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In answer to my previous post, someone asked what a Dalek is. Let me explain...
Dalek: robotic[1] baddies from the (60's? 70's?) British science fiction TV show "Dr. Who". The said Doctor travelled through space and time in the Tardis, a circa-1930's police call-box shaped device that was bigger on the inside than on the outside. He had run-ins with various unpleasent aliens, maniacs and whatnot, with the Daleks making regular appearences.
The show was a bit like, say, Star Trek, but with a much smaller budget. The Daleks were probably designed to be as cheap a baddie as possible (you don't want your heroes blowing up anything expensive, after all): they were basically jazzed-up dustbins with wheels on the bottom and sink plungers for ray guns.
The show went on for years, despite the lead actor changing at least half a dozen times, and these days has what's known as a "cult following", with people holding conventions and dressing up as characters and so on. Due to this popularity, an enterpising company somewhere obviously decided to flog full-scale replica Daleks to the generall public. The University of Reading got hold of one of these with the idea of turning it into an automated fire-extinguisher (for fans of the show this is probably a bit of an in-joke as the Daleks were particulary famed for rushing around screaming "Exterminate! Exterminate" in their rather cheap-sounding systhesised voice). I get the impression it wasn't much of a success.
[1] Yes, yes, I know they were living creatures inside, but let's just keep it simple, shall we?
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