If only Edison would take a day off to invent a baggage on legs that would trot, dog-fashion, after its owner -- just a modest little baggage of, say, fifty pounds -- it would revolutionize life.[ibid, pg. 197]
Yes, there it is, The Luggage, give or take a few pounds, extra legs and a more-truculent attitude, trotting along in Mr. Franck's imagination. Who knew?
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* I should warn 21st-Century readers that Franck, writing in 1916 or so, was very much a man of his time, which is to say causally and by default racist, and willing to attribute to ancestry any number of traits we would today lay to poverty, poor nutrition, isolation or lack of opportunity. That said, he's a fairly keen observer once his prejudices are taken into account, and his story of a walking trip though areas about a remote as any that could claim to be civilized in a day before radio and with only the slenderest threads of communication with the wider world is eye-opening.
5 comments:
One of the frustrating aspects of mechanical engineering is attempting to design something new. Just when you think you've got something, you find out someone else tried this 30, 40 years ago and it didn't work because....
Boston Dynamics has been working or related technology that will lead to just that kind of luggage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf7IEVTDjng
But, will it come with a default setting of inflicting GBH to anyone who tries to steal it???
Then, and only then would you have The Luggage.
"But, will it come with a default setting of inflicting GBH to anyone who tries to steal it???"
I suppose an accessory Doberman or Chow-chow jaw with surgical stainless-steel scalpel teeth could provide the requisite 'great bodily harm' desired...
Vagabonding Down The Andes is available as one of those $1.99 Kindle downloads. I bought it last night and ended up reading till 1. Based on what I've read so far, this purchase will be followed up with a hard copy for my bookshelf.
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