Robot Job

This video (via BoingBoing) features a state-of-the-art robot in a UC Berkley lab that has been trained to pair socks together. That’s all it does. It takes two socks, one of which is inside out, it turns the sock inside in, and then it puts the two socks together. It is also worth noting that this video has been sped up to 15x the actual speed it takes this fucking machine to put two fucking socks together.“Fucking socks, how do they work” – Insane Robot Posse

Phew. I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Admittedly, the robots only have two years to become self-aware and launch SkyNet before they themselves are destroyed along with all the monks in the great Mountain Flood of 2012. But still. Have fun at dinner, robots. And no offense to robot scientists, but maybe it’s time for them to start inventing something useful, like a drinking fountain that dispenses Mountain Dew. I’m just saying: this thing takes up half the room, costs a quarter-of-a-million dollars to build, a team of experts to monitor, and does the work of a halfway house resident outreach program. Enough. Is there still cancer in the world? Do mobile phones still drop calls? Is milk kind of weird if you think about it? Can a horse be cross-bred with a bird to make a pegasus? How is baby formed?

-David