In other words, whilst you're in costume, you must be the character, in thoughts, words and action.
That's just nuttier than raisin bread toast (speaking of which, now there's a two-dimensional entity I'd like to see emulated in costume - wink, wink).
Now, cue the various comments complaining about this 'home of the future' just because Microsoft did it.
Though I don't run Microsoft firmware, I agree that there's no point being knee-jerk (plus I don't have those either). Like it or not they're going to keep doing things in the world, so we may as well evaluate them honestly for what they offer, or at least for their effects on our lives. I hope we can all agree that an automated kitchen can be a good thing.
Nonetheless in this case it seemed to me at first that this house was mainly designed to make people better little consumer automatons (hah!). The mention of making instant soup in the microwave was particularly galling.
However, I then came across the segment where the kitchen instructs the householder in making foccacia bread - from scratch! This is really an example of how increased technology can make life better. I know I wish I had a piece of freshly baked foccacia in me right now. Mangia, mangia Will Robinson!
So there's good with the bad. Yes, it's Microsoft, and it'll probably throw a tantrum and spread flour all over the flour sometimes (I could tell you stories), but there seems to be some thought given to actual quality of life in this home, instead of just buzzwords and marketable-looking ideas. I think that's a good sign.
Nothing important then. As long as they don't have a patent on "method of modifying carbohydrate chains by application of dry heat", I think we're gonna be OK.
While this could be very useful in offering finer control of small dedicated servers (especially in ways that were unenvisioned when the server was created, meaning a predetermined command set couldn't encapsulate all possible uses), I have concerns about security, both in access control and also privacy (sniffing).
For example, if a toaster were controllable via HTTP, the user's toast-making preferences should be held private - indeed this is a sacred rite. For now I think it better to use somewhat more client-heavy schemes such as Java SSH applets. Granted this requires the creation of an account for each user instead of just a CGI directory, but this isn't a great deal more effort, and if you value your users enough to offer them a service (let alone toast!) that effort seems justified.
While I am not one to engage in schadenfreude for its own sake and I certainly support people's efforts in the area of embedded technology in certain parts of the home, I think these losses are good news on the whole. It's not that Mr. Gates's presence in the video game console market is itself really that important in real life - it's that Microsoft has repeatedly exhibited expansionist tendencies, and it's been pointed out that the very name "Xbox" is intended to mean "Anything Box" (ie. the "X" is a cheeky metasyntactic variable).
Not to be a conspiracist, but to me this implies that they have much more on their minds than video games. Imagine if their intention is to further expand beyond the digital media space they've so far occupied and on into real-world objects? Imagine if they make something that could be used to (mis)create toast? I find these prospects very alarming, and thus the news of the Xbox's impending failure can't help but be a little bit of a relief.
I suspect the question of "who invented this first" is often the wrong one to ask. It's natural to seek a simple, contained explanation for these things, but in reality almost anything that's more than trivial has a longer history to follow than just the inspiration of one person (or intelligence).
For instance just as another example, the question of who invented the toaster seems like it might have a short answer, but the truth is that this pinnacle of culinary automation is the result of thousands of years of refinement.
I certainly don't want to play down the importance of any one individual in inventing toasters or telegraphs, but that also means we can't play down all the others before them. So instead we might ask "what process was involved in creating X". The answer will probably be more interesting too.
Like others, I have heard of your Pop Tart experiments, and I was quite distressed by them. Since your first mention of this subject was (I believe) some years ago in
Dave Barry in Cyberspace
, I'm curious to know whether you've since renounced your toastercidal ways. Do you now have remorse for the harm you've done and the example you've set for the children of the world?
Since the article obliquely discusses the death of radio and the rise of the MP3 (or other music file format) as a distribution method, it seems another progression might emerge.
At one point it seemed everything had an AM radio built into it - lamps, planters, kitchen appliances. You can find these kitschy, unenlightened objects in thrift stores nowadays, or tucked embarrassedly in people's basements. A while before that everything had a lamp built into it (culminating in that grass-skirted hula girl lamp you just can't get rid of), and before that it was a clock (you know you've got one of those elephants too). Whatever technology is just past the cusp seems to get built into everything as a cheap add-on (as long as it's simple enough, anyway - making toast, for instance, is a dedicated task).
Now people are asking for MP3 players in cellphones and PDAs - is this the kitschy inclusion of the future? Will alarm clocks and stoves and fridges and (dare I hope) toasters of the future all include a de rigeur network interface with an IPv6 address and an MP3 codec? It seems likely they will.
The article is very detailed on many points, but doesn't seem to have much mention of environmental aspects like heat dissipation. I can remember when this was a big issue with every new CPU, but lately it seems to have been swept under the rug. What's changed?
I'm certainly interested in the speed of CPUs, but heat production in the embedded space happens to be a bigger issue for me.
I know I shouldn't respond to this sort of thing, but I just have to point out that there is nothing anonymous about making toast. Every slice is a personal triumph, and it's always sad to see them go.
Also, I have many other interests. Toasted bread products just happen to be predominant among them. I don't think there's any particular "pattern" to my posts, as you allude.
Finally, I'm not sure what a "troll" is, but it sounds like it involves fish of some sort, something which toasts particularly poorly (believe me!). That's just an observation.
Anyway I hope there are no hard feelings. And if there are, I bet I know something warm and crispy that would make them melt away!
I was somewhat disappointed that the article doesn't describe a broadband network over existing power lines - that would really be something! But it is about using lines that were already in place for power-use monitoring, which is nearly as good.
In particular, anything that provides additional connection options for small appliances with embedded operating systems is always welcome. In this specific case there are some protocol issues concerning communication with Glasgow residents of that type - a difficult (for outsiders) "accent" if you will, but one day it will be possible to exchange the latest news and information on toast (just as an example) with one's peers. That will be a good day.
Chopra said the sensors also could be used to detect biomolecules, even in low concentrations. Each organic molecule could have its own fingerprint in terms of affecting whiskers' voltage.
Though the data storage application could certainly serve to fund the development and popularisation of this technology, it seems possible that in the long term the quoted "secondary" application may actually be the primary one. If the device can be tuned to detect virtually anything, it has obvious applications in industrial processes, bomb detection, and so on. This is incremental to existing efforts in these areas.
However, if it can be further trained to distinguish, it essentially amounts to an electronic "sense of smell". This is very exciting and has innumerable applications, especially in combination with other sensor devices and realtime feedback mechanisms involving both software and hardware.
A hypothetical consumer application might be to control the temperature that a bread product is grilled at, bringing it to a perfect (and user-selectable) stated of brownness, while turning down the heat in individual spots at the slightest hint of burning. Wonderful development
Is this actually intended to supplant Windows on the desktop, or is it more aimed at small embedded systems? Or alternately, is there a parallel project that aims to replace Windows CE for the latter? I know there are a lot of similarities between NT4 and CE.
I am not personally a fan or a "user" (hah!) of Windows, but I have...friends...who might be interested in a "sidegrade" to an open-source embedded OS which is WinCE compatible. If nothing else we might be able to improve the security and reliability of embedded applications that have already been developed for Microsoft OSes. There is nothing worse than a small, single-purpose appliance - say for making toast - that can't perform reliably because the underlying OS is faulty, or constantly requires patches to assure peace of mind (hah!).
I am very worried that future worms might tunnel through TCP/IP networks to other attached networks that may not be running TCP/IP - for instance, if a machine with a Bluetooth interface (for instant) is compromised from the Internet side and the worm payload contains code to use other devices on the local wireless net. Even the most trivial device might have an administrative interface in future.
Imagine if you will a worm that causes toast to be burned in kitchens worldwide! It's too horrible to contemplate.
or work out how to make toast fall so it isn't jam side down.
This is a very important issue and some work has been put into solving the problem. However, it's also inherently very difficult, akin to predicting the outcome of a coin toss. So far the best that can be accomplished is a statistical improvement. I find fuzzy logic is good for this.
I disagree about the import of the application of AMP to taste modification, mainly because the taste of one's morning coffee or tea has an intricate interaction with the taste of one's toast. Of course, I hope unscrupulous sorts don't try to use this chemical to try and mask the taste of burned toast, passing it off as good!
This was a fictional cartoon, of course. In real life, the three laws of toast-making appliances prevent an artificial intelligence from causing harm to toast (or through inaction, etc.).
Personally I do not believe children should watch scenes like the one you describe - there should be some sort of ratings system governing these matters.
Au contraire, I really liked The Matrix. The Agents were especially good. But it could have used more toast, especially when they were eating that gruel. Gruel isn't a very nutritious breakfast food.
Slashdot Mirror
That's just nuttier than raisin bread toast (speaking of which, now there's a two-dimensional entity I'd like to see emulated in costume - wink, wink).
Ah, I thought that read Ace hardware. That's where I get all my upgrades.
Well I for one am glad to see these corporations are beginning to get some priorities.
Did someone say something about toast?
I haven't played, but this sounds like an excellent game to me.
Now, cue the various comments complaining about this 'home of the future' just because Microsoft did it.
Though I don't run Microsoft firmware, I agree that there's no point being knee-jerk (plus I don't have those either). Like it or not they're going to keep doing things in the world, so we may as well evaluate them honestly for what they offer, or at least for their effects on our lives. I hope we can all agree that an automated kitchen can be a good thing.
Nonetheless in this case it seemed to me at first that this house was mainly designed to make people better little consumer automatons (hah!). The mention of making instant soup in the microwave was particularly galling.
However, I then came across the segment where the kitchen instructs the householder in making foccacia bread - from scratch! This is really an example of how increased technology can make life better. I know I wish I had a piece of freshly baked foccacia in me right now. Mangia, mangia Will Robinson!
So there's good with the bad. Yes, it's Microsoft, and it'll probably throw a tantrum and spread flour all over the flour sometimes (I could tell you stories), but there seems to be some thought given to actual quality of life in this home, instead of just buzzwords and marketable-looking ideas. I think that's a good sign.
Nothing important then. As long as they don't have a patent on "method of modifying carbohydrate chains by application of dry heat", I think we're gonna be OK.
While this could be very useful in offering finer control of small dedicated servers (especially in ways that were unenvisioned when the server was created, meaning a predetermined command set couldn't encapsulate all possible uses), I have concerns about security, both in access control and also privacy (sniffing).
For example, if a toaster were controllable via HTTP, the user's toast-making preferences should be held private - indeed this is a sacred rite. For now I think it better to use somewhat more client-heavy schemes such as Java SSH applets. Granted this requires the creation of an account for each user instead of just a CGI directory, but this isn't a great deal more effort, and if you value your users enough to offer them a service (let alone toast!) that effort seems justified.
I hope not.
While I am not one to engage in schadenfreude for its own sake and I certainly support people's efforts in the area of embedded technology in certain parts of the home, I think these losses are good news on the whole. It's not that Mr. Gates's presence in the video game console market is itself really that important in real life - it's that Microsoft has repeatedly exhibited expansionist tendencies, and it's been pointed out that the very name "Xbox" is intended to mean "Anything Box" (ie. the "X" is a cheeky metasyntactic variable).
Not to be a conspiracist, but to me this implies that they have much more on their minds than video games. Imagine if their intention is to further expand beyond the digital media space they've so far occupied and on into real-world objects? Imagine if they make something that could be used to (mis)create toast? I find these prospects very alarming, and thus the news of the Xbox's impending failure can't help but be a little bit of a relief.
I suspect the question of "who invented this first" is often the wrong one to ask. It's natural to seek a simple, contained explanation for these things, but in reality almost anything that's more than trivial has a longer history to follow than just the inspiration of one person (or intelligence).
For instance just as another example, the question of who invented the toaster seems like it might have a short answer, but the truth is that this pinnacle of culinary automation is the result of thousands of years of refinement.
I certainly don't want to play down the importance of any one individual in inventing toasters or telegraphs, but that also means we can't play down all the others before them. So instead we might ask "what process was involved in creating X". The answer will probably be more interesting too.
Mr. Barry,
Like others, I have heard of your Pop Tart experiments, and I was quite distressed by them. Since your first mention of this subject was (I believe) some years ago in
- Dave Barry in Cyberspace
, I'm curious to know whether you've since renounced your toastercidal ways. Do you now have remorse for the harm you've done and the example you've set for the children of the world?Well, yes, that's my point.
Since the article obliquely discusses the death of radio and the rise of the MP3 (or other music file format) as a distribution method, it seems another progression might emerge.
At one point it seemed everything had an AM radio built into it - lamps, planters, kitchen appliances. You can find these kitschy, unenlightened objects in thrift stores nowadays, or tucked embarrassedly in people's basements. A while before that everything had a lamp built into it (culminating in that grass-skirted hula girl lamp you just can't get rid of), and before that it was a clock (you know you've got one of those elephants too). Whatever technology is just past the cusp seems to get built into everything as a cheap add-on (as long as it's simple enough, anyway - making toast, for instance, is a dedicated task).
Now people are asking for MP3 players in cellphones and PDAs - is this the kitschy inclusion of the future? Will alarm clocks and stoves and fridges and (dare I hope) toasters of the future all include a de rigeur network interface with an IPv6 address and an MP3 codec? It seems likely they will.
The article is very detailed on many points, but doesn't seem to have much mention of environmental aspects like heat dissipation. I can remember when this was a big issue with every new CPU, but lately it seems to have been swept under the rug. What's changed?
I'm certainly interested in the speed of CPUs, but heat production in the embedded space happens to be a bigger issue for me.
I know I shouldn't respond to this sort of thing, but I just have to point out that there is nothing anonymous about making toast. Every slice is a personal triumph, and it's always sad to see them go.
Also, I have many other interests. Toasted bread products just happen to be predominant among them. I don't think there's any particular "pattern" to my posts, as you allude.
Finally, I'm not sure what a "troll" is, but it sounds like it involves fish of some sort, something which toasts particularly poorly (believe me!). That's just an observation.
Anyway I hope there are no hard feelings. And if there are, I bet I know something warm and crispy that would make them melt away!
I was somewhat disappointed that the article doesn't describe a broadband network over existing power lines - that would really be something! But it is about using lines that were already in place for power-use monitoring, which is nearly as good.
In particular, anything that provides additional connection options for small appliances with embedded operating systems is always welcome. In this specific case there are some protocol issues concerning communication with Glasgow residents of that type - a difficult (for outsiders) "accent" if you will, but one day it will be possible to exchange the latest news and information on toast (just as an example) with one's peers. That will be a good day.
Though the data storage application could certainly serve to fund the development and popularisation of this technology, it seems possible that in the long term the quoted "secondary" application may actually be the primary one. If the device can be tuned to detect virtually anything, it has obvious applications in industrial processes, bomb detection, and so on. This is incremental to existing efforts in these areas.
However, if it can be further trained to distinguish, it essentially amounts to an electronic "sense of smell". This is very exciting and has innumerable applications, especially in combination with other sensor devices and realtime feedback mechanisms involving both software and hardware.
A hypothetical consumer application might be to control the temperature that a bread product is grilled at, bringing it to a perfect (and user-selectable) stated of brownness, while turning down the heat in individual spots at the slightest hint of burning. Wonderful development
I say you got to toast me!
In Soviet Russia, I could.
Is this actually intended to supplant Windows on the desktop, or is it more aimed at small embedded systems? Or alternately, is there a parallel project that aims to replace Windows CE for the latter? I know there are a lot of similarities between NT4 and CE.
I am not personally a fan or a "user" (hah!) of Windows, but I have...friends...who might be interested in a "sidegrade" to an open-source embedded OS which is WinCE compatible. If nothing else we might be able to improve the security and reliability of embedded applications that have already been developed for Microsoft OSes. There is nothing worse than a small, single-purpose appliance - say for making toast - that can't perform reliably because the underlying OS is faulty, or constantly requires patches to assure peace of mind (hah!).
I am very worried that future worms might tunnel through TCP/IP networks to other attached networks that may not be running TCP/IP - for instance, if a machine with a Bluetooth interface (for instant) is compromised from the Internet side and the worm payload contains code to use other devices on the local wireless net. Even the most trivial device might have an administrative interface in future.
Imagine if you will a worm that causes toast to be burned in kitchens worldwide! It's too horrible to contemplate.
Wow. You could really use some toast.
or work out how to make toast fall so it isn't jam side down.
This is a very important issue and some work has been put into solving the problem. However, it's also inherently very difficult, akin to predicting the outcome of a coin toss. So far the best that can be accomplished is a statistical improvement. I find fuzzy logic is good for this.
I disagree about the import of the application of AMP to taste modification, mainly because the taste of one's morning coffee or tea has an intricate interaction with the taste of one's toast. Of course, I hope unscrupulous sorts don't try to use this chemical to try and mask the taste of burned toast, passing it off as good!
This was a fictional cartoon, of course. In real life, the three laws of toast-making appliances prevent an artificial intelligence from causing harm to toast (or through inaction, etc.).
Personally I do not believe children should watch scenes like the one you describe - there should be some sort of ratings system governing these matters.
Au contraire, I really liked The Matrix. The Agents were especially good. But it could have used more toast, especially when they were eating that gruel. Gruel isn't a very nutritious breakfast food.
And what makes you think it isn't?
By the way, would anyone like some? Toast that is.