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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.
Just my 2 cents
Yeah, if it's so smart, why doesn't it assemble itself together?
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
But I think I'll stick to paper instructions, thankya very much.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
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.
The cost of bookshelves will go up because people can't (or won't) RTFM.
Am I the only one who sees a certain irony in this?
In any case, you can't make anything foolproof - as soon as you do, someone breeds a dumber fool.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
So now the same cheap, particle-board, crappy furniture will cost 3 times as much because of all this hardware that assumes I'm an idiot. I guess the purchase price already proved that.... This is right along with today's current RF ID technology. $2 per tag to track a $3 box of widgets. Makes good sense....
... is for swingsets and bicycles and all of that other "some assembly required" crap with miserably translated confusing manuals. Think of all of the heartache it would save on Christmas Eve!!!
- Freed
"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
I wonder if it they sell a slightly beligerant(sp?) model?
"Yeah, I guess that goes there. IF YOU WANT TO BUILD IT WRONG! My god, you're dumber than the screwdriver you're currently holding wrong. I think I just saw the special olympics run by outside, go grab one of those kids and have him do it. And for the last friggin time THEIR ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SCREWS LEFT OVER. Quit thinking I threw extras in the back, dumbass."
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
How long before we see the /. article about someone getting the Linux kernel to boot in his futon?
Okay, so cheap unassembled pulpwood laminated in plastic is overpriced. But wait, it has microprocessors embedded to help you assemble it.
Is that all? Not on your life!
Don't write that check just yet. We'll include a free set of batteries for all twelve embedded processors.
NOW how much would you over-pay?
If you call in the next five minutes, we'll even throw in a piezo speaker which will tell you in five languages just how stupid you are when you try to assemble the bookshelf backwards!
<sing>Come on down to Psuedo-Dane, where you know the Prices are Insane!</sing>
[
I dunno. If the instructions (even if sparse) aren't enough, maybe Ikea isn't the place for you.
I thought the whole point of DIY or unfinished furniture was to lower the overall price.. This sounds like something gimmicky to jack it up.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Is it just me, or is this meglomatic overkill? I mean, you know whether a chair is assembled correctly or not. Does it look like a chair? Does it support weight? Then you've done an a-ok job by my standards.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Gotta wonder what the power source is gonna be. I mean honestly, if you have to plug the parts in during installation... that'd be one hell of a big power strip to deliver the 2 Amps for the chair.
Or, I could just imagine the packaging:
"Batteries not included"
Hell, finding the place to insert them would prolly take longer then putting the thing together.
But at least when it was done, those nifty green lights all over would be pretty welcoming...
Will they just stay on until the batteries die if light continues to hit the sensors? Will the couch cry if a fat man sits on it and breaks it?
warn you if you are doing something wrong or dangerous.
"Your honor, the plaintiff suffered severe injuries to his hand and fingers when the defendants product failed to warn him of swinging the hammer at that velocity in such close proximity to his hand."
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
This has, of course, already been prefigured in sci fi; someone at that company has been reading Bruce Sterling.
- undoware.ca
...yell and fight the packer if they try and ship it without all it's screws?
And if so will MFI (My Furniture is Incomplete) change their name?
...a beowolf cluster of your furniture. ...sorry :)
Ciao,
Klaus
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
When they catch wind of this, the people at Ikea are going to be pissed...
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
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."
I can hear the calls now to IKEA's support line.
"Yeah, I bought this bookshelf like 2 year's ago. I just put a copy of Microserfs on it and it won't stop beeping!"
Oliver's army is here to stay Oliver's army are on their way And I would rather be anywhere else But here today
In my experiance with this cheap easily assembled furnature, the biggest problem is the instruction manual. Usually it's some horrible job done at the last minute, then translated into English by somebody's kid who's just finished English 101. Often times the instructions are just plain wrong (presumably due to design changes made to the piece after the manual was written). Fortunatly, almost all of this furnature has the same basic instructions:
1. put all of the little lockbolt things in the little holes.
2. Put all of the big cam things into the big holes
3. Stick all of the parts together and twist the cams until they stop.
It's not rocket science, but I'd still like a manual that was at least partially understandable.
I read the internet for the articles.
Read the EULA carefully before you open the box, or Gator will relay your sitting habits back to the company, or even the Government.
I can see it now:
"Where is citizen 24601XGRB?"
"At home on his IKEA Sofa, Sir."
You must buy the cheep stuff that expects you to not loose any screws.I usually get a few extra screws in the kit.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
1) Imagine a beowulf cluster of occasional tables...
2) Dude, yer gettin' a chair!
- Freed
"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
whats the point in this? what next, include a projector that projects a video of how it's done?
a simple paper too hard to read? this would just leave to people ignoring manuals even more and putting everything where they fit in, if the assembled thing doesnt complain then: 'hey, it didnt complain, i thought it was safe to nail the wheels to the wheel hub'.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
But when it starts saying thing like, "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't let you do that," I will start buying my furniture from someone else!
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
This sounds an awful lot like the building materials that told people (vocally, not via screen) how to assemble them into a building from Bruce Sterling's novel Distraction. Don't need skilled labor if the bricks tell you what to do. Very interesting to see this in the real world.
mahlen
I defend myself by saying that, although this seemed immoral to me, it also seemed as though it wouldn't ever work anyway. --Fred Pohl, "The Coming of the Quantum Cats", ca. 1985
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!"
Huh?
On my fave Dalnet channel last night, and posted this story as an example of "sticking technology where it isnt needed." I didn't think for a moment to post it to /. - who would ever think this is a good idea?
It sounds like a 1998 business plan: putting complex technology where simple technology (unqiuely-cut pieces of chipboard and either paper or web-based instructions) would do fine. "You're on the World Wide Web? We'd be fools not to fund this!"
But more importantly, this sounds EXPENSIVE. Processors connected to a wireless link on a $35 computer desk? Why would anyone consider adding (what is today) around $500 in technology for a one-time use? What about environmental issues while shipping? Somehow, dropping a pallet of flat paks of embedded-processor dressers sounds like the recipe for $1000 in Customer Service and tech support calls, double that in returns and repairs.
All to get Piece A to say "Screw me to Piece B?" Come on.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Having been around coders for years, one can easily see that code is not always error free..
Just what a manufacturer needs... A chair that tells you to put it together incorrectly..
I can hear the tech support calls now (seems funny that there should even be tech support for a chair) --
Caller: The chair I bought is put together but it doesn't seem right.
Tech Support: Is it announcing any errors?
Caller: No.. It not saying there's a problem...
Tech Support: Well then you have obviously assembled it correclty.
Caller: I'm not sure... it doesn't seem right..
Tech Support: What seems to be the problem?
Caller: Well if I sit in the seat is the leg supposed to stick up my arse?
Tech Support: Well if you wait a week, we'll release a patch for that.. Until then enjoy your chair..
Why not? They already have toilets that can moniter the chemicals in your bodily wastes and keep you apprised of your health.
"Dave, the toilet tells me you are not eating enough fibre."
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Yup, Tab A's *still* in Slot B, etc.
What I want them to do is, I dunno, monitor the temp of my coffe mug, or analyze the desk for potential ergonomic injuries, or comment on the room's overall bad Feng Shui, or something...
--Logan
Stuff that matters: circuitbreakers, vacuum-cleaners coffee makers, calculators generators, matching salt+pepper shakers
with the missus giving helpful advice. Now I have to listen to the actual piece of furniture I'm assembiling?
>
I think people at IKEA might be pleased that the other furniture companies were wasting their time designing logic, sensors, and thinking up ways for the furniture to be mis-constructed, instead of designing other furniture.
The system can suggest the next most appropriate action at any point in time
Couch: It looks like you smacked your thumb with a hammer. Would you like to:
1)Swear in your native language?
2)Kick something?
3)Dial a friend to come over and laugh at you?
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Me: "Insert tab A into slot C..."
Bookshelf 2000: "I'm sorry Dave, but I can't let you do that" BZZZZZAAPPP!
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
No amount of money or technology will stop people from being morons and not reading simple assembly instructions. This sounds like a solution that stretches a lot to correct a minor perceived problem.
Wouldn't it be easier (and cheaper for everyone involved, including the customer) for furniture manufacturers to just suggest that people uncomfortable with assembling their own items hire someone to spend an hour or so doing it for them? I'm curious how much R&D money has been sunk into this project.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
I fondly remember the first apartment my wife and I occupied. We needed furnishings in quantity, and were pretty broke, so we did the usual thing for our neck of the woods: we head out to Ikea and snagged as much cheap stuff as we good.
We discovered an interesting thing that evening: the more difficult to assemble pieces usually have the more gutteral names. Which is convenient, because when you're screaming it in frustration, it's more satisfying. For example, when I torqued my hand on a hex wrench trying to assemble a "sverker" shelving unit, I spent a good minute and a half shouting, "Goddamn sverking sverk of a sverker!"
With this technology, I don't really expect this phenomenon to go away:
Me: Okay, lemmee see here. Almost got it...
(Electronic Female Swede): Warning. You are now applying excessive pressure to the hex wrench. Bodily injuy may result if cont...
Me: OWW! Sverking son of a sverk!
EFS: Hey, I warned you, asshole.
--- Jason Olshefsky
Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)
One application was building construction- grab a bunch of appropriate materials, attach a CPU to each piece, and they'll begin to network together and exchange blueprints. The human builders who fit things together can be completely unskilled, because everytime someone picks up a piece, it transmits instructions to his headset telling him where it needs to be stuck in relation to all the other chunks.
This story seems to be the same idea, but on a smaller and non-self-organizing scale.
When is it too much? Pretty soon, there will be no need to leave one's bed... everything will be done for you, to you, and around you by computers.
Not much fun...
What language will the microchip be programmed for? Badly translated English? What about non-English speakers? Will it repeat the instructions in multiple languages? Gah, where's the shut-off switch?
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Instruction manual? What are those? :)
All seriousness aside, this is definitely a step away from the Pollyanna Principle: Machines should work, People should think. Have we collectively become so frelling dumb that we need specialized microcomputers to tell us how to assemble a chair? And will the chips be programmed by the same English-inept person who wrote the obscure instruction manual? The first "some assembly required" item I hear say "All your screws are belong to us" becomes kindling....
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
I can just see my chair, 3 steps into the assembly process, suddenly prompting me to register my chair at the IKEA web site.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Wow! Imagine a Sauder cluster of these!
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
Here I am waiting for hydrogen cars and holodecks, what I get are talking furniture parts. Screw you guys.
In some far off corner of Virginia:
Danger... Danger Will Robinson!
You have failed to properly assemble the seat module.
Posterior collision with floor is imminent!
The Federal Institute of Technology in Nowhereland, has designed "clever" food pieces with built-in microprocessors that could relieve the confusion, anger and frustration of putting them together (e.g cooking). The idea includes milk, bread and eggs fitted with cheap microprocessors that monitor what you are doing during assembly and will warn you if you are doing something wrong or dangerous.
after all, they make all that stylish-but-cheap pine furniture that you have to put together once you return home from Ikea.
I either praise those clever Swedish designers or curse them as dirty little reindeer eaters.
The BBC have an article on this too.
My favourite quote:
I presume this sort of furniture is delivered with the book:
Furniture for Dummys
Perhpas mandatory lego experience should be a prerequisite as well...
Instead of inflating the price of the products, how about the companies spend that excess money on making the product easier to assemble?
Most of the time, its just improving the instruction manual. Instead of hiring a tech company to put all this technology in, how about you just hire a few good writers to make a nice and easy to understand manual?
Sheesh
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Anybody remember the failed attempt to have your car talk to you: Your door is ajar. Please fasten your seat belt. This is just a new application of a failed marketing ploy.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
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...
the company leasing out a general purpose robot that could read the instructions and put it together from (may be trial and error) from the signals thrown by the components' microprocessors??
:-)
The robot comes pre-assembled of course
"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
How about manuals that don't even have much in the way of written language instructions at all? A bookcase I put together recently contains the following information at the front of the manual: "You will need the following tools to assemble this piece of furniture: " ...followed by PICTURES of Hammer, Screwdriver and Tape Measure...no words at all. Now I understand that illiterate people need to be able to understand directions, but...doesn't this sort of thing just encourage illiteracy?
-- This Sig is currently under construction
There is already a natural occurance of this type of warning. It's called pain.
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
However if we could just get IKEA to stop naming furniture silly names like "the Larsson", the world would be a better place.
If you think
... but doesn't it strike you as a wee bit unsettling if furniture is designed so that mis-assembly can be "dangerous" in the first place??!
I can hear it now: "Dave, if you don't screw my leg in correctly, I'm going to come loose and stab you up the arse!"
[Dave grabs chainsaw and applies it smartly to the chair]
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
If anything, wouldn't the Swedes, who brought us Ikea, have come up with this?
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I'd like pieces that have easily removable sticks on them that say "up", "down", "left", "right" instead of "A". I've not once put together a piece of furniture where I didn't put something backwards in the first 3 steps, only to realize it on the last step.
The cost of bookshelves will go up because people can't (or won't) RTFM.
Why is this modded as +4?? It's not like every single damn bookshelf is going to have this stuff in it. And even if through some miracle all manufactured bookshelf kits do you could always (a) buy a pre-built one that doesn't have the fancy crap in it, (b) build one yourself (it's just a few pieces of wood stuck together for chrisake).
Everybody, just calm down. No one forced you to buy one of those VCRplus things that allow you to record a show based on a 6-digit code, did they?
GMD
watch this
You're making it much too complicated. All you need to know is that the square pegs go into the square holes!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Snag the chip out of one of these, and hide it in the, ummm, "personal relaxation device" of a friend of yours.
"No - Post A goes into Slot B"
<screams>
www.eFax.com are spammers
Surely this isn't really being funded by Switzerland, it must be Sweden. After all, modular furniture is their major export, isn't it?
I dont really understand why there is that much of a need for electronics in furniture assembly. The instructions are there. They are also shown in basically a GUI layout, and not a text only version. It seems like we are dumbing down the public by incorporating items like this into tasks that require only a little bit of 'using your brain'.
sideone
itbitch.com - Your reason for leaving work!
sideone
ITBitch.com Your reason for leaving work!
That's what a wife's for... "Yer doin' it wrong! No! No no no!"
I doubt they can program the furniture to breathe down my neck and huff every once in a while as I try to fit it together like a monkey with dynamite. ooh ooh eeeh eeh BOOM!
And if they could, I wouldn't buy it.
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
Come on. Furniture that comes flat-packed is almost always so easy to install the instructions rarely even contain WORDS, just pictures. How much work are these microprocessors going to save me if the full installation instructuions consist of 4 or 5 pictures, and the only tool I need is a hex-driver ?
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Well then in that vein, why are there graphics on the internet, doesn't that just encourage illiteracy?
Or do these things really just provide a language independant, non-education dependant method of communicating with the masses?
It's rather ingenious when you think about it...
No Comment.
Sounds useless in its current incarnation, but imagine this:
Customer to furniture: "I need the TV section 3 inceh wider"
Furniture: "You will need a 3/16" drill bit, and a measuring tape to complete the modofication"
Instructions follow....
Or... as is(at least used to be) so common, you are missing some bit that is essential to contruction. You can point to the missing piece on some pressure sensitive photo of parts, and the computer will automatically call-up the store and order the missing bits for you. You don't have to try explaining what you need to a person "The long brown screw with the stop sign hole at the top. It's a little longer than the door handle on the glass and shorter than the crosspiece at the shelf support"
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Who's making the toilet that wipes your ass for you?
Dibs on that patent!
insert sig here
No i ment that he brought the furniture for Birds to put up, not the men only hard wood.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
- A router built into a computer desk.
- An armchair with wireless IR/802.11 links for wireless digital headphones.
- Lamps with an IP address for a remote dimming/lighting service. (Discussed previously on
/.)
Any other ideas anyone? Anyone?"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Will it ease my mind and let me know that everything is fine when I finish building the furniture and still have parts left over?
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
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.
And to think, I used to use an Axe to hack at my furniture.
with most of the other posts here. This is a colossal waste of time/money/intellect.
IKEA, quite possibly the masters of all flat pack furniture, give nice concise directions with all of their furniture. The kicker is.... the directions are in picture form only. Very little, besides component parts needed, is actually spelled out.
If it is so easy to do that they need no written explanation, why do we need a audible one?
Sure, the furniture will talk to me when I forgot to insert "tab a" into "slot b", but will it scream in agony after I smash my thumb with a hammer?
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Come ON now, bad bad joke maybe, but OT?
Wait, you're that same m*F*r that modded that other post as OT aren't you?
Someone PLEASE revoke this dumbass' mod priviledges.
No Comment.
...in "Distraction" by Bruce Sterling.
He proposed subsystems for handling the different parts of the building process. At the point in the story we encounter this, the characters are helping to put in the walls. They wear smart gloves and wrap tape (with embedded sensors and speakers) around pre-fab blocks. The blocks then tell them where to go and what to do according to the master plan. Sample: "I am a corner block. Put me in the northwest wall."
The agenda behind this system was to enable cheap labor to put up cheap buildings quickly.
Ultimately, this seems like a very good idea. Many people don't read instructions until something breaks. Also, wouldn't it be nice to have the instructions integrated into the object, so when it breaks, you can always find them?
However, imbedding a processor, power supply, and sensors into parts seems cost prohibative at this point.
As a step towards this, instructions could be included on a CD instead of a printed booklet. This would allow animations, three dimensional representation of parts, and sound.
Another option would be to imbed an externally powered chip into items, which would have content in some standard format, for display on a handheld or desktop unit. Everyone would have an instruction reader lying around (perhaps being the same device as an EBook reader).
However we make instructions better in the future, one thing is certain: It will cost manufacturers money to implement. Many manufacturers seem to put no money or thought into instructions (poor translations, parts that don't apply to the product that was bought, bad illustrations). So unless manufacturers see a reason to spend money, we are stuck with garbage.
.
This is a classic (or soon to be) example of abuse of technology.
Of all of the means available for 'instruction' for assembly available
(12 language pidgen printed manuals, unpictable pictograms, VHS tapes,
CDROMs, Online webpages, 8/900# telephone help lines, and pdf versions),
this one makes my skin crawl.
Now if they could apply it to refolding a roadmap, maybe I could tolerate it.
One more backseat driver, in the car probably wouldn't phase me.
.
If someone is too damn dumb to assemble a piece of prefab furniture, I want them to do something dangerous and get the hell out of the gene pool. I mean, really, we as a society are making it WAAAY too easy to be a moron...
Murphy was an optimist.
...a beowulf cluster of these.
People will end up wardriving near furniture stores in hopes of finding a WAP connected to all the sofas.
My wife and I have just discovered Ikea, and in the past three weeks I have put together a kitchen table with two chairs, a chest of drawers, and two end tables. None of them were that hard to put together, but I did have a leftover part after finishing the chest of drawers whose purpose was obvious only after it was too late to put it in (plastic strip that joins the two back panels of the chest. Instead of the strip I have a small gap that nobody ever sees anyway.)
The big problem with Ikea stuff is a). damaged parts (one of the end tables had a cracked piece. Instead of going through the grief of returning it I used Elmer's glue and used vise grip pliers to clamp the piece shut until it dried.) and b). missing parts (a friend bought something that was missing all the special screws needed to assemble it).
Generally the stuff is designed so that the parts fit together only one way. Better prevention of missing and damaged parts would be more useful than microsprocessors to help you put the stuff together.
New wooden dowel insert detected, please reboot night table for changes to take affect.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
"...the confusion, anger and frustration..."
...and for those who this has arrived too late, furniture rage therapy is available. Step away from the desk.... put down the sledge hammer.
----
... 'course, this is not entirely on-topic, but: I have this lovely old wardrobe, that looks as if it were completely solid. Thing is, it's actually held together by just four screws. Two for the top, two for the bottom, and the sides are sort of wedged in. You take out the screws, lift the top, and the sides fall out on you. ... (still, I claim it to be a prime example of latter-day elegance of design markedly absent in Ikea)
... ugh. (Then you emote back: "okaaay ... but are you a *good* screw?")
... but by the time the tech has gotten that far, I expect the standard message on wake-up to be "hummmmmmm ... your apartment is too small for me to fit in. The restocking fee is $$ . . " (yadda yadda). Or perhaps, if you get past the startup: "okey-dokey, I'm all assembled. But hey, I *so* don't match your dresser ..."
Of course, it's a bugger to put together, balancing two side pieces, three back pieces, and two doors on the base, and trying to get the top on properly
More on topic: the ultimate wet-dream would be bits and pieces that could mind link with you. Imagine: you pick up a screw, and hear a happy voice in your head going "I am a screw!" - then it emotes a smiley at you
Even better would be self-assembly (okay, okay, I'm veering of topic again)
Hmmm back to the case in point: No, don't do it. It's just one less chance for a tech-geek of having even a snowball's chance in a really hot place of having any reason at all for getting laid.
</rampant sexism> [ducks]
yes, we have no bananas
How about chips that heckle you for buying Swiss furniture in the first place?
My
Limekiller
I saw the words dangerous and furniture together, got all excited, then actually read the article...
I stick to walls...
I'm pretty sure in Distraction random untrained people are always helping out on building sites because the pieces of the building know how to put the building together, and helpfully direct you.
Kind of cool that someone is doing it, even if at a small scale.
...for stupid people.
There is nothing more frustrating for me than having my wife point out my mistakes while I'm putting something together...
Will the warantee will cause damages in cases where confusion, anger and frustration were caused by these things?
If they'd just put more labels on the tabs, or color-code them it'd be far more effective. So, where do the batteries go? Besides, who wants to pay for extra electronic components that are only going to be used once? I bet this would raise the price of furniture at least $10. This sounds like another over-application of technology for technology's sake. Nice try, but this looks like another research project not thinking about practicality.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Anyways, there is a scene in the game where Torin must cross a slippery, grassy area. And the grass talks to you while you move your cursor to select where Torin should jump. When it's in the wrong spot, shrill, high-pitched, annoyingly LOUD voices shriek at you saying:
"Nope! Not Here! No Way! Nope! Unh-uh"
If I had to hear that while trying to assemble a computer desk or an entertainment center or something, I'd probably use the tools included to stab out my ear drums.
I |-|4x0r j00r ReL4x0r!
Hmm...only trouble I see with Ikea, in browsing their site, is you have to spend quite a bit to get an item that's not either (a) made of wicker, or (b) apparently designed by someone under the influence of LSD. Do people actually buy giant day-glo-orange barrels with seat-shaped depressions in them to sit on in their living rooms? ;-)
;)
Most of my furniture is secondhand (for the big items), or Wal-Mart flatpack (for shelves, tables, and the like). All of the flatpack stuff was pretty easy to put together. It's not all that pretty, but I prefer function over form anyway, and at least it doesn't look like a reject from a Picasso painting.
DennyK
My new patented two phase design.
All components have simple, easy to understand peel off stickers that you match when assembling your furniture.
There's a clear, easy to understand manual in english (or whatever language you want) included that shows you how to mix and match the big red letter A sticker with the big red letter A sticker.
Why is this classed as science? It's not science. It's technology.
And I thought Sweden was the master of "Build it Yourself" furniture.
Watch out Sweden, here come the Swiss.
- compact to ship, and
- easy to assemble.
Having some sort of assembly assistance could relax the latter requirement and enable more complicated DIY products. Or they could be used for faster training of assembly-line workers. If I get any more ideas, I may have to start charging consulting fees.On to my subject: There's a 116 MB video on their site. I downloaded the whole thing at work (way fast) and watched it (about 5 minutes or so). It's pretty deadpan, and shows a guy putting together an Ikea Pax armoire unit. (It just so happens that I have three of these myself. They're pretty straight-forward to assemble, just quite heavy at 50 kilos per unit, not including doors or shelves.) There's also footage of the developer discussing how his ideas work, with some overlays of accelerometer output and the like. The clip ends with the builder standing proudly next to the completed armoire, as the image fades to black. After a short pause, there is a loud crash, so I think these guys had a sense of humor about their project.
Or use computers, for that matter. As far as I can tell, this thing was designed to help dumb people build things that are too complex for them to build in the first place.
I recently bought a large and complex second-hand desk that was unassembled. I deduced how it goes together, and I assembled it myself. Two parts were missing. I contacted the manufacturer, who was kind enough to ship them to me free of charge all the way from Quebec. The even shipped me a manual so I could verify how it goes together.
All this new technology will do is further confuse the dumb people, and insult the intelligence of people who know how figure it out. After 4 years with a computer, my boss still asks me how to save attachments in her outlook express, or how to scan and save documents. Things like computer interfaces or "Peg A goes into slot B" technologies have reached the limit of simplification. There is some technology that can't (and shouldn't) be made simpler. The only thing my boss (and dumb people trying to assemble things) would benefit more from is if someone did the work for them.
The money and effort spent on this new technology would be better served if the company started shipping pre-built furniture.
Wrigley announced they are putting microchips in sticks of gum to warn if you are doing something dangerous, like walking.
Based on my experience with assemble-it-yourself furniture, and the quality of the instructions associated with them, I would really, really hate to see any higher technology UI from these same people.
--something witty
So now do I not only have a wife who tells my how stupid I am, but the furniture itself will insult my intelligence!!!
Everyone is Ignorant, just in different subjects.
Oh yeah, put a Microchip into my pooper to.
I wanna know when I am doing something wrong,
like pressing too hard.
Time to by those Infineon and Intel stocks
--- Eat my sig.
In Distraction: a Novel, Valparaiso's boss, whose name I don't remember but sounded Greek, made a buck by creating stuff for self-assembling buildings; I seem to remember furniture was also mentioned.
It's just a BloJJ
This reminds me of the scene in the old Star Wars series where C3PO has been dismantled and is sitting on chewy's back, complaining about having his head on backwards and all the dangerous blaster fire that's sure to get them killed.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
I am so upset. I hold a degree in flatpack furniture assembly from IKEA university.
This modern technology will allow anyone to do what I can, yet I had to endure months of training (how and when to swear, how to hide mistakes from the significant other, etc). My degree is worthless.
Technology? Bah, humbug!
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!
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!
The good news is, your furniture is now programmed to tell you how to build it.
The problem is, you have one of three options.
1) Listen to the instructions in Japanese
2) Listen to very broken English mushmouthed by a Swede "Fronken A, B tab slot do in be putting. Shmicken C Swivel Trocker B connect do be."
3) Destroying the microprocessors with a very large ball peen hammer.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
On the other hand, you could also spend less money and just design more-easily-constructible furniture and more-easily-understandable instruction booklets. Technology /= Simplicity.
Does this mean than if a Guatemalan company manufactures this ready-to-assemble "microchip in" furniture running embedded Linux, they could also call their stuff "Scandanavian" furniture?
--
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these! (Ie. My Living Room!)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Why does the idea of "microprocessors" sound like overkill in this sense?
Couldn't a few transistors and some LEDs serve the same purpose at a tiny fraction of the cost?
Or couldn't furniture companies hire more proficent people to write and translate assembley instructions, draw understandable diagrams, or number/color-code parts. Quite low-tech, but also quite efficent and useful...
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I've met people who should not own a hammer, who use one anway. They manage to get their pictures hung, but anyone who knows how to use a hammer laughs at the attempt. This is for something simple. They should not put furnature togather, they should buy it assembled.
Note that these people are not stupid, just they have no mechanical skills. Several have honestly (well, as honest as lawyers can be anyway) earned several million dollars.
If you can't handle mechanical things, no problem. There are plenty of people who can be hired to do that for you. I can't do a very good job of cutting hair, but I hire that done. Nor am I a very good lawyer, doctor, writer, dog trainer. No problem, I recignise my limits, and choose what I do. I could be some of the above, but I can't learn all of the above, so I hire experts. (In fact I have hired, or plan to hire all of the above mentioned experts)
Unimaginative computer geeks!
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
warn you if you are doing something ... dangerous
"Please stop. It is not safe to throw this kit out the window, as it may hit someone below."
Your installation of FurnitureXP has detected a reconfiguration of your system indicating that you are not licensed to view your tv from this position, please phone M$ support on 1-800...
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Here's a thought: How 'bout suplementing the hard copy with animated instructions showing how the pieces fit, either on a website, or on a CD or even DVD included in the package? (For cost purposes, though, a flash movie on the website might be best). Understood that you're making some basic assumptions about the technical savvy of your customer (has and uses DVD/PC) but it might still have *some* utility.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."