First I've heard of it, but I had the same reaction as Cringley. Maybe it's an age thing.
"Imagine v1 of Big Brother's -- or NSA director Keith Alexander's -- most inflamed fever dream: a sensorbot shaped like a Russian nesting doll wearing a Hindi-cow smile. Then terrifyingly name it "Mother" and build it specifically to monitor as many facets of your personal life as it can. Are you schvitzing yet?"
I can't dispute the age thing, given that I'm in the oldest 5 or 10% of the community according to the various age polls we've had over the years, but my reaction (not having read Cringley's review) was, "Can this thing get any creepier? Oh, look; it can."
I'm in the older age group and afaik so is Cringley since he's been around forever (if it's still him writing under that name.) I thought, well, maybe the kids will like it.
The writer is not Mark Stephens, the PBS Cringely whose name is the first Google hit, but a current InfoWorld staff writer. I suspect they would share this opinion, though.
I'm relieved it doesn't seem to be an age thing. I have a nephew in his 20's who doesn't care at all about privacy and happily gives away all his data, so sometimes I wonder.
I know people here in Germany, far older than my 35 who give away every single bit of their privacy (and in that the privacy of their communication-partners).
For example: We have the so called "Spackeria" a post privacy movement, that arguments for not only willingly omitting every form of privacy, but to be brutally open/honest about everything in your life - and they really seem to mean everything.
And I know of people in their early twenties caring strongly. So no, it does not seem to be an age thing, but more of a ideology thing.
There are certain stylistic choices a writer can make that labels him as an instant idiot in my world. I chose not to read that link in full due to the word chosen here.
This is the lowest rated comment I ever got (in terms of downvoting).
For future visitors of this place, my expanded rationale:
"schvitzing" automagically reads like "schwitzen" (to sweat) to this German reader. Looking that word up on the net ([1], leads to [2]) results in either German or Yiddish origins and confirms that it is just that, just .. referenced in a weird way.
Not knowing the author and his background I assume that this was chosen for effect - and I despise choices like that. I'm among the least patriotic people you'll meet, but if you're going to make jokes about $SomeEvilScenario and make it sound more .. legit, funny, interesting, believable by adding some sort-of-German-word-or-phrase you are not a writer, you're a fool, an idiot in my world.
That author chose, according to what I can see, a 'German' (or Yiddish, doesn't change my opinion really) phrase to describe something scary. That's low. I wasn't a fan of that source before this article, but I won't visit it ever after.
A couple standing in front of an ATM, she ovviously pregnant, on the screen there is an image of a house, speech bubble "Oh! How does it know we were thinking of moving to a bigger home?"
Saw this on a wall in the conference room of an ATM maker, about 10 years ago...
Also, it seemed to me that the dichotomy set up in BNW is that "natural is good and right, artificial or new is bad" - one that has soured me on Huxley basically since when I first read it.
The author commented on that in his foreword of later editions of the book. He said something along the lines that if he was writing the novel later in his life, the dichotomy wouldn't be as pointed.
I laughed out loud when I read "Did you take your pills? Mother knows everything." +1 for zeitgeist, embedded systems seem to be very popular these days, but this is a real product
Agreed. The branding is terrible. There are other in this space it seems...similar but not exactly the same: "Twine", and "Ninjablocks. my favorite is Tally http://www.tallyyourworld.com but it's not out yet.
I honestly couldn't tell if this was a real product or some sort of parody at first. I half expected it to be produced by Aperture Science. I don't blame you.
I don't think the issue is the data collection. I think most of us here would admit that slicing and dicing data about yourself is fun (e.g. see [1]) and that an unobtrusive tool to help collect that data is a good idea. The problem is their deliberate overt anthropomorphism. I'm perfectly comfortable with a system for recording data points about my life in some database on my computer, I'm significantly less comfortable with someone monitoring me and telling me about my life.
I played with this at CES. The "mother" bot is basically just a router. The little things only sense motion, and when I asked the lady said they had no plans to add any other types of sensitivity - temperature, moisture, light, current, etc. Compared with the other 'internet of things' kits out there battling for visibility, this one doesn't seem original or more useful, only visually striking. The tags are also pretty big for what they do. A useful thing for $50 maybe to buy once, but really doesn't seem like a worthwhile 'ecosystem' to buy into in any big way.
Also, I was unhappy to learn upon close inspection that the face is a sticker.
That makes sense. The bias which affects the measurements of MEMS based gyroscopes and accelerometers, has a temperature dependent component. Because of this the two sensor is commonly packaged together with temperature sensing elements. Since it's already there on the IMU chip, why not use it?
Really? I asked specifically about temperature and the lady said nope. Maybe she wasn't aware. Well at any rate I take that bit back. But I still think these things are multiplying and buying into this one would be extremely premature.
I'm sure they debated adding light sensors, but perhaps they figure that adopters of this may have also adopted wifi connected lights which could be built into the software.
As a young person who wants to remember to take her pills, to cut down on her soda consumption, to track how much she exercises (and maybe turn it into a game of walking further every week), and no doubt some more that I can't think of right now, this product sounds like it'd be amazing.
The video is a brilliant marketing asset. It showed me some very real problems of mine, and how it could help me solve them (by tracking things that I want to, and gamifying them).
The only issue is cost. As a young, single person, £166 is prohibitively expensive. It's likely not worth it for me. Is it worth it for people with families and kids? If they had £166 to spend, could they find something more pressing to spend it on?
This comment is fantastic! The trend in pointless analytics is annoying and isn't solving any real problems.
All the ‘problems’ Mother solves are not really problems and it doesn’t seem to serve any truly useful purpose.
Wakeup times - Already solved by the alarm on your clock.
Managing drink consumption - Drink more or less than you currently do.
Staying fit/active - Go workout/exercise once a day.
Step tracking - One of the more silly trends lately. Does it honestly matter how many steps you took today? No, not really.
Pill taking - A weekly pill container solves this already for a few dollars and is old person friendly.
Check-ins - Have your kid text/call you when they arrive home. Can’t use a phone? Don’t leave them alone.
Brushing teeth - Does anyone here not brush their teeth? Anyone at all? Guess that problem doesn’t really exist.
Temperature - Look at your thermostat. If you really care, go buy some nest products, they got you covered.
This product tries to make you feel like you have no idea what is going on in your everyday life (but don’t worry, they can help!). You have your own daily pattern and I guarantee you know what happens in it already. Don’t get me wrong, this thing has potential in other specialized areas but for its intended purpose and what most people will end up using it for, it’ just more gadget bloat.
More seriously, I think you're being way too dismissive. The same train of logic could apply to any tech advances we've had. Email? Use letters. Smartphones? Use a proper computer. Social networks? Use a paper address book. Do you feel the same about those?
Compliance is a big problem for medicine. Motivating people (nay, yourself) to be active is a problem. Keeping track of shopping/groceries is a problem in a busy or shared house.
Whether they are enough of a problem to build a business around is another question.
I disagree that the same train of logic could be applied to other big tech advances. The pieces of tech you stated are better than the alternative by leaps and bounds. They all reduce the time (and money) it takes to communicate by huge margins.
For medication, I can only speak from personal experience and I could be completely off base. As far as motivation, my active friends don't use/care about fitness apps and my inactive friends can't be bothered to use the bloody things anyway. Obviously this all comes back to personal experience and I would love to be proved wrong (always interesting seeing a product/service you think is crap get huge) but until it takes off I am skeptical of its actual value
It's for your inactive friends who want to become active.
One of the things that you'll notice if you go to /r/loseit is how obsessively weight losers will measure everything. It's a way to keep themselves focused and accountable.
I can see the uses for this, just, as many people are saying, very creepy branding.
> All the ‘problems’ Mother solves are not really problems and it doesn’t seem to serve any truly useful purpose.
Having just returned home from visiting my grandmother a few moments before I looked at this, the first thing that jumped out at me was "Did you take your pills?"
Fortunately, she is in good health but, like most elderly folks, I imagine, has a number of medications that she takes. Some are taken once a day, others twice, and there might even be some taken more frequently.
I, myself, am still in "recovery mode" after being on the losing end of a head-on motorcycle vs. Jeep collision. I'm not several different medications any more but I was for a good while and it was difficult for me to keep track of them.
I'll grant you that there are alternative solutions to these problems -- a family member who lives with my grandmother simply writes down (on paper!) when she takes what, for example, and you mentioned another (weekly pill container) -- but for the busy/active/always on-the-go person, I can certainly see them filling a need.
"Okay, now I want to bring it back home. My mother's eighty-one. She doesn't get around as easily as she once did. A year ago she broke her hip, and since then I've been concerned about her. I asked her to have some security cameras installed, so I could access them on a closed circuit, but she refused. But now I have piece of mind. Last weekend, while she was napping--"
A wave of laughter rippled through the audience.
"Forgive! Forgive me!" he said, "I had no choice. She wouldn't have let me do it otherwise. So I snuck in, and I installed cameras in every room. They're so small she'll never notice. I'll show you really quick. Can we show cameras 1 to 5 in my mom's house?"
A grid of images popped up, including his mom, padding down a bright hallway in a towel. A roar of laughter erupted.
"Oops. Let's drop that one." The image disappeared. "Anyway. The point is I know she's safe, and that gives me a sense of peace. As we all know here at the Circle, transparency leads to peace of mind."
when I needed to take some pills the combination of a smartphone reminder prompt to take pills, making part of my morning routine and pillbox divided by day (which mostly helped me remember if I'd already taken them) worked for me.
My grandmother who, like many older people takes many different pills, gets an advanced version of the pillbox direct from the pharmacy, with all her various pills combined into a giant blister pack according to her own schedule for taking them.
Many people have little to no idea how much alcohol they really drink each week.
Pill management is considerably more tricky than that for some people - especially if there are young people in the house. Some medications have strict and weird requirements to when and how they're taken.
Unless you put a tracker on every bottle you own and the ones at the bar, this won't solve the drinking issue.
As for pill management, I'm not sure what problems you are talking about with young people but I do know the issue with pills. I currently live with an elderly couple that have to take a huge amount of different pills. They just use multiple weekly pill bottles with a time/requirement note. Cheap and non-complicated to work with.
Gamification is a powerful motivator. People will start jog/brush teeth, similarly to answering questions on stackoverflow. It doesn't work on everybody, but it works.
> Managing drink consumption - Drink more or less than you currently do.
You know that the human mind doesn't work like that -- mine doesn't, at any rate. Reminders, bribes, little games played around chores, those things tend to work.
The teeth brushing thing is aimed at parents. Children can be very difficult when it comes to encouraging them to brush their teeth, either forgetting or lying, etc.
The encouragement aspect seems to be the most promising I won't deny that. I hated brushing as a kid, and tricked my parents into thinking I did. Kids are smart, if they don't want to brush and know all they have to do is shake the thing to make it look like they are brushing, they will.
Comes down to playing a more active role in their life instead of just tracking their activities.
I think it will track how long it's been shaken, right?
After tricking you for a week by shaking the brush for 1-2min, perhaps it'll form enough of a habit that going to actual brushing won't be as hard (we tend to be attached to the things we hold more often).
Kids think they're fooling you but the joke's on them...
Exactly, if you could fool it by picking it up and putting it back, that'd be one thing. But otherwise if you're forced the stand there shaking it for a couple of minutes, you might as well be brushing your teeth.
A bit snarky, but I get your point, absolutely. These problems are solvable today, and I'm working on them. I was mostly pointing out that the price is completely out of my range, as I see this as "something to help".
We both agree that this is unnecessary; but it's at a price point which makes it seem that the creators think it's a necessity. There's a great many more useful things I could buy with £166.
We all may be suffering from a case of Fortune 100 CEO syndrome. That is, we all wish our lives are so busy and important that we need personal assistants managing our lives.
So we buy these products that make us feel more important. It documents what we do, and it tells back our story through a dashboard, in an autobiographical way, as if we're some kind of celebrities.
> We all may be suffering from a case of Fortune 100 CEO
> syndrome. That is, we all wish our lives are so busy and
> important that we need personal assistants managing our
> lives.
How important or busy do I need to be to decide that £160 is too much to spend freeing up some of my time? How about to decide to take a minicab home if it frees up 30m of my time vs public transport?
I think the bar to "busy and important enough" is much lower than you think.
I think his point is that this doesn't provide much in the way of meaningful measurements or analytics. It's not actually a better way to, say, track soda consumption--it's just more self-aggrandizing.
I don't know if that's actually true, I would like a tool to keep track of this stuff for me but I don't at all feel some "desire to be a celebrity with assistants." Yes I suppose I could carry a notebook everywhere. I have failed doing that in the past though and I don't know anyone that keeps such detailed statistics. Especially on things like the exact time they wake up, come home, get coffee, etc. I imagine it would be a hassle to manually keep track of it all.
I try, and for periods have succeeded, in tracking my diet and weight in detail, partly to support my exercise and partly because I'm prone to over-eating... The biggest challenge is that it needs to be extremely simple. A notebook sort-of works - it's easy to jot something down -, but with the caveat that taking the time to transfer notes and add up calories etc. to actually get any use of it is slow.
Smartphone works for me, but only with an app that is tailored to my workflow. Sensors that could capture lots of it semi-automatically would make a great deal of difference.
Goals and improvements are important, but are these tools really effective, or are they praying on our vanity? How effective can this possibly measure how many cups of coffee or water I am drinking, how many steps I'm taking, if I'm medications or not, etc.
This one takes the cake.
"Get notified if the fridge door is left open and it gets warmer. At the same time, keep track of your snacking between meals."
That was a really poor choice of a name. It took me less than 10 seconds to start hearing Pink Floyd's "Mother" [1] in my head. Once that started happening, I just couldn't stay objective while looking at the pitch.
Which poem (as you may well know) provided the title for Adam Curtis's interesting documentary about what happened when this cybernetic pastoral utopianism began to interact with politics and industry: http://vimeo.com/38724174
I'd love to see the series updated. This would be a good opportunity for a young filmmaker because the technology has advanced so much and the issues are more relevant now than ever.
Same French company that created the successful Nabaztag rabbit and then couldn't cope with the traffic. I had my wife buy me one of those for Valentines Day (stupid, I know) and after trying to do something useful with it and getting frustrated I tossed it somewhere in my cube where it remains to this date.
Apart from the super bad naming and Branding, this is another reason for me to stay away from this mother rabbit.
I have one too and Mother definitely make me remember that. Shitty product that looks good but neither useful or worked properly. In the end, they filled bankruptcy throwing away their servers and I can't even turn it on to make it work again. Funny part, my mother bought it to me!
[edit] and yeah it's obviously creepier than the rabbit
I haven't been so creeped out by an ad for quite some time.
This looks like a solution desperately looking for a problem; that is, unless your problem is "I want to spy every single step of everyone in my family".
And seriously, "mother"? Do they even ever had one, to be that much off-mark? The very first quality of anything motherly is to be human; this is a wireless log collection system. Call it a "warden", or at best "coach", if you really need an anthropomorphic comparison.
Apart from the privacy issues, which the community already raised here, there's another fact that bothers me: Applications do can not discipline yourself for you.
I have tried many applications which should increase by productivity, sleep quality, or you-name-name-it. I don't recall a single one that managed to do so in the long run (most not even in the short run...).
So either one is open to change and that has little to do with technology or... You're toasted anyway. But even when you decide to change for yourself and not because a notification tells you to do so, these technologies become time consuming and troublesome to use. Of course they look nice on TV and ads, but in real life, most of them are frivolous IMHO.
I think this is really cool and definitely brings us closer to the Internet of Things. I don't think I would have anthropomorphized the system by calling it "Mother" and putting an eerie LED smiley face on the base station.
I can't seem to find any technical info on the "cookies". Are they similar to the technology in the Fitbit Flex, ie Bluetooth Smart coupled with some sort of accelerometer. If that's the case, do the cookies need to be charged every week. This remains the single massive downside to widespread adoption of such devices.
Apparently they capture movement and temperature, and they can detect when they are near their mother or not, they can store up to ten days worth of data, and they have a one year battery life, using cell batteries. Not rechargeable from what I gather.
They would have called this little sister, they would avoid so much of tastelessness surrounding their current branding...that put apart, what it's doing is already 50% doable by current smartphones + an arm band eventually (alarm , podometry, sleep control), and the other things it's trying to solve doesn't seem to be solved in a reliable enough fashion.
You'll have to update your coffee capsule count every time you buy them. Buying new packs when the opening the last set of capsule is ny far the easiest way to manage I think.
You'll have to put the sensor on every bottle you drink.
If you care that much about toothbrushing, buy an electric toothbrush. A timer will be integrated telling you when you pass the 2 pr 3 min mark.
Central temperature management would need a programmable device anyway, you'll basically need a Nest I guess.
At the end, It doesn't seem so easy to use in practice, it will forward every life information to an external server, and half of what it does is better solved an other way.
Sorry Nest, but programmable based-on-your-schedule thermostats have been around for a long time. Can't do it with your smartphone, but it's really not hard to use the settings.
Coffee? Buy beans when you're running low, what about any of these things are complicated?
This seems to be a herald to the situation described in the poem All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace (1967) by Richard Brautigan.
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
I like how open-ended this thing is. I wonder if the market is actually ready to move beyond domain-specific sensor hardware and in to something broader. The aesthetic isn't quite my taste, but I'm very curious to see how their users react.
This thread is a good example why name matters. If the same product was given any other name, perhaps it would not have been noticed that much. A set of motion sensors with a central comm hub.
The makers perhaps thought that the name 'Mother' would evoke care and love in the minds of their users. To their agony, it is revealing in the thread that though most people love their mom, they really do not want to be a 'watched over' kid.
I guess it gives all of us that creepy feeling of guilt as kids when we stole from the cookie jar and kept turning our heads with fear of being caught by mom :-)
Note to self: keep relationship names away from product names, too much friction ;-)
Well, you could maybe do something open for tinkering, and that doesn't broadcast your whole life to a central server -- but is there any money in that?
The branding of this is either creepy or crazy. Maybe it's a bit of both. But I'm certainly not going to forget it, and the idea itself seems pretty interesting.
If this gets popular, I wouldn't be in the slightest bit surprised if Coca Cola sues them. That logo is a very similar red, and a similar "dynamic ribbon device".
Apart from all the other emotions which this plastic big sister evokes, I wonder what it is that makes so many of these startups reach back to the crib when it comes to branding their products. From this bastardized matryoshka doll through Snapchat's Miffy-like ghost to Twitter's tweety to just about half the iconography on tablets and smartphones, they all have one thing in common: the more infantile the logo and/or branding, the better it is. Is this idiocracy at work or are they all following some celebrity psychomarketeer's edict about successful marketing to the attention-span deficient generation?
I like the concept. Surprised so many here are bugged by the marketing and/or the technology. Maybe you don't have kids (yet)?
Above all, I like the neat interface of the apps (mockups?) and simplicity of the cookie sensors. No charging nonsense, because they measure and buffer stuff but don't transmit. 1yr battery life. 10 day memory.
Sure, I'd love to see additional, more advanced cookies that would require charging, e.g. with built-in LED or vibration (reminding me when I enter or leave, though my phone could serve that purpose), Data, GPS (though my phone could serve this purpose, need an app that intercepts an SMS after presence is detected to auto-upload GPS data), multi-mother stuff (one at work, one at home), integration with home automation systems (someone below mentioned frequencies indicate zigbee), Zapier/IFTT support and above all some sort of data input/output API so I can import my own data points.
By the way, $222 for a mother and 4 sensors seems quite affordable to me.
The only thing that prevents me from pre-ordering a set is that the NaBazTag history doesn't exactly instill much confidence in the makers' ability to support this thing in the long run; I also wonder where the data is stored and if it's remotely future-proof (data import/export/backup).
Does anyone know how the signals are being sent from the cookie to Mother? The company mentioned in a CES video that they werent using the traditional bluetooth, wifi, etc.
The webpage mentions 915 MHz (America) / 868 MHz (Europe) radio. This is a part of ISM band and the most popular radio for low power internet of things. There are some microcontrollers with those radios integrated, for example TI CC430. As far as I recall, there is no standardised protocol stack on top of that.
I want everything Mother knows/finds out, to be stored locally (i.e. on my pc, not in the cloud), to be kept secure, private and I want to access it at any time from anywhere.... can Mother do that? I don't think so.
Still pretty good but as long as there isn't a privacy promise that would satisfy the basic security principles (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) I don't see it as a successful device.
Seems like a pretty cool product. They have an amazing design and a beautifully done website too. Only thing I am a bit concerned about is the price. It costs 222 USD for a base unit and 4 cookies (sensors).
Here's a video from CES2014 about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=024OPHSgOqo
I could find almost nothing on this thread to agree with. None of the other comments here make sense. I have high respect for HN community but this page make me doubt it. Why should we discuss the name? Apple, Windows - aren't they funny product names? How does it matter? What matters is a new product is launching - our community's criticism should help the product owner. If there are things that we believe won't work - give reasons. Appreciate what's good about it. Name, too, can be criticized but don't make fun out of it. Somebody has worked so hard on making that product a reality; respect that hardwork.
What I like about the product is the very idea. And also the way they have explained it on the website, the graphics, text everything. Really appreciable.
The sync module reminds me of the Nabaztag ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabaztag ) and I wondered whether Mother was going to have signals and indicators so that you didn't have to use a mobile device for insight.
That's the first thing I thought about and when I saw above that Sense was a French company, I thought it might actually be related. Well, it is: https://sen.se/about/who/
I personally think that I don't need to spend $222 on something that seems to be minimally useful. I don't need to monitor how often I brush my teeth, how often I drink coffee, how often I water the plants, and how often I take medication.
For the things on the list that are somewhat useful (like sleep logs + a pedometer + temperature) I have a 1975 pedometer/calculator combo that's worked fine since the day I got it, a notepad, and an infrared thermometer that is a thousand times cooler.
I think the only people that will buy this are people that want Google Analytics for their life.
What's going on in here? I don't get the negativity. I think the branding is great, and I realized the function of the product immediately. Also I think they presented it in a funny way (programmable mother). It's obvious that it doesn't 'know everything', that was a joke. It has simple sensors and you can collect data from those, there's nothing scary about that. The product is interesting, but however not useful at least for me.
Concept is stupid as FK. Why you need sensors just to know some basic stuff such as taking pills, tracking health etc. You can use app also. All they are doing is using sensor( motion sensors in particular) and send message to your phone. So why would I spend $222 for something where I could just it with $10 reminder app ?
Happy to see the guys behind Violet are not giving up. I believe they're on to something but the branding / language choosing is indeed poor. Whatever they launch with now will surely be extended, I'm hopeful that they've learned a great deal with the Nabaztag (which I've owned one back in the days).
Interesting concept. Simplify the sensors as much as possible and do all of the work in the software. I'm guessing they have profiles that allow you to determine how a sensor's data is interpreted. I wonder if they allow you to define custom profiles or at least have access to the raw data.
So, Defcon last year had a talk where they hacked things (including a Bunny ostensibly for watching your baby in another room) like this. And it was super easy. I wouldn't out this anywhere near my house or life.
advertising slogan: "It's not enough to pipe every move, call, text and click you make from your smartphone? Mother's sensors are cute, small and funky. Collect more data for US spies today!"
kill it. kill it with fire.
this product collects the kind of personal data that should not be handed to third parties. too ripe for abuse. too much insight into your existence.
a scary Orwellian nightmare.
This is one of the most horrendous brandings I've ever seen. Maybe, the horrible branding is intentional, but it's damn too creepy for sane users who dare using their product.
And can I see the product without having to hunt down my country in a gigantic freaking select box first?? Isn't it fundamentally the same in every country?
I scrolled to the bottom of the page expecting some kind of explanation of what it is and why I would want it or what need or want it solves. Nothing that I could find.
To me, this is pretty awesome and not at all creepy (22). A friendly UI and ease of use for life tracking? Yes please. Attach it to barbells to track workouts.
Watching the video. First I liked it..... Then I hated it. It's too much. I don't want that kind of life. I don't want Mother to watch at me everyday every moment.
"Imagine v1 of Big Brother's -- or NSA director Keith Alexander's -- most inflamed fever dream: a sensorbot shaped like a Russian nesting doll wearing a Hindi-cow smile. Then terrifyingly name it "Mother" and build it specifically to monitor as many facets of your personal life as it can. Are you schvitzing yet?"
http://www.infoworld.com/t/cringely/sense-mother-may-i-the-m...