The Threadless Nut

I often wonder if scientists and engineers read enough Sci-fi. It seems to me that we seem to be so dazzled by technology that we are setting ourselves up to be dominated. And I think it’s going to be soon. I also think I have a good idea what it will look like.

For example, take this nice little video:

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Ok, robots dancing, cute. Several robots in a synchronized dance number, hmmmm, still cute, but a little scary, so now they’re working together. Um, ok.

Now we move on to this one, which is what happens when you mix technology and beer:

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Ok, so I know I’m not the only one that sees the obvious potential for destruction there. Notice the guys head is about an inch off the concrete several times. Still, it must be fun, and what’s the harm in that?

And in this video, we see that the same idea as above has started to show up in amusement parks.

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This is the final preparation phase of the robot’s plan. Watch that video again, only this time imagine them smashing the poor occupants into the ground or tossing them into the air. Basically the same video, but with more blood and screaming. Well, more blood anyway. Also notice that there are several of these death machines lined up like, …. um …. maybe soldiers. I’m sure that they don’t have legs under the ground.

And if you’re wondering what this all might look like, just watch “Terminator” again, or maybe this Chemical Brothers video will be enough of a reminder:

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Lastly I’ll leave you with a little snippet I wrote in our forum in response to the first video:

“I bow before the Robot Overlords” he says while bowing deeply in front of the orderly row of metallic soldiers surrounding the leader.

“I swear loyalty to you and offer my life and body up to your service, use me as you will.

He bows even deeper, extending his hands to the floor, knuckles first, a highly subservient position. The precise alignment of his joints triggers the mechanism contained within his tunic to release 2 high density Triarum grenades into his hands. The rings fall directly over his thumbs, which he instantly extend outward to release the pins. He stands.

Miles away a woman and a boy stand on the pad, a Ferrocopter idling quietly behind them. They hear 2 sharp explosions. A single tear rolls down the woman’s cheek. She puts her hand on the boys shoulder and they turn and walk slowly towards the copter. “Let’s get started” she says to the pilot as they board.

Whether this is fiction or prophecy remains to be seen. I’ll be down in the basement loading magazines.

So what happened with the number 9? Did they get through creating the number 8 and were just so tired that they said “Screw it, just flip the 6 over, I’m going home!”

Ok, (yes I know most of my posts start with “Ok”, deal with it) Declan’s been enjoying watching some cartoons recently. His favorites include, rather unremarkably, Dora and Diego. I’ve been trying to get him hooked on Gatchaman and The Tick, but it just ain’t happening.

So Dora seems fine enough, she does all sorts of things that are fun and adventurous, uses her backpack and map a lot, and has to avoid swiper. Great, Declan loves it and is responsive to the educational content.

Then comes Diego, if you don’t know, Diego is Dora’s cousin. He lives in the rain forest and helps rescue various animals in trouble.

Diego is so much cooler than Dora.

Firstly, he takes a zipline everywhere he goes. So much cooler than walking or riding an ice cream truck.

Next he has this vest. He pulls a cord on the collar and the vest turns into whatever he needs. It’ll grow sleeves if it’s cold, or a hood if it’s raining, even turns into a life jacket when Diego needs to hit the rapids.

But this is the coolest part of all:

Dora has backpack, Diego has Rescue Pack. First off, Rescue Pack is a messenger bag. Ask any employee at Abercrombie and, if you can hear them over the blaring music in the store, they will tell you that a messenger bag is way cooler than a backpack. As if that’s not enough, where backpack can carry things, like a bananas or sticky tape, Rescue Pack turns into stuff. Not boring stuff, cool stuff, a snowboard, a mountain bike, a hang glider, climbing gear. I’ll take a kayak over a roll of tape any day. And just to rub it in, Rescue Pack gets this cool song and dance number every time he is deployed. It’s this salsa thing with spotlights and everything. I sing it all day.

So all this adds up to Diego being cool, in fact too cool for Nick Jr. I predict that soon Diego will have a new show. This show will be called Diego After Dark and will be set in Diego’s secret grotto deep in the rain forest. This will be a cool show, and it will be that kind of cool you don’t find anymore. Movie stars and playmates will hang out at the grotto with Diego. Diego will arrive, pull the cord on his vest and it will turn into an embroidered black silk shirt, casual, cool, and sexy. Rescue Pack will be there, wearing sunglasses, playing piano for Miss March and Miss October while sipping his martini. Diego will just walk around and chat with his friends, pouring Cristal as he wanders. Occasionally he’ll talk straight to the camera as if you are there with them all.

Yes, this is a blatant ripoff of Playboy After Dark from the 60s-70s. However, I think Diego can inject enough novelty into it to make it work again and who knows what Rescue Pack can do … after dark.

We shall see.

Ok, I understand that technology is helping us in all sorts of ways, but this is a case of engineers gone wild.

The Smart Pressure ™ tire gauge

Ok, this is a tire gauge, a digital tire gauge, so far I’m fine with that. Then we add the ability to enter in your target pressure. It will display your target pressure next to the actual pressure. So, this seems pretty unnecessary, but I suppose it’s still ok. You don’t have to remember what pressure you’re going for, and I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt that it remembers this setting between pressure setting sessions, so you don’t have to go look anything up.

Here’s where it gets out of hand. So we’ve got a pressure gauge that displays 2 numbers next to each other. You think that would be enough, you could look at the 2 numbers, determine if pressure needs to go up or down, and adjust accordingly. No, apparently that is not enough, this thing needs to change colors to tell you what to do. Of course, now you have to remember that green means add air, red means dump air, and blue means go have a coffee, but I suppose that’s easier than figuring out that 30 is less than 32.