April 18 2020, 23:07

Near us is the George Mason University campus. There, food is delivered by autonomous robots.

Delivery from local campus cafes and fast-food outlets like Dunkin Donuts, Blaze Pizza, Einstein Bros. costs $1.99 per order. It’s said that they are widely used even for ordering coffee (coffee itself costs about $4-5), but usually, it’s pizza. The startup was founded by Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, co-founders of Skype.

Starship Technologies handles the robots. These articles contain many technical details:

https://medium.com/starshiptechnologies/how-starship-delivery-robots-know-where-they-are-going-c97d385a1015

https://medium.com/starshiptechnologies/how-neural-networks-power-robots-at-starship-3262cd317ec0

April 18 2020, 19:55

Why not create a recommendation service that would work on creating personalized booklets for inserting in parcels with discount coupons if ordered within N days after receiving the coupons? Generally, it’s much the same as recommending via email “right after the order”. Also, I definitely know that there is a practice of including coupons or advertisements, but they are very poorly dependent on the type of product ordered.

When a customer receives a package – clearly, it’s the delivery day. Understandably, it’s unlikely that they will throw away this booklet without realizing that these are discount coupons for complementary products.

An interface for extending the discount could be made, where the customer registers the coupon and requests an extension from N days to N+M days. And the system either grants it or denies it.

It’s really not very clear how this would work with the scenario “customer returns the item, but has already used the discount”. But perhaps in that case, discounts on future purchases could somehow be recalculated.

As a ready-to-use service for online stores, I see this in the form of a printer that prints coupons to be included in the parcel before shipping. The printer is integrated with the recommendation system. The recommendation system is integrated with the order history and CRM.

Timofey Shikolenkov ?

April 13 2020, 19:29

It’s time to make a movie. The quarantine has ended. Guinea-Bissau unwittingly becomes the world’s largest economy. People around the world can now leave their homes, but don’t know why. Pigeons have occupied the offices. The subway map is lost, rumors are swirling about train drivers who turned the wrong way and disappeared without a trace. Zewa iPaper is smashing sales records. YouTube is full of video tutorials on what to do with each other. Musk has flown away

April 12 2020, 20:16

I’ve been pressing more not only on the black keys but also on the black and white ones. Recorded 20 minutes of easy listening (hopefully) – just improvisation based on the mood, recorded with MIDI and overlaid almost random instruments on top of the piano background to keep it varied. Turned out to be something like lounge music. Anyone interested? Should I do more of this? Just keep the piano or add a choir and violin overlay worth it? My ears are already fuzzy, help me out 🙂

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_7OKqkT_f8

Soundcloud

https://soundcloud.com/wordrive/rauf-aliev-improvisation-1

April 10 2020, 11:03

Yesterday on Amazon, I ordered a bike rack for a tow hitch and after hitting the final button, I realized I forgot to check the default delivery time. Usually, there’s not much choice – it defaults to the fastest and free (well, considering I pay for Prime every month). But this “fast and free” can vary: from “tomorrow” for some items to “in three weeks” for others. I look – delivery time is in 3 weeks. Darn. And there’s a “deliver faster” button. Usually, this opens up various paid services. I click, and there’s only one option – free, delivery in three days. I select the option – Amazon changes “in three weeks” to “in three days”.

Apparently, this is some kind of Amazon innovation. Some customers disregard this and wait their three weeks because there’s no rush. But others press this button, and evidently, this group is significantly smaller than the first. As a result, logistics for truly urgent orders are relieved, which is very relevant today.

April 08 2020, 10:05

At the link – the complete genome of the Coronavirus. Size – 7.45 kilobytes (29903*2/8). If using terminology from malwares for computers, it has a remote exploit, survivability, means of disguise from antiviruses, works on several incompatible platforms (bats, dogs, humans, etc.). And all this fits in 7.45 KB. That’s how you should write code! P.S. The HIV virus is half the size

https://pastebin.com/VZ6BfvuK

April 06 2020, 21:01

ket_vil drew a machine portrait and it turned out very cool (almost; the anatomy suffered on the lower left leg). Meanwhile, I am taking a course on Realistic Portrait with Graphite Pencil by Diego Catalan Amilivia. Maybe, someday I’ll catch up to ket_vil (unlikely). By the way, almost all her portraits on Instagram are from ice skating. Look at the effort 🙂 Zagitova, Tuktamysheva, Nathan Chen, Medvedeva, Lipnitskaya, Trusova, Samodurova, Kostornaya, Tutberidze, and today our Masha 🙂