tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8049802.post5678762960697725138..comments2024-03-22T10:52:36.273-07:00Comments on snarkolepsy: Robots are still pretty stupid.she said:http://www.blogger.com/profile/15003430767746896739noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8049802.post-5079959503397281872018-01-14T03:22:01.947-08:002018-01-14T03:22:01.947-08:00"The guy working the robot above enthusiastic...<i>"The guy working the robot above enthusiastically came up to tell me the this was a 'wellbeing robot' that is suppose to help you ..."</i><br /><br />That one looks like a rolling air freshener with a screen and a surveillance camera dome on top.<br /><br /><i>"Him - Well, it roams buildings testing the air and controlling the temperature ..."</i><br /><br />He'd sell more if he simply told everyone it's an AI-scented air freshener instead of a rolling thermostat.<br /><br /><i>"I've never ordered perishables by delivery because I like my produce a certain ripeness. I've been training my husband for a LONG time now, and he's just getting it right."</i><br /><br />This is actually pretty easy if you approach it from an unconventional angle.<br /><br />Picture this: you have a well-sharpened and honed knife that's of a sufficient grade of steel that it'll keep an edge, and it'll slice through nearly anything. It'll slice through aluminum drink cans, plastic soda bottles, and so forth if you let someone abuse it, but you have to sharpen it on a regular basis just to deal with the usual meat, veg, and dairy.<br /><br />These days, it is probably Swiss, German, or Japanese.<br /><br />When your knife doesn't like something, it probably doesn't like it <i>for a very good reason</i>.<br /><br />Things that can be too ripe that the knife will find out in an instant: tomatoes, bananas, bell peppers. Things that are just plain wrong if the knife gives the slightest bit of resistance: outer layers of onions (that you should simply throw out). Things that will slice in a weird mushy way if they're essentially rotten: root vegetables.<br /><br />And so it seems really, really easy to train someone to know good produce in the kitchen at least: they get to find out how wrong it is with the knife, and they get to deal with the small mountain of unusable produce bits.<br /><br />Learning gets easier once they actually see the small mountain of unusable produce bits as something they've actually produced.<br /><br />What I expect with home delivery of produce: asparagus that smells of ammonia, tomatoes that are bruised, onions that are layers of tough or are essentially part-spoiled inside, absurd sizes and shapes (NSFW) of carrots, zucchini that has an outer spongy "layer", garlic that's lost its flavor or gone off because of cross-exposure, and potatoes that have more hidden eyes than at a CIA reunion. And let's not forget the chile peppers that are hiding a small army of dead bugs, the eggplants not safe to show to little children, and all of that as well.<br /><br />In other words, Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" was closer about "The Ultimate Deliverator" than these delivery bots, in other words. Hiro Protagonist can deliver my produce anytime. :-)Capital of Texas Refugeenoreply@blogger.com