This, however, is not the fun part.
The fun part is that the robot, when its hopper is full or when it's low on power, returns to its 'base station' and unloads its cargo of slugs. The base station then ferments their dead bodies and uses the by-products to power a fuel cell to re-charge the robot so it can go out and get more slugs.
A robot that powers itself off of the corpses of its defeated opponents. Now THAT is the kind of science we need to see more of.
And now, sordid tales of Windows CE.
What WERE they thinking? Windows is large, bloated and surly. Palmtop devices are small, sleek and functional. As I've been working with palmtop devices lately, it was eventually possible to convince the people in Business Development to cough up a palm-top to help test on. This wretched thing was an 'HP Jornada', which ran Windows CE, was in full color, and recharged itself instead of needing a continual infusion of fresh batteries like the Palm IIIx we had been playing with. However, to 'sync' to the computer, an essential part of the process we had to test, required the installation of 'Windows CE Services' on my PC at work.
Windows CE Services, of course, first required Microsoft Exchange+. This was installed, and required a reboot.
Meanwhile, I played Solitaire on the Jornada.
Okay, now, having restarted, it was time to actually install Windows CE Services. The installer wizard ran and promptly crashed. Hm, I thought. This bodes ill. Ran it again, and it chugged happily this time.
Meanwhile, I played Solitaire.
At the end, however, it somehow managed to munge itself horribly and died. Before this could be fixed, however, it required me to restart.
Meanwhile, I played Solitaire.
Tried to sync up, having pretty much installed the thing. Nope, it knew the COM2 port was there and valid. It knew there was a palm-top there. The palm-top knew that something was trying to sync up. However, the two were unable to actually accomplish the sync. More horrible dying occurred, until the Windows CE Services refused to acknowledge the presence of any ports at all on the PC. Hm, I thought.
Tried the 'Detect New Hardware' function of Windows, since we'd had to do a little fiddling to get another 9-pin COM port set up on this PC (involving swapping out the old, large and surly COM2 port for a new, small and less surly one). This spun for a while.
Meanwhile, I played yet more Solitaire.
Eventually, various sequences of un-installing, fiddling, modifying and kicking were tried, but the installer continued to get more and more surly, until it became apparent that the first munged install had permanently buggered something up so that now it was IMPOSSIBLE to properly install the thing.
Went over, bitched until my co-worker took the Jornada and I got the Palm IIIx. Laughed as he now faced the task of installing Windows CE Services on a Windows NT machine. It had only taken me an hour and a half of struggle on Windows 95. On NT, it took nearly two, but he did eventually get it working.
Meanwhile, I installed the Palm 'sync' software.
In under five minutes.
Flawlessly.
This is your computer. This is your computer on Microsoft. Any questions?
Microsoft's mottos, "This is where you will go today", and "It Just Fails".
Goku zips along over the dying planet, as we get lots and lots of shots of Namek coming apart at the seams. It seems the Saiyan is heading for Frieza's ship, as it's much closer than his own. Goku gets there, all right, but Frieza's ship had taken too much of a beating, and won't start up. Darn it, don't those villains know to take their ships in for maintenance every thirty thousand parsecs?
Also, nevermind that we saw the ship fall into the ocean during the earlier fight sequence.
Well, once again it falls, this time into lava, with Goku escaping just in time. Is this the end? "No!" Goku yells, "I'll never give up!" However, instead of flying desperately for his own ship, which had the engines warmed up and ready thanks to Bulma, he'll just stand there and yell a bit. Geez, show, don't tell, guys. Show, don't tell.
Anyway, Planet Namek detonates explosively. King Kai yelps and searches a bit, but confirms it went boom, and Goku is nowhere to be found. Everyone in the Next Dimension angsts. King Kai realizes someone will have to tell Gohan, and Yamcha suggests that he should tell Bulma, and then let her handle it.
Bulma, back on Earth, hears Yamcha's voice, and wonders if she's going insane. Nope, it's just telepathy. Yamcha and Bulma banter affectionately a bit, until King Kai begins to get surly, and Yamcha remembers he's calling 'long distance'. Yamcha fills Bulma in on Frieza's demise, which she passes on to everyone else (naturally, this being DBZ, the idea of being contacted telepathically by dead guys with insight into what's going on is taken as completely normal), causing much celebration. Even Vegeta looks moderately impressed. However, Yamcha also tells her about Goku, which Bulma cheerfully passes on as well.
In the Next Dimension, Yamcha has a fit, as the whole reason he was telling her first was that she was supposed to break it gently. But Bulma, revealing once more that she's a lot smarter than pretty much everone else, points out that Goku, too, can be wished back with the Namek Dragonballs, that is, if he is actually dead, which none of us believe for a moment. The Namek Dragonballs can wish people back multiple times, after all. Yamcha passes this on to Chau-tzu, as well, and everything is happy until King Kai rains on their parades. The Dragonballs, he points out, send people back to the point where they died. Which would be Namek. Which doesn't exist any more. So if Krillan or Goku were resurrected, they would reappear in deep space and promptly die in hard vacuum. Oooops. That derails Bulma's train of thought, although it's possible she'll come up with something else.
But now Vegeta steps in, now that it's been confirmed that Goku and Frieza are gone for good (yeah, right). He IS the strongest fighter in the universe, now, and he feels like throwing his weight around a bit. He debates wether to kill Gohan now to keep the kid from growing up to become a threat, but decides against it; after all, the kid IS the only other surviving member of Vegeta's race. But Gohan's getting a bit surly at this point, and decides to challenge Vegeta. The two scuffle a bit until Gohan actually lands some blows, at which point Vegeta beats the snot out of him. Vegeta prepares to kill Gohan, when Piccolo steps in and tells him to cut it out. Surprisingly, Vegeta actually does, flying off into the distance. What's he up to this time?
Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or alien spores of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Certified 'Syndicate Approved'. Squeeze the lemon. Remember, kids, only users lose drugs.
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