User:Tokimasa
The Dishes Aht The Windah Act (DATW) of 2000 legally empowered a person or persons living in a multiple person dwelling to create and enforce a timeline in which dishes should be washed. In the opinion of many, this act enabled numerous dishes to be washed or be disposed of that otherwise would have remained in the sink for weeks, if not months. The removal of dirty dishes from the sink is a key to maintaining a healthy kitchen.
Creation of the Law[edit | edit source]
The law originated in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, where many students attending the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University live. A young man had neglected his dish-washing duties for two weeks, at which time his roommate told him he had three days to wash the dishes, or else said dishes would be thrown out the window. Three days passed, and the dishes still had not been washed, so they were subsequently throw out of a nearby window, crashing onto the lawn below. It is not known how many dishes were involved in the original incident.
Because the situation was hardly unique to that dwelling, a grassroots movement was created to bring the law to the City of Pittsburgh, and, after much campaigning, it was enacted as a local ordinance by then Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy.
Due to the heavy Pittsburgh accent the roommate has, some poetic licence was used in the law's name, and, indeed, many would argue it is an intrinsic part of the law's charm.
Procedure[edit | edit source]
In order to enact the DATW ultimatum, first one must allow dirty dishes to accumlate and sit in the kitchen sink for a period of at least two (2) weeks. Any time after the two week period has passed, the issuer of the ultimatum (complainant) may verbally issue the DATW. As soon as the DATW has been spoken in its entirety, the clock starts immediately and the non-washer of dishes must either wash the dishes and put them away, or, when exactly seventy-two hours has elapsed, the complainant may throw the dishes out the window.
Weaknesses of the Law[edit | edit source]
Once the law was enacted, two primary weaknesses were discoved in it. The first was that the law only applies to dirty dishes that are in the kitchen sink, and it does not apply to dirty dishes anywhere else. This weakness was exploited by The Jared Android, who, with its positronic brain capable of hundreds of computations a second, realized that it could simply take the dirty dishes and hide them in a cupboard that was too high off the ground for his complaining roommate, Detective Mrvos, to see.
The other weakness is that the law cannot be applied with the same ease in every dwelling. Some dwellings do not have a window that is conveniently located near the sink, whereas others have a window that somehow makes it hard to toss dishes through it, e.g. a small window, or one that is blocked in such a way that righties have difficulty projecting dishes through them. These weaknesses were not addressed prior to the end of the Murphy administration.
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The Roeper Android, also known as TRA, is an artificial life form created by Deloitte. The initial purpose of TRA was to replace a valued worker who died on the job. Subsequent versions of TRA have become increasingly powerful in their capacity to perform Deloitte auditor work. These androids have a human-like appearance, but they can work for as many as 23 hours in a 24 hour period without requiring any downtime. Few, if any humans can survive the tortures that are a daily routine for Deloitte auditors, such as hand counting box cars in sub zero weather. TRA can handle such tasks with relative ease. At this time, there is only one known active TRA. This TRA is considered experimental and when the imperfections are worked out of it, Deloitte expects to begin mass production of TRAs. As of the present moment, TRA is based in Deloitte's Pittsburgh office, but at any given moment, it may be on assignment in some small town in the tri-state area.
Origin & History[edit | edit source]
In February of 2005, an auditor in the Pittsburgh office of Deloitte had a heart attack while on a job. The cause of this was primarily the stress of working 115 hour weeks along with being forced to perform menial tasks such as fetching lunch, manually counting box cars, and highlighting annual reports. This young man, age 23 at the time, was found slumped over a desk several hours later. He apparently died due to not receiving any immediate treatment for his heart attack. Deloitte immediately destroyed the body and replaced him with a life-like android, which was named TRA (The Roeper Android). Subsequently, TRA was pulled out of service for violation of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, and replaced with an updated and improved TRA, TRA v2.0. Currently, the TRA v3.0 is in development and should be released in the very near future, as it is feared that TRA v2.0 is close to a meltdown. The 2.0 has been observed demonstrating some possibly homicidal tendencies and, despite the extremely high number of lunches TRA v2.0 can fetch, the litigation expense may not be worth keeping TRA v2.0 activated. Additionally, TRA v2.0 has very poor email production despite having a high speed wireless link to the internet. Top Deloitte scientists and engineers are working on this problem and promise there will be improvements with the v3.0.
The memories and experiences of the human auditor were copied from his lifeless body and uploaded into TRA's brain. Thus, TRA (all versions) has a pre-programmed life and experience which it can use should the "small talk" subroutine be needed. These memories and experiences include playing midget football, NASCAR expertise, attending Duquesne University, and being completely annihilated in a drunken Oklahoma drill.
Recently (summer of 2006), TRA v2.0 was involved in a serious accident while doing some backwoods accounting. Below is the report as it was given by TRA:
"It was a quiet Saturday afternoon in Northern PA. The birds were singing, squirrels were playing, grinders were grinding. TRA was out grinding on its quad when tragedy struck. It was barreling out of control dahn a hill when its quad turned on it. It was tossed over the handlebars. At the same time it decided to engage in a headbutting contest with a tree. The tree won, but it was close. As it lay there, its positronic android brain calculated that it had received a fractured vertebrae in its back (just between the shoulder blades), a broken nose and a concussion. Being as though it was in the middle of the woods, though, no ambulance could get him. So there backed a truck as close as they could, no doubt a Ford Ranger. They loaded him onto a "backboard," which was just a piece of plywood, and carried it to the awaiting grindermobile. It was 4 hours between crash time and the time it got to an ambulance, and was then transported to Cain Memorial Hospital, which is just some guy's basement. From there it was bathed by some fine toothless women and sent on its merry way. It's now resting comfortably at its parent's house."
Powers[edit | edit source]
All versions of TRA are capable of performing routine Deloitte tasks with superhuman efficiency and speed. These tasks include but are not limited to: lunch retrieval (including placing lunch orders), highlighting, driving to Johnstown, and a computing power rivaling that of a Cray C90 " supercomputer. TRA is also equipped with a Wi-Fi connection to the internet, so it is always "plugged in", and possesses superhuman strength to carry numerous lunches at one time. The TRA's android body is also capable of withstanding all kinds of punishment that regular humans could not take, such as staying outside in sub-zero weather for an extended period of time. In addition, TRA is an expert marksman and combines its unique combination of accounting skills and marksmanship in its role as the treasurer of the Elrama Sportsman's Club.
Transportation[edit | edit source]
Although all TRAs possess superhuman speed, strength, and endurance, and therefore can travel great distances in a short period of time, this kind of exertion uses a much higher level of power than the more typical accounting duties TRA is expected to perform. Because of this, the TRA v2.0 and below was equipped with a "grindermobile" - a Ford Ranger small pickup. Because of the backlash against pickups in their use as a suburban transportation vehicle, Deloitte has started equipping TRA with a Ford Escape. In addition, all versions of TRA have been equipped with an All-terrain vehicle so that TRA is capable of performing backwoods accouting as necessary.
Limitations[edit | edit source]
TRA v3.0 and below have a known bug. Deloitte has programmed an emotional component into the androids. Unfortunately, Deloitte has not been able to control the anger component of the emotional subroutine and this has prevented Deloitte from plans to mass produce TRAs to staff their offices world-wide. The anger is measured by a device called a "Roeper Anger-O-Meter", or RAOM for short. Seemingly simple things such as placing a lunch order outside of the pre-programmed lunch time can cause a dramatic increase in RAOM. It is known that RAOM will decrease slowly over time if TRA is not subject to further RAOM-increasing stimuli; however, there is a "critical level" of RAOM, which will cause TRA to erupt in a homicidal rage. Some versions of TRA are equipped with an auto-shutdown routine that reacts to rising levels of RAOM, but this feature has been defeated in the past by TRA. It is also known that TRA experiences significant balance issues when faced with "loose carpet". It is assumed this condition can be extended to other less-than-ideal footing, such as loose gravel and ice. Deloitte has not made any plans at this time to correct this issue. At this time, TRAs are equipped with batteries that need to be charged typically once a day. As a result, they require one hour of downtime per 24 hours.