this dude dean kamen, who invented the segway scooter, is working on a new prosthetic arm that would be able to pronate and supinate like a regular arm. it would also be able to grab a single pea and put it in the person's mouth. then grab your head and crush it like a beer can. the arm weighs the same as a regular arm and has to feel a lot better than a metal hook. even if you go to sleep at night wondering if your new robot-like, darth vader super arm is going to rip off your genitals, it still has to feel better than a hook. dismembered people have had it too crappy for too long. "you cut off your thumb? well, don't worry. we'll sew one of your thumbs up there, and you'll never know the difference." a hook is the best we can do? it would seem that we could just make the hand into a hook. like a regular hand with a permanently hooked index finger. but if you do that, it just always looks like you picked your nose. the middle looks like you can't quite flip someone off. the third looks like you're making fun of the mentally challenged, and the pinkie just makes you look like a jerk. so a hook is better than those ...but barely. we make our disabled people look like third world robots with crude hooks, skinny titanium legs, and metal wheelchairs. why not jazz 'em up a bit? we can't design a robocop suit that universally fits all sizes so paralyzed folk can stay the same height? is it because the guy with the pogo legs is going to qualify for the olympics with no calves? the technologically advanced people are going to surpass us in every way and thus create a division of classes among the biologically pure and the scientifically enhanced? sprinters on spring legs making a mockery of those on human legs, men with kamen arms winning countless arm wrestling competitions the world over, average people lopping off their own limbs to gain an advantage, as we morph into hybrid robot-human cyborgs that blur the line between god and science? ...it sounds pretty cool.