Evil
Monday 17th July, 2006 11:38 Comments: 0
Scott Adams made a recent blog entry that I suspect he\'ll remove at some point, as he sometimes does that with the controversial ones.
People understand that athletes need a little assistance in the writing department, so it's no big deal when they use co-authors. But as a writer, I wonder why I can\'t try out for the NFL using a co-athlete. I\'d bring the intangibles, such as my desire to make my co-athlete work extra hard in the off-season to stay in shape. I\'d also be willing to make him play hurt. The jumping and running and catching are the easy parts. It's the "competitiveness" that I\'d bring to the mix, and you can\'t put a price on that.
In fact, I can think of lots of jobs I could do as long as I had someone else to do the actual job. For example, I could get a job on a bomb squad and send my co-deactivator to the bomb site while I stayed home and enjoyed a nice toasted bagel. Again, I\'d contribute the intangibles, such as volunteering my co-deactivator for the most dangerous assignments.
I\'m not totally heartless. I\'d only work with a co-deactivator who had a horrible life to begin with. That way there's less at stake. And I\'d save a ton of money on training him when to cut the blue wire or the red one. It wouldn\'t matter that much to either of us.
I\'m always thinking.
It made me laugh, but only because I know he's not serious. I believe some countries train rats and mice to detect landmines, but even that's a bit too cruel for me (normal vermin might be fair game, but if you\'ve trained them up they\'re clearly smart and obedient and deserve respect). I say we build an army of robots that we use to deactivate bombs and clear landmines. Sure, it might be expensive, but you can\'t put a price on life. We\'d have to program them with enough bugs so they only last a few days, as we wouldn\'t want some kind of Terminator style uprising. Maybe that's why Microsoft have so many bugs in their software. They\'ve recently announced some kind of robot programming API, so we should be safe for now.
People understand that athletes need a little assistance in the writing department, so it's no big deal when they use co-authors. But as a writer, I wonder why I can\'t try out for the NFL using a co-athlete. I\'d bring the intangibles, such as my desire to make my co-athlete work extra hard in the off-season to stay in shape. I\'d also be willing to make him play hurt. The jumping and running and catching are the easy parts. It's the "competitiveness" that I\'d bring to the mix, and you can\'t put a price on that.
In fact, I can think of lots of jobs I could do as long as I had someone else to do the actual job. For example, I could get a job on a bomb squad and send my co-deactivator to the bomb site while I stayed home and enjoyed a nice toasted bagel. Again, I\'d contribute the intangibles, such as volunteering my co-deactivator for the most dangerous assignments.
I\'m not totally heartless. I\'d only work with a co-deactivator who had a horrible life to begin with. That way there's less at stake. And I\'d save a ton of money on training him when to cut the blue wire or the red one. It wouldn\'t matter that much to either of us.
I\'m always thinking.
It made me laugh, but only because I know he's not serious. I believe some countries train rats and mice to detect landmines, but even that's a bit too cruel for me (normal vermin might be fair game, but if you\'ve trained them up they\'re clearly smart and obedient and deserve respect). I say we build an army of robots that we use to deactivate bombs and clear landmines. Sure, it might be expensive, but you can\'t put a price on life. We\'d have to program them with enough bugs so they only last a few days, as we wouldn\'t want some kind of Terminator style uprising. Maybe that's why Microsoft have so many bugs in their software. They\'ve recently announced some kind of robot programming API, so we should be safe for now.