Robot Burials

[:]

After watching "The Honking" quite recently to seeing "A Pharoah to Remember", I noticed that the way they buried dead robots was quite different. Bender's Uncle Vladimir was buried in styrofoam casing and a cardboard bow marked "Return to Sender", but when the PE crew held the funeral for Bender, he was in a more ordinary casket...

[#1 :]

Can't have a mini-bar in a styrofoam-filled box.

Besides, maybe that's a cultural difference.  In NNYC they bury robots in caskets, and in Transylvania, or where ever it was, they bury robots in cardboard boxes.

[#2 :]

I have a better question.  What would make a robot die of natural causes anyway?  Can they just get too old?

[#3 :]

i guess parts would get worn down like when your car's transmission goes or when your microwave explodes in a ball of hell's fire.

[#4 :]

I don't know, maybe their circuits wear out or something.

[#5 :]

 

Originally posted by B.Frankendorfer:
I have a better question.  What would make a robot die of natural causes anyway?  Can they just get too old?

Perhaps they get a virus and their hard-drive (Brain) will be wiped?

[#6 :]

 

Originally posted by aslate:
Perhaps they get a virus and their hard-drive (Brain) will be wiped?

That's not a natural cause of death. And besides if parts gets worn out, you replace them.

[#7 :]

Bender got really sick in "Fry And The Slurm Factory" when Amy's watch was blocking some of his gear wheels. If it was serious enough it could probably result in the robot dying.

We also saw lots of broken robots in "Bendin' In The Wind", so robots do deteriorate and become less functional over time. Would eventuel lead to their death. If replacing parts were so easy, all those broken robots wouldn't be there. They didn't even consider fitting Bender with a new body either, maybe Mom's robots can only function with the original parts (either to avoid them being undestructable or more probably to sell more robots).

Fat Bot got a virus in Tijuana (Mars University) and had to be rebooted.

[#8 :]

Bender were smashed to pieces in Roswell That Ends Well, he seems to be ok now.

[#9 :]

I think I'll chaulk this one up to good ol' cartoon logic. 

[#10 :]

I can't really see a robot dying of natural causes or of old age. I mean in "Roswell That Ends Well," Bender's head was in the desert for 1,055 years yet he was still alive when the Planet Express found him once they got back to the year 3002. Maybe it's kind of like with any appliance. After being used for a while it just dies out on you. It's probably the same way with robots. Bender's head stayed immobile in the desert for all that time so maybe that's why he survived over a thousand years out there.

[#11 :]

maybe we all will never understand this, like women...

[#12 :]

hey!!
i'm a woman.. except i have 2 eyes

[#13 :]

 

Originally posted by B.Frankendorfer:
I have a better question.  What would make a robot die of natural causes anyway?  Can they just get too old?

id probably say similar to when ur forced to format ur PC, when the hard disk gets that full of crap (remaining systems files from uninstalled software, old device drivers etc) that the thing pretty much refuses to work properly...

[#14 :]

 

Originally posted by Sera:
hey!!
i'm a woman.. except i have 2 eyes

Then you can't be a woman!everyone knows that they have three!

[#15 :]

 

Originally posted by Sera:
hey!!
i'm a woman.. except i have 2 eyes

All I meant was that I have many a female friend and I will 
NEVER be able to understand the way they think and why they act the way they do. When someone figures that out, that man will be worshipped like no ruler or god has been worshipped before.

[#16 :]

This reminds me of that movie "What women want".

[#17 :]

 

Originally posted by ProcreatoryHead:
 
id probably say similar to when ur forced to format ur PC, when the hard disk gets that full of crap (remaining systems files from uninstalled software, old device drivers etc) that the thing pretty much refuses to work properly...

Welcome to PEEL, ProcreatoryHead. Enjoy it here. 

Wouldn't it equate murder to format a robots harddrive. That way you would whipe out all individual traits of the robot, and replace it with a blank sheet.

I think mom built in an ageing device. Either to sell more robots when the old ones failed (most likely, think car manufactures) or to stop immortal robots to seize power (not likely, Mom doesn't care, she has her remote control).

[#18 :]

Teral's theory of planned obsolescence fits well into Mom's vile character, and is the best one to use in a script...

However, everybody's forgetting Robot Hell, and robo-religions (the real ones, not the ones Bender makes up to avoid work). Many robots--believing what they are programmed to believe--believe in an afterlife, and you can't have an afterlife if you don't die.

Therefore, if you can live forever by exchanging parts, you have to have a simulation of natural death programmed into you. (Calculon, having lived over a thousand years according to "The Honking," may be a robo-athetist.)

This may all be a cover for Mom's planned-obsolescence scam. The part that makes my head hurts is the fact that robots like Calculon can choose to defy death, and therefore have genuine free choice, just like you puny humans have been tricked into thinking YOU possess. Mwahahahahahahaha!

[#19 :]

But then, on the other hand, Robot Hell isn't part of an afterlife; robots go there while still "alive" or at least in THIS world, the moment they violate their contract. Oy.

[#20 :]

I think that the plan is that robots die if they DONT have their parts replaced every so ofetn. This happens a lot because of the phenomenal cost of robot spares. Mom makes her money this way.
So rather than replace their beloved metal mate people just throw them away, and buy a plastic pal.

Simple. 

[#21 :]

Doesn't calculon change his identity every now and then just so he can stay alive?

[#22 :]

Calculon?  He rather hit you over the head with a spatula!

[#23 :]

Then there's the question of how much physical endurance a robot has. In "A Head in the Polls", the titanium mine accident trapped dozens of robots. Then it was said that if the robots aren't rescued, they could die in around 300 years.

Mom probably makes and sells robots that get by with cheap fuels. They probably invented some high-efficient kinetic motors in the future, but Mom likes to dupe her consumers for money. That's the theory behind manufacturers of appliances. If they made refrigerators that lasted 100 years, not many people would need to buy replacements, now would they?

[#24 :]

In "The Honking",  what was the deal with the modems? And the "spirts" comming back via them?

Or is this due to wizards.

[#25 :]

Although it went completely over my head the first time The Honking aired, I think the total-balonium "science" of the episode (such as programming "leaking" out of dead robots into faulty modems, "allowing them to project themselves as ghosts" FOR GOD'S SAKE) was meant to parody the total-balonium conventions of your average old-timey ghost/werewolf movie. (It's no stupider for a metal body to turn from robot into car than for the flesh and bone of a human to convert back and forth into a canine.)

[#26 :]

robots could die from software errors, which could easily be natural causes. or better yet, that ep of red dwarf when that other guy comes to replace kryten. nobodys seen it (except maybe Kryten) and i cant be bothered explaining. *yawn* im bored, your boring.

[#27 :]

Thank God I'm a Nintendork.

I said that because when I watched "Godfellas", I feared for Bender's life. But playing Mario Kart 64 made me go wacko because Bender came back at the end!
 

[#28 :]

welcome to PEEL Sera! 

[#29 :]

welcome to the board of tomorrow, ProcreatoryHead 

[#30 :]

welcome to the lounge, RedHotLlama! 

[#31 :]

welcome to the board of no return, Andrea Huckstep! 

[#32 :]

What about Crazy(?) Eddie, the nervous and exploding car-sales robot?

[#33 :]

Wait, have I missed something? Has Bender died and left the show or something? WHAT??

[#34 :]

If he has died and gone forever, I dont know if I want to watch this show anymore....

[#35 :]

Um... ignore Andrea. From my experience with her work on the old Outlet boards, it seems her grip on reality is rather tenuous. Think Nurdbot with better grammar and a complete lack of irony.

[#36 :]

 

Originally posted by Kryten:
Um... ignore Andrea. From my experience with her work on the old Outlet boards, it seems her grip on reality is rather tenuous. Think Nurdbot with better grammar and a complete lack of irony.

Sorry, Kryten. In my fanfics and my daydreams, Bender is friends with Mario and Luigi.

Now, I've been put on buspar to keep me from flipping out...

[#37 :]

welcome to PEEL Gocad!   

[#38 :]

You needed to edit a welcome?

[#39 :]

I'm thinking typo on the name, knowing Randi. Gocad becomes Gonad so easily...