Hacker News Reader

Comment by a_bonobo | Hacker News Reader

It's amazing how attached some Japanese people were to the old aibos.

A report on a guy who specialised on repairing old aibos: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8qxk3g/there-is-o...

Shinto priests hold Aibo funeral services from time to time, here's a recent article: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201706090040.html

Flats are small, not pet-friendly and people are old and lonely, there's a good market for the new one.

View on HN

My brother was sad for two days when his Roomba broke down.

People are strange.

The prospect of going back to manual vacuuming after owning a Roomba would make me sad too. ;)

Same. After the first week, I decided I'd buy another the day this one broke. Sooooo much time saved.

Intentionally designed or not, the way the roomba crashes around the house, with it's "extra dirt" light occasionally going off and it circling on an area, does rather resemble an enthusiastic puppy suffling around an exciting new space.

I once built a line of sumo fighting robots and when it came time to sell them I couldn't do it. They were my babies. So I kept them. :)

We invest in objects, watch a gearhead after something happens to there car. Never mind sailors and ships.

Personally, I'm happy when my kids don't touch the Roomba for two whole days and just let it do its job.

“Robot” was one of my toddler's first words. He sometimes stops to say "bye bye robot" to the Roomba on the way out the door to daycare.

Something about them triggers some kind of anthropomophization instinct in us.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com