Showing 1 - 4 of 4 posts found matching keyword: robots

The world's first "sex robot" was unveiled this weekend in -- where else? -- Las Vegas. Its name is Roxxxy. Roxxxy is a complex electronic toy embedded in the body a Real Doll, which essentially makes it a very expensive Teddy Ruxpin that you can fuck. Before dismissing this as a lone pervert's dream come true, realize that this brings us one step closer to Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner, which would be considered many normal men's dream come true. So here in 2010 we may be no closer to flying cars then we were in 1960, but at least we've got sex robots.

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As of late, I've been a little obsessed with the animatronic animals that performed as The Rockafire Explosion at Showbiz Pizza place throughout the 1980s. I think that adding robot performers to a pizza joint designed mainly to encourage children to play coin-operated video games is perhaps among the greatest restaurant concepts of the 20th century. Showbiz had lousy pizza but spectacular entertainment. I mean, who cares about your low-quality goat cheese pizzas when a robot bear is emceeing your birthday party celebration?

(Don't remember Showbiz? Thankfully, to the rescue comes YouTube! Someone has been uploading training videos from Showbiz Pizza to YouTube. I guess everyone has a hobby.)

Sadly, with the practical demise of arcade gaming thanks to the home console gaming revolution, the concept died a slow death, replaced by Chuck E. Cheeses using not stage robots but television sets. Though I'm sure that today's kids would prefer robot vaudevillians over televised variety shows led by an animated rat, they don't know that they used to have the option. To the kids of today, it's lost information, like how to build a pyramid. (That's right, I've just essentially compared the disappearance of Showbiz Pizza parlors with the fire that destroyed the Library of Alexandria.)

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Think about this: today, most coffins are made in an assembly line fashion by robots. Robots weld the lining, paint the exterior, and embroider the interior. That's right, your eternal resting place will in all likelihood be created for you by an inanimate object that will never need to use the same product.

The phrase "robots making coffins" is about the scariest indicator of the future of the human race that I have yet encountered. (Just like in The Matrix!) Yet there is one ray of hope: since they don't use the products themselves, at least those robots need humans for long-term job security. (Just like in The Matrix!)

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Cartoon Network's Adult Swim has recently begun replaying the entire 26 episode anime series Big O at 5 AM EDT. I'd seen a few episodes the last time around, but never from the beginning. And let me tell you, you cannot jump into season 2 halfway through and expect to have any idea what's happening.

Essentially the show is about Roger Smith, an independently wealthy professional negotiator who protects the amnestic futuristic Paradigm City and it's inhabitants. (Though he does frequently destroy more of the city than most protectors would ever dream of. Every time he comes to the rescue in his alter-ego titular giant robot, Big O, he destroys the street and usually several nearby buildings. I guess sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make a Big Omelette.) I really enjoy the show, and I think that it is an exceptionally deep story of the sort rarely tried outside of literature (or Alan Moore's graphic novels).

Big O's R. Dorothy Wayneright

Roger's two sidekicks are his mustachioed butler, Alfred -- no, wait, Roger's butler is named Norman -- and his android R. Dorothy Wayneright. (Wayneright. I love that. So much about the show, from characters to setting to animation style, is reminiscent of Batman mythology.) To be accurate, Dorothy is not his property but his willing servant. Unlike so many other futuristic stories, in Big O sentient androids are usually treated as free willed, independent beings with rights equal to those of humans.

I'm quite smitten by Dorothy. I find her sensibility, her dry wit, her relative lack of emotion, even her hairstyle very attractive. It figures, I guess, that when I find a girl I like, she's an animated android.

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To be continued...

 

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