I received this in an e-mail the other day… a link to the top 10 strangest robots. (Check it out here) Some are pretty interesting… One is a robot 'controlled' by a cockroach.
Anyway, If you were to build a robot what would yours be able to do?
i'm thinking one to go & find my lost tv remotes would be good. Or better yet, one about as tall as a table-side stand with a built in tea-maker (water sugar & all) that made tea to your specifications… on top it'd be flat so you could put your glass there. & it'd follow you around wherever you went in case you got thirsty. Now THAT would be a good use of technology… what to call it? well, MR. TEA of course 🙂
Buffet o' Blog 
Ill-Tempered Scientist
That’s easy. WHEN I build a robot, it will only do one thing. World Domination. But it will do it very well.
Mr. Practical
World Domination? how come we never he about the ‘lesser’ evil people that only set their sites on things like ‘community-domination’ or ‘county wide-domination’ I say start small & go from there…
If I were to build a robot it would a ‘mechanized-belt buckle’ & it would be programmed to ‘fetch’ stuff… what practical use could this have you may ask? well simple… if you’d ever been caught on the toilet and found that you’re out of toilet-paper you would not have to even ask ‘that’ question…
Important Political Scientist
We do hear of them–each time there’s a local election for mayor, city counsel, or county judge. All the little Castro wannabe’s come out of the woodwork trying to tell us how to run our lives, what to do with our money and property, and how we should like it because it is somehow for the “greater good”.
Small evil gone to seed eventually, if left unchecked, grows into big evil. Just ask Stalin. He was once nothing more than your garden variety atheist and marxist. But he worked hard and eventually made it big and dominated most of two continents. Then he died and went to hell. Oh, I forgot to mention that the retirement package really sucks for evil world dominators. Hey, if there was one that was good and benevolent rather than evil like most, would that make him the least common dominator? (OK, I have a side business called puns-r-us)
As far as robots, I think a fart catcher might be nice and would be a cool party trick to “catch and release” in strategic places. 🙂
Important Computer Scientist
There’s a lot of “special interest” groups and politicians who are trying to destroy America by remaking it into a Communist society. That could be filed under “evil” or “world domination”. And they tell us it’s for the “greater good”, that it’s actually freedom and tolerance and such.
Back to topic, I’d like a robot that could do my job for me, sitting at a computer writing code. Then I could sleep in and work on other projects that are more fun. Maybe I should invent one of these robots… I bet they’d sell like hotcakes… Better yet, I’ll build a robot that builds these kinds of robots, and then I can be rich and work whenever I want to.
TinFoilHat
I wouldn’t build a robot, b/c robots are evil! You talk of build a robot to do your job, but then why would you still have a job? And if you build a robot to build other job-stealing robots, we’ll all be out of jobs. And then what will the robot-building robot build? Robots that kill people, of course.
Important Computer Scientist
I wouldn’t mind being out of a job if I had plenty of money, but I shouldn’t do that for everyone else. I’d be rich b/c I held all the patents, but then other people would just be out of a job. So I’ll just keep my robots for my personal use. They can clean my house.
I don’t think all robots are evil. I program them to be courteous to people and to like cute, little, furry bunnies. Though I suppose some movies have been made showing how robots eventually want to take over the world… hmm… if we have a fleet of robots who are good, moral agents, who protect us from the evil robots, then we’d have that covered. And then we’d have a Transformers motif! It would be so cool if my truck could turn into a giant robot with awesome powers. I’ll have to get my R&D dept. on that right away!
Important Mechanic
Perhaps you should get your truck worked on before having it turn into a robot. Nobody likes a loud, smoking robot. 🙂
Important Psychiatrist
Dear Mr. Important Mechanic, you shouldn’t allow your insecurities and problems to influence you to say derogatory statements about others and their stuff. See, what’s happening is that you’re secretly jealous of my truck, but you refuse to admit it, so you put it down. You should deal with these unresolved feelings of yours… 🙂
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!
Important Mechanic
Yeah, that’s it. Your truck is so cool and that’s why nobody hangs out with you–everyone’s jealous of your truck (see recent posting on coolness). Yeah right. If it makes you feel better. In fact, judging from your comment, I’m not really sure you’re a psychiatrist at all, let alone an important one! 🙂
Crappo the Clown
I will take the opportunity to mention that this is a good point in the conversation FOR ME TO POOP ON.
Important Computer Scientist
FYI, I am not Thomas Wayne. You seem to have fallen into a state of confusion. I drive a blue truck; he drives a dookie-brown El Camino. I am the epitome of coolness; he only has delusions of coolness. et cetera and so forth…