mcdonald's AI drive-thru is a bad idea - or is it?

Back in the '90s when I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was a thing on the Enterprise called a replicator. And I assume that was inspired by the Foodarackacycle in The Jetsons, as that predates Star Trek.

In Jetsons, the Foodarackacycle was a pushbutton device whereas in Star Trek: TNG you just spoke to it, and it magically created what you wanted. More often than not, a replicator was used to create food and drinks.

McDonald's just ended a test of two years with AI-powered drive-thru ordering.

The first thought I had when reading about AI drive-thru is that if the replicator actually existed, you know fast food giants would be the first to jump on that. In fact, we sort of have that now in a roundabout way. It technically is possible to create food using a 3D printer, a.k.a. food printing, and that technology would work towards McDonald's ultimate goal of having a 100% automated restaurant. If that's not their goal, I'd be genuinely surprised because it would cut operating costs by the millions if not billions. Absolutely no employees present except for maybe one IT guy in the back you never see that makes sure all the robots are working. No cash accepted. All transactions are electronic. Robots take the order, make the order, and it's delivered to you similar to how the fictional replicator worked.

In Star Trek, it was common to see people routinely complain about how inauthentic the food was that came from a replicator. The biggest complaint is that it didn't taste like the real thing. Given that some people believe fast food is fake food anyway, doesn't that sound like a perfect fit for 3D printed fast food? It sure does.

AI drive-thru - if McDonald's can actually make it work reliably - is something I think patrons of that store would accept with no complaints at all. No, I'm not trying to make a joke nor be sarcastic. I really do believe people want AI-everything with fast food. Once the drive-thru system is perfected, it's only a matter of time before all the food is computer-made as well. And once that is perfected, expect the zero-employee McDonald's store...

...well, almost zero. You need the IT guy in the back and a janitor to clean the tables and sweep up the floors periodically.

what watch am i wearing now?

There was a time when I seemed to be buying a new watch every month. What I bought was never anything expensive. The last one I bought was the Casio WV58A. I'd never owned a watch with atomic clock sync and wanted to experience that. The watch is fine, but I just don't like wearing it, so it's been repurposed as a small bathroom clock since it auto-sets itself every night.

After the WV58A, I said yeah, I'm done buying watches. That doesn't mean I stopped wearing one, so what am I wearing now?

What's on my wrist every day is the Casio W735H. I've owned this for a while now. For all intents and purposes, this is a G-SHOCK but with 100 meter water resistance instead of 200, and with a "10 year battery" which is just a CR2025.

The W735H has a single alarm, countdown timer, dual time feature, stopwatch, full weekday/date/time on the home screen, vibration feature and a very nice dual bulb white LED night light. The buttons are textured and very easy to press with just the right amount of give to them, which I very much appreciate. Yes, the watch is chunky but wears small. I have small wrists, so I appreciate that.

Ultimately, what made me go with the W735H full time is that it's actually the most comfortable watch I have, and it can "handle life". The raised bezel protects the crystal, and for any hit the crystal takes, Polywatch clears that right up with ease.

My favorite type of watch is something that tells me time, weekday, month and day all on one screen. The W735H does that. I mean, yeah, so does the W800H and W96H, but the W735H is more rugged, has a timer, better buttons and a vastly superior night light.

I tried wearing an analog watch a few times, and nope, not happening. I'm too used to digital and prefer it. And oh yes, I need that timer. I use it regularly when exercising or cooking. Quite handy.

The W735H has been on my wrist as my daily driver for months, so much to the point that wearing any other watch I have feels weird. Yes, I'm that used to it.

Does it keep good time? Yes. Mine loses maybe 1 to 2 seconds a week, which for quartz is fine.

The only thing I wish it had were multiple alarms and a timer auto-repeat feature. It doesn't have either of those things, but if I absolutely need that stuff, I have the F201WA. That little watch to date is still absolutely the way to get the most for the least. Full time/weekday/month/date on the home screen, five alarms with snooze on alarm 1, countdown timer with auto-repeat, easy-press buttons (again, much appreciated), stopwatch, dual time feature. Yeah, it's small and cheap, but again, absolutely nothing else for a cheap quartz digital offers the most for the least. Not even the storied AE1200. That one has a timer, but no auto-repeat like the F201WA has.

I like the W735H enough to where I'm okay living without the multiple alarms and timer auto-repeat.

The only thing I've seen come down the pike from Casio that might be the ultimate do-it-all for me is the WS1700H. Three alarms, timer with auto-repeat, easy-read display. Looks nice... but is probably to big for my wrist.

I'll most likely stick with my W735H.

yeah, safety razor blade brand actually matters

I switched over to DE shaving, which means shaving using a double-edge blade using a safety razor. This is something I started doing about six months ago, stopped using the cartridge razor (I used to use Gillette Sensor 5), committed to it, and have not used a cartridge razor on my face since.

Initially, I thought that blade brand wouldn't matter all that much and tried several just to be sure.

I was wrong. Blade brand does matter.

It is funny however which blade agrees best with my face.

Shark Super Chromes. These are decidedly on the lower end of the price spectrum, especially when compared to a highfalutin brand like Feather.

I did read many reviews of safety razor blades before buying Shark, and this is where the funny part comes in. A lot of guys say Shark blades are terrible. But for me, out of all the blades I tried, the Super Chromes worked best for two main reasons.

First, it is not as sharp nor as smooth as other blades like the BiC Chrome Platinum.

Second, it's the only blade I've used where I can get 3 to 4 shaves out of it without my face complaining.

There's a third reason that actually has nothing to do with the blade for the most part, and it's shaving technique. I've gotten better at it.

Over the course of many shaves, I now know the correct angles to use depending on what part of my face I'm shaving, and also understand that making two passes is totally normal for DE shaving. And I need to explain that a little bit further.

Cartridge razors have blades that are pre-angled. Regular safety razors have a blade that is mounted straight, so you have to angle the blade yourself when using the razor.

Two passes means applying shaving cream/gel, shaving your entire face, rinsing off, then repeat the whole process again. I was totally used to the one-pass way of shaving with a cartridge razor. With DE shaving, two passes makes things easier. The first pass removes most of the hair, and the second time is just a touch-up pass, at least for my face.

Once I figured out the correct angles to use, it was then I realized that I didn't need a "better" blade, and technique is what matters more. Regularly making two passes also improved things quite a bit.

The lessons I've learned is that a sharper blade doesn't automatically mean a better shave, and you can't truly get a good shave until you learn your angles.

Now that I've got a decent shaving technique and know my angles, shave time has been decreased dramatically. As fast as a one-pass with a cartridge razor? No, but darned close, and that's good enough for me.

weather tools i use that don't suck

It is usually true - other than just by looking outside - that the only thing you really need to get weather information is a weather station and/or a big 'ol outdoor thermometer.

What those tools can't do however is tell me a forecast, nor give me any information from a significant distance.

When I was a kid, there were only three ways to get a weather forecast. Television, radio, and newspaper. And no, I never once ever used the newspaper for this information. TV was the way I got the forecast unless the power was out, in which case a battery-powered AM/FM radio was used instead.

Speaking of radios, thankfully there are plenty of choices for emergency weather radios still for sale today.

The way I get my weather forecast info now is either on the computer or the phone.

I'll start with these two sites: radar.weather.gov and weather.gov. These two are bookmarked on both computer and phone because they load the fastest and give me the info I want quick.

Yes, there are other weather web sites and apps that are fancier. They suck. On the phone, every single weather app is slow to load, pesters me to buy some "premium" service I don't want and makes it REALLY difficult to scroll and zoom. The government run weather sites, while simpler, just work.

One that works directly in Terminal is wttr.in.

On the command line in Linux, I type this:

curl wttr.in/mytown

...where I replace mytown with the city I live in, and ta-da, current conditions and 3-day forecast. The information is pulled from wttr.in and shown directly in Terminal.

Yes, you can also get the same info just by typing in the address wttr.in/yourtown (replace yourtown with your city) in a browser.

If for whatever reason the town name you use doesn't work with wttr.in, replace with the nearest bigger city or an airport code. You'll eventually find something that works with it.

I've been running Linux for about a year now (I'll be writing about that soon), and yes I have the ability to use a weather widget in the taskbar just like Windows or MacOS. Heck, I remember seeing weather widgets even as far back as Windows 95...

...and I've never liked them because they always have a propensity to "get stuck".

I'll explain.

I install the widget, and it initially works. Okay, great. But then later on, the report doesn't change. It will still be showing information from 6 hours ago and it didn't auto-update itself. Now I have to either force-update the widget or outright restart it. That's annoying.

This is not a Windows, Linux or Mac thing. All the computer weather widgets do this. I've never known any one that didn't, so I just quit using them.

Weather widgets may look nice but I don't trust them. I've always found it better to load up weather sites manually, because I know the information will be current.

how i deal with being sick

I've been sick all week. Caught a bug. Is it flu? No idea. Maybe.

I don't get sick often. Maybe once or twice yearly. But when I do, it hits hard and there is a routine I go through to allow my body to heal itself.

I'll try my best not to make what I'm about to describe sound gross.

Tissues

I go through a ton of these when sick, but I can't just use any generic tissue. The generic stuff is too scratchy and can cause me nosebleeds. True, I could use tissues with lotion added (like Puffs Plus), but those feel weird. My go-to tissue is Kleenex Ultra Soft.

For whatever reason, Kleenex uses the absolute ugliest graphic design I've ever seen on a tissue box. It's this weird tropical/floral/jungle thing. Whatever. Those tissues agree best with my nose, so that's what I go with.

Pain relief

When I get sick, I get sore. Fortunately, this is something where I can use generic pain reliever, so I just get whatever ibuprofen is available that's cheap. The 200mg pills work just fine and I only need to take one every 6 hours or so. In fact, I would get 100mg ibuprofen, but unfortunately that's only the chewable kid's stuff, so I just use 200.

I don't need the super strong pain reliever like 650mg acetaminophen. That stuff is for things like arthritis (which I don't have) and is way too much for soreness just from a bug.

Coughing

Two things here. NyQuil Cold & Flu and a big ol' bag of Halls Cough Drops, lemon flavored.

NyQuil basically comes in two versions. Red and green. The red one works and always has. The green one, a "nighttime" formula, has never worked for me. I know that if it's green and I take it, two things happen. Jack and squat. With the red stuff I actually do get some relief, but not the green.

And where the drops are concerned, yeah I pop those like crazy when I'm stuffed up, usually two at a time.

Clearing the nose

A couple of things.

Neti pot. Salt water through the nasal passageways really does work.

Second, nasal aspirator, but not used in the intended way. These rubber bulbs are jokingly known as "snot suckers" and used for infants. That's not how I use it. I run some warm water into the bathroom sink, press the bulb, dip into the water, fill the bulb, hold one side of my nose closed, breathe out slowly, and while doing that spray water into the other side to rinse it out. I then repeat for the other side. The breathing out is to prevent the water from going up the nose too far and causing choke.

Why do this?

When I'm sick, it's all too easy to keep using tissues to the point where the skin inside the nostril gets irritated enough to bleed, even with the Kleenex I use. I can't just let my nose run, nor can I leave anything drying up in there, so periodically spraying warm water clears everything out without skin irritation. A light pat dry is all that's required afterward.

Dizziness

This is just general disorientation from being sick, a.k.a. "feeling woozy" or light dizziness.

The cause of this is my ears getting blocked up, so I have to do my best to keep the ear canals clear.

I have an eye dropper with bottle for this task, and do it in two rounds.

First round: Hydrogen peroxide in the bottle, fill the dropper, lie on my side, fill the ear canal, wait 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, turn over, drain the ear into a towel for 5 minutes. Repeat for the other ear.

Second round: In the bathroom, head over the sink, hot (but not ridiculously hot) water in the eye dropper, tilt head to one side, fill the ear canal, wait 10 seconds, tilt head the other way, drain. Repeat 3 to 5 times. Do the same for the other ear.

If you've never done the hydrogen-peroxide-in-ear thing before, yes it will bubble and may itch slightly while the peroxide is doing its thing. But it does a very good job at loosening wax buildup, which is the whole point.

I do not do this every day while sick because it would cause too much in-ear irritation. Only every 2 days at most.

Doing this does not clear up sinus pressure, and I know this. I usually do still have some very slight dizziness from sinus pressure while sick, but at least the ears are clear and aren't adding to the dizziness. I'll take whatever advantage I can get.

Keeping the throat clear

The cough drops keeps the phlegm out for the most part, but I also make a point to brush my teeth more due to more mouth-breathing when the nose is stuffed up, gargle with hot water, and do something else...

...get outside. Even just getting outside for 5 minutes to get in some fresh air does help out quite a bit.

It usually takes a week before everything is cleared out

Some can get through a cold in just 2 or 3 days. I'm not one of those people. It takes a solid week - and by that I mean 7 days and not just 5 - before that cold/flu/whatever is totally gone.

During this time, I get the runny nose, soreness, coughing, dizziness, sense of taste and/or smell gets all jacked up, fatigue, sweats, all of it. I get run through the ringer.

Over the course of that week, there's usually only one day where I'm barely functional to the point where I can't even hold a conversation with someone. I never know when that one day will be, but I always know the day after I feel much better and am on the road to recovery.

Is getting sick now worse since I'm older?

I am a middle aged Gen X, so are things worse for me now when I get sick?

No.

What I have now that I didn't before is knowledge. That nasal aspirator thing I mentioned above? I wish I knew about that thing years ago. Hydrogen peroxide and hot water in the ears? I wish I knew about that years ago too.

How did I deal with being sick in my 20s and 30s? I suffered, that's how. I just dealt with it. Yeah, I had the red NyQuil and maybe I had the cough drops, but that was it.

I know better now. A lot better. It makes my once-or-twice-a-year sickness easier to weather.