“Astronaut”
Doesn’t that word conjure up the majesty of space exploration? The triumph of human drive and ingenuity?
Or perhaps, it makes you think of an automated laser-guided milking machine?
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Seriously. Wrap your mind around that. “Automated laser-guided milking machine”.
Cow walks in when it decides it’s ready to be milked. Sensors read a tag around the cow’s neck to determine if the cow is indeed ready to be milked. If so, the machine launches a veritable Pink Floyd Lasarium around the udder, locating the teats, which are then cleaned and hooked up to the milking units. Sensors then disconnect when the milk flow drops, and the cow goes on its way.
Lasers and cows. Two fine things that I never thought I’d see together.
(and below, an informative video, if you really, really care)
August 19th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Next step: http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=604
Laser Cows. Just like real cows.
Only with lasers.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Yeah, but what about the sharks with frickin’ lasers attached to their heads?
August 19th, 2009 at 11:38 am
This is absolutely hilarious… and amazing! I’m an economics graduate student, and I will certainly save this video for a future introductory course as the best example ever of substituting capital for labour.
…. that is, until Microsoft perfects the MSN Chat Bots and deploys imaginary friends to replace our real ones.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I’m tickled by the thought of the engineers working on this. Somebody had to have a lot of expertise to decide on the proper algorithm for laser-guided teat finding. Maybe it was even a small team, and then there’d be project management meetings — “Jane, how’s the laser-guided teat finding going? Have you solved the short-cow failure mode yet?”
August 19th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Being of peasant extraction I think this is awesome.
The cows decide for themselves when they want to get milked (some of them love it and go back for more – most likely because they get some goodies to chew on while they wait – that’s another reason for the nametag – we don’t want them to get overfed). And the farmhands don’t have to drag around the machines (they’re heavy).
August 19th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Hm Hm.
I wonder if it can talk and cuddle with the cows also…. If not. Bad invention.
August 19th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
So I guess one can now say that ‘we can invent a computerized laser-guided automatic cow-milking machine but we can’t [insert personal pet peeve here]‘…
August 19th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Yeah, it’s all very funny until the first drunk farmhand wanders into the machine and lowers his pants on a bet.
August 19th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
@Jim,
Hey, that’s not milk (eewwww!!).
August 19th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Could you replace that gigantic image by something sized more appropriately for the page? I have to slide the horizontal scroll bar halfway to Chicago to see the whole thing, and it makes vertical scrolling kind of sluggish as well.
(I’m using IE 7, although I don’t think that has any bearing on it.)
August 19th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Sorry Chris — Looks fine under my browser. I changed the image width from “100%” to a fixed size, so hopefully that will work better for you.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
It has been a lifelong fantasy of mine to get lucky with an astronaut…
August 19th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Here’s a song by Miriam Makeba that I choose to believe is about cows and lasers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V74f9eIi9c0
August 20th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Easier said than done.
August 20th, 2009 at 6:40 am
“I’m an economics graduate student, and I will certainly save this video for a future introductory course as the best example ever of substituting capital for labour.”
Great. The big $$ manufacturer gets richer and the poor farm hand who’s lost his job is on the public dole and gets poorer. (Oh, but they may offer “job retraining.” LMAO.) Wonderful
August 20th, 2009 at 8:24 am
[...] a futuristic laser guidance system, we now have a new way to MILK COWS. Cows and laser beams, gotta love it. Laser Guided Cow Milking [...]
August 20th, 2009 at 8:34 am
I’ve got to admit, as a person who does a lot of computer controlled machinery I think this thing sounds awesome. And yes, I would have loved to have put “developed laser guided teat-finder” on my resume. That’s the sort of thing that gets you an interview just so they can ask you a question. Alas, I’ll have to wait quite some time for the next opportunity to work on such a project.
I was soooo close too, I make stuff for astronauts. I just made the mistake of thinking the space program was the right place!
August 20th, 2009 at 10:48 am
“get lucky with an astronaut”
And yes, the laser light show should include this Floyd: http://anytime.co.jp/rock/_img/Atom_Heart_Mother.jpg
August 20th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Alternate punchline: “Consider a frictionless spherical cow…”
August 20th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Thanks, Julianne. That did the trick. Of course, I guess that just gives Internet Explorer haters another reason to dump on it. (Maybe IE 8 would do better.) Your browser (Firefox or Chrome?) is probably doing the right thing with the width setting.
August 21st, 2009 at 10:09 am
You missed the facts about how the race timing is done for the sailing regattas off the Isle of Wight (UK) .
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Lasers @ Cowes
August 28th, 2009 at 11:52 am
It cheers me that the laser-guided milker has a BIG RED BUTTON, just like a telescope, for an emergency shutdown. You know, just in case the milker goes berserk and threatens Cleveland.