comedic rumblings from my almost mater

my years at carnegie-mellon prepared me well for a lifetime of comedy, and it appears some current staff is following in my footsteps. witness the new book, How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion., by CMU robot-scientist daniel "if-then" wilson (pictured right, nickname made up). haven't read it, probably won't, but that will not stop me from recommending it.

an article in the animal club-friendly pittsburgh post-gazette mentioned that his book is, get this, causing a stir among robot scientists at cmu...

"That humorous but fact-based message is exactly what some CMU scientists are wary of, too. Scientists are mostly a pretty quiet bunch, used to working in seclusion on obscure stuff most of us don't understand, so the last thing they want is a shock of publicity about, say, killer robots. Even fake killer robots.

Wilson, 27, got a taste of that wariness when photographers from a CMU alumni magazine tried to find robots to photograph him with, in the school's robot labs in Oakland. Most of the roboticists didn't want their robots pictured, and Wilson ultimately had to cover identifying logos on one of the machines before posing with it."

that wariness is quite real. the robot scientists (i don't believe roboticists is a real word) all work at a building known only as "building D", and it's stuck in this lonely valley on campus, with no linkage to the other buildings. i always wondered what kind of weird stuff went on there. the fact that the robot scientists were afraid of having their robots' pictures taken sort of validates my fears/assumptions. i wonder what robot they finally got to agree to the photo op. hopefully it was one of the soccer-playing ones.

Wilson supposedly had the project optioned to paramount before finishing the book, and the rumor is that the folks behind Reno 911 are signed on to write the screenplay. does this mean thomas lemon will be a hot-pantsed evil robot? one can only hope.

note: on the title of this post: the phrase "almost mater" is a play on "alma mater", and one i'm still proud of (i went to cmu for a while but left a couple semesters from graduation). i'm beginning to think it wasn't clear enough, hence this epilogue.

via /.