You may be wondering what one earth I mean by the title. Well, it all centers around this.
It may seem to be a really neat mechanism, at first glance: a body suit that enhances your muscle power by reading the signals that come through your skin. But there are just a few key names here that one must not miss.
First of all, notice the name of the body suit: "HAL." If that's not screaming alarms at you, then you should review your classics. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, there is a super-intelligent computer program named HAL that controls almost every aspect of the space station that three men are working and living on. At one point, HAL encounters a glitch, which for his advanced type of computer, was supposed to be impossible. HAL does not respond well to this at all. He might have let it pass untold of had not the men of the ship discovered it. With the threat of his status being destroyed by the glitch and the impending doom of shut-down for maintenance, HAL goes crazy and begins killing the men off. He succeeds with two, and is eventually turned off by the third, desperate astronaut (Dave), spouting nonsense and just generally creepy 'HAL-isms' till the very end. In fact the most famous part about 2001: A Space Odyssey (other than the screaming black column) is HAL's calm, disconcerting way of speaking.
"Open the pod bay door, HAL."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave...."
SPOOKY.
Item number two of general concern. This Japanese company could have left their unfortunate naming system at HAL (which now that I think of it, can you imagine if the HAL in the movie could control your body with this suit?) but instead the biggest, most scary thing of all is the actual name of the company itself!
Cyberdyne.
If it sounds familiar, let it sink in a bit. Uhuh. That's it. OH YEAH. How does this charming face help?
Cyberdyne Systems Corporation is the fictional company in the Terminator movie series that was responsible for creating Skynet, the super program that became sentient and nearly wiped out all human life, saving the remnants as slaves until John Conner came along and destroyed them.
Now tell me that this company isn't picking these names on purpose. Perhaps they know full well what the robots represented are, and what they did in the fictional future. Perhaps they think it's funny. Well, to be honest, it is a little...but really, it's also kind of creepy. Japan is putting out some amazing technology -- they even have their own android receptionists now (one of the most noted is named Saya, and she works for...just guess...Cyberdyne).
So perhaps it's all in good fun. But if this company names their next robot invention Cutie, I'm building a bomb shelter.
They say you have to remember the past so as not to repeat it. But what if we forget the future? Well, we're doomed then, too.
Learn from the mistakes we haven't made yet!
Well, that's all from me. Don't forget to feed the Grumbies, and you'll be hearing from me at the end of the week!
L
P.S. Please note that this article is all in good fun, and not at all attempting to portray a negative light upon the Cyberdyne company in Japan.
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