Monday, July 20, 2009

Okey Dokey


I read an article in the paper the other day. Should have started with something else because after that one I’d had enough.

Apparently there’s a local farm that, by January, will have its cows trained to milk themselves. Yes, that’s correct. The cows will wander into the brand spanking new high tech milking parlor and milk themselves. People assisting will be obsolete. Everything will be accomplished by robots and lasers.

The cows are to be fitted with transponders and tracked by a computer system that will record not only when they were last milked but also factors that contribute to milk production, distance walked throughout the day, weight, even the amount of chewing each cow does.

The farm owner will go from being a laborer to an overseer. He’ll take the information generated by the computer, analyze it, and then go about improving productivity. No, there was no explanation of how exactly that part would work. It didn’t go into detail on how to get a cow to chew more or what might happen to ones that are lazy slugs.

At the time the article was written there were plans for four robotic units along with a methane converting system to generate the power to keep them functional, making the operation entirely self-sufficient. All well and good but with 250 cows on the farm I have to wonder if four is enough. What if the ladies don’t want to wait in line?

Ow. Time to move on. This concept is making my head hurt.

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