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Comment by a2800276 | Hacker News Reader

I would have though the other way around: marketing buzzword for a non-problem solved by engineers since Maxwell's times by variations of applying the concept of hysteresis.

At least my recollection of fuzzy logic are from around the late eighties / early nineties and always involved the example of a thermostat that can only turn fully on or fully off. :)

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Rice cookers are still marketed as fuzzy logic: https://yum-asia.com/us/product-category/rice-cookers/

It was also popular in automatic transmissions in the 1990s. These are always asking "Should I change gear? Up or down?"

and rice cookers. fuzzy logic was not speculative it founds its way into a fair number of real world control applications

The only place I've seen Fuzzy Logic advertised is on washing machines

True, this is the first thing I’m reminded when I hear this term. Then I wonder what Fuzzy logic has anything to do with washing machines. Modern washing machines has everything routine programmed and are deterministic

Do they? Mine noticeably takes much longer to run on very dirty kitchen towels compared to clothes, even on the same setting and even though the clothing load is heavier. I had been assuming there's something to detect how soiled the water is.

Random fact of the day: (some?) Dishwashers detect soiled water by using a resetable fuse on the water pump and counting how many times the fuse trips; dirty water makes the pump work harder and trip the fuse.

I don't think that would work for clothes washers though, because there isn't the same kind of pumping water for recirculation. Somewhat related, my washing machine (upright, high efficiency) measures the load by spinning it with a calibrated input impulse and measuring the rotation of the basket, less rotation means more clothes means more water. It's helpful to load the clothes around the edge to get the right amount of water. But that doesn't illuminate how cycle duration is determined.

Not all of them do, I've taken apart a Siemens dishwasher (pump was clogged) and it has a turbidity sensor to check if the water is clean or not.

I went to a Zadeh lecture, and he said that it was responsible for some big improvements in auto-focus cameras.

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