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\f0\fs26 \cf0 (This is not my story, but from a guy on a mailing list I'm on. It makes me giggle every time I read it. hope he doesn't mind my passing it along...)
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\f0\fs26 True story:
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\f0\fs26 I was working from home one day, dialed in to a team teleconference. The Roomba woke up for its scheduled cleaning pass, and started noisily trundling around the living room. I was in the middle of giving my status\'a0
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\f0\fs26 update when I simultaneously noticed (1) the Roomba was leaving weird muddy-looking tire tracks (2) my cat had barfed several times around the room and (3) the Roomba was headed straight for one of the larger\'a0
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\f0\fs26 juicier piles.
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\f0\fs26 Randomized exploration algorithm my ass - that perfect trajectory was nothing but pure robotic spite.
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\f0\fs26 Time seemed to slow to a crawl as I lept across the room. I got to the Roomba with my hand outstretched just as it enthusiastically ran down the barf. In slow-motion horror, I watched as the overwhelmed vacuum\'a0
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\f0\fs26 consumed what could be consumed and its brushes sprayed the rest in every direction. I snatched the Roomba off the ground, using the removable bin as an ill-considered handgrip, my thumb right on the "detach"\'a0
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\f0\fs26 button.
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\f0\fs26 The arc of my energetic lift resulted in a dramatic stage separation about hip-level. The main body of the Roomba shot off at tangent towards the couch, trailed by an explosion of partially digested cat food and barf-
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\f0\fs26 coated dust bunnies. It went everywhere.\'a0
\i Everywhere.
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\f0\fs26 I stared at mess in shock, shaken back to reality by a muffled "Beep-boop" coming from the eviscerated machine on the couch. The Roomba sounded vaguely accusatory as it declared mission failure.
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\f0\fs26 Nothing lets you know that you've arrived in the future (and the future is very weird) like signing off early from a global teleconference with the phrase "I need to go clean up after the robot."}