"Boring" Photo Is One Of Most Chilling Ones I've Seen In the News In A Long Time

This photo looks pretty routine, but the backstory of it is
absolutely chilling.

The photo in this post is pretty routine, maybe even boring, but it is one of the most chilling I've ever seen.  

The guy I the foreground is Russia's ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov. He was in an Ankara, Turkey art gallery this morning looking at the works.

The photo of Karlov was taken just moments before he was assassinated. The person who killed him is the blurry guy in the background.

The gunman, reportedly on off-duty Turkish police officer,  yelled "Don't forget Aleppo! Don't Forget Syria!" before apparently being killed by Turkish forces, Reuters reported.

The Syrian civil war has been a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of people and that is the understatement of the year.

Thousands of innocent civilians died terrible deaths in East Aleppo, and thousands more have been through  months or years of incredible suffering.

Aleppo has been an astounding human failure, an astounding humanitarian failure.

One more death, this time the Russian ambassador to Turkey, is "just" another part of the horror show that is Syria and the monsters who made it happen, and the weak people who let it happen.

The photo above, while not showing any carnage, is another testament to the awfulness in that part of the world right now.

Turns Out Robot Waiters Aren't As Good As Humans After All

Turns out, thank goodness, robot waiters aren't nearly
as good as humans for the job. n

A restaurant in China decided to obtain robots to serve meals to customers rather than deal with the expense, messiness and, well, human-ness of actual people as waiters.

It didn't go well, which means at least for now, the legions of waiters at all those restaurants out there can keep their jobs, unless of course they keep forgetting orders, dumping beer on customers or steal from the till.

Luckily, almost all human waiters are better than those described in the above paragraph, which is more than I can say for the robot waiters in China.

According to The Verge, the Chinese restaurant chain bought several waiter robots at $7,000 a pop, but the robots couldn't even pour drinks right. Or serve soup. Or take orders from customers and understand them correctly. Plus they kept breaking down.

Two of the restaurants had to close down due to the incompetent robots. A third restaurant in the chain was able to stay open, but only because it hired flesh and blood humans to serve customers.

Apparently, robots can handle repetitive tasks well, but have trouble when interacting with us quirky, weird humans.

Maybe you don't have to tip robot waiters, but its probably worth tipping humans if it means you actually get the food and drinks you want at the restaurant.

Plays Of The Day: Awesome Baby Catch: Not So Awesome First Pitch

Two moments have been in the news this week: One was an amazing catch, one was a not so amazing throw.

I love this video of a guy in China who saw a baby teetering on a second floor window ledge during a torrential thunderstorm. The guy positioned himself, the baby fell, and the guy played amazing outfielder of sorts catching a life and death pop fly.

He caught the kid and everything was OK. Watch:


On the opposite side, we have 50 Cent throwing out first pitch at a New York Mets ball game yesterday.

Not so successful, if you ask me, but hey, 50 Cent never claimed to be much of a ball player.
Watch: