Fridge sends annoyed email to owner

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Originally published at: Fridge sends annoyed email to owner | Boing Boing

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Hon: Open the fridge door, Hal.
Fridge: I’m afraid I can’t do that Dan. You are over your quota.

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Wow! Doesn’t he open his fridge door just once a day and get out everything he’ll need that day? I thought everyone did that! /s :wink:

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And people ask me why I don’t want a smart fridge.

Also: How important that # is depends somewhat on how long it stays open, and a lot on how spread throughout the day the openings are. If you open in several times in successions and then leave it closed for hours, that should be a much smaller impact than the same openings spread throughout the day, or one longer opening all at once.

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I suppose that would be okay, if:

  • The fridge evaluated the door data by itself, and didn’t send it all back to the appliance mothership for examination, storage and selling the info to someone like TV-type media advertisers.
  • It could send the email via a local email server on my LAN.
  • It keeps working after the company drops support for that model.
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I am on team fridge here.

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Yeah, plus, I don’t think it’s fair to characterize a straight up communication of objective facts with “annoyance.” It’s like when Tromp complained about journalists quoting him verbatim as somehow criticizing him…

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Wait until your fridge sees you and you spouse having relations and demands Bitcoin in exchange for its silence

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/Cory Doctorow intensifies…

But seriously, it’s like the future slash present that Cory warned us about is accelerating into reality.
“What rough Internet of Things slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”

Also, I miss Cory. And Xeni.

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It’s not how many time you are opening it.
It’s how long you do so.

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I for one welcome our new fridge overlord.

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Allowing for 8 hours of sleep, the fridge is being opened every 21mins. That’s a lot.

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I will say, I got a fridge thermometer recently, and that is super eye opening. It’s almost never as cold in there as you think it is unless you keep the door closed all day. It doesn’t require much open time, either. It takes hours to fully recover from a single open. I live alone and never linger with the door open, yet the temperature frequently rises dramatically. This is a brand new high end fridge, too.

I’m adding fridges to my list of Things In This World That Don’t Work At All The Way People Think They Do.

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Wait until your inbox fills up with messages from your toilet sending updates about your pooping habits.

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Companies who finally realise that this is a valid and profitable business model for a defined segment of the total market, can do very well, in my view. I’d like security cameras, especially, that meet these requirements.

But treating the customer as an ignorant fool and monetising every element of every piece of data that can be screwed out of them while they are not looking is too attractive for late-stage capitalists.

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Just one? Don’t we each get our own personal fridge overlord? :wink:

I suspect that the things that are in the fridge (variably, according to each item’s density/thermal retention quotient) maintain their temperature throughout, far more stably than the air itself, which is what the thermometer measures. Still not ideal, and the variability not being known is an issue, but I don’t think it is quite as bad as you imply. Still bad though.

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You may be new to “teenagers.”

I swear mine thought the Magic Food Box produced the ideal between-snack meals if you just opened it often enough and stared deeply into its soul. (Me: “It’s the same leftovers as ten minutes ago! Take a picture if you’re nostalgic.”)

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Well, I might be annoyed, but I wouldn’t assume my toilet was annoyed. :joy:

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No matter how advanced your fridge is, it still shares the same glaring design flaw as the french-door swimming pool and the gasoline storage cupboard: for storing heavier-than-air fluids, you really want a container that opens at the top, not the side.

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Any message from my toilet (given my personal medical circumstances) I would simply assume to be full of shit. Metaphorically and literally!

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