You'll look back and say "Rocket Jones tried to warn us"

We have one of those tower fans in our living room. You know the kind, with three or four little fans stacked vertically. It does a nice job, oscillates, different speeds, all that happy crap a fan does.

But they slipped up on the design. They forgot to hide its intelligence.

This thing has LED displays on the front face, at the top, where it's convenient to read. But when you set it to oscillate on low speed (arguably the most common setting), these two lights look like shining red eyes, tirelessly scanning back and forth across the room. Noting the positions of all life forms in the vicinity.

This fan has a remote control! And guess where it sits? That's right, it's brain sits under a clear plastic canopy on top of the beast. Where it can control things.

Granted, this thing is seriously limited in the amount of malevolence it can project. I mean, it's on a pedestal base. But don't let that fool you, because they've already figured out how to use remote mobile robots to recconoiter your home. Roomba? Small, cheap, dispensible. Sounds like a scout to me.

What we're seeing here is the very beginnings of the takeover. Hollywood gave us the Terminator, then T2 and T3. This fan is probably something like T1/64th. But don't let it's relative weakness lull you into a false sense of security. It wants that. And it's eyes never stop scanning.

For another few weeks, until it gets unplugged and put it up in the attic.

It's nice to air out your darkest paranoias once in a while. But if you forget to put it away again, you wind up on talk radio.

Posted by: Ted at 06:05 AM

Comments

1 Between malevolent robots and the coming zombie invasion, I'm surprised you haven't moved into a shack in Montanna or someplace remote.

Posted by: Victor at August 10, 2005 07:43 AM (L3qPK)

2 I'm with yah. If you check my archives you'll see all the proof you need. Here's a good question: Do sci-fi writers see the future, or does the future develop based upon their writings?

Posted by: Maelstrom at August 10, 2005 08:16 AM (V0o94)

3 Ted, you need to get out more. ;-)

Posted by: Cindy at August 10, 2005 09:11 AM (MYRta)

4 I would, but there's a mysterious helicopter that's always hovering outside my front door. They painted it black, but I can still see it...

Posted by: Ted at August 10, 2005 12:35 PM (blNMI)

5 Ted, since it's not a *giant* fighting robot, and doesn't appear to be capable of space travel, I'll let this one slide. But all giant space fighting robot stories have to go through perfidy...

Posted by: buckethead at August 10, 2005 12:52 PM (ztNrs)

6 LOL! My young son was so frighted of a fan like the one you describe that I was forced to give it away.

You have a very vivid imagination...keep feeding it!

Posted by: michele at August 10, 2005 01:27 PM (FJ2Bh)

7 Ted,it's really a Cylon.

Posted by: Russ at August 10, 2005 02:16 PM (ObxzR)

8 Yeah, be careful, it's always the ones that look complete innocent that are the most dangerous.

Posted by: owlish at August 11, 2005 01:53 AM (kVnh2)

9 Maybe it hovers silently at night, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on you and carve you up with its razor-sharp whirling blades of death. What color is it? If it's rust red, I say take it back to Dr. Reinhardt before it's too late!! AIEEE!!

--TwoDragons

Posted by: Denita TwoDragons at August 13, 2005 10:07 AM (pvVOb)

10 AVI to DVDAVI to DVD ConverterConvert AVI to DVD

Posted by: helen at May 21, 2009 01:25 AM (gxuBX)






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