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Tag Archive for Science Fiction

Food as Art with Robots

May 22, 2015 future, Writing Comments Off on Food as Art with Robots

 

http://www.industrytap.com/robot-master-chef-cooks-2000-recipes-cleans-dishes/28765

 

God, I want to love this.  I really do.  Robots in my kitchen would just be too d*amn cool.  I’d actually host parties, like TONS of parties just so I could watch this thing work.  I’d be fat as a house because I would just ask it to cook dish after meal after snack so I could watch those beautifully animated arms chop carrots and make fresh pasta.  Really, tech this sexxy could be my undoing.

But it’s not quite right.

I get the idea that freshly made food almost always tastes better, presents better.  I get that idea that the precision and handling of the food, directly mapped from the hands of a professional, can give you an extra bump in quality, can give you extra style and flair.

But this is all mechanical.  This is all engineering.

Food is is the fine split between science and art.  It’s being able to adjust on the fly because the last batch of tomatoes was a little underripe, or you ended up with baby carrots instead of full-size, slightly imperfect horse-carrots, or you have plain old sea-salt in the larder instead of rose-colored Himalayan salt.

This robot can handle the mechanics of preparation, which is definitely an important part, but that will not change the *taste* of the ingredients that go into the dish.  So while you might have something that looks super-sexxy on a plate, it still might come out tasting like something out of a one star diner if your ingredients aren’t quite up to snuff.

And the robot won’t be able to tell the difference.

Single Point or Continuum

May 20, 2015 future Comments Off on Single Point or Continuum

 

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/feds-say-banned-researcher-commandeered-plane/

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a blog entry here about the thin line between a security researcher and “cracker”.  About how the difference between “good guy” and “bad guy” gets blurred by things like corporate bounties for zero day exploits and law enforcement’s ideas on criminal prosecution.  There’s another element to be considered as well.

SPIN.

Here’s the thing.  Whomsoever gets their story out there first has some lead time to shape hearts and minds.  The “Feds” are never EVER going to be first at this.  They don’t GAF about hearts and minds, they care about facts and evidence.  So when they finally speak up, it means they have something that will hold up in court.  This can take months, possibly even years and by the time they finally DO speak up, there’s going to be a sh*tstorm of public opinion to deal with.  So nobody will believe them, because they didn’t put the time in on the PR side.  Because their job is to enforce the laws, not to make you feel all warm and fuzzy while they do it.

But as observers in the court of opinion, we don’t really *know*, do we? Anyone who has been in a tight moral spot can empathize with the researcher, can understand that they might have been stepping outside the box in order to get a security issue taken seriously.  But on the other hand, we have the authorities eventually speaking up and saying “Well, actually…”  Could both sides be lying?  Absolutely.  Could both sides be telling the truth?  After a fashion (once you start getting terminology clarified).

And when we run into a disconnect like this one, this is where our trust breaks down.  This is where we have a step across the line that might be a bit too much too far.  A “white hat” hacker trying to ensure a security hole is fixed, possibly trying to do the “right thing”, but the story as it continues to unfold suggests that the “right thing” put lives in danger.  Not in the “I’m going to take you all down with me Mouhouhahaha” kind of danger, but the “Hey Ma, look, no hands!” kind of danger, where a situation itself is high-risk even if the intentions are benign.

And in the meantime it serves to reinforce the idea that hackers of any color hat are dangerous.  They can lay hands on the keys to the city and cannot wholly be trusted not to use them.  Their own moral compass (or thirst for knowledge, or love of puzzle-solving) may drive them to act for the greater good, circumventing much slower corporate processes but endangering lives (or personal information, or your nest egg) in the process.

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