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The UX on this small child is terrible

mcsweeneys.net

251–260 of 366 posts

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#252

I have a slightly ageing model (my co-developer is adamant there will be no upgrades, please do not suggest) and my problem is that it appears to have defaulted to ICT time (we are at GMT +11). I hear it performing operations well into the early morning, but booting from a cold start any earlier than 9am leads to all sorts of unexpected behaviour and system errors.

It sounds as though many of the commenters here are still trying to deal with the first-generation Small Child. My sympathies to all of you. A couple of years ago, I was fortunate to acquire a next-generation model, rebranded as Small Grandchild, and the UX is much superior. All of the troubleshooting and command-line interactions are handled by the Grown Child, who herself now has a reasonably good interface. For me…

> purely hug and play

That was fantastic...thank you. :)

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#253
post #233

My primary complaint is that the machine learning model not only took forever to train, has too many hyperparameters, but also has too many fail cases. It also comes with almost no defaults. Self preservation algo is non existent from the beginning. That said, OTA upgrade is the best I have ever seen in any systems. From speak nothing to tornado of words in just 1-2 nights.

It's interesting to think how overtraining is expressed in this situation.

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#254
Has anyone else had the problem where the first generation Small Child seems to be able to break out of its container and access root privileges directly?

My cofounder and I tried to implement some firewall rules, but our Small Child seems to bypass them with little effort.

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#255
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s probably running a process that’s connecting to internet services such as mine craft or league of legends out of working hours. I’ve found that disabling internet connectivity at the WiFi router from 12:00 midnight until the morning can be effective to prevent wasteful background processing over night.

Disconnecting Wi-Fi is not recommended, since it may prevent access to firmware updates that improve overall friendliness. The real problem may be in your educational system, whose operating hours may be incompatible with the standard, pre-set clock phase that most models naturally acquire at that age. I suggest contacting your local school board to continue troubleshooting.

Eh, disabling the wifi after midnight seems perfectly reasonable; even if everything else you are suggesting is true.

Now, disabling the wifi after 4pm or completely, that would be a different question.

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turning off wi-fi isn't enough. Like many Samsung smart TVs, a Small Child will cycle through all access points in range if its configured network doesn't have internet connectivity.

My model keeps downloading things for offline and even electricity free use. It’s a serious problem, I’m not sure how to patch it.

Run down your model's battery during the day? Tire them out enough to make them want to sleep?

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#257
post #64

As someone who's gone through this five times (ok, going through it for the fifth): My experience has been that once I understood it it became very simple, but learning it was hard since none of the documentation is complete and it often only covers the small child that the author of said document had. One piece of very practical advice that I picked up from some docs somewhere though: For some reason adults easily u…

One thing we did early is train our first child that she should not expect us to be in the room when she sleeps. It took a few iterations of (put baby to sleep, leave room, give baby a chance to self-soothe, pop back in for a bit to let her know we're still here) until she no longer cried when we left the room.

We didn't set a timer, but we usually gave her 5-10 minutes to calm down before popping back in.

If there's one thing I've learned though is that every baby is actually different (and it's not just a saying). For example, we've been bottle-feeding the baby right before sleep (nap and evening) every day for two years now, which I understand is against the usual advice of not feeding the baby immediately before putting her to sleep, but we found that she sleeps much better throughout the night and it didn't seem to cause any issues as long as we burped her properly before laying her down in the crib. YMMV though.

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If (say) you're starving to death in Donner Pass, then go ahead. Similar for drinking your urine - if at sea in lifeboat and dying for lack of non-salty water. Otherwise, violations of "eww, ick" social standards tend to be punished harshly. It seemed really weird for a few years, when conspicuously talking to yourself went from being a "this person has a serious mental illness" indicator, to being a "this person has…

I really wish we had stayed in the "this person is an inconsiderate **" intermediate phase.

Obligatory reference to Breaking Bad[0].

[0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IImhYDUYmzM

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> children won't eat grownup food so you should offer something else. Having grown up in an immigrant household where the children’s plate is just a smaller version of the adult plate, is this a thing in American households? The kids eat an entirely separate meal-course from the adults? I know baby food is processed but once a kid gets teeth, they’re just given what the adults eat. My grandmother would have banish fr…

My observation of my friends (mostly SF bay area) is it's about 50/50. I'd like to think that it's my brilliant parenting that we have a one-meal family, but our 4yo has always been very food-motivated. Without getting too much into the nature/nurture debate, I'm willing to accept there's plenty of both, and I try not to judge my friends who make separate meals for their kids. That said, kiddo doesn't like shrimp (ye…

Ours also doesn’t like shrimp. We always put one on the plate for him to look at, inspect, discard. As a shrimp loving dad all I can think of is: more for me!

Re: The UX on this small child is terrible

#260
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can somebody explain the "won't eat vegetables" thing? The only place I've heard about this being in issue is in America.

Honestly I think it's just cultural. Parents inadvertently pass it on, or the kids get it from their peers. My daughter ate olives, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, cabbage, whatever really, from age 2 to 3. Now she's older and there's a bit of "asserting my independence" thing but she still loves Brussels sprouts.

I am not a naturally picky eater. It has really helped in my world travels.

The one thing I cannot deal with is Beets. Which is the only food my father hated.

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