Sunday, October 25, 2009

Seven Machines

As another crazy idea, seven sins themed machines. The "Seven sins" was an idea from Christian religion of a list of attitudes that are bad (because showing such an attitude enrages God). There were seven of them because of a numerological interest in the number seven.
My readers have probably read these from other sources, but a quick reminder.
Pride is thinking too highly of yourself, to the point where one considers oneself significantly better than other people. This one is seen as the root of the others.
Wrath is being pointlessly angry with other people, and harboring conflict for no good reason.
Envy is about wanting what other people had, be it object, character trait, or relationship, and jealously hating them for having it.
Sloth is thought of as laziness, but it also traditionally included despair, apathy, and being gloomy for no good reason.
Greed is about having money and stuff, but it also traditionally included the desire to spend money pointlessly and/or wastefully.
Gluttony is wanting food, service, and generally just MORE of stuff until you've had way too much.
Lust, today, means wanting sex. Traditionally, it also included desires for luxury and comfort to unreasonable extremes.
So generally, these "seven sins" were problems of excess, and therefore perfect things to create crazy machines about. Here's my work.
Wrath
A shirt that comes with what looks to be a label pin, but has a spring-loaded mechanism behind it. A wire runs down the user's pants into their shoe, and when a button in the shoe is tapped with the user's foot, the lapel pin shoots forward like a cartoonish boxing-glove-on-springs.
Bonus points if you spring it on people unexpectedly.
Gluttony
A chair with a mechanical arm and a weight detector. When the seat is pushed down (by a person sitting in it), it spoon feeds the person. Put it in front of a table with a bowl, sit, and be fed until the bowl is empty. When the bowl is empty, you'll have to get up to refill it, but you're not lazy, right?
Sloth
We take my Skinner-esque bed, add feeding tubes, watering tubes, a television, a video game set, and waste-removal tubes. We hook you up and now all you ever need will come to you. Your entire life will consist of watching whatever you want on television, a video game when you're bored of that, a nap when you're tired. Everything you need to stay alive will be pumped into you, and anything you need to get rid of will be pumped out of you. You need not move, ever.
Lust
A pointlessly luxurious leather couch, with heating, and massage. A large button is on the side, along with a switch with two settings, "Male" and "Female." The button provides what I'll delicately call an "intimate massage."
A small stand by the couch can hold mood enhancing "reading material," and maybe an extra mp3 player for mood music.
Envy
A picture frame, with a bunch of switches to describe the subject. Put a picture of someone you dislike in the frame, set the switches to briefly describe them, and the frame will heartlessly mock the living crap out of the subject, using a speaker and pre-recorded taunts. The user will likely experience a powerful (and evil) schadenfreude.
Greed
A bill-counting machine that transmits a boastful message bragging about how much money it counts to an entire list of people. Occasionally it destroys a bill after counting it, but still records accurately, and taunts the recipients of the message for not having that kind of money on hand. (To all recipients: I have $4,213 today, AND YOU DON'T NYAH NYAH.)
I'm still debating to myself if a cumulative model is eviler, or a daily model.
Pride
A mirror with a heat-detector. When it senses the presence of a human in front of it via the heat-detector, it starts making obnoxious cat-calls, hooting, and other insinuations that the person is immensely attractive.
If possible, the voice should select male or female as appropriate. (Probably user selected.)

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...