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Koolio, the Beer Delivery Robot
Ipingforpong writes "Recently a University of Florida engineering student named Brian Pietrodangelo built a mini fridge named Koolio that when you place an order through the website, will deliver a cold soda, beer, or various candy to you. Right now it's only available in one building at University of Florida but soon it could catch on in office buildings and other places."
When I was going to college in San Francisco, I lived in the dorms and right around that time (1998) cookiesnmilk.net opened, targeted at us more lit folk as a solution to midnight snacking needs. It was great-- warm, delicious cookies delivered to your door with cold milk. Gradually the company had the mistaken notion they could make bigger money by catering to the office crowd. Never heard of them after a certain point, their website is no longer. Oh well. Keep with the college kiddies.
Here is some evidence of their existence. I have a photograph with a delivery person that is an utter classic.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
The images on the home page actually made me think that this bot was more advanced than it really is...
Instead of having an on-board fridge... why not send it down to in-building vending machine, where it completes the transaction against the student's account, and then grabs the item and take it where it needs to go for delivery.
That'd give it a much wider inventory and an ability to serve a wider audience than just one person.
This robot doesn't look like it can hold a lot of beer. It would be cool if this robot could restock itself and rotate the cold beers to the front and the warm ones to the back. Anyone know anything about the robot from the Rocky 4 movie? Are their such things in the making?
Mark
See, this document reveals that although this project is ahead of schedule, the prototype won't even be done until August. :)
This robot will bring you beer the one from a few weeks ago will drive you home when you are drunk all we need now is a robot that will let you pee into it all night and clean up after you and your friends the next morning
who knows what kind of super-human feats of vandalizm would be accomplished if cold beer was the reward.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Someone needs to invent "Trashio" a robot that empties trashcans. No body where I work does that, and the stuff just piles up in the trash can. Apparently, they think, (or don't think) that we have a janitorial service that does that. We don't.
So, when do we have "Trashio" on site?
The Computer Science House at Rochester Institute of Technology has built 2 networked soda machines, and is currently working on building a robot that delivers the soda to the rooms. I'd like to actually see this U of F robot in action, because one of the problems RIT is having is difficulties avoiding hazards, like people...
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
Well, as an amateur, spending my evenings and weekends over the last two years trying to develop a robot ( my first one was a disaster, but my current one has much promise ), whenever I talk to someone about it the first question they ask is "you mean like in battlebots?"
My response is always "I'm not making it for fighting, and if I did, it would get its shiny aluminum ass stomped" ( my robots are legged, and therefore somewhat slow ).
So... they think for a few seconds and ask "will it bring you beer?"
"Maybe someday" I respond.
It's kind of depressing. Here I am trying to make something interesting -- I'm doing private research into behavioral / automata brain design. I firmly believe I can make something as agile and graceful as a cat, or at the very least a retarded cat. But so far I haven't delved into image processing or even goal oriented behavior except for "follow the heat signature". But I think it's wonderful stuff anyway.
Yet people only care about wether its a battlebot or a beerbot.
Fie on them all.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
Ah, and the trick is that really - unless you meet *the one* the first time around - getting dumped is actually a productive thing. After getting dumped a few times, and finding new relationships, you realize that you won't be doomed to singularity if you in turn do the dumping of less desirable females.
.com has burst, many geeks still make a decent wage. There are women/men that will attach themselves to said geek like a parasite... you know the type: expensive gifts/movies/dinner/etc/etc
Although the
The problem is that many geeks don't really hit the dating scene until a bit later, at which point they're either bitter about relationships or (as you mentioned) feeling a need to "hang on" because singularity becomes a frightening prospect.
And of course, the women/men whom have had trashy relationships with the school jock/cheerleader end up looking for a decent guy after that initial period (those that don't drop out, get married, get pregnant, etc). After they clue in... suddenly geeks don't look so bad - exempting the bad BO geeks as opposed to the lesser-body-tone-social-skills variety...
I guess the advice is, rather than being depressed or getting too attached to a bad relationship, realize that as live goes on relationships for the successful/respectful type of person become easier. Eventually Suzy will find better qualifications for a man than a Porche-911 and a 6-pack... keep up your appearance and wait for her.