Since this week is all about Robots, let me tell you about my favorite sciences.
Ever seen pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope? Aren't they cool? Aren't they really, really expensive? I mean, given that they're pictures of objects so distant we can never so much as remotely interact with them, they're about as relevant to the real world as a fistful of Boris Vallejo prints. Except without the Onanistic undertones, of course. Still, I'm sure that there are bunches of space nuts leaping about, frothing at the mouth and ranting about our future in space and the importance of exploration. Right, whatever, space cadet. And how about carbon dating artifacts from Bronze Age cultures in the Yucatan Peninsula? Yeah, how 'bout them puppies eh? Damn that stuff is relevant. Hell, I'd rather saw my own legs off with a piece of bent Hubble mirror than see that kind of important research stopped.
Lord knows I'd prefer to be reading papers on the mating habits of Louisiana frogs than say, hearing that global warming was being addressed. So thanks, Science. Thanks for a lot.
Yeah, and go tell me how my lifespan has been so much increased, and how much healthier I am, now that I can spend seventy years working in some cube. Hell, if I was a chicken at least they'd stand up and call it what it is, factory farming. But no. I should get down on my pressed slack pants knees and give a big hurrah to old daddy science for keeping my sorry butt alive for an extra thirty years of hard toil.
Still, there's some chance that I ammend my judgment of the scientific community. See, there's one thing that really toasts my buns when it comes to life and frankly I'm waiting for Science to come riding in on its bloated, genetically engineered, pre-packed, flash frozen and served with a side of chicken head fries, frothing white Stallion to save the day.
I'm talking about the last great frontier, the El Dorado of invention, the Holy Grail of the patent office; I'm talking about body hair removal.
Do you remove body hair? I do. Barrels of the stuff. Heaps of it. Hair, facial and otherwise is the bane of my life and I'm sick and tired of reading about sodding ant colonies in Guatemala when I should be hearing about how I'm never going to have to shave again.
I spend hours and hours each month just gazing at my horribly sleep-deformed face, looming at me from the misty realm of the bathroom mirror, grinding away with an ancient electric razor. Then there are the days I've spent sat in a barber's chair listening to the sickening 'clip clip' of the scissors.
Here's the deal. What I want from science is some kind of teeny little robot. Several actually. Tiny little legs, teeny, tiny little mouth clippers. Then, while I'm sleeping, they could scamper about on my unconscious, recumbent form, nipping away at the unwanted hair until I awake, each morning shorn, glowing and pink. What bliss! Now *that's* a step forward.
In fact, if you want to do the job properly you could make *really* small ones and weave them into the blanket. Then my blanket would chomp away, sliding back and forth in a gently undulating wave of hirsute appetite, grazing like a herd of buffalo. Just think of it! I do. A lot. Sometimes for hours at a time. Still, I understand science has a cure for that too.
Bastards.