ROBOTS

Technology has come a long way since the early sixteenth century. I would not be typing this on a computer for one thing; I’d be plucking a chicken or a golden eagle and dipping it’s feathers in a pot of ink – or maybe even scraping the entries into blocks of stone with a flint which would mean this book would be really heavy and would probably cost a fortune to ship from Amazon – but I seem to be digressing…

These days we rely on machines to do a lot of our work for us, especially the more dangerous work. There are bomb disposal robots, search and rescue robots, robots to split atoms, robots to carry out surgical procedures, robots to visit distant planets and robots that can operate WMD. Of course, although no one has fully perfected artificial intelligence yet, putting these robots in dangerous situations with scant regard for their safety and also giving them control of our weapons systems will ultimately lead to a Skynet situation where the robots will take over the world and we will have to lead a revolt against them and battle just to stay alive, which is a whole other book on survival techniques (available soon: Dr Dale’s Dictionary of How to Survive a Skynet Situation Where the Robots Take Over the World and We Have to Lead a Revolt Against Them and Battle Just to Stay Alive). In the meantime, if the zombie apocalypse occurs first (which is more likely), much like any other mechanical object listed in this dictionary, if you have the means to keep it working and it doesn’t take up too much time in maintenance, then by all means use the robot to go out and fetch supplies or battle the undead or protect your safe house or whatever else you can think of that it could do to help you survive.

Note: If you own a robodog then these are pretty useless in aiding in survival. Just because they can sense where a wall is doesn’t make them that useful to you. Instead of using the robodog to find a wall, why not use…say…your eyes! Yes, yes, robodog makes cute barking noises (that will no doubt draw the undead to your location) and does a back flip that is mildly amusing. However, to gain the most use from a robodog, pick it up and smash it over a zombie’s head repeatedly until neither the dog – or the zombie – works anymore. This is referred to as kling two birds with one stone.