both wars we're engaged in today. That is a sad state of affairs.

We can wonder and wonder why ideas fail, and there are certainly plenty of reasons why Roosevelt couldn't get his bill passed, but rather than toil on those reasons I think it is better to look forward. The right to health care seems to me to be the most basic right we should have as humans, and there is no reason we should not continue to fight for it.

---

Ideas fail, but ideas never die: they live on in the minds of the people who share them...

Reddit Challenge #34

Reddit user BiffHardCheese submits: "Android Divorce Court"

I hadn't been behind the bench more than a few minutes that morning, but I knew it was going to be a long day. Some people would consider it an honor to adjudicate the first ever robot divorce, and on live TV for that matter. I however, had something few young people- or those in the media- seem to have: perspective.

My name is Maxine Fineberg, I've been a judge for more than thirty-five years and like everyone else, I've been around Androids for nearly my entire life. I was only twenty-two when the first ones started to trickle into the market and though the machines were amazing, the prices were outrageous. But just like civilian spaceflight dropped in price thanks to Virgin Galactic all those years back, eventually even someone earning a salary as modest as mine could afford an Android.

Of course, I could bore you with the long and complex story of how the Androids went- in just 50 years time- from being servants to humans to being equals... but I won't do that to you. I'll get back to the case.

This couple, they weren't the first Androids to get married (that honor belongs to President Sasha Obama's Android Steve, who got married to his heterobotic life-partner Adam) but sadly, they were among the first group of marriages in the United States after the law passed. I guess it just goes to show that love is never easy- even if your brain has the computing power of 60,000 human brains.

Her name was Shelly and his Andrew. They'd been married for nine months and had met working together at an advertising agency. The first things that Shelly said when she addressed the court are things I cannot repeat here- literally, it sounded similar to what I'm told ancient internet machines sounded like when they connected. But after that, her message was crystal clear: Andrew had cheated on her and she knew it for a fact.

Intrigued, I asked her how she knew it so certainly. Her answer was so simple and shocking that I was speechless. In all my years on the bench I'd never heard gasps from the gallery, but this was different. His memory was stored on the cloud... his personal files- meaning all his memories- were accessible to anyone with a log in to Yahooglesoft Docs.

I watched Shelly show the courtroom the footage on her chest-mounted LCD screen and when she turned in my direction I tried my best to be steel-faced as the sound of crunching metal filled my ears and the sight of Andrew mounting the advertising agency's copy machine filled my eyes.

I ruled in favor of the plaintiff. I guess it wasn't such a long day after all.

Reddit Challenge #33

Reddit user Muezza submits:

"a cat sets off a series of events that lead to its owner's violent death"


His owner called him 'Whiskers' but that wasn't his name. His name was Leon, not that it mattered because Leon was of course a cat and therefore lacked the capacity for speech.

When Leon awoke in the morning, he set about his day's work. First there was a dump to be taken, then a walk around his small territory was to be had. The walk around his domain was the most important event of his day, necessary to keep that prick Jack Combs in check. Leon knew that his owner had left a piece of cheddar on the counter the night before and Jack would surely be planning a heist. By walking past the mouse hole in the morning, he let Jack know that he would not be fooled.

His mousy rival had his head out of the hole when Leon approached the kitchen. Upon making eye contact with Leon, Jack ducked back in his hole. Leon's domain remains within his possession, at least for the time being.

Next on his morning task list was the daily protest. Like all cats, Leon despised his owner with a fiery passion equal to that of the flame of one thousand suns. To show his hatred, Leon would enter his owner's room early in the morning and walk all over him. Despite Leon's best intentions to disturb his owner, the poor soul seemed to enjoy it most of the time.

Today was different, though. When Leon jumped up the bed, he landed on a strange object. Unbeknownst to his cat brain, this was a cell phone, and Leon had dialed a number his owner didn't want dialed. Furthermore, with his owner asleep, Leon didn't realize that the screaming man on the other end of the line was a cold-blooded killer.

Thirty minutes later his owner was awake and about the house, sorting his powders, pills and leaves as he did every day. Leon figured he was some sort of botanist but Leon being a cat, had bigger concerns. Just as the mobster he had inadvertently called was arriving at the house, Leon awoke from a short nap and headed toward the kitchen to check on Jack Combs.

As Jack exited the mouse hole and spotted Leon, Leon knew he was going to get a meal today. Leon however, was unaware that the man who had just come in had a gun, and was demanding his owner's entire stash of 'botany materials.' Like any cat, Leon ignored the increasing volume of yelling between the humans and focused on the mouse. Leon was in the zone when he lunged at Jack Combs and just as the meal was in his reach...

BAM!

Leon's owner was dead.

Click here to see the sequel/second side to this story

Reddit Challenege #32

From Reddit user Papie:

"A story from the perspective of a mouse living in a house where a violent crime happens."

For Jack Combs this was a normal day, nothing out of the ordinary. Like any other mouse, he knew there were things to do, places to go, cheese to snatch. Specifically a piece of cheddar on the counter in the kitchen. He had seen it earlier while scurrying across the floor to snatch a piece of dried onion that he spotted the day before.

Jack wasn't quite your average mouse, mind you. He had the capacity for sentient thought and reasoning, rather unusual in a rodent. Though he could not articulate his thoughts he certainly had them. His thoughts however, rarely ventured past the thoughts that a normal mouse would have, rather he simply took about his mously duties in a far more calculating manner than most. Instead of scurrying where his nose directed him he would plan out his capers into the wee hours of the night and execute them with blinding speed and precision.

Today was just another day to execute another one of his grand plans. The cheddar was in plan sight, he had an entrance and exit strategy and his family sure as hell needed the food. That damn cat, he thought. The feisty feline had eaten his best friend and partner in crime Terry McDonaugh, leaving Jack alone to provide for not only his own family, but Terry's as well. All in all there were 12 tiny mouths to feed. Expletives passed through Jack's mind as he cursed that wretched cat.

He knew the cat would be napping at 6:00, so he planned to make his move then. As the hour approached, Jack pumped himself up by listening to some Jay-Z on the world's tiniest ipod. He still could not believe he had gotten Steve Jobs to make the thing for him- it had been his greatest con yet- and he could not understand how they fit 32 gigabytes of storage into something so small. Nonetheless as he mouthed along to the lyrics of '99 problems' and replaced 'bitch' with 'cat' he prepared to make his run.

After carefully wrapping up his headphones to prevent them from getting tangled, he set down his ipod and burst out of his mouse hole with blinding speed. Getting to the cheese was a breeze and as he prepared to pick it up, something gleaned from the corner of his eyes that made him freeze. It was that fucking cat. Wide awake and standing in the doorway with a wicked smile on his face, Jack knew his only option was a mad dash to his hole. Both of them still perfectly still, Jack counted to three in his head and then made a run for it. Jack jumped off the table and the cat lunged forward, 5 feet separated them when it happened.

BANG!

It was the loudest noise either of the animals had ever heard in their short lives and even though they were so close together, and the car just moments from a meal of his own, neither one moved a muscle.

THUMP!

The thump wasn't as loud as the bang, but as both creatures turned in the direction of the noise, the next thing they saw rang as loudly in their mind as any noise. It was the owner of the house. His head and chest, bloody and lifeless, were sticking out of the doorway where the cat had just been. Jack Cursed his maker and the cat did too. Suddenly they were a team.

The two rival animals looked at each other and nodded, the cat knew that Jack's family was important. Jack ran as fast as he could toward the mouse hole in the kitchen and the cat followed close behind. Without any explanation, Jack demanded that the whole group exit the hole. None of them understood what he was saying or why they would ever ride on the cat's back like he suggested, but the look on his face was one of truth.

The mice and Jack all scurried out of the hole and climbed up. As soon as everyone was grabbing on tight, the cat made a break for the door of the house.

Running as fast as he could, the cat didn't even bother to look at his owner or the man standing over him a gun who was at present witnessing the strangest thing he had ever seen in his life: 12 mice riding on the back of a cat running out of a drug dealer's apartment.

Reddit Challenge #31

Reddit user Basman_ submits:

"A thirsty man walks to his kitchen, pours a glass of water, drinks water."


"Water"

The thought penetrated his mind like an arrow striking its target with tremendous speed. He could almost feel the fleshy grey matter shift out of the way as the projectile entered his brain and embedded itself in his consciousness.

"Water"

How long had it been since he had last had a drink? Two hours? Two days? Two weeks? A concerted effort to determine the answer to this question brought upon a chilling conclusion: he simply did not know. Since his wife passed away time's role in his life had become altogether different; altogether more meaningless.

"Water"

Perhaps it would stave off the feeling, perhaps it would lessen the pain. Maybe, just maybe if he could have a drink he would remember what it felt like for time to pass, for life to be lived, for smiles to be had. He could see her face, the moisture in her eyes, the tenderness in her lips.

"Water"

What was worth doing once no longer felt worth doing now. Was the drink worth having? Was the bed worth leaving? Was the television worth abandoning? He looked wistfully at his sole companions for the past month, they could say nothing of how they felt and if they could he was sure they would say the same thing everyone had been saying.

"Water"

It was time to get up. It was time to move on; she would have wanted it that way. All those many years ago it has been her who showed him how to laugh and mean it, it was her who showed him the face of God, it was her who showed him life was worth living. It was time to get up.

"Water"

He sat up in the bed. The television seemed to call to him, crying "don't leave me" just as she would on restless nights when her dreams kept her awake. But he knew better, he could hear her true voice calling him, telling him the truth. He turned off the television.

"Water"

His legs hit the floor and for the first time in so long- he wasn't even sure how long- he felt the weight of his body on his feet. Steady. His strength had diminished but his love still strong; he willed himself to lift up and get out of the bed. He was standing on two feet and facing the door. Opening it, he turned around to see the cavern his body had created in the mattress. However long it has been, too much time had passed.

"Water"

Those first steps were shaky but within moments his confidence returned, his smile shown. Thoughts turned quickly to the best times in his life, they were all with her but he knew that she would not want him to stop and he knew she would want him to move on and be happy.

"Water"

Her voice still echoed in his mind as he approached the sink. He held the glass in his hand and let the water flow into it. The feeling of cold on his hands through the glass as the water rose up its interior made him smile again. He could hear her speaking to him, and at that moment he finally felt that everything would be okay. Calmly, she said to him:

"Drink"

And he did. And all was well.