gwern comments on New Year's Predictions Thread - Less Wrong

18 Post author: MichaelVassar 30 December 2009 09:39PM

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Comment author: gwern 27 August 2010 01:45:54PM 0 points [-]

Do you have a source for computerized custom-fitting of shoes? The big deal isn't just the fitting, though, it's reasonably-priced manufacture.

IIRC, I read it a long time ago in a mouldering paperback of Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave. (Or was it Future Shock?) But even without having read about clothes in particular, I have read about 3D models of statues etc. being generated through rotating the object while shining a laser on it; thus obviously one can generate a human model (I think CGI already does this), and fit clothes on that model. I would be deeply shocked if no one has ever used laser modeling to fit garments of some kind.

I don't see those sorts of considerations applying to sous vide or computerized custom shoes.

Considerations like expense and minimal benefit don't apply? Mm, well, as Marx said, nous verrons. Figuring out whose perception of reality is clearer is one of the points of recording predictions.

Comment author: whpearson 27 August 2010 02:21:06PM 2 points [-]

I would be deeply shocked if no one has ever used laser modeling to fit garments of some kind.

You don't have to be shocked. Here is one.

I think what user-specific clothing and shoes currently lacks is sufficiently advanced robotics. If you are doing the obvious, cutting out bits of material and attaching them together you have quite a few problems. You are having to manipulate non-standard sized bits of flexible material. The production line deals with many of the same sized and shaped bits of material so you can change molds/tools dependent upon the size of the shoe.

The knitting machine above removes that consideration as it produces the finished garment in one piece.

I found this pdf on customized shoe production from 2001 (requires login) while trying to find some videos of shoe manufacturing to confirm my ideas. I don't have time to look into it, but seems relevant to the discussion.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 27 August 2010 01:56:27PM 1 point [-]

The hard part of computerized custom shoes might be designing the shoes rather than measuring the foot. Also note that the shoe has to fit while you're walking, though that seems like just adding difficulty rather than a whole new problem.

I should have been more precise about the difference I see between flying cars and sous vide cooking. Flying cars include infrastructure and group effects in a way that sous vide cookers do not.