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Inventor Builds Functioning Haircutting Robot - Nerdist:
We all have a special relationship with our personal barber or hairstylist. There's a certain level of trust and intimacy required to let someone consistently operate sharp instruments near our head and face. However, a global pandemic made us realize they are truly among the most important people in our lives. We need them. We. Need. Them. And one man's ingenious invention has proven just how true that is. He built an impressive, complicated machine that gives haircuts. But the insane amount of work required to build one isn't the main reason it's inferior to an actual human. Nor is it the obvious safety issues and incomplete haircut it provides. It's not even the fact that it's basically an advanced Flowbee.
It's the impersonal small talk.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday July 26 2020, @09:41PM (3 children)
Right? I mean modern humanity survived most of its existence without hair cuts, beyond maybe hack a wadge off with a stone knife if it got inconveniently long - and today we have easy access to mirrors and sharp scissors, making much more polished results far easier.
Professional hair cuts are a raw expression of vanity, nothing else. It's so far down the hierarchy of needs that it fallen off the list and gotten lost in the weeds.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 27 2020, @12:54AM
Yes. I wonder, is the author of the article that big of a tool, or could it be that most people really are anguishing over not being able to patronize a barber, and can't see any alternatives? Even weirder, if such people even exist, are those who shave their own faces or armpits or other body hair themselves, but just can't extend that thinking to the hair on top of their heads. Yet another obvious alternative is simply letting your hair grow. When I was a child, my mother cut my hair.
In our lives, there are a lot of so-called necessities that aren't necessary. Speaking of cutting, there are also these ridiculous lawn mowing requirements. Another is the daily shower, and after the shower, the custom of using a hair dryer. I tried a hair dryer for a short time, but found it pointless waste. The only time it was even marginally useful was the rare day it was below freezing, and I was going outside for an extended period immediately after showering. Then getting my hair dry removed the water that would otherwise freeze in my hair. The clothes dryer is another item that a lot of people seem convinced they can't live without. When I try to dry clothes on a line or a rack, I get all kinds of crap about it. Even heard cries that I had ruined the towels merely by hanging them up to dry. They weren't soft! City girls are some of the worst whiners about any slightest imposition to their perceived comfort.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday July 27 2020, @03:58AM
I feel the same. I've been cutting it myself since my layoff. I was only trying to priss up to be in the company of rich men. Yeh maybe some now see me as a cave man, but at this stage in my life, I do not easily don the symbols of servitude to the tie guy.
I do what I do best. I fix things.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 27 2020, @01:59PM
Yes, absolutely, but out there in the real world rather than this scruffy corner of the internet, to quote the bard: "vanity, vanity, all is vanity".
If I turn left at the end of my street, I'm greeted with a shoe shop, a trinkets shop (pure bling), a furs shop, an accessories shop (more bling), and a generic fashion shop, and I'm still not at the next junction. Care about ones appearance is one of the most important signals that hoi polloi like to fuss about.
Me, I'm a fucking scumbag, I haven't had a haircut in over 25 years, and haven't even been bothered to trim my split ends in about the last 15. But my partner of 22 years likes it, and I like it, so if it's a problem for anyone, it's only their problem, and they're welcome to it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves