My research assistant Simon, who I have grown attached to (with the use of stem cells) is leaving for India today. This saddens me, yet it is not the first time one of my scientific creations has journeyed to the sub-continent.
My first creation's disappearance was a shameful one. I had been commissioned by the British Government to create an assassin droid, for the purposes of travelling back in time and quelling a rebellion that took place in India, in 1915. The British Government wished to re-establish their empire. Or rather, to have never lost it to begin with. I think most of this desire was motivated by their dislike of paying so much for tea. In any case, I designed the first robot built specifically for assassination. It was a masterpiece. Thin, slender arms, but powerful all the same. Concealed weaponry, but a friendly and believable appearance. It was capable of blending in to human society perfectly, staying undetected until it was meant to strike. If there was one flaw, it was perhaps the optical sensors, which were always rather weak.
The Galvanised Assassin Droid Human Imitator was perfectly designed, or so I thought. Sending the robot back in time required some complex physics, and unfortunately resulted in the robot appearing naked (this is standard time travel technology, as fibers get caught in the machine.) According to reports, the robot gathered a poorly-woven sheet and covered itself in it. This was basic social camouflage, but the people of India interpreted it as a sign of protest against their British then-rulers, whose economy relied heavily on the trade of cotton garments.
My robot used this social following to get closer to his target, a lawyer by the name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Striking in the dead of night, the target was eliminated, but not before a brief conversation ensued. My robot, having never been programmed with a philosophy, was quickly and, perhaps violently, converted to a new way of thinking. He assumed the mantle of Mahatma Gandhi and returned to his followers, hoping to use them to escape the guards in Mumbai, then return to the present and postulate on this new philosophical development.
He was, however, surprised by his followers' passion, who demanded more social protest, eventually asking for his leadership in their new movement. Largely by accident, Mahatma Gandhi became the very figure that he was sent to eliminate. This, of course, was quite a considerable fuck-up on my part, and so I was forced to rectify the situation by sending another assassin droid, the Galvanised Obliteration Droid and Social Extremist - this time programmed with the philosophy of Hindu radicalism to ensure that he would not be converted into a more pacifistic philosophy.
Gandhi's last words were said to be "Oh God." It is widely believed that he was actually killed before finishing them. Some speculate that he was in fact saying "Oh, GODSE" (referring to GODSE, the new droid that was sent to kill him.) The history books, of course, would have you believe otherwise.
All in all, the mission was successful. Apart from the whole 'destabilising the British economy and essentially destroying their empire' thing, I mean. Gandhi was assassinated (twice, technically) and I was compensated with five hundred Great British Pounds, which is now worth about twenty Euros.
I hope you have enjoyed another one of my ADVENTURES IN SCIENCE!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Gorilla Radio
Once more, my friends, I apologise for the delay in posting updates of my scientific adventures. I have been severely handicapped by my lack of a competent assistant. You see, I still possess an assistant, it is just that he is no longer as helpful as he once was.
Recently, I have been studying zoology and experimenting with gorillas. They are fascinating creatures, whose genomes are only 1.7% different from ours. Almost all of them share the same blood-type (B) which is handy, as my latest donor has suffered from massive blood loss (thanks to a fortunate typographical error by the investigating officer, I have been cleared of all suspicion in regards to my recent study of hemoglobins, and the cause of death has been attributed to an attack by a vicious band of Hemo-Goblins).
So fascinating are they, that I have conducted an experiment in consciousness-swapping, involving a gorilla named Stacy and my research assistant Winslow. Winslow is happy, strolling around on his knuckles and occasionally feasting upon the lice that I have strewn around the laboratory. Stacy is less so, as she continually drops test tubes, beakers and tissue samples - her gargantuan hands are not meant for gripping fine objects, and this has lead to many explosions in the chemical leak chambers, and several chemical leaks in the explosion room. It's a fucking shambles.
As such, I have been far too busy cleaning up the mess made by Stacy (both the broken test tubes and her accursed fecal matter, which she insists on leaving in any part of my laboratory not intended to contain gorilla feces). I have had little time to blog.
Now, however, I am free once more. Stacy has been shot by my manly friend Col. Blackheart, a big game hunter who has now, he informs me, turned to hunting the deadliest game of all. Whilst he insisted that the deadliest game of all was man, I showed him a new project of mine that involved cross-breeding scorpions with laser-guided missiles. He has quickly changed his mind about hunting, and is apparently far too busy catching up on all the episodes of Lost that he TiVo'd whilst he was hunting zebra fish in the Amazonian River.
So, now that I am free to blog about my own devices (which include the digital can-opener and the free-range assassin droid), I can tell you more about scientific histories, and the great rivalries therein.
Not many people know this, but Guglielmo Marconi, the man commonly referred to as the inventor of the radio, was the arch-nemesis of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, the man who invented wind currents and Morse code. This was an impressive rivalry, as Marconi was born two years after Morse had died. This is not, however, as impossible as some skeptics might think.
Morse did briefly experiment with electromancy, and this is how he was able to sustain himself for such a long time after his supposed 'death'. He used electric currents to reanimate his recently deceased corpse, whilst himself being deceased. An impressive feat, and one that was lauded by the scientific community. But his Nobel Prize was a posthumous one, and thus he was not elligible for any of the prize money.
His subsequent rampage through the streets of Stockholm is widely documented, although at the time most believed him to be Frankenstein's monster rather than the reanimated corpse of Samuel F. B. Morse. It is through this pure rage that he was able to keep himself reanimated for such a long time. His earlier invention, Morse code, was upstaged by Marconi's radiotelegraph system, which Morse viewed as 'showboating' and 'witchcraft'.
Ironically, or perhaps not, Marconi's first radio transmission was simply the letter S in Morse code, repeated over and over again. Morse intended to sue Marconi for copyright infringement, and perhaps patent infringement as well. Morse was further enraged when he found that, due to him being legally (and medically) dead, the patent rights had been passed to his second wife Sarah Elizabeth Griswold (who, it was well known, was an absolute bitch).
Morse's rage eventually subsided when he realised that Marconi's invention was more useful than he had originally thought, and he discovered the soothing wonders of smooth jazz. This was, however, a belated peace accord, as smooth jazz was not invented until the 1960's - roughly 59 years after the invention of the radio and the beginning of their subsequent feud.
I hope that I have enlightened the masses and entertained the volumes. That's a little physics joke for you, there. So, until next time, I hope you have enjoyed another one of my ADVENTURES IN SCIENCE!
Recently, I have been studying zoology and experimenting with gorillas. They are fascinating creatures, whose genomes are only 1.7% different from ours. Almost all of them share the same blood-type (B) which is handy, as my latest donor has suffered from massive blood loss (thanks to a fortunate typographical error by the investigating officer, I have been cleared of all suspicion in regards to my recent study of hemoglobins, and the cause of death has been attributed to an attack by a vicious band of Hemo-Goblins).
So fascinating are they, that I have conducted an experiment in consciousness-swapping, involving a gorilla named Stacy and my research assistant Winslow. Winslow is happy, strolling around on his knuckles and occasionally feasting upon the lice that I have strewn around the laboratory. Stacy is less so, as she continually drops test tubes, beakers and tissue samples - her gargantuan hands are not meant for gripping fine objects, and this has lead to many explosions in the chemical leak chambers, and several chemical leaks in the explosion room. It's a fucking shambles.
As such, I have been far too busy cleaning up the mess made by Stacy (both the broken test tubes and her accursed fecal matter, which she insists on leaving in any part of my laboratory not intended to contain gorilla feces). I have had little time to blog.
Now, however, I am free once more. Stacy has been shot by my manly friend Col. Blackheart, a big game hunter who has now, he informs me, turned to hunting the deadliest game of all. Whilst he insisted that the deadliest game of all was man, I showed him a new project of mine that involved cross-breeding scorpions with laser-guided missiles. He has quickly changed his mind about hunting, and is apparently far too busy catching up on all the episodes of Lost that he TiVo'd whilst he was hunting zebra fish in the Amazonian River.
So, now that I am free to blog about my own devices (which include the digital can-opener and the free-range assassin droid), I can tell you more about scientific histories, and the great rivalries therein.
Not many people know this, but Guglielmo Marconi, the man commonly referred to as the inventor of the radio, was the arch-nemesis of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, the man who invented wind currents and Morse code. This was an impressive rivalry, as Marconi was born two years after Morse had died. This is not, however, as impossible as some skeptics might think.
Morse did briefly experiment with electromancy, and this is how he was able to sustain himself for such a long time after his supposed 'death'. He used electric currents to reanimate his recently deceased corpse, whilst himself being deceased. An impressive feat, and one that was lauded by the scientific community. But his Nobel Prize was a posthumous one, and thus he was not elligible for any of the prize money.
His subsequent rampage through the streets of Stockholm is widely documented, although at the time most believed him to be Frankenstein's monster rather than the reanimated corpse of Samuel F. B. Morse. It is through this pure rage that he was able to keep himself reanimated for such a long time. His earlier invention, Morse code, was upstaged by Marconi's radiotelegraph system, which Morse viewed as 'showboating' and 'witchcraft'.
Ironically, or perhaps not, Marconi's first radio transmission was simply the letter S in Morse code, repeated over and over again. Morse intended to sue Marconi for copyright infringement, and perhaps patent infringement as well. Morse was further enraged when he found that, due to him being legally (and medically) dead, the patent rights had been passed to his second wife Sarah Elizabeth Griswold (who, it was well known, was an absolute bitch).
Morse's rage eventually subsided when he realised that Marconi's invention was more useful than he had originally thought, and he discovered the soothing wonders of smooth jazz. This was, however, a belated peace accord, as smooth jazz was not invented until the 1960's - roughly 59 years after the invention of the radio and the beginning of their subsequent feud.
I hope that I have enlightened the masses and entertained the volumes. That's a little physics joke for you, there. So, until next time, I hope you have enjoyed another one of my ADVENTURES IN SCIENCE!
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