Comment Whore

So, it's recently come to my attention that people actually read this thing.

And that's pretty cool. I for one, am most amazed. So, thanks friends, or in some cases, random people I don't know. I may actually spell check from now on for your personal benefit. I even brought my thesaurus over near the computer because a lot of times moving to look up the word I really mean to use is just too great an effort.

But come on guys, where's the comment love? Were it not for the strength and grace of Andy, I'd be a babe in the woods, lost and without comment at all. Really, it's all for you, the little people. If I know you're out there it gives me that daily drive to keep forging on. Just look at yesterday, no post. Why? I had no comment food upon which to feed.

In other "news":

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TOKYO (AP) - A small walking man-shaped robot for home security and entertainment is going on sale in Japan for 588,000 yen ($5,450).

The robot can walk, get up and respond to voice commands such as ``turn right.'' It links to mobile phones so that people can check on images of their homes taken on a digital camera inside the robot's head. It can be controlled by a remote and is programmed to do a dance. It also makes musical sounds.

The creators are billing the machine as an eye-pleasing addition to fashionable homes, and the Tokyo-based ZMP is planning to sell 2,300 robots with shipments are set for late April. Though Sony Corp. has sold Aibo dog-shaped entertainment robots, ZMP says it's the first to mass-produce humanoids for the home.
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Does anyone else find the whole "futuristic robots that look just like people" thing a little old hat at this point? Am I truly the only one bothered by the fact that a large portion of the human race will not rest until we've recreated Rosie from the Jetsons in our own homes?

I think once again it relates to basic features of human nature. We live in a constant state of uncertainty and that bugs us. So we dream and guess at ideas about the future to comfort ourselves about what we're in for and then work our damnedest to make sure that it turns out just the way we predicted. A rather self-fufilling prophecy but one that let's us sleep a little better at night, "Oh yes, we all said there'd be humanoid-robots and look, mine is bringing me lemonade."

I say rail against this kind of thinking. It sucks because all it allows for the future is what we've already imagined to happen. To me the humanoid robot represents all that is wrong with civilized man, and not only because they'll eventually become smarter than us and create an alternate computer universe for us to live in so that we can become their fuel source.

It's what's uncreative and dull about people. We're so freaked out by all the possibilities that discovery has to offer that we take great promise and make it simple and banal. We smash it into a form we recognize and in doing so we usually bend it so out of shape it's not worth having anymore. There is no earthly reason to make a robot look like a person. Except that the robot kind of scares you so you want to make it friendlier looking. The most efficient person shaped, person-like thing is a person.

And if you want a person to talk to, go find a real one. Close this blog and go take a walk, it's really nice outside. Or maybe it isn't where you are but you can still enjoy the cold or wet or dirty. It's unpredictable, something you didn't expect might happen. Wouldn't that be the best?