Atlas Shrugged.

Nothing better exemplifies the startling rate at which we are choosing to nonchalantly goose-step towards a Huxleyesque hellscape than the fact that the first wave of humanoid robots are already cashing in their pensions and being put out to pasture. We’re aware we’re clumsily mixing our metaphors there, but who cares? We’re all about to be replaced by machines anyway; do you really think we’ve got time to give even the faintest whiff of consideration to what we say? Do me a cheesy. There’s so much left to see. Never been to Madame Tussauds, never had a battered sausage – Christ, I’ve hardly lived.

Atlas HD has now officially been retired after 11 years of terrifyingly exemplary service. And it’ll be replaced by… Atlas. Clearly the bulk of Boston Dynamics’ budget gets funnelled into the R&D department and leaves the naming division painfully underfunded.

But this is a new Atlas. A fully-electric Atlas. An Atlas which will apparently be “stronger, with a broader range of motion.” Doesn’t sound ominous at all. Just to play it safe we’d like to take this opportunity to swear an oath of unwavering fealty to our new robot overlords. Atlas is dead, long live Atlas.

No Laces? No Problem.

Apparently Gen Z aren’t drinking, doing drugs, going out socialising, dating or having sex – but my God, oh how they can they run. Everyone’s at it. Kudos on Strava has become the dominant cultural currency for this uniquely health-conscious generation. And none of that’s to say Gen Z are boring; sometimes they’ll go really mad and indulge in an almond croissant with their oat flat white after logging a Sunday morning 10k. Rock n roll.

With marathon season upon us and an even greater number of poor lost souls than usual hitting the roads, On have capitalised by choosing now as the perfect moment to launch their new laceless super shoes. Because if there’s one thing Gen Z love more than a hobby, it’s the opportunity to throw a load of money at that hobby to transform it into a fully-fledged personality trait.

On decided to eschew some vaguely motivational but basically meaningless platitude-ladened ad campaign. Instead, they whacked a pair on Hellen Obiri to wear as she cruised to victory in the Boston Marathon. Point = proven. And just like that, the waiting list for the as-yet unreleased shoe is longer than the line at *insert name of latest overpriced TikTok-hyped hipster hotspot bakery*. If you’re going to run away from existential dread and cosmic futility, you might as well do so in the swankiest pair of webs money can buy.

Earth, Wind & Fire.

With it being both St. George’s Day and Earth Day this week, we thought it only proper that we find a story devoted to at least one of them. Not wanting to be labelled “flag-shagging gammons” (a real quote I saw today from one particularly charming Instagram user), we read the room and opted for the latter.

Spotify and the UN have partnered to launch Sounds Right, a global music initiative enabling nature to generate funding for conservation using its own sounds. As part of the project, Nature is now listed as an artist on Spotify with a number of features on tracks performed by the likes of David Bowie, Brian Eno, Ellie Goulding and Aurora.

Waves crashing, rain in the morning, wind whistling through freshly sprouted Spring foliage, two foxes going at it in a magical bout of cacophonous crepuscular copulation: these are just some of the mellifluous melodies the natural world has to offer. And we’re aware nobody wants to listen to Ellie Goulding – but come on, it’s for charity. Plus it can’t be any worse than the new Taylor Swift album.

Champagne Pap-AI.

Easter has been and gone, but that doesn’t mean we’re done with resurrections. This week Drake brought Tupac back from the dead (or New Mexico, if you believe the conspiracy theories) to feature on his Kendrick Lamar diss track.

We have no doubt you’re entirely up to date with the latest goings-on in the realm of rap beef, so we won’t patronise you by recounting recent events in the ongoing Drake vs. Kendrick saga. But to summarise very briefly: these two blokes aren’t very happy with each other. So, naturally, they’re expressing their ill-will in the most menacing manner known to man: through the medium of rhyme. But Drake added an extra layer of dystopian spice by featuring a couple AI-generated verses from Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg.

A man who has been dead for 26 years being artificially reanimated purely for the purpose of mocking one of his most ardent disciples’ lack of height: this is the modern world we’ve created. On the upside, just think of the opportunities this creates for the future of diss tracks. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to hear Buddy Holly calling someone’s mum a wasteman.

Faux Bot.

Remember when we committed our undying loyalty to the new Atlas robots about 4 minutes ago? Well, we had our fingers crossed. We take it back. Dishonourable? Us? Bothered. In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. There are no rules in a state of nature. This is survival of the shittest.

Chinese start-up ‘Dnsys’ took one look at Atlas and said “Hold my Tsingtao while I run up this mountain in my AI-driven all-terrain exoskeleton”. The X1 allows us mere mortals to transform ourselves into superhumans by upgrading our anatomy with an extra 900 watts of walking, hiking, scrambling, climbing and running power capable of shouldering up to 83lbs of load and empowering user speeds over 16mph.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Who needs a robot when you can be the robot? When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Truckloads.

Anyone who has ever suffered from insomnia will know just how debilitating it is. As Thomas Hobbes once said: “Man hath his heart, all the day long, gnawed by fear of death, poverty or other calamity; and has no repose nor pause of anxiety but in sleep.” Now just imagine if you were to subtract sleep from that gloomy equation; existence becomes one never-ending day of unrelenting Sisyphean torture.

People on the internet like to argue about whether physical or mental health is more important. While this is probably a false dichotomy, if pushed, the answer is surely physical. Not for the sake of itself, though – but rather because everything else is downstream from it. And sleep is the fundamental foundation upon which the rickety edifice of wellbeing is necessarily constructed.

The point we’re taking the scenic route to making is that sleep is incredibly important – and Volkswagen Brazil agree. That’s why they’ve launched the ‘Trucker Napp’ app to improve road safety by allowing truckers to log their sleep in exchange for cold hard cash.

Earning while you’re snoring? That’s the definition of passive income. Maybe all those shirtless blokes on Instagram eating beef liver off chopping boards whilst proselyting on the wonders of crypto, drop-shopping and hustle culture were right all along. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, be grateful that we obviously have very different algorithms.