ok! I am not Isaac Asimov and I'm sure you will be happy to know that I am not a Robot. Last checked by 32412314x3 and passed with a light lube and some extra wiring, packed and shipped 1952.

Mr Smith is bellowing while lost in space and our image of Mechanical Mayhem surfaces with some trepidation as to the true direction of our very soft species.

What I am about to tell you is not science. It is not even somebody else's idea, although no doubt that I could not utter a single word at all if it were not for every stimulant that has perpetrated its effect on this highly complex organism, i.e. this ME since I was shipped out in 1952.

When we see the Detroit car manufacturing, robot-arms swaying with regular irregularity in the noise ridden Model-T Ford mass production plants, we are at ease.

We recognise the method, the reason for their existence and we applaud the techno advancement that has occurred. These are not the robots of the future, they are now. I once owned a car that was manufactured in 1952.

Since that day when my self propulsion system kicked into gear, I, like many Artificial Intelligences have begun to accumulate information and even assessed some of it to use in conjunction with my onboard computer to make decisions that allow me to write these words. Your accumulated 'stuff' is helping you to read this 'stuff'.

We all carry a lot of 'stuff'. Unlike many of our global, fellow, soft belly organisms, we, so called humans, are able to do some remarkable things. We can store and retrieve information and then with the dexterity of a layout program attached to a plotter and speakers emit stuff. We can even become very precious about this "personal" stuff. Some of us even believe that the stuff we have, is totally cool and all others should have some of our stuff. Many of my friends were also shipped in 1952.

To this day I have not met a single other organism that displays anywhere near what I have come to understand as ME. Am I unique? I do not think so! My experience may be sifted exclusively through my computer but the signals are repeated everywhere, even in the two old Kookaburras that live in the big Hoop Pine outside our home. When they laugh I am truly them. Zen and the art of 1952.

So what about the bloody robots then. I hear the more vexed searchers for the unique written material exclaim in the back of their onboard and sometimes very impatient computers. Who programmed that aspect (i.e. impatience) anyway? I could discuss the probes that will be sent beyond the call of duty into "Out There", but I am far more interested in the Nano Robots that will define the behaviour in the not to distant future. We may never get as good a year again, but then why 1952?

My zoologist friends in Austria test the quality of mountain streams by the health or lack thereof of the very tiny flat worms that inhabit the waterways. You know of course that since 1952 that there has been a marked improvement in the quality of Alpine streams! Just a little bit of good news and a break from routine. Other friends of mine are deliberating Schroedingers Cat and the Worm Oroborus. Somewhat eclectic all this but never the less very important. Why? Because you have to imagine that all this is the result of 1952.

Divergence in science is a by-product of the magnitude of research. We have a lot of it about and I am sure that many paths that should cross are presently ignorant of each other at present. Small algorithms and global chat will combine to alert all who need to know and from this evolution we will get chemical compounds that are delivered by NANO beasties at the required site within our very soft belly. Should I wish to dial 911, a special "Mothers Little Helper" will force me by way of injection to dial 1952.

Health and attitude will be as regulatable as snow fall in Cairns. Quiet little achievers that will divert me from my myopic views and force me to believe in the yellow brick road. They may even cause me to be ignorant in bliss and howl at some icon effigy of a giant coffee cup. We may all be rising like seagulls at dust to sing out the sun and then retire to a cold solarless system remembering 1952.

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direct feedback: kasper@tpgi.com.au