A Child Booster Seat Built Into Its Buttocks
July 25, 2014 6:31 AM   Subscribe

On July 27th, the cross Canada journey of hitchBOT will begin in Nova Scotia and make its way to BC as part of an experiment that looks at the interaction between people and increasingly ubiquitous technology.
posted by gman (18 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm pretty certain that in the United States, hitchBOT would be blown up in short order, either by a bomb disposal unit or just a guy with a bunch of firecrackers. Are Canadians less likely to interact with the unknown by means of explosions?
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:07 AM on July 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, but I'm also pretty sure someone's going to try to have sex with it.
posted by Flashman at 7:19 AM on July 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, what Faint of Butt said. Sticking arms, legs, and a face on something that looks like a pressure-cooker IED does not make me any more likely to want to go near it, let alone pick it up and take it with me in my car.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:19 AM on July 25, 2014


The terrorists haven't won here in Canada yet.
posted by gman at 7:23 AM on July 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


Despite what you may have seen on Farm Film Report, blowing it up with explosives is not necessarily the first thing most Canadians would do when meeting an unknown robot. Just as likely it gets shot, run over, stuck forever in Wawa, dismantled by bears, or carried off into the boreal forest by a lonely woodsman, never to be seen again.
posted by sfenders at 7:37 AM on July 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


I agree with these guys.
posted by jrochest at 7:38 AM on July 25, 2014


The terrorists haven't won here in Canada yet.

Yes, just have a sex with it, eh.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:41 AM on July 25, 2014


Cross-Canada my ass.

/proud Newfoundlander
posted by Lemurrhea at 7:54 AM on July 25, 2014 [6 favorites]


I'm obsolete. :(
posted by mazola at 7:56 AM on July 25, 2014


I'm holding out for LogDriversWaltzBOT.
posted by oulipian at 8:01 AM on July 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


The photo in jrochest's link shows it on Hwy 17 at Old Woman Bay on Lake Superior, which is in fact about 30 minutes south of Wawa, the world-famous black hole of hitchhiking (it's going in the wrong direction for BC, but whatevs). I'm not sure if Wawa's reputation is warranted, but I used to work summers as a ranger right there and I do remember seeing this guy - with no backpack or anything - trying to hitch a ride one afternoon, and he was still there the next day. Looked completely bedraggled and deranged, so we weren't surprised he was having trouble, but perhaps that's what trying to hitchhike around Superior does to a man - maybe he started out looking like Don Draper.

I didn't have much more luck the one time I tried to hitchhike back down south: I gave up in the middle of the night in Sault Ste Marie, walked across to Sault Michigan and spent the night in a parked, empty Greyhound before buying a ticket in the morning on that same bus for Detroit.
posted by Flashman at 8:19 AM on July 25, 2014


This is Canada, so chances are high it will just disappear and not even the "offbeat" news people will talk about it ever again.
posted by Poldo at 8:32 AM on July 25, 2014


That fold down seat could use some industrial design.
It looks like it would jack up my passenger seats!
posted by xtian at 8:32 AM on July 25, 2014


This is Canada, so chances are high it will just disappear and not even the "offbeat" news people will talk about it ever again.

C'mon now, it's a robot, not an aboriginal woman.
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:54 AM on July 25, 2014 [3 favorites]


This is not cross-Canada. There's 903 km of Trans Canada Highway and an entire province to the east of Nova Scotia.
posted by erlking at 9:22 AM on July 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


I bet getting this guy on the Marine Atlantic ferries would be too much of a security problem, erlking.
posted by Brodiggitty at 11:42 AM on July 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


When I read about this on the CBC website, I wanted to hop on my Harley, find it, and give it a ride. After all, the first robot family was built by a master hitchhiker.
posted by QIbHom at 12:33 PM on July 25, 2014


I thought that (about Marine Atlantic), but it's getting on the ferry to Victoria, so . . . In any case, it shouldn't be called "cross country" when it isn't. No different than stopping in Calgary, going west-wards.
posted by erlking at 12:54 PM on July 25, 2014


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