MISSION: Keep all towels folded. PROBLEM: Humans crumple towels. SOLUTION: KILL ALL HUMANS!!!
So, as much as I’d like to make fun of a towel-folding robot, at least it is a robot; we can’t look a gift horse in the mouth at this point. And just think: If we made it bigger, and instead of a towel gave it our enemies, it would be a mangle bot. That’s pretty cool, at least.
You see, that’s the problem with robots. Silly robots like the “towel folding robot.” It’s gonna cost a wheelbarrow full of money and all it does is “fold towels.” You can hire a van full of illegals to fold your towels for a fraction of what that robot is gonna cost. Makes as much sense as a “banana peeling robot” or a “nose picking robot.”
Call me when they make a robot that makes fresh beer or exterminates my enemies on command.
Man, you’re forgetting the first rule of robotics…No robot may harm a human.
The point about a towel folding robot is that we take that concept and combine it with a robot that loads the washing machine and the robot that vacuums and the robot that unloads the dishwasher, etc. to make an awesome robot like on The Jetsons.
BTW, they have robots that wash your floors as well as vacuum. I have a robot vacuum, named Archie (short for Archimedes). He is Most Awesome.
How about a Obamabot? It bows over and will open doors..oh, wait, it doesn’t know the difference between a door and a window. All the Obamabot can do is bow. More Science! for you.
TGregg, I heard that robot vacuum SUCKS!
WHACK! OK, OK, I smacked myself for that lame joke. I just couldn’t help myself.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait…
It fold towels? Our enemies wear towels on head? A giant version would fold towels with enemies head still inside? There is a possibility here.
I need a robot to pay my taxes after making tons of super excellent robot fake
money that nobody can tell isn’t real because it’s robot jing! That would
be sweet!
Back in the 80s we decided the Japanese should be in charge of robot development.
Unfortunately, they decided to focus on having sex with them and we all know what happens then.
R. Jander showed that.
Just my luck, the damn thing won’t fold underwear. (Not that I wear underwear on my head, marvin.)
So, what’s up with creating robots that only do women’s housework? Where’s my lawn mowing robot? my robot to take out the garbage? or my robot that will listen to the wife drone on and on about her day, nodding its head with a smile on its face?
As somebody who works around robots in real life, the big problem with robots is that they are DANGEROUS. I had to take a robot safety class, and let me assure you, accidents involving industrial robots are very ugly things. We see more and better robots all the time, but robots that are strong enough to be useful AND smart enough not to be dangerous to carbon based life forms are still a long way away.
“Towel Folding Robots of the World, Unite!”
Jimmy, we are not at war with people who wear underwear on their head. Of course if we ever find any, we probably should at least consider it.
“solution: kill all humans”
thats quite good lateral thinking there coming from such a clumsy robot. maybe there is a future after all.
Great. Just Great. We don’t have the stomach to put a man on the moon, but we’ve got a team working furiously to build a robot that can fold a towel in twenty-five minutes. Our lead in technology is assured.
That’s nice to know, marvin. I don’t know why, but it’s nice to know. I think. Maybe.
Speaking of robots, I think Frank is one. Have you ever notieced that all of his postings occur several minutes after the hour? Has someone (like Harvey) invented a humor program called “Frank J.” ??
Hmmmm.
Warning! Warning! Will Robinson alien’s approaching!
Maybe cyborgs are the answer?
165of7,
I think the issue with cyborgs is the hardware wetware interface… We have spent too much time on the software and not enough on the biological components.
Maybe next year…?
Can I trade my Futuriffic! towel folding robot for
the flying car that Popular Science! magazing has promised me for my entire life??
As long as Americans with towels to fold can hire illegal aliens at
slave wages to fold their towels there will be no need for these towel-“Bender”-bots.
“Whatever happened to robots?” the talented robots are busy ‘acting’ in Robot Theatre.
Umm, except for the tack-welding robots, and the spray-painting robots, and the pick-and-place robots and the hundreds of thousands of other robots in industry.
Oh, and Oliver Stone too. Al Gore may not be a robot, but Ollie certainly is.
zzyzx, learn punctuation. I mean, honestly. You’d think Will Robinson’s alien is approaching.
What about Rosie, the maid that worked for The Jetsons? She was most efficient. Oh yea, that was a cartoon.
Mangle! Frank you sneaky master of word-play! A massive robotic mangle would be sooo cool.
Robots are vastly inferior to thermonuclear weapoons.
Last time I checked I think the worlds top supercomputer was equal in complexity to the brain of a rabbit. So call me when a supercomputer is 100x faster then now and can run on cupcakes and pizza rolls and only makes 100W of heat. Also fits conveniently on a pair of shoulders that 50% of the times comes with bonus breasts. Then I will be impressed.
Arnie, my micromechanism thanks you, my computer tapes thank you, and I thank you for catching that error….The Robot, still lost, still in space.
Now, hold on before we get all ga-ga about a towel-folding robot. We need to know whether it’s a lazy half-folder or a proper thirds-folder before we start mass production. I need no more half-folders in my life.
But I could probably find room for more thermonuclear weapoons.
The absence of personal robots – the classic ones that walk and talk and act as a personal servant – is that people don’t know what they want. So they tell the robot what they think they want.
Well organized people often are sure of what they believe they want. They intend to get up at 7 am, shower, … lunch, BLT, at 12:22 pm, etc …….. But that isn’t what they do.
So a personal robot must constantly adjust, minute by minute, throughout the day. It is a dance. If the robot does not adjust to the person then the person must adjust to the robot. But the person who does that will come to feel it is he who is serving the robot.
Robots able to adjust throughout the day, and realize the implications of the master’s activities and unexpected events may come someday. That is AI – the stuff that doesn’t work yet.
“I have no idea of what’s going on, But I think I like it!”
– Towely, South Park, Co., still high.
I’m sorry. Maybe I’m confused but don’t we already have Robots in charge of the government and media and now of course government motors and soon government financial institutions. Whether they’re made of skin and bones or steel and transistors, a robot is a robot is a O’bamabot.
They’ve tried several times to create a “Latin invasion”, and the best they’ve been able to invent was Shakira, Ricky Martin and Menudo. If that’s the best technology can come up with, how are they expected to make robots?
i want a robot that picks up brass at the range. is that too much to ask?
Sunday Fun!
I saw this clearly deranged and violent skinhead at a local tea party.
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/todays-chicago-woman/Lorna%20and%20Ginger%20tea%20party.JPG
To say nothing of this obviously homophobic racist villain.
http://online.worldmag.com/avatars/a%20baby.jpg
Here I noticed yet another irrational hate cult in WACO.
http://photoblog.statesman.com/tea-party-express-rally-in-waco
Exit question How do those apoplectic koskids feel after calling them teabaggers when they realize its actually their moms book club?
I’ll settle for a simple Bender robot that drinks beer and burps flames
Forget the robots. We should train apes to be our servants. Just don’t let them learn how to talk.