THIS is the future of body modification. Being able to detach your arms at the shoulders would be incredibly useful:
-Take one arm off to sleep on your side.
-Trade arms with your tall friend to get at those hard-to-reach places.
-Swap left and right arms to reach your back- back scratching and washing is all of a sudden possible and easy-

Here's one problem though.. If both of your arms came off, how exactly would you get them back on? I suppose they'd have to be velcro or some kind of easy attachment mechanism so you could just lean into them.. Or get used to using your nose to dial for help.
-- blowfish, Nov 27 2000

No matter how hard I try, I cannot envisage the "swapping arms" manoever.
-- Detly, Nov 27 2000


You'd never need to get a tatoo, just borrow someone else's arm
-- AndyShilliday, Nov 28 2000


I see a market for a whole line of accessories here. Galagher's 'vegomatic' arm. The roto-rooter attachment. The go-go-gadget arms edition, complete with finger phone. And of course, the spring-loaded boxing glove arm.
-- RayfordSteele, Jan 10 2002


Peter, really!, egging on a really daft idea. I am shocked.
-- po, Jan 10 2002


I often do that bliss, totally miss the fact that the crimea war was on when the idea first emerged.
-- po, Jan 10 2002


I'd like to know how you'd get the second arm off once you had removed the first . . . let alone how you would get the arms back on.
-- bristolz, Jan 10 2002


There's a comedian who does a bit involving arms attached with Velcro. He recommended Velcro patches on the wall where you could leave your arms for the night.
-- phoenix, Jan 11 2002


It would be particularly useful if you could continue to remotely control the detached arms, of course that would complicate the arm-swap scenario. I think that given the technology to easily detach and reatach arms it would be trivial to maintain remote control.
-- JakePatterson, Jan 11 2002


They had this on an episode of Angel (well makes a change from my usual Sabrina the Teenage Witch references): a man who could detach body parts and send them off to do nefarious stalker-type tasks. It was really gross and freaky.
-- pottedstu, Jan 11 2002


That ep was called 'I fall to pieces'. And although his hands had to pull themselves along by their fingers, his eyes just floated in mid-air!
-- angel, Jan 11 2002


I suppose the remote-control would be operated by tongue-stick?
-- RayfordSteele, Jan 11 2002


Toungue-stick? naw, since we are supposing detachability, there would already be a "port" that the arms would plug into, when they are attached, that the signals would be sent through. Probably something more substantial then USB, but anyway, once you are using digital signals to control the arm while it is attached, you could just use 802.11 or bluetooth to control it while it is detached.
-- JakePatterson, Jan 12 2002


Scene: Bonfire
Hey man, pull my finger
>Your arms are detached, though
Yeah, yeah, yeah - just pull one of those fingers over there
>Oh, all right <Pull>
*Pooft* (as flames shoot from rear end)
><Grabs arm by fingers, repeatedly slaps armless man sideways in an effort to put out clothing fire>
*Pooft* Ow *Pooft* Ow *Pooft* Ow *Pooft*
<Police Dispatcher>One-Adam-12, One-Adam-12, report of two men fighting at scene of bonfire, one is reported to be Armed and the other - Dangerous</Police Dispatcher>
-- thumbwax, Nov 24 2002


I'm shocked nobody has suggested that we do this with all of our limbs? It would be great if you got angry with a member of your family and hid their limbs - better yet, put them out in the open, half a meter away +
-- Ossalisc, Oct 26 2003


i want little baby arms
-- benfrost, Apr 02 2005


The connection would have to be very strong or everytime you lifted something your arms would come off.
-- oneoffdave, Apr 02 2005



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