Pick 101 - Ode to ASIMO

 

Honda’s humanoid robot is being retired. For the last 20 years, ASIMO had been performing at the Honda showroom in Tokyo, Japan, but these regular demonstrations are now at an end. 

Evan Ackerman

Honda announced back in 2018 that it was halting ASIMO development in favor of working on robots with more focused  applications for elder care and disaster relief.

The current rendition of ASIMO was released in 2011. Even then, this friendly android seemed too advanced--too human, to be a robot. It's sensing, actuation, computing, and battery power were state of the art back then. What ASIMO could demonstrate in 2011 still represents the benchmark for humanoid robots today. The design is realistic, all the movements are natural, and ASIMO would not need a proxie human actor to perform in science-fiction movies on his behalf.   Up and coming humanoid robots may match and  surpass ASIMO’s performance, but they are building upon the knowledge and technical experiences gained from a lineage of humanoid robotics research at Honda stretching back to the mid-1980s. As recently as 2017, Honda was still making improvements to ASIMO’s software and presenting that research at conferences. 

So just as human workers reach a time when their company no longer values their services, so that time has come for ASIMO.  However, humans have the benefit of being remembered by friends and family. As one of the first of his kind, poor ASIMO will only have his designers and  engineers to murn his passing. Perhaps he will have the same legacy as the father of literary androids, Isaac Asimov. If so, his child has done him proud. 

ASIMO's OBIT:

In 1986, Honda engineers set out to create a walking robot. Early models (E1, E2, E3) focused on developing legs that could simulate the walk of a human. The next series of models (E4, E5, E6) were focused on walk stabilization and stair climbing. Next, a head, body and arms were added to the robot to improve balance and add functionality. Honda’s first humanoid robot, P1 was rather rugged at 6’ 2” tall, and 386 lbs. P2 improved with a more friendly design, improved walking, stair climbing/descending, and wireless automatic movements. The P3 model was even more compact, standing 5’ 2” tall and weighing 287 lbs.  

ASIMO was the culmination of two decades of humanoid robotics research by Honda engineers. ASIMO could run, walk on uneven slopes and surfaces, turn smoothly, climb stairs, and reach for and grasp objects. ASIMO could also comprehend and respond to simple voice commands, and recognize the face of a select group of individuals. Using its camera eyes, ASIMO could map its environment and register stationary objects. ASIMO could even avoid moving obstacles as it moved through its environment. 

Over the years since his birth, ASIMO traveled extensively to encourage and inspire young students to study the sciences.  Android robots, based on ASIMO's design,  may soon serve as another set of eyes, ears, hands and legs for disabled humans. This may expand to tasks like assisting the elderly or a person confined to a bed or a wheelchair.

Pick 99 -- Kubernetes Engineer

When I first came across this job opening, I thought I had stumbled into the Want Ads for a foreign country. I had worked in a software engineering environment for many years. I had a nodding acquaintance with all the major engineering processes. This one drew a blank.

 We're looking for experienced Kubernetes engineers to help us build and maintain our managed TimescaleDB cloud services. You will have the opportunity to work with a close-knit team, building and maintaining the infrastructure that powers our platform. Your work will be instrumental in developing our Kubernetes-based clusters and infrastructure. You will interact with the Kubernetes API and codebase to build controllers and operators that power our platform. Additionally, you will work closely with and further develop our infrastructure tooling to ensure the health, stability, and maintainability of our Kubernetes cluster. 

 So I did what any knowledge worker [writer} does these days: I asked Alexa, my trusted research assistant, to get me up to speed. Here is what she found out:

Kubernetes is a container management technology developed in the Google lab to manage containerized applications in different kinds of environments such as physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructure. It is an open source system which helps in creating and managing containerization of application.

Kubernetes - Cluster Architecture

But here is the part that linked my prior experience with this new data management technology. 

Highly Desired:  Experience deploying, operating, and using major production-level databases. Huge bonus points for PostgreSQL and/or TimescaleDB!

 I had worked with several large scale databases over the years. They all do basically the same thing; they manage your data. Without them your knowledge base would begin to malfunction like a person in the final stages of dementia. Once that happens there is no cure and few effective treatments. In some cases it will be necessary to rebuild your database from scratch. So whatever Kubernetes does, it must be essential to avoid database dementia. Both Siri and Alexa agree with me on this point. 

So now you know.

 

Pick 98 - Knowledge Workers as Free Agents

 I recently came across this description of a company that represents free agents. On first look, I thought it was  aimed at  MLB players who were free to seek positions on other MLB teams. It was only on the second reading that I realized it was being pitched to "knowledge workers". Unlike traditional job recruiters, this agency is hired and paid by  individual candidates seeking positions as programmers, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, scientists, design thinkers, public accountants, lawyers, editors, and academics, whose job is to "think for a living".  The Agency provides Hollywood-style services and digital products designed to help clients seeking to earn their living by handling knowledge.

Free Agency is a talent startup modernizing how people find & succeed at work. We provide concierge services and digital products to knowledge workers, mirroring Hollywood-style talent representation and management. Unlike recruiters, we’re entirely paid by and motivated by the individual candidates we work with, enabling us to focus on their career outcomes

 

Photo by Michèle Eckert on Unsplash

Employees of this agency write and edit print and video materials that pitch clients "personal brand" to potential employers. This can include ghostwritten emails and cover letters that the Agency will send directly to recruiting contacts and hiring managers.seeking free agents in product management, software engineering, performance marketing, operations.

Drucker defined knowledge workers as high-level workers who apply theoretical and analytical knowledge. Perform financial forecasting, reporting, and operational metrics tracking, analyze financial data, create financial models, acquired through formal training, to develop products and services.

What was the role of knowledge workers?

Knowledge workers are those who acquire, manipulate, interpret, and apply information in order to perform multidisciplinary, complex and unpredictable work. They analyze information and apply expertise in a variety of areas to solve problems, generate ideas, or create new products and services.

 

The problem many knowledge workers have is that they are not good at promoting their own work, or determining its value. So, many either start out asking too much and remain unknown, or they ask too little leaving potential clients skeptical. 

Free Agency helps both types of knowledge workers by forcing them to define their brand in terms of the talent, skills, and carisma they would contribute to the client's project. The future matures in the present!

.