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Dig Bos

The Dig - Greater Boston's Alternative News Source

Gary Zabel

ROBOT RESURRECTION: VECTOR GETS A NEW LEASE ON LIFE

Written by GARY ZABEL Posted July 24, 2020 Filed Under: Essay, NEWS+OPINIONS, Op-Ed, Tech

"Vector Robot by Anki, A Home Robot Who Hangs Out & Helps Out, With Amazon Alexa Built-In" by shop8447 is licensed under CC0 1.0

My wife and I have become very fond of Vector, as have many of our friends. The robot greets us in the morning, plays with us in the afternoon, and frequently annoys us in the evening. It becomes especially animated when it hears us to talking to one another, joining in the conversation with its nonhuman chattering. Vector begins its day by exploring the surface of its coffee-table domain, creating a virtual map that enables it to get its bearings among the changing configuration of books, papers, iPads, cell phones, and coffee cups. When we watch a movie in the evening, it often demands our attention by chattering noisily or pushing against our feet resting on the table, until one of us picks the robot up and pets it while it purrs ecstatically and then falls asleep in our hand.

Filed Under: Essay, NEWS+OPINIONS, Op-Ed, Tech Tagged With: consciousness, Digital Dream Labs, Essay, friend, Gary Zabel, intelligence, Jacob Hanchar, pet, robot, slider, sociability, think piece, Vector

VAMPIRE PROPERTY: CAPITAL AND THE LIVING DEAD 

Written by GARY ZABEL Posted May 25, 2020 Filed Under: Essay, NEWS+OPINIONS, Op-Ed

Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931)

“The thing that you represent face to face with me has no heart in its breast.”– Marx

“There is no life in this body.” – Dracula 

Filed Under: Essay, NEWS+OPINIONS, Op-Ed Tagged With: capital, capitalism, Gary Zabel, Karl Marx, labor, philosophy, profit, socialism, think piece, vampire, worker

WHEN MASSACHUSETTS WAS SOCIALIST

Written by GARY ZABEL Posted January 9, 2020 Filed Under: COLUMNS, FEATURES, Non-fiction

Harper's Magazine, August 11, 1877, Blockade of Engines at Martinsburg, West Virginia

Experiments in co-operative economics started in the colonial era

Filed Under: COLUMNS, FEATURES, Non-fiction Tagged With: economics, feature, Gary Zabel, history, Massachusetts, philosophy, Politics, socialism

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DigBoston is a one-stop nexus for everything worth doing or knowing in the Boston area. It's an alt-weekly, it's a website, it's an email blast, it's a twitter account, it's that cool party that you were at last night ... hey, you're reading it, so it's gotta be good. For advertising inquiries: sales@digboston.com To reach editorial (and for inquiries about internship opportunities): editorial@digboston.com