I first became a dad a few months ago, which means now I begin the slow descent into not understanding anything technological anymore. This is not so much a function of bigotry as much as it is not having any damn time to learn anything. But rather than rage against the dying of the lightbulb in my brain, I've decided to lean into this… dumbening… with all the force simple inertia will grant me. My two most complex thoughts from here on are these: one, there oughtta be a law—about whatever it is, the consequences be damned; two, someone oughtta make something that works. (Works herein defined as whatever the hell I want at the given moment.)Now, I don't know anything about technology—which is why I'm more baffled than anything else that Motherboard asked me to edit many of the front page headlines today—but I think I know enough to tell you that the following are things you eggheads should have invented yesterday. And don't gimme any of your "but what about cancer???" crap. You can fix cancer when I get it. Right now this is more important.1. Pair of independent robot arms that repeatedly pull up pants' waistline and fold irritably across the chest so Dad can complete other tasks while constantly looking disappointed in you.2. Subcutaneous RFID chip that tells everyone how you like your burgers and steaks done, possibly Tinder matches you.3. Motorola Razor Pube Roomba.4. Black Mirror-esque scan of your dog that you can download after he dies and ignore then too even though you aren't even doing anything, you shit.5. An app that automatically blocks anyone on Twitter with the words "Oxford comma" in their bio.6. An app that automatically replaces the words "Girls" or any of the actors' or characters' names with "The Dukes of Hazzard" and Bo/Luke/Daisy/Jesse/Rosco/Boss Hogg/Cooter/Enos or Cletus anywhere on the internet. Like, if you go to a Girls fan page, all those are automatically changed, and the main banner image is just the General Lee while a MIDI file of the theme song plays.7. Portable front-mounted body sluice that catches any extra liquid and funnels it into a third can when you smash two Steveweisers and pour them directly into your face after shouting, "ANY SUMBITCH WANNA SEE ME CHUG THESE HERE BEERS, GIMME A HELL YEAH."8. Side-mounted conversion van LEDs that cycle through over 500 different combinations of a) a girl in a leather/chain mail/gun bikini riding, b) a panther/lion/motorcyle/F-14 Tomcat, over c) a gorge/row of cars/pitiful noob/inhumanly large bicep/a panzer on fire in the Battle of Kursk.This should feature 360º real-time minicam data to model the LEDs' real-time camouflaging in case your show isn't a rager, and the audience tries to pursue you through Fresno/Stockton/Truckee, wherever you are (probably Fresno).9. A keytar whose only notes are painfully didactic biographical trivia about Nikola Tesla.10. Programmable cat dish/scale that reacts to any combination of over 1 ounce of weight and audible mewling with Kurt Russell's voice saying, "You still have food, asshole."Alternate: App that randomly gives you a pun name, IBU amount, origin story and brief history of a kind of malt or hops whenever it detects someone around you telling you about their beer.Jeb Lund is a columnist for the Guardian and Rolling Stone. He covered the 2011-2 GOP primaries for Vice.
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