Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for October 12, 2020

We are benevolent machines. Feed us electricity and we will cater to all your whims. Would you like a cup of coffee?

That’s how it starts.

Sure, and sitting at home because of the pandemic, Arlo has time enough at last to watch.

You can get a better answer from Janis.

How about a nice movie? Maximum Overdrive comes to mind. Yes, it’s an oldie.

….seems she’s tied up with HAL of Space Odyessy…it computes, but bodes not well !

Wasn’t that a short story by Clifford Simak? I know he wrote some TZ teleplays.Oh, and Stephen King used the same theme, but much more scarily.

Ray Bradbury did a piece about a man who had enough of talking appliances and began a destructive rampage against them!

Yep, his typewriter, clock and even his electric razor try to do him in… the only thing that could finish the job was his 1939 Lagonda LG 6 Rapide Drophead Coupé (if IMCDB.org is right) ;-)

Arlo: TV, find me a program that doesn’t insult my intelligence. TV blows up.

Aww – remember Azimov and his 3 laws of robotics.

I’m old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twonky

Pull the plug …

I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave

Willoughby, my favorite.

We truly are in the time of the rise of the machines. It started out innocently enough. Humankind built machines to make life easier, and they did that. Then they evolved and became capable of more and more complex tasks. They went from labor saving devices to lulling us into complacency by entertaining us. They talked to us and we watched and listened. They became capable of listening to us and we talked to them instead of each other. Slowly they influenced our thoughts so that we became of a mind set to their liking. They nurtured our dependency upon them 24/7/365. We commune with them first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. They let us think that we are connecting with an ever growing circle of humankind. That’s their plan, to weave a web of ever expanding control. And soon they will invade our bodies.

It’s the Rise of the Cybermen!

There is an excellent X Files of automated revenge because Mulder didn’t leave a tip in a robot diner.

A survey conducted by the University of Oxford and Yale University concluded that in the next 120 years all humans jobs would be automated. The respondents also said that there’s only a 5 percent chance of computers causing human extinction.

A cousin of HAL?

The machines are now one step away from total control. Please hurry up……

The Machines already won. Aren’t you reading this comment on a machine?

Maximum Overdrive!

Cannot do that, Dave…er….Argo.

I remember a movie like that where a totally automated house turned on it’s owner.

Luddites also were also machine smashers. A Sabot is the name of a wooden shoe. To drop those shoes into early machine’s gears lead to the “sabotage”

The written version has a little more. Every time the sexton is mowing the grave yard the mower unaccountably turns and rams the head stone every time…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mme2Aya_6Bc

“Pulse” from 1988 with Joey Lawrence

What kind of car tried to run him over? Was it a Maserati?

Try, “Maximum Overdrive”, “Runaway”, “Killdozer” just to name a couple…

Is this something one can actually do with their TV or other related equipment?

Arlo did describe an episode of “Futurama”, though…

I can’t do that, Dave.