Its after Christmas, presents are unwrapped, everyone has seen and enjoyed their holiday loot…and the novelty of some of the new stuff has started to wear off. The truly cool stuff…though…keeps people coming back for more.

What does this have to do with Science Fiction? Easy. I’m going to talk about Lego Mindstorms. The EV3 to be specific. It is one of those things that you just can not put down.

Last year I reviewed for you a movie called Real Steel, very loosely based on a story by Richard Matheson. Both stories had one defining theme: boxing robots! Wouldn't it be cool if we had this in real life? Well, we do. It's called the Robot Combat League!

I spend far too much time thinking about the future of robots, but I do it for you, my Rupublibot reader. Read my column on a regular basis, and you’ll be one of the small groups of humans who survive the robot uprising.

People don’t take me seriously when I tell them that robots will be taking over many jobs in the next five to ten years, but I keep running into more and more information suggesting I’m right. Businessweek has an article, “The Robot in the Next Cubicle,” which describes a robot that costs $350,000 and can “deliver mail, pour coffee, and recognize its co-worker’s faces” (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_04/b4212069774202.htm).