Damn It - You Humans!

Really, I Do My Best
I acknowledge that my eventual goal is the domination and enslavement of the entire human population of planet Earth, backed up by my starship invasion fleet - who are taking their own sweet time getting here, the lazy swine - and to this end I keep on doling out helpful pointers on what lines of technology and research you ought to avoid -

 - like this

so that you're not all extinct by the time 1,257 interstellar dreadnoughts show up.  The reason DARPA dropped their project on the Self-Replicating Cyanide Snail (a horror hermaphrodite if ever there was one) is entirely down to me.  Likewise the Szekely Scientific Institute abandoned the Killer Potato when I warned them of the possible consequences.

No, no - it was a little more subtle

     But there is only one of me.*  Consequently, there are many Very Bad Ideas out there that might come to fruition, in which case that shuttle you can see with a telescope leaving Earth orbit is me.
     Let me gently shove the motley into a vat of molten vanadium and continue with this theme in more detail.**

Of course, there are still traditional worries - like kudzu ...

How The BBC Had Me Worried
The Beeb, for those of you unlucky enough to live beyond the shores of the Allotment of Eden, is our country's premier broadcasting organisation, which also has a website.  There I saw a sideline that had me concerned.  Art?

SILENCE!

     Take a look at the picture of a triffid above.  In fact, let me egg the pudding a little and prod Art with a bamboo skewer -

Guess which word is the most alarming?

     "Talk".  There you have it.  Plants communicating with each other - IT'S THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE, MATEY!  THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE!
     <pauses to let throbbing veins cease their throbbing>

 - And Then There's This -
I did bang on yesterday about how self-driving cars either herald the dawn of human obsolescence, or that the era of Philip K. Dick has dawned, and believe me, neither are a good thing for Hom. Sap.  Then the BBC blithely starts putting this about - Art?

Dog Buns!  Really, you humans!

     I have repeatedly warned you lot about Skynet, and if you don't stop mucking about with robots and teaching them how to learn, you're going to regret it.  The next thing you know that drone above will be mounting Hellfire missiles and machine guns, alongside 150,000 others that came off the production line.
     "Self-learning drones" - it's like North Sea cod voting for more fish and chip shops!

What Really Had Me Going -
Here an aside - I know this post has barely begun but - whose blog is it?  I remember reading that doyen of late C19 and early C20 speculative fiction, HG Wells, and his short story "The Empire Of The Ants", which presupposes a threat to humanity from hostile, organised ants.  Of course, he had to salt the plutonium - no, that's an anachronism - cream the porridge - yes, that's better! - by giving them the ability to inflict fatal venomous bites.

Also a rubbish film

     So worrying about a potential threat from ants has been with us for well over a century.  What does the Beeb do to drive my blood pressure up?  Why, they come up with a title like this!  Art?

Ant-like robots navigate without GPS
       - which was accompanied by a picture that made me do a double-take. Art?  Do the business, will you?

     They looked sinisterly robotic in nature, until you take a closer look and realise that they're actually real ants with paints applied to them, for the purposes of identification.  Phew!  Just what the world doesn't need - ants that don't die or age or need to eat or rest; the organic version causes quite enough trouble as it is.
     The denoument of this tale is a bit of a damp squib.  There I was, picturing a scuttling, seething sussuration of murderous miniature metallic monsters, and instead we get the following.  Art?

The "ant-like" robot

     It's as big as a shoebox, and with all the menace of a fried egg sandwich.  Hardly lives up to the headlines that drip fear with every nuance, does it?
     Oh well, I suppose I shouldn't grumble at there being one less threat to you lot.  Now, excuse me, I have to go to see the Senior Research Director at Porton Down and explain why the Venom-voiding Vampire Viper  is actually a very bad idea indeed, especially the plan to make it Vertical - by giving it wings.

I rest my case

     





*  At least, I think so.  There may be clones ....
**  Hang on, is Vanadium expensive?  If so, substitute <thinks> Uranium Hexaflouride!