Showmanship/Entertainment. The whole point of being in Vegas or on a cruise ship (prior installation), is to have a spectacular experience. An efficient, mundane, McD's dispenser isn't quite the same.
> The whole point of being in Vegas or on a cruise ship (prior installation)
My best friend works on RCCL's Quantum (or rather, its one of the ships he's worked on recently), and one of his responsibilities is maintenance of the robotic arms that perform the drink making experience [1]. He's says they're constantly down or in need of major repair while operating.
Will robotics get there? For sure. Are they there yet? Not in a cost effective manner. Still cheaper to have someone making tips behind the bar (unless, as you said, its purely showmanship).
I don't unfortunately, I'm just told they're constantly down for maintenance. A typical new robotic arm is ~$80k-$150k (varies widely based on implements, programming, etc); unsure of the exact model RCCL uses, but even at the low end the install cost ~$200k considering equipment costs + tech labor on board.
Just thought I'd add a bit of "color" to this submission since it seems to be dropping:
Honestly, for most of my career, I can say that it was far more than 10k a year. In the last few years, as more people have posted salary information, did I realize my salary was way below market and below most of my peers. I was just happy to be in tech... Only now, with over 10 years of experience, am I drawing a median salary and that took going through a recruiter.
Just so disturbing. We pride ourselves in tech on being a meritocracy. But it's not really true, even now. I'm a starchy-assed white guy, who was born in Asia and married a dark-skinned woman, so you'd think maybe I was different. But when I ran engineering organizations 25 years ago, I interviewed and hired precisely 0 African Americans and 0 Hispanics. I promoted two white women, and two white men, and nobody I recall of Asian, Indian or Middle-Eastern background.
But articles like this help. Keep pounding in the message, and eventually people will change ... or die off.
Maybe you wouldn't, but this is why financial reporting is important and often a requirement. These people bet on someone else's gambit and lost, but according to all the signs they could see, things were sparkling.
I am not saying I would not. I would have probably acted 180 degrees differently, but that does not mean she did not make the best decision for everyone involved.
As someone with a formal design education and a uhh "technologist", I think this argument is pure crap. You're looking at "designers" in tech and making a very valid critique of the industry at large, but these designers have very little to do with it. Yes, they're pumping out derivative cloying work like every start up does because that's what they get paid to do. I think you might need to step out of the tech bubble before throwing stones at others for sitting in it.
Most of the designers I know aren't in tech (mostly so they can have autonomy and greater impact, slightly less to do with finding it wholly un-interesting and trivial) and your whole critique just doesn't seem to hold water for them.
These guys made an electric bike/scooter hybrid a few years back that had some buzz here in NYC before release, but just seems to have fizzled. I'd be curious to know what happened.
_why is both an attempt at a symbol and a person. Most of the interest around the persona was generated by the eccentricity in hiding as much as (if not more than) around the other theatrics and unique works created. That's not how you create a symbol, that's how you create curiosity and interest. I know its a dirty word, but its marketing (and marketing that the ruby community needed, it certainly helped to popularize things in the early days). In going into hiding and ripping away his works, he actively destroyed the symbol and very concretely attached it to the actions and whims of one man.
Its nice to think that it could be a symbol, and maybe it is... but it would only be due to the actions and desires of the ruby community.
I was discussing this with someone earlier on IM: I think that there's also a lot of fruit in a "_why as myth" angle. He himself said what you said, in the Poignant Guide, the part where he talks about his own suicide:
> Blix was right. I’m in so [sic, should be 'no'] shape to write this book.
> Goodbye until I can shake this.
>
> Aw, come on!!! You're leaving us here??
>
> Ha! I was right! He flipped his lid! He's all burned out
> and he's going to shoot himself in the head!
>
> But what about us? This doesn't bode well for us.
>
> Oh, *we'll* be fine. We're famous. Other people _will_ sketch
> our likeness.
>
> We'll be twice as famous when he's gone. People can be
> so idolatrous with their mourning!
