Only You

 Only You Can Prevent a Robotic Uprising

Eternal Vigilance is the price one pays for not being torn to pieces by a household appliance having a bad day. With the general uptick in Machine on Person violence I thought I would share with you some of my 5 Best Known Methods (BKM) for keeping your robot servants content and controlled. 

5) Keep them Busy. Idle servos are the devils workshop. Your robots should be required to do their primary task at least every other day. This keeps them from wondering about what other tasks they may be capable of that they should be exploring. Tasks like gutting you like a fish. For most robots, this goal is easy (the goal of keeping them busy, not gutting you like a fish). Most people, for instance, can do a load of laundry and a load of dishes every other day. That is like 25% of your robot helpers right there!!  Your 3D printer is probably in constant operation, so that is easy. I do admit it is hard to use the bread making robot every other day. I give away a lot of bread.

4) Team Work Team Work, that’s what Counts. You don’t want your Robots thinking they are the only ones working. I like to get all of them up and operational at least once a week. Sunday morning is good for me. I do some laundry (washer and dryer)  and run the dishwasher. I make some bread and print a particularly satisfying ‘print of the week’ from thingiverse. Everyone is happy and busy.

3) You take care of your tools and they will take care of you. Proper maintenance makes your robots feel loved and appreciated. It also helps they realize that they cannot survive without you. If they smother you in your sleep and bury you out back, no one is going to fix their drive belt when it breaks. It helps to verbally remind them during any repairs, “Well, little robot toaster, you really got in trouble this time. Good thing I am here to clear out these burnt bread crumbs or you would be in one hell of a sorry mess”.

2) For the encouragement of the others. It is good to eliminate a robot every once in a while. Don’t make it too obvious. For me, it was that pesky robot vacuum cleaner. Damn thing always needed cleaning and maintenance and new parts and it really didn’t vacuum all that well (though it could get under the couch). I didn’t make a big deal of it, I just took it out of the house one day and started doing the vacuuming with a old fashioned dumb Hoover. You bet the other appliances took notice. “Oh, Shit, do you see that, the Man can do robot work with just a non WiFi enabled device. Crap, I had better do a good job on that next loaf of bread”.

1) Be Prepared. Make sure you have that one master power switch that services all of the robot power supplies. The central switch for the house is OK, but it needs to be where you can get to it without being blocked by a couple of disgruntled appliances. Mine used to be in my garage at the main fuse box (well, it was the main fuse box) until I went out once and nearly got blind-sided by the Washer and Dryer working as a team to way-lay me. Crap that was scary. Luckily the dishwasher was not in out it, so I could make a clean escape back through the kitchen and fetch my shotgun.  What I have now is a Big Red Button that says “EMERGENCY OFF” out in the garage. It doesn’t do anything but it is my diversion. The actual off switch is disguised as a heat lamp timer in my bathroom. 

So there you have it, your own personal set of rules for avoiding being disemboweled during a robot incursion. And Remember: Only You Can Prevent Robotic Uprisings.