Slashdot Mirror
Pro-Active Furniture Assembly
Gudlyf writes "Stavros Antifakos, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, has designed "clever" furniture pieces with built-in microprocessors that could relieve the confusion, anger and frustration of putting them together. The idea includes a flat-pack furniture kit whose parts are fitted with cheap microprocessors that monitor what you are doing during assembly and will warn you if you are doing something wrong or dangerous."
This sounds like a pain in the ass to me. But that's me.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Maybe I'm getting crochety in my old age, but does this seem like a monumental waste of time/technology? Hell, how difficult is furniture to put together anyway? This sounds a lot like the blinking "12:00" thing. Why not just make improvements to the design itself so it's not so complex to put together. Are we talking about putting together space shuttle command chairs here or something? I assume the next version will have blue tooth and will send you pictures of the proper installation as well as play mp3's. It will obviously have to have a change detector for the couch version that automatically updates a website with the current total, as well as a volume/mass summary of lint and crumbs.
How long before we see the /. article about someone getting the Linux kernel to boot in his futon?
What about chairs that scream alerts when we've been sitting in them for too long?
...etc, etc. =P
"GO OUT AND DO SOMETHING USEFUL INSTEAD OF SITTING IN AND READING SLASHDOT!"
"HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF A 300 POUND GUY SAT ON YOU ALL DAY."
Relieve the confusion, anger, and frustration?
"Now now... I know this is hard... you're going through a tough time, I know. Just close your eyes and count till 10... ok? Now take a deep breath and this time hit the nail with the hammer, not your thumb. You're doing a good job!"
...miserably translated confusing manuals.
Think hard. Is that what you *really* want? Instead of reading things like "tire now to be inserted where forks make vee-shape" do you want the bike saying it to you? I think I'd be laughing too hard to build a bicycle that kept telling me "All your training wheel are belong to back tire. For great justice, insert all handle-bar tassle." Maybe it's just me though...
do not read this line twice.
with the missus giving helpful advice. Now I have to listen to the actual piece of furniture I'm assembiling?
>
--- Jason Olshefsky
Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)
How about a little easter egg built, so whenever 260lbs of weight are applied, the chair says "hey lardass, time to take a diet - you're killin' my joints here."
Of course, this would never go through, but there are other interesting possibilities with weight-sensors and perhaps people on diets...
"HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN."
"Uhh...fine?"
"ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US."
"Lesse...um...base...base...Ah! Here it is. OK, do I attach the Main Column (E) to the Base (A)?"
"YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DOING."
"Great...OK...now I put the Main Screen (F) here...and the Zigs (M) go...here?"
"MOVE ZIG."
"Oh...here?"
"MOVE ZIG."
"Umm...er...here?"
"TAKE OFF EVERY ZIG."
"No, wait! It goes here, right? Or here?"
"SOMEONE SET UP US THE BOMB."
"Oh, c'mon, It's not that screwed up. Just lemme get my drill...and a hot glue gun..."
"HA HA HA HA."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
If you can't figure out how to assemble IKEA furniture, I mean.... ugh! You should not have made it to adulthood, you should clearly have already died in some horrific Lego set assembly accident as a youth.
Idiots of the world: Here's a plan. If you're too fucking dumb to insert Tab A into Slot B yourself, then YOU hire someone to do it, and YOU incur the extra cost. Don't complain until they have to start making furniture that coaxes you through assembling it, thus jacking the price up for everyone including the intelligent people like me who can and will read and follow instructions.
This is further evidence that all that time I spent in search of knowledge in my younger days was wasted. I should have just spent it drinking beer, eating pork rinds, watching pro wrestling, NASCAR, and tractor pulls on TV like everyone else, and waiting for society to mold itself to my needs as a complete buffoon.
Hmm... maybe I can fix things myself....
/me looks around for a crayon and a mallet.
~Philly
>people can't (or won't) RTFM
Ever tried to read the manual for imported furniture?
And you thought electronics manuals could be scary...
-l
A: Assembly Language
before the marketing department realizes that they can sell AD space on the things... Just think...
"While you are assembling subassembly B.... wouldn't this be more fun with a Pepsi? Or better yet Dominoes Pizza is great during furniture assembly"
or
"Warning: the structure is unstable this way... Band-Aid brand medical bandages will help protect those wounds"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Coming soon: rolls of sod with embedded chips that keep chirping "green side up!".
-- Alastair
To be reading furniture manualizations is easy. Understand not people say who hard to read they are.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
You know Marvin, the paranoid android, from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? What would happen if they used his "personality"?
"It's no use checking all the bits are there before you start, because you're bound to lose some, everybody does."
"You need to tighten it harder. You need to tighten it harder." (SNAP!) "I knew that was going to happen, it always does".
"Brain the size of a planet, and what do they get me to do? Make sure this moron that can barely string a sentence together can screw this table together. I ask you! Brain the size of a planet!"
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!