MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and
chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.
23 October 2007
If you could invent one magical device, what would it be?
Well, on the one hand, it might be nice to take a stab at world hunger or something. But on the other, I'd love to have something that would automatically separate the wheat from the chaff at used-record stores.
Time stopper, like in The Fermata. Only I would not use it to explore sexual fantasies; I would use it to get work done when I've overcommitted and deadlines are too close. That way I could save my real-world time for more pleasurable things than working.
Automatic invisible cone of silence quiet machine -- for getting work done or sleeping. I'd love to be able to sleep anywhere and can't quite. On the other hand, maybe some sort of secret lair under the river where the glass roof of my secret lair was the bottom of the river. I think I'd like that. It's not quite a device though. Or maybe just a clone of me that would do the things I didn't want to [in good ways and bad].
Workable interstellar space travel that could get a ship from A to B in a matter of weeks and not centuries. Also, non-earth-environment colonisation. At this point in history, that is just about magic.
A magical food maker that makes food from any restaurant the world over. I could have the special from the French Laundry or El Bulli, or hell just the local Thai place. It would be the ultimate take-out/delivery tool. It would provide me sushi from my favorite place, and burritos from that great place in SF that I can never remember the name of. Grand, it would be. Hungry, I am.
A Laser that shoots bullets that explode into a flock of tiny arrows that turn into spitballs right before the point of impact and then just as they are about to hit reverse, spin around in a shower of rainbows and macaroons and turn into a kiss on your cheek from your moms.
How about a stack of coins that, when all the heads are up, grows into a giant metal hand that does my bidding; when all the heads are down, it turns into a comfortable adult-size bassinet with a self-folding blanket so I can be a little sleeping burrito like my new nephew.
A legal, painless, inexpensive, easily distributed, unstigmatized, 100% effective, non-violent means of voluntary self-deliverance. No one who has had to watch a person they love die slowly, in unmanageable pain, over many months, in increasing anguish, humiliation and fear, will fail to be sure of getting theirs.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
