It’s no secret I’m in a negative frame of mind, technologically speaking. However, I thought my current annoyance with and suspicion of modern gadgetry was limited to the web (or more specifically, with Apple’s servers) until yesterday.
But yesterday, I completely freaked out over the state of our modern world. A friend sent me a link to a video featuring a robotic . . . a robotic freaky creature that I’m definitely going to have nightmares about. Click here to see for yourself the disturbing footage of BigDog,“ the most advanced quadruped robot on earth,” according to its makers. BigDog was developed with assistance from our government via funding from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. (I had never before heard of DARPA but found it strangely ominous sounding in spite of its innocuous name.)
I never thought of myself as a Luddite, but I must be. Watching that video made me want to crawl under my Mayberry covers and suck my thumb and daydream about community bake sales and homecoming parades featuring papier-mâché floats. I mean, what the hell? This is an advantage of modern life?
Despite my horrified reaction, Mr. Mom found BigDog fascinating.
Mr. Mom: That is so cool!
Magpie: No way!
Mr. Mom: Are you kidding? It carries 400 pounds of your crap up a rocky hill.
Magpie: Who has 400 pounds of crap that needs to be carried up a hill by a freaky four-legged robot? Just get a pickup.
Mr. Mom may be naive enough to think BigDog is nothing more than an advanced pack mule that will someday be affordable enough for the average sportsman to use on hunting trips, but I’m having none of it. A robot with sufficient artificial intelligence to right itself after slipping on ice is a step away from an an army of marauding robots that eat people. In fact, I’d be willing to bet there’s video of a man-eating BigDog in a locked drawer somewhere marked “Top Secret -- Project Cujo.”
But since my hometown can’t even manage to attract a decent retailer, I’m going to take comfort in the thought that when the marauding BigDogs invade America, Mayberry will be last on the list. I’ve got a good 20 years left, I figure.
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Equally Depressing Postscript: Want to feel even worse about modern life? Check out the story about the woman who cloned her pit bull with the help of an Asian company that specializes in commercial cloning. Two words. Freak. Out.
Therapeutically Insightful Preview: Perhaps my violent reaction to BigDog is due to a fragile psyche prompted by a MAJOR NEW HAIR DO. New color. New cut. New neuroses. I’m still debating whether to show you a photo of my latest debacle, but I can promise this. Stay tuned for my upcoming photo essay, titled From Barbara Streisand to Sharon Stone: A Magpie Memoir (Follically Speaking.)
