One of the most important things that ever happened to Dan Faggella was a collapsed roof. The then 25-year-old had been building his own business in his hometown of Wakefield, Rhode Island: a martial arts gym focusing on his specialty, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. "I was 17 or so when I first learned Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and I really fell in love with the'chess game' aspect of the martial art," Faggella says. When his teacher's studio closed, he used the money he'd earned from teaching private lessons and working at a local beach to open his own studio, which grew from a rented space in someone else's gym to a 500-square-foot training area to 2,500 square feet of his own. At the same time, he was using his earnings from the studio to pursue what might seem like a very different path: a one-year Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) at the University of Pennsylvania, studying under well-known author and positive psychology expert Martin Seligman.

Automation has infiltrated nearly every facet of our lives -- but in the realm of managing money, the robot invasion is a welcome technological development. Where traditional money managers rely on their individual expertise to pick and manage investments for client portfolios, a robo-advisor uses computer algorithms to scour the world of investment options, calculate all the possibilities, and curate the ideal mix of investments for investors. These automated investment services are built with the kind of technology that would make the geekiest mathlete salivate. But it's the seamless, easy-to-use interface that makes robo-investing an appealing option for investors looking for low-cost, easy ways to invest. In five years, assets under management by robo-advisors will increase 68 percent annually to about 2.2 trillion, according to consulting firm A.T. Kearney.

Employing artificial intelligent robots in Chinese restaurants – an idea that attracted national headlines – has not proved such a smart idea after all, mainland media reports. A number of restaurant owners have chosen to fire about 10 robots because they were just not clever or sophisticated enough to do their jobs properly, the Xiamen Daily reported. The plug has been pulled on a number of the robots – employed as chefs and waiters – only a few years after a catering business in the seaport city of Xiamen, in southern Fujian province, scrambled to employ them instead of people, the newspaper said on Tuesday. Workers are ready for the robot revolution, but are their managers? Another restaurant, which opened last October, made local headlines for using four automated waiters that were able to take orders and deliver food to customers' tables.

Roy Harold Scherer Jr worked as a truck driver on the long haul to the top of his chosen profession. He later found film stardom under the name of Rock Hudson. Michael Dell, founder of US company Dell Computers, washed plates and was a waiter in Chinese and Mexican restaurants before he landed on a career in technology. Such humdrum tasks once allowed ambitious people to earn cash en route to the top. For others, they were full-time jobs.

When we go grocery shopping, we often have a standard list of things to buy. Each shopper has a distinctive list, depending on one's needs and preferences. A housewife might buy healthy ingredients for a family dinner, while a bachelor might buy beer and chips. Understanding these buying patterns can help to increase sales in several ways. While we may know that certain items are frequently bought together, the question is, how do we uncover these associations?

Children play and learn through educational toys about anatomy, chemistry, physics, and biology. They improve their memory or explore their creativity. Happiness science is so new it has yet to break into manufacturing with full force like other science based games and toys for children or adults. Given the leading edge of happiness research and the advent of advanced mobile medical technology, we are able to merge software with hardware in a way that has never been done before giving us the opportunity for positive robotics. Making a programmable robotic teddy bear who is abreast in how to help your child feel better may seem like a no brainer.

I believe Richard Feynman was one of our greatest scientific minds. He had a very particular way of looking at the world thanks to his father, and it was to look at the world around him as if he were a Martian. Like a fish born into water, it's hard to actually see water as being water, because it's all a fish ever knows. And so as humans, it's a good idea to try and step outside of our usual frame of mind, to see what it is we as humans think and do, from the perspective of a mind totally alien to our everyday environment. With that in mind, here's what humans are doing right now, from the perspective of someone from far, far away... What an interesting place and an interesting time it is for a visit.

An actual-size model of a Warhammer robot stands just inside the door of the Rams' new temporary offices in Agoura Hills. The action figure was left behind by a video game company that occupied the space before the Rams officially opened for business in Southern California. On Monday, the character was adorned in a No. 3 Rams jersey. "It's exciting for the staff to finally be together for the first time in an office space, to be the Los Angeles Rams," Kevin Demoff, the team's chief operating officer, said during a brief interview in his office. "It's fantastic to have the group here and really laying the foundation for the 2016 season and beyond."

Ever since the launch of Siri in its fully-integrated form on the iPhone 4s in 2011, digital assistants have become standard features on most modern smartphones. With competition growing from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon with their Cortana, Google Now, and Echo respectively, Apple continues providing updates to Siri in an attempt to find a semblance of functional advantage. As Google recently added changes to its digital assistant – Google Now – with smart intonation and expression to its speech patterns to sound less robotic, Apple has followed with their own updates looking to target Siri towards specific audiences; in this case, sports fans. Leading up to the opening days of this year's Major League baseball season, Apple has dramatically increased Siri's knowledge of and access to in-depth baseball knowledge and statistics. Though Apple added sports scores to Siri's functionality back with iOS6, previously, when asked specific baseball-related questions, Siri would typically respond with a simple search or Google queries.

Lloyd Alter ( @lloydalter) writes about smart (and dumb) tech with a side of design and a dash of boomer angst.