Pls provide a link to the product
Challenging user interface, fantastic graphics
Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2012
The first thing that strikes you about Tuscan Whole Milk (I got the fully loaded 128 fl oz model) is the minimalism. I spent half an hour failing to find the power switch, until my roommate, who is much more technical than I am, explained that Tuscan Whole Milk doesn’t have one. The user – he explained the design philosophy to me – shouldn’t have to know whether his Tuscan Whole Milk is on or not; it’s not part of what he’s trying to do. So the unit is always on: it stays in sleep mode until you use it, and then it goes into full power mode without any further user intervention. Talk about Steve Jobs, only even more so!
But it’s not easy on the user. I expected to be able to simply point and click, but I couldn’t find a ‘pour’ icon, and it turns out there isn’t a trackpad or even a mouse. Instead, the user interacts with Tuscan Whole Milk through a ‘handle’, a gripping device built into one side of the unit, that you insert your hand into; it can be lifted or tilted. In a way, it’s very elegantly conceived: flow is controlled by angle of tilt, and flow destination by moving the unit as a whole, via its handle, to a target bowl or glass. It takes a little while to learn, but the ‘pick up the handle and pour’ metaphor is compelling, and radically innovative – the biggest step forward in interface design since the glove.
Being fixated on the controlling metaphor isn’t always a good thing, however. Users are used to point and click interfaces, and these should be provided as an option. And I was curious about what other software packages were available for the Tuscan Whole Milk, and how they would exploit the handle interface. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there aren’t any. That’s right, there’s no app store, no third party vendors online. And even if you found a third party app, you couldn’t install it. There’s no internet connectivity, not even a USB port. Tuscan Whole Milk is dedicated single-purpose hardware.
Apropos: Another reviewer says he rooted and bricked his unit. Frankly, I’m skeptical. As far as I can tell, user access to the OS is completely blocked – I couldn’t even get a shell terminal – and I don’t see how he could have done it.
Worse, Tuscan Whole Milk isn’t rechargeable. There’s no way even to plug it in. Once your Tuscan Whole Milk is ‘empty’(indicated by the ‘fluid level’ on the external display reaching the bottom of the unit), you’re supposed to throw it out. So it’s not just single-purpose hardware, it’s disposable. Elegance is elegance, but this is taking a nice idea way too far.
Although I’m disappointed with what was made of a very promising user interface concept, I have to mention the graphics, which almost make up for it. When you pour, the ‘milk’ looks absolutely convincing; the algorithm team managed something special here. The animation was so good that it actually fooled my cat, who drank some of the Tuscan Whole Milk.
“Three wolf moon” t-shirt on Amazon has some classics.
A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates on Amazon. I check them out quarterly just for a laugh.
Here are my top 2 favorite:
This is a very disturbing book. It encourages perverted lifestyles by describing deviates as “normal”. Just because there are 100,000 deviates, it doesn’t make it normal. Deviates don’t become normal even if there are 100,000 of them.
Reading this gives you the feeling of the beauty of random, and how big a million is.
Of course, silver mist food coloring: https://www.amazon.com/Wilton-Silver-Color-Mist-2-Pack/dp/B00NO5L7Q4
BIC Crystal For Her Ball Pen, 1.0mm reviews on Amazon
With three gals in my house you can imagine how many of these I go through. But now imagine my surprise when I saw that they were 10 dollars! I purchased these last year for just over 7. Figures. Get the gals hooked on their fancy products and big daddy has to dig deeper into the wallet.
