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Kegbot: The Future of Robotic Drink Service, Now
An anonymous reader writes "Frat houses all over the world could soon be linked up in massive online drinking games, thanks to Kegbot, a standard kegerator that uses an RFID alternative to track how much the drinkers have imbibed and feeds that data over an embedded ethernet into an online database.
One of Kegbot's main creators, Mike Wakerly, says the technology can actually promote more responsible drinking because it allows people to be cut off from using the tap after the system detects that they've had more than their alloted fluid ounces." Reader bloglogic points to "more pics and instructions on building your own Kegbot at the Make Magazine web site."
a robot that cuts me off? we have to do everything we can to stop this insidious technology before its too late!
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/ 28/0613233&threshold=1&tid=216&tid=99
Then I'm all for it.
I don't get it.
My guess is that it'll be like that bar that installed a breathalyzer as a courtesy for its patrons, only to find out they used it to compete in "who's the drunkest?" games.
From the site - 'drunk: 3.9 ounces'
Um, is that a small beer? A huge whiskey?
In Britain we use pints or litres. I've never heard of an ounce of alcohol. Ounces are usually reserved for illegal drugs.
Can someone help?
http://milkshake.dexy.org
because it allows people to be cut off from using the tap
This is an Evil machine that needs to be killed and never spoken of again.
One better...
I was at a bar one night. An older couple stumbled in, quite obviously drunk. The man ordered a drink, but bartender refused to serve the woman, as she could barely sit on the barstool. The man takes a sip of his drink, then leans over to give his partner a kiss. But instead of kissing her, he was spitting the drink into her open mouth. I sh*t you not.
The bartender took the drink, cut them off and called them a cab.
blog
Because a community college is a great poster child for free-thinking institutes of higher education ...
I find your belief that everyone who drinks a) drinks toxic amounts and b) immediately hops in the car if the alcohol didn't kill them somewhat bizarre. If you're drinking in a social environment, there's probably a system in place to keep the drunks away from the wheel, and to do something about the guy who's been unconcious on the floor of the bathroom for the past hour. If you're at a party smart enough to have a network-enabled keg, they're probably smart enough to take measures to minimize casualties.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Let's see, a robot that replaces your own sense of when you've had enough, somehow promotes "responsibility"? Not even the bartender is "responsible" in that cutoff scenario - it's the programmer, if anyone. That kind of "responsibility" is known as a "crutch". An early form of cybernetics that helps people unable to function on their own to make it through a task anyway. But crutches don't do anything for one's conscience, self control, or "responsibility".
Of course, this device might make it easier to cut off drunks. Or it might just make it easier for a confederate to get a drink for a drunk, without a canny human bartender to detect the ruse. The missing human bartender also won't be able to detect that a problem drinker is becoming a problem, before they reach their biological limit, because they're already pretty drunk, they're angry, or just an asshole.
This device makes it easier for a lone person to get drunk. Let's celebrate that convenience, rather than spout nonsense about "responsibility", or some other ridiculous moralizing.
--
make install -not war
I for one welcome our new robotic drink-serving overlords.
A word of advice: Never get into a drinking contest with a robot.
Table-ized A.I.
They need to add WiFi to it, set to trigger 5 pounds of plastic explosives under the driver's seat of any fratboy that gets behind the wheel after playing.
I'm getting really fucking tired of the de-facto acceptance of drunk driving in some circles.
It's called the BarMonkey (http://www3.hmc.edu/~bgreer/barmonkey/)
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
bringing the hacksaw back to hacking
The Kegbot has two uses:
1) To enforce responsible drinking.
2) To enable long distance drinking games.
It will fail for both uses. One, I live in a dorm where people buy booze for other people all the time, and I assume most dorms are like that as well. These are underage people taking the risk of using a fake ID to buy booze for other underage people. If they are willing to take that risk, and go through that effort, then why wouldn't someone who hasn't used up his beer quota just get a drink for someone else from the Kegbot!?
Two, Kegbot is useless as an instrument for long distance drinking games, as there is no way to verify the alcohol content in Kegbot. Who is to say the other team doesn't fill theirs with a beverage of lower alcohol content, or, if the stakes are high, water? And anyway, is this a videoconference device as well, or does each team tap out in more code that they have completed their round?
Kegbot is a really cool implementation of some interesting technology, and anyone would be proud to have on in his frat house, but seriously, this invention isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
My "allotted" amount is exactly as much as I choose to buy. "Responsibility" implies that I have the right to determine exactly how much I can drink and when in order to be sober when I'm ready to drive home.
Does anyone here honestly think nanny = "responsibility"? Yikes. I'd like to keep my liberty, thank you.
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technology can actually promote more responsible drinking because it allows people to be cut off from using the tap
It's both humorous and sad how the word "responsibility" has been used lately.
This does not promote responsibility.
RFID (or RFID alternative) is BAD. Talk about evil abuses of technology.
Using it to take away my privacy is one thing, but use it to take away my beer?
Now you've gone too far!
And they say we're paranoid...
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...