Robots are a hot topic at the moment. Reports  heralding the incredible advances in robotics are popping up all over the various media.

The word robot was introduced into the English language by the Czech author and playwright, Karel Capek, in his 1920 hit play R.U.R. or Rossum’s Universal Robots. “Robota” was an old Slavic word, referring to work without pay that peasants had to do two or three days a week on the lands of noblemen.

R.U.R. tells the story of a company using the latest scientific advances to mass produce workers who had everything but a soul. These robot workers were to do the jobs humans did not want. Inevitably, the robots rebel and turn against their human creators, a scenario akin to the famous “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that” line when the computer takes over in the movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

Modern definitions of the word robot vary. “An automatic device that performs functions normally ascribed to humans or a machine in the form of a human,” is Webster’s entry. The British Department of Labor declares a robot to be, “a reprogrammable manipulator device.”

I don’t think we are at risk of assault from out of control bots. The real danger appears to be in becoming one.

Chips can now be implanted in humans to automatically dispense medications. It’s not far fetched to assume that the next advance could be implants to control mood and behavior or nanobots to augment our immune systems. Since many people cannot read maps, personal GPS implants might be the thing of the future as well.

Personally, I don’t think being a robot would be any fun. As a child, I longed to be a grown up so I could control my own life. My parents were wonderful people, but they did tell me when I had to go to bed, force cod liver oil down my throat, pick out the clothes I wore and the food I ate. I’ve never regretted becoming an independent adult.

Life can be made easier through human robotic devices to the point where it no longer qualifies as a life. Beware of the bots. They’re coming to get us…..literally.

I have long subscribed to the theory that anybody who has a friend from New Jersey is a fortunate person. I have been exceptionally blessed with a number of wonderful friends from the Garden State, and I’m convinced that people from New Jersey are a breed apart. Perhaps we ordinary folks would be, too, if we came from places called Hoboken, Lower Squankum, Cheesequake, Brass Castle and “The Oranges”. How can you have a city named “The Oranges”?

Perhaps the reason for Jersey’s uniqueness lies in New York. All of New Jersey has to have a killer inferiority complex. It can’t possibly compete with the Big Apple. So the populace…..the most dense in the nation, by the way…..simply creates their own little crazy universe.

Meditate on this fact for a moment. Trenton and Princeton are in the same state. As we all know, Stephanie Plum is from Trenton and Einstein lived in Princeton.

I won’t even touch the topics of Newark, Atlantic City or Margate where some real estate czars built an elephant shaped hotel.

Tourism is the second largest industry despite the fact that the state leads the nation in car thefts and toxic waste dumps (108). On a brighter note, they also have the most diners and more race horses than Kentucky.

Tourist attractions abound. Cape May with its elegant Victorian homes is a birders’paradise. But don’t miss the world’s largest statue of a tooth, the world’s largest lightbulb, and the world’s largest Spoon Museum. For adventure, take in the annual Cockroach Derby at Rutger’s University (which is not called The University of New Jersey).

So go right out and find a friend from Jersey. Your life will never be dull again.

The vote is in, and the Scots have decided to keep the United Kingdom united. Whichever way the vote had gone, my husband (Clan MacGregor) and I (Bohemian) remain committed to seeing Scotland someday. An impediment has prevented travel there thus far.  More on that later.

Since I have no first hand knowledge of the country, my impressions are all gleaned from second hand sources,  mainly books.

My mother read Robert Burns’ poems to me as a child. These lines and others are a permanent part of my poetic memory:

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us!

Gorgeous, picture-filled books on the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife, Margaret MacDonald, have fueled my desire to see Edinburgh and Glasgow. These leaders of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland created buildings, furniture and textiles of unsurpassed elegance. I want to see what remains.

And then there is Alexander McCall Smith, one of my favorite authors. I’ve read all his Isabel Dalhousie books which are set in Edinburgh, so I’ve  seen the city through her (his) eyes. The entire Scottish Travel Bureau could not have done a better sales job than Mr. Smith.

My husband and I are ardent travelers who love to rent a small car and simply explore new places. We have no timetables or fixed agendas. But we both  know that a rambling, carefree road trip in Scotland would completely lack the carefree part. Driving on the left side of the road takes full concentration for us lifetime right hand side drivers. We proved this point on a two by seven mile island in the Turks and Caicos, a left side driving place. We were there for a wedding and had some spare time to wander. Fortunately, the car we rented was already a wreck. We were headed out of the rental car lot and noticed the attendant frantically waving at us……we were headed for the wrong lane. Things did not get easier. I always knew when my husband was about to make a turn; the windshield wipers would turn on.

Scotland is still in our future, but it will be on foot, train or bus.

Soon the stridulation will start. For me, that’s the signal that summer is waning and all summer pleasures should be indulged in post haste.

Stridulation is a fascinating word I came across while doing insect research for one of my science programs. This well-written definition clearly sums up the term:

Stridulation is the act of producing sound, usually by rubbing two body parts together.

The Orthoptera insect family are champion stridulators. Each species; grasshoppers, locusts, crickets and katydids(sometimes called bush crickets), has its distinctive song. Grasshoppers and locusts have a series of small pegs on the inside of their back legs. The pegs are rubbed against the fore wing to produce the call. Crickets and katydids have the pegs on one of the fore wings (tegima), and the other fore wing has a flat structure known as a file. The pegs are dragged across the file as the wings rub together thus producing the song. In simpler terms, these bugs fiddle.

It is almost always the male that is making the racket and the noise is to attract a mate. The orthopterans are all equipped with an ear on each front leg just below the knee assuring that the love songs will be heard.

Bird song fills the air in springtime, but late summer and autumn, especially autumn evenings, are given over to a cacophony of insect arias. As night arrives earlier and the temperature starts to drop, the chorus of crazed males becomes louder and louder. And then, silence. The first frost has arrived.

When I learned about stridulation, I was eager to share it with kids. Fortunately, I was just about to present my insect program at one of my favorite schools. After we did the science stuff, I asked the kids if they would like to stridulate. I can report that those first and second graders did an ingenious and fun filled job of banging, slapping, sliding and rubbing body parts. They were positively strident.
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I recently read a New Yorker article which delved into the topic of why Americans have no time. College professors who study the issue found the causes puzzling. I am puzzled that the obvious wasn’t stated: we all have to do everything for ourselves now, we’re forced to be Jacks and Jills of all trades.

Given time to think for a moment, we could all conjure up countless examples of added jobs that have been foisted on us by three perfect time guzzlers:

• A consumer driven society which demands that we buy and care for tons of junk
• The loss of jobs in the service sector
• The exponential growth of technology

I recently conjured up all the ways my time was being stolen. My list is gargantuan, but three examples will suffice.

I’m from a working class family, but my mother never washed anything but delicate “hand wash”. Milwaukee used to have numerous home laundry services, and they weren’t only for the rich. Every few weeks the laundry van came to our front door and hauled away two bulging sacks of my dad’s work clothes, dirty sheets, towels, throw rugs, handkerchiefs, etc. A few days later the van returned with two gigantic paper-wrapped bundles of sparkling clean and pressed laundry. My mother was seventy when the last home laundry went out of business. With tears in her eyes she asked me,”What am I going to do?” I told her I would show her how to use a washer.

Last week, my husband spent significant time on three consecutive days trying to get an airline credit on two tickets we had been unable to use. Since the airline was already charging us $300 to change the tickets, the lost hours seemed especially grating. On day three the purpose of the runaround became apparent. The price of the flight was increased on day three thus giving the airline $150 additional dollars.

Grocery store checkers used to ask their customers if they would like help taking groceries to their cars. The new question employees ask is, “Wouldn’t you like to use the self check out?” My reply is, “No, thank you, I don’t want you or any other employee to lose their job.”

My husband and I have a sure cure for our lack of time, but it’s a bit draconian. Buy nothing and go nowhere.