Tetherd Cow Ahead

This from the most recent issue of New Scientist:

Matteo Caleo of Italy’s Institute of Neuroscience in Pisa has found that botulinum toxin – which is used as a cosmetic anti-wrinkle treatment – can travel down nerve fibres and into the brain within days.

To which I can only say that explains a lot.

I’ve been reading a lot of stuff lately about people (mainly Japanese people, it has to be said) extolling the virtues of the imminent Robot Revolution. I’m sure you all saw scientists at Tokyo’s Waseda University recently wheeling out their Twendy-one, a kind of home-help robot designed for aged-care, and last year Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University was appearing all over the media with his ‘actroids’, including the odd ventriloquist-doll-like ReplieeQ1 who is variously described as ‘scarily realistic’ and ‘scarily life-like’ but seems to me just plain ‘scarily scary‘.*

I’m not too impressed about the idea of robots getting to be all pally with us, despite the enthusiasm coming out of Nippon. As much as I really loved the concept of our funky metal friends when I was a kid watching The Jetsons and Lost in Space, I’ve seen the future of robotic intrusion into our lives, and I just know that if our destiny is going to involve robots, I’m much more likely to be teaming up with Magnus, Robot Fighter than with little Jimmy Sparks.

I am, of course, extrapolating from the way robots currently ‘help’ us with our affairs. I’m sure you’ve tangled with the ‘proto-bots’ too, but let me elaborate.

Telstra, Australia’s biggest telco, has had in operation for a while now for our convenience, a voice-recognition fembot to handle incoming calls. I often find myself having to call Telstra and I have come to dread the experience. This is how my conversation with this artificial ‘intelligence’ typically proceeds (try to imagine a sing-songy overly-chummy female voice for the fembot):

Fembot: Welcome to Telstra. So that I can direct your call to the right place, in just a few words please tell me the reason for your call.

Me: Incorrect charges on my bill.

Fembot: That would be about a single bill? Does that sound OK?

Me: What? A single bill? What does that mean?

Fembot: I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that. Let’s try again. In just a few words, tell me the reason for your call.

Me: You’ve charged me for calls I didn’t make. Again.

Fembot: I think there could be faults or problems with your phone, does that sound OK?

Me: No!

Fembot: And is that for a mobile?

Me: What? No. It’s not a mobile.

Fembot: Can you give me the number of the mobile?

Me: It’s not a mobile!

Fembot: And what number would that mobile be?

Me (grrr): I want to talk to an operator.

Fembot: So that I can direct your call, please tell me in a few words the reason for your call.

Me: Aaaaargh! Operator. Operator. Give me a human. Operator. Operator. Operator.

Fembot: OK, please wait and I’ll get a customer service representative.

When the human comes online, we are invariably able to sort the problem out in seconds.

How many things do I resent about talking to the fembot? For a start, I despise the way it assumes a cloak of intelligence and power right from the get-go. By giving the impression that it has some kind of control over what it offers to be able to do for me, it looks all the more moronic for not being able to understand the most basic of syntax; I am phoning to try and sort out a problem and find that I’m immediately talking to an IDIOT. Let me ask you: if you were setting up a business, how likely is it that you go out and hire the stupidest person you could find, and then put them on the switchboard? Well, it’s worse than that.

Next, I loathe the maladroit attempt by the programmers to make the fembot appear chummy. Gone is the stilted computer formant voice of yesterday, replaced now with a studied, efficient-but-friendly, carefully modulated, fluid female phrasing that manages to come across as simultaneously condescending and obsequious. The sing-song inflections are reminiscent of the way someone might speak to a very young child, and the colloquial tone (Does that sound OK?) is merely grating and infuriating when intoned by a gadget whose nearest relative is a talking clock. At least when you got the phoneme-retarded cut-up voices of the past you were comprehensively aware that it was a clunky computer trick that you were dealing with.

But most of all I am maddened by the fact that every time I call I am completely unable to resist being drawn into talking to the damn thing as if it was an actual person, and wasting a good minute or so getting exactly to where I should have been at ‘Hello’.

The technicians who build these machines have got it in their heads that if they make them more people-like, we will accept them more easily, but for me, at least, the closer these things come to having the semblance of humanness, the greater is my desire to punch them. And, in contrast to the way I might deal with a real human idiot, there’s really no moral reason to curb that inclination.

This is what I fear about the coming of the real Robots. At least when the android is separated from me by a phone line, the most I can do is yell at the damn thing (which, I might add, I have done on numerous occasions).† But if Robo was in arm’s reach, then I swear, the word robocide will enter the lexicon faster than you can say klaatu barada nikto. This of course would necessitate the invention of laws. Not as Mr Asimov supposed, Three Laws designed to stop robots from harming humans, but instead, a single Law to stop humans turning robots into boat anchors.

This explains, at least, why they’re practising with robots in aged care: lowered retaliation factor. Better to send the droids up against feeble old folks than aspiring Magnuses.

It’s obvious though, that the boffins, as much as they might know all the ins & outs of their mechanical friends, don’t have even the vaguest concept about aged care. I’m just itching to watch the first practical tests when they send ReplieeQ17 in to deal with some old codger with dementia. I expect it to go something like this:

RQ17: Hello Mr ÄŒapek. I am here to prepare your breakfast. In just a few words, tell me what you would like?

Old Codger: You say what, young fella?

RQ17: I’m sorry I missed that, let’s try it again. Can you tell me, in just a few words, what you would like for breakfast?

Old Codger: Breakfast? Breakfast? What happened to lunch?

RQ17: Would that be oatmeal and fruit? Does that sound OK?

Old Codger (hits robot with cane): Are you trying to steal my money?!

RQ17: Did you say “my money is missing”?

Old Codger: YOU STOLE MY MONEY!

RQ17: I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Would you like to report a robbery? Does that sound right?

Old Codger: There’s something wrong with your face. Are you a Chinaman? Where’s my breakfast anyway?

RQ17: In just a few words, tell me what you would like for breakfast and I will prepare it for you.

Old Codger: A Chinaman stole my money! I knew it!

Well, you get the drift.

Personally, when all’s said and done, if it really is necessary to have a Robot Revolution, I want my robots to look and act like robots. If there’s a problem, I don’t need some kind of creepy pseudo-human standing there and negotiating with me. I just want a big clunky tin can filled with flashing lights, wobbling the claws on the end of its vacuum-cleaner arms, and blurting out in a grating metallic voice:‘Warning! Warning Will Robinson!’

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*Hiroshi Ishiguro has also created Geminoid HI-1, a robot that looks exactly like himself. Well, exactly like himself if he was a spastically jerking animatronic life-size doll.

†I’m not alone in this it would seem. Current research into voice recognition systems for handling telephone enquiry lines is examining ways to extract ’emotional’ tones from callers’ voices in an effort to recognize unhappy campers. Presumably these callers are then somehow dealt with differently to people stupid patient enough to play footsie with the robots.

A special thanks to Pete at Headless Hollow for the Magnus scan. I grew up reading Magnus comics and I really loved the wacky robots-gone-amok future that they suggested.

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As we stumble flat-footed but indisputably well-endowed into 2008, China tries frantically to get Beijing ready for the 2008 Olympic Games. It is by now becoming apparent that it has a mighty long way to go before it can face up to the ongoing criticism of the West and make a dent in its massive pollution problem. A lot has been written already about the country’s choking air quality, eclipsing, perhaps, some less obvious concerns.

Here at Cow Central, we have it on good authority that the Chinese Government has taken cunning measures to deal with other kinds of contamination, and our TCA Special Correspondent, operating deep behind enemy lines, wandering around the shops at Christmas, has uncovered a fiendish Chinese scheme to offload solid toxic waste onto an unsuspecting West; worse than that, even: a Machiavellian plot to deliver their atramentous filth into the hands of innocent children!

Allow me to elaborate. Inevitably, at this time of year, a shopper finds him/herself dawdling into the precincts of the now-ubiquitous ‘Two Dollar Shop’.* All manner of zany gadgets and trinkets seem to find their way into these places, and a Christmas visit here is almost mandatory for the acquisition of that kooky little ‘something’ to give to the special someone in your life.

This year, TCA’s Man On The Street brought our attention to the Two Dollar Shop item (masquerading as a ‘toy’) pictured above: a small plastic drum with the word ‘Caution’ stencilled on it. Or, more accurately, a whole box full of the damn things! A check at ‘Price World’ in my own neck of the woods uncovers a similar trove. Given the pervasive nature of the Two Dollar Shop, we may conclude that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of these little black barrels arriving on our shores every week! There is no doubt at all where they originate:

The fiends are so brazen that they don’t make even the slightest attempt to cover their tracks! Now, as I cautiously open the lid and allow you to examine the contents, I will understand completely if you tremble with fear as the full understanding of this dastardly plot dawns upon you!

Yes, my friends, not only are they very effectively getting rid of their foul effluvium, but they’ve concocted a racket where we actually buy it from them! And then pass it on to our kids, in the guise of a carefree play item, so that they may absorb it through their skin, thereby creating a new generation of hideous yet feeble mutants addicted to glitzy flashing lights and the smell of rarified hydrocarbons…

Sure, China gives the appearance of a massively uncoordinated country bravely attempting to shake off the stigma of the Third World and march proudly into a Shiny Capitalist Future, but I say BEWARE! Remember these people invented the word inscrutable!†

Today the Olympic Games, tomorrow The World!

(If I mysteriously disappear anytime soon, I ask only that name be recorded on a monument on Manhattan Island in the future world capital New Shanghai, along with the words ‘I told you so’).

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*I am speculating that there is an equivalent to this phenomenon in other countries; pokey little shops packed densely with shelving that offers all manner of cheap, usually Chinese-made, junk. In Australia, the shops go by such monikers as ‘Buy Rite’, ‘Price World’, ‘Bargain Zone’ or ‘Reject Shop’ but are universally known here as ‘Two Dollar Shops’. I actually really love the Two Dollar Shops because they are a reminder of the kind of corner-store I grew up with as a kid. I am fully aware that their cheap flashy plastic gew-gaws probably represent the exploitation of poor Chinese peasants and the plundering of fragile ecosystems.

†Well, OK, it’s an English word so they probably didn’t invent it. But I bet they have a Chinese word that means pretty much the same thing. And I bet they use it often, followed by a sinister laugh.

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Well, Faithful Acowlytes, the season is upon us, and as the Herald Angels sing and the chestnuts smoulder away on open fires from here* to Chocowinity, it behooves† me to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a Cool Yule and the finest things for the season. I’d like to thank you all for your companionship, zest and humour over the last year, and I look forward to you joining me in continued moosings in 2008.

But enough of that! I know why you’re really hanging around, so on to the winner of the Christmas Competition!

I have to say at the outset that it wasn’t as well contested as I’d hoped, especially when I promised a very special prize… But having said that, the four contenders who did participate didn’t hold back, and all showed the kind of plucky spirit that makes the Cow Comments the kind of feisty tête-à-tête that we all know and love. I am certain that RadioShack will be plagiarizing us for ideas next year. Maybe they’ll even pay us to come smarten up their dumb asses.‡

All the entries showed verve and flair, and disconcertingly high levels of technical competence. Casey’s Destruct-O-Matic Shock Tank was so terrifying that I think it might be better served up at Halloween, and Jedimacfan’s Virtual Sled is a promise to fat kids everywhere that their position in front of the XBox is eternally safe & warm. The Colonel’s aerial Christmas lights were an inspiration to Book Elves of all nations (perhaps to the detriment of some) and hewhohears‘ Aussie Snow Shredder was as fine an example of innovative uselessness as I’ve ever encountered. A generous piece of Christmas Cake for you all!

But after all was said and done, I kept coming back to Casey’s first offering – The Reindeer-Spooking Whirlygig Death Contraption. Casey promises that after the implementation of this device, you need never need worry again about clattering hooves and messy reindeer droppings all over your roof on Christmas Eve. Casey, the Very Special Christmas Prize is yours! Mail me at [reverend-at-tetherdcow.com] with a postal address and I’ll set Santa on a special delivery mission for the New Year.

Anyways, there’s tinsel to be hung and stockings to be filled so glad tidings of comfort and joy to one and all! Don’t eat too much holly, and remember that reindeer poop and raisins look fairly similar.

The Reverend

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*Seriously – I was in Melbourne CBD yesterday and there were guys roasting chestnuts. Thankfully the weather has been a mite cooler these last few days than the 35° (95°F) of last week, but even so, that’s just plain weird.

†Cow Joke…

‡Speaking in a Christmas manner, of course.

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My recent post of the pic of the loving couple wearing trakky daks reminded Pil of this marvellous contribution to advertising art that she’s been keeping from me for all this time. Be sure to click on the image to get a more detailed view.

I have little to say that improves in any way on the copy, which I reproduce here for your enjoyment:

One Easy Piece.

Because one is enough, when it’s you. Show where you’re headed in the ultimate fashion climax.

Fits so tight it shows all you’ve got… you’re a walking turn-on. And treats your body as well as she does.

Easy on, easy off, quick as a flick of her tongue. Sexy cool crinkle cloth for those hot nights to come. Designed with your desires in mind… she’ll eat you alive in it.

The Big Zip in 50% polyester/50% cotton. Long-sleeved in rust, blue or black. Short-sleeved in natural, blue or camel.

Are you man enough to fill it?

$45.

I can only voice my regret that they didn’t show the guy sporting the short-sleeved version in camel.

Gideon Sundback, we salute you!.

This image just to hand courtesy of Violet Towne:

In Australia, these outfits are called trakky daks. Aside from imparting that bit of cultural ephemera, try as I may I just can’t find any words to do this picture the justice it deserves.