XatolosStartup will brick $800 emotional support robot for kids without refunds
Onno (VK6FLAB)Welcome to the “brand new world” of IOT hardware where you are the product and continued service depends entirely on how you can be monetized.
shalafiI’m assuming it runs on AI and the company has to provide the backend. So yeah, if you purchase something that requires a company’s infrastructure, it can certainly be bricked.
Which is why you should only buy stuff that relies on local APIs and on board processing.
Chozo99.99% of the people willing to buy an emotional support robot for their children will have no idea what the words you said even mean.
Yep, and that’s a shame. There should be some sort of government rating or warning put on stuff like that.
Or just a straight-up ban.
I’m confused how a robot even CAN be emotionally supportive. I didn’t even know this was a thing.
You should go watch Big Hero 6, then. You’ll get a very good idea of how a robot can be supportive.
Programmed emotional support isn’t new. ELIZA was written in 1966 & surprisingly effective given the crudeness of computers at the time
And this is the lesson here!
Take note folks.
Spoiler: No one writes down shit, this is the new normal
Self-hosting makes more sense every day.
Christ, even Amazon refunded everyone who bought a Glow.
It sounds like they literally can’t refund people because the company completely ran out of money and is gonna be liquidated. Sucky situation for all parties involved.
I bet they can
Unless they don’t have the money in which case they can’t.
ZakWhat they probably can do is issue an update that lets owners point it at third-party servers, and publish the API. They might even be able to publish the source code, though there’s a chance they don’t own all of it.
Surely in that case they could open their software so the community can figure out what it would take to keep it running.
I think at this point they have far more important things to worry about than that.
Their creditors would sue because thats an asset that can be sold to refund them.
Yeah, likely true without some sort of legislation.
Well at least there’s a business opportunity for someone to reanimate these things and use them to push gacha games and energy drinks on the innocent children they’ve bonded with.
uisIf only there was law demanding to refund broken products before liquidation.
bizarrolandOr a law stating that in the case fair refunds can not be provided that the software needed for running the hardware becomes public domain and is published and released on a git maintained by the library of Congress.
Yes please. And mandatory copy.
BlackmistAnd who is going to pay for that? If they could afford to refund all their customers they wouldn’t be going bust.
The law would probably make sure customers whose products are being bricked are counted as creditors. Ideally after employees (unpaid wages) and before investors. They may not get full refunds, but they’ll be entitled to something if it’s possible.
Liquidatoon doesn’t mean they have no money. And they still have some assets.
Also that’s why we should apply mandatory copy laws to software too.
And Google refunded everyone who bought Stadia.
But they both have deeper pockets than a startup.
No thanks. I’ll get an emotional support cat and you can’t brick my cat. Take that, big tech!
you can’t brick my cat
Is this a challenge
🤨
Somebody call SPCA!
roofuskitIt’s not even a challenge, one drop of rogaine will brick any cat. App you have to do is touch them with it.
I’m unclear, and I’m not going to do this, but what does that do? Is it poison to them?
It contains an enzyme their body cannot process and it effectively poisons them to death. I believe it attacks the nervous system.
Oh. Damn. Good thing I found this out.
I mean, I never have actually touched rogaine, but this is kinda like when I was 4, and I was going to feed a dog a piece of chocolate. The dog wanted chocolate, I wanted to share, suddenly I’m getting my hand slapped and yelled at.
Like c’mon! We JUST watched a seseme street last week about how good sharing is! Now my wrist hurts!
THEN she tells me dogs can’t have chocolate! Like I’m just supposed to just KNOW a dogs digestive system! I’m still learning colors and shapes, and you’re asking me to know biology of dogs!
So, no dogs have died from chocolate from me, and now I know if I lose my hair, and have a cat, I can’t have rogaine. Because I assume I’ll be sleeping, and you just KNOW my cat is gonna be the weirdo cat who licks people in their sleep. Suddenly I wake up with a dead cat.
So good thing I learned now.
Turns out dogs are perfectly fine eating milk chocolate. I know this because I had a dog who jumped up on a table and ate an entire package of Hershey’s kisses once. We thought she was a goner, but poison control said she’d be fine and she was. High quality dark chocolate is what poisons dogs
Chocolate is what poisons dogs. There’s just a much higher concentration of it in dark chocolate than milk chocolate. Too much milk chocolate can still kill a dog, and “too much” isn’t even all that much. 8 ounces of milk chocolate for a 30 pound dog is enough to be concerned about.
oh my fucking god. is this why when I was a kid my friend’s cat went from super healthy to extremely sickly and died the next morning? his dad definitely used rogaine
Oh goodness, that’s really sad and probably.
Whatever you do to that cat I will do to you
Oh yeah? Well I’m gonna love him and cherish him forever
Now kiss
You’re going to snuggle me, feed me, and clean my poop?
…ok man…
Uriel238 [all pronouns]A clamp (padded, preferably) on the scruff of the neck will temporarily brick a cat.
Try this only with familiar cats with whom you have rapport.
Don’t leave them for too long. A few minutes at most.
Why would you try that with any cat, especially one that you’re close to? The fuck.
But he only said he scruffed them (if I am reading it right), not that he grabbed them by the scruff, is this apparently something that is considered abusive or something? If a cat claws at my leg and I pinch there to make it stop that is absolutely not the same as grabbing them there. I would never actually try lifting them that way.
It doesn’t work on all the cats, though. Also, I heard that it’s not painful for a cat to be lifted that way, but I would prefer not to
What The Fuck?
That’s where the term “catatonic” comes from, or so I’ve heard, and it’s a reflex because mother cats carry their babies by the scruff of their neck. From what I understand it’s totally harmless.
Someone who actually knows these things can correct me if I’m wrong of course.
You’re wrong.
Catatonic syndrome was a diagnosis first used by a German psychiatrist in the 1800’s. Before that it was described by ancient Greeks.
It’s a category (also a word that has nothing to do with cats) of major depression and schizophrenia.
Scruffing a cat poisons it into a coma?
That’s what the conversation was initially about. My mistake.
The rest of my comment stands.
As the owner of various cats over 50 years it does nothing to adult cats. It will hurt an adult cat because their weight is too much for the skin to hold. As a kid I tried it many times because I heard the myth and it only made my cat more angry.
I don’t believe kittens are affected other than being physically unable to do anything. Sort of like if you were put in a half-Nelson hold. You wouldn’t be catatonic, just unable to fight back.
You don’t pick an adult cat up by the scruff! But – at least for some videogenic cats – they will instinctively relax.
To be fair, he wasn’t talking about picking the cat up by the scruff of the neck, only squeezing it there.
Anyway, regardless of your anecdote, it is a real thing: cambridge.org/…/CFCC52F39F2235340C1DBA4630EC07F0
Pinch-induced behavioural inhibition (clipthesia) as a restraint method for cats during veterinary examinations: preliminary results on cat susceptibility and welfare | Animal Welfare | Cambridge Core
Pinch-induced behavioural inhibition (clipthesia) as a restraint method for cats during veterinary examinations: preliminary results on cat susceptibility and welfare - Volume 25 Issue 1
As an owner of a less cats over less years, this is absolutely a thing and is sometimes referred to as “disabling” the cat. You can do it at home with a clothes pin.
You don’t pick them up.
Here’s an example from what looks like a professional setting. youtu.be/T9TmmF79Rw0
How to deactivate a cat
you can’t brick my cat
Have you tried putting socks on it?
