When I was a young, pre-pubescent child, I loved robots. I thought that someday, everyone would have a robot friend they could program to do anything they want, but they would never hurt you because they were programmed to always be good. But honestly, I had never thought I would see something like that in my lifetime - I was thinking, like, year 2250 or so. And so I had never thought much about robots until recently.

But now that I’ve moved to Japan, I’ve visited the Robot Museum here in Nagoya, and this place called RobotPlace in Fukuoka, and I have really become entranced with the idea of robots again. I really really want to have an AIBO someday. Basically, it seems to me, that if you can give something like a robot 500 or more possible tasks that it can do, much of the time, its behavior can seem indistinguishable from a real dog. Of course there are the advantages of sanitation and the fact that you don’t have to feed it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that a robot dog could replace a real live pet in all its facets, I just think that, for someone like me, who can’t have a real pet at this time for many reasons, it is finally a real, viable, and extremely interesting alternative. But the really cool ones are way outta my price range at this time. Someday, though. Someday.

Also, here, my student alerted me to the robots that they use to help direct traffic around construction zones. His name is Anzentarou (Anzen means safety). I just think that’s the coolest thing. Why don’t we have those in North America?