While taking a relaxing dump this morning (on company time, of course), I got to daydreaming about a world where every undesirable task under the sun is performed by robots, automatons, and other machines. Such was the case on the Noah's ark-like ship in the film WALL-E. Robots and machines cleaned, prepared meals, served drinks, and even built and maintained one another. The humans didn't have to do shit. They rode around in their awesome chairs with built-in TV screens, lounged by the pool, and essentially lived their whole lives on a cruise ship. I'll never quite figure out how they reproduced. So then along came that damned meddling WALL-E who made such a big deal about re-starting life on Earth. Well, fuck you, WALL-E! Why in the hell would anyone want to leave a spacecraft where every want and need is fulfilled, and start all over from nothing, subsistence-farming and sleeping on the ground?
Hell, despite Royal Caribbean's slipshod management, being on the Liberty of the Seas for a week was possibly the best week of my life. Meals were always available, liquor was plentiful, and everything I wanted was within walking distance. I honestly didn't ever want to get off the ship even when we were docked at various tropical locales. I guess that's why I'm so adamant about my country estate having all the features of a cruise ship—food 24/7, fitness facility, indoor pool, hot tubs, steam room, library, theater, billiard hall, disco, bowling alley—so that I wouldn't have to leave the property.
Also while on the toilet, I contemplated a future in which vehicles would drive themselves. Man has dreamt of such a marvel ever since the dawn of the automobile age, only I feel that we're getting close to a time when it would be practicable. Vehicles could navigate via precise GPS technology, knowing exactly where and when to turn, and would also stop, accelerate, and decelerate in response to one another's presence, made known by radio transmissions, damn near eliminating collisions except under hazardous weather conditions. Traffic jams caused by human error would be a thing of the past. Car owners could even travel in their own cars overnight and sleep. Before every trip, the car would calculate the needed fuel or electrical charge and inform the owner if more was needed to reach the final destination before disembarking. I'm not sure what would be done to protect errant pedestrians, however, who don't use designated crosswalks. Perhaps vehicles would be equipped with infra-red imaging that signals the vehicle to stop when a live presence is detected, simultaneously radioing to rearward vehicles to stop as well. Speed and maneuvering would be governed by a computer, rather than the whim of an impatient, angry, or impaired human operator, eliminating drunk drivers and road rage.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment