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Comment by blackeyeblitzar | Hacker News Reader

What’s with so many Asian rice cookers advertising “fuzzy logic” and now “neuro fuzzy logic”? Is that just a meaningless buzzword? Or is it something actually useful?

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Both. Almost everything today uses some form of it. I think the term stuck with rice cookers because they were advertised that way as an advancement from the binary type cooker described in the article. In that sense, it's a buzzword of sorts. There's a lot of examples of that, like it still being called Unleaded Gas despite it having been so by default for how many decades?

Is it useful? Hard for me to answer - I don't like rice, but most of my family does. They all swear by their Zojirushis and Tigers, so I have to imagine it provides a better cook than the old style.

> There's a lot of examples of that, like it still being called Unleaded Gas despite it having been so by default for how many decades?

Depending on where you live, about 0.35 decades?

> On 30 August 2021 the United Nations Environment Programme announced that leaded gasoline had been eliminated. The final stocks of the product were used up in Algeria, which had continued to produce leaded gasoline until July 2021.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Modern_findings

That's interesting, but obviously they meant 'in places where it has been banned a long time', there being countries where that's not the case doesn't stop it being an example of this, that terminology/marketing sticks around outliving a point it might've been making.

The EU (incl. UK at the time) banned it 2.4 decades ago.

> On 30 August 2021 the United Nations Environment Programme announced that leaded gasoline had been eliminated.

Basic availability of leaded is unrelated to how long unleaded has been the default.

Nah. They've had a long time to perfect rice cookers. The $40 Walmart one works fine. If it turns out you use it a lot and you really want the nicer one, then spend the money for it. But honestly the cheap one is fine.

Rice cookers are still a bit of a novelty in Western countries but in Asia they are ubiquitous. It's like microwaves: expensive in the 80s now they are mass produced and sold for 80 dollars.

I find the nicer ones tend to do a more consistent and better job. With the cheap ones the bottom is often drier than the top. Timers are great and so are modes for different types of rice.

I had a $15 Aldi one that worked fine. I'm sure the high end ones are better in some ways, but it's sorta like drip coffee pots, there is only so much you can improve upon.

Zojirushi offers a wide range of rice cookers. We just have the basic one and it works well, but they have higher end ones that cost 4x the price that we bought ours, I’m not sure if the rice is actually better in the higher ends Zojirushis. They even have cheaper ones that use fuzzy logic, it looks more like an economy thing over the traditional non stick pressure based rice cookers.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_control_system

I guess to me that feels basic? Is it really something worth advertising?

It's typical for 50+ year old technology to be considered basic. Especially by those who may not remember the before times.

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