Even if it's not, this
> I wonder if there's something about your cats' diet that renders their excretions too incompatible with what the robots are designed for.
Is strangely funny and backwards, in my opinion
It is not.
> backwards, in my opinion
What would be the forwards way to express the same concept?
Do you not see the cold irony in expecting the cat to poop in a way the robot can handle?
That (what the GP/OC expressed) omits the intellectual-curiosity point I was trying to get across: why?
Is there something backwards in my wondering about the reason for the mismatch?
> Do you not see the cold irony in expecting the cat to poop in a way the robot can handle?
That borders on being an uncharitable interpretation of my comment. I certainly have no such expectation (and certainly did not say so), but, as an engineer, especially on HN, I see no coldness nor irony in if the designers of the robot had certain expectations as to what the majority of domestic cat feces would be like.
Now I fear you're just putting words in my mouth, and certainly not responding to the strongest possible reading of my comment.
Regardless, the implication that any domestic animal can have a diet that is not manipulated in the first place, stretches credibility.
> Could you imagine if the toilet required you to eat a certain diet?
Let's use a more accurate analogy, of a toilet that requires I not eat a certain diet, but where the vast majority of other diets, including an overall healthier one, are acceptable.
I don't need to imagine. That's all low-flow toilets and a low-fiber diet.
I wonder if there's something about your cats' diet that renders their excretions too incompatible with what the robots are designed for.
When we switched from commercial food to the homemade recipe on catinfo.org, the feces of all three cats in my home went from being the stereotypical, wet, stinky kind, to being dry and nearly odorless. (In addition to other visible and invisible health benefits).
Although the robots we use [1] handled the wet feces OK enough, the new feces ended up consuming less litter (i.e. approximately zero, with only urine consuming any) thereby slightly reducing the frequency of waste drawer filling up, requiring less frequent full emptying/cleaning of the robot itself, and never requiring an emptying of the waste drawer due to odor (rather than filled capacity).
[1] Litter-Robot IIs and one LR III. I'm less of a fan of the III, as it has a smaller effective waste drawer capacity before complaining of fullness and takes up significantly more space, meaning there are fewer locations it can go in. Considering how big the LR-II is to begin with, that's a problem.