Wilbur walks into a private booth at the mall. He swipes his card, strips his clothes, and lays down onto the bed. Using body recognition software to locate key body points, a computer sizes him up and calculates where to position the hundreds of needles the robotic arm will insert into his body. Wilbur tries to lay as still as possible as the robot sticks little pins at precise pressures and depths into his skin at speeds no human could reproduce. After awhile, the needles are pulled out again. He waits for the machine to finish, expecting to hear a calming 'your acupuncture session is now complete. Please reclothe, and exit to the right. Have a nice day!'
While lying down, however, Wilbur notices an 'out-of-order' sign that has fallen. The voice of ED209 is heard. 'Lower your weapon. You have 10 seconds to comply...'
In the distance a seedy-looking teenager is seen, watching with a smirk.-- RayfordSteele, May 06 2010 Franz Kafka, "In the Penal Colony" http://en.wikipedia...In_the_Penal_ColonyWhat this reminds me of. [jutta, May 06 2010] XM214 http://en.wikipedia...wiki/XM214_MicrogunMinigun "lite" [8th of 7, May 08 2010] I think you got the wrong category for this one. Should be culture:sex-- mouseposture, May 06 2010 Did Wilbur forget to select the type of acupuncture he desired before stripping? How does the computer know where he hurts or the kind of treatment he requires? (On a side note, I have only received acupuncture treatments twice: Once for a smoking cessation program; Once to relieve back pain caused by muscle tension. Neither required pins to be placed all over my body. In fact the "stop smoking" pins were placed only in my ears.)-- jurist, May 06 2010 Baked: I believe it is called an Iron Maiden.-- Twizz, May 06 2010 Earlier this week I tried to get an orange soda from a vending machine, but it gave me lemon-lime. There are roughly 12 Trillion Vending machines for every human living or dead, but they still haven't quiet perfected the "dispense cans of soda" robotechnology yet. That is why I will not be allowing a robot to stab me with giant needles. In fact, I'm not to keen on human efficacy in general either. I'm not letting anything stab me with giant needles, okay? No!-- victory, May 06 2010 [Jurist] Stop Smoking Pins work best when placed through the filters of cigarettes.-- Twizz, May 06 2010 I would buy one of these machines to install in my church. First, I'd buy a church.
[+] For automating pseudoscience, a movement I find very amusing.-- awesomest, May 06 2010 Pokes ex machina-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 07 2010 I just started typing the words "Penal Colony" when I noticed Jutta's annotation.-- xenzag, May 07 2010 I go to acupuncture, and this cannot work. It is much more subtle and my acupuncturist finds the exact point by touching several places in the same area until I respond. [victory] just so you know, the needles are as thick (thin) as a strand of hair...-- xandram, May 07 2010 I thought the point of this was that it didn't work.-- nineteenthly, May 07 2010 [nineteenthly] Good point, and also [marked-for-tagline]-- mouseposture, May 08 2010 // touching several places in the same area until I respond. //
Um, [xandram], are you sure that's "acupuncture" as such ? What sort of a "response" are you talking about here ?
As the core of thie mechanism for this system, we envisage something closely resembling an XM214 Microgun <link>-- 8th of 7, May 08 2010 random, halfbakery