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Robots Make the Coins Go 'Round, Down Under
inkslinger77 writes "Computerworld has a cool slideshow of a Kuka Titan robot and a bunch of AGVs managing the circulation of coins at the Australian Mint. There's also a lengthier article where the head of the project talks about the main reason robots were employed. One of the reasons being that they radically reduce OH&S risk: 'We are finding that the AGVs are much safer and more reliable. Robots are never affected by having a bad night with the baby and falling asleep at the wheel. They are extremely accurate and they always do the same task in the same way.'"
The Australian mint... where you can buy a $1 coin for $2 from a vending machine.
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Robots are never affected by having a bad night with the baby and falling asleep at the wheel.
I'm not trying to be misogynist here, but should women with very small kids be working? Isn't this exactly the type of thing we should expect the government to try to protect through programs designed to give women time off that they need after having a baby?
Its not just women who look after the baby you know.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Because some men tend to take "a lot" of coffee breaks in their cars, each time taking a shoe full of $1 and $2 coins with them....
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=107801
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
Robots also can't tell their neighbors about how much more money the government is printing.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I'm not trying to be misogynist here
Well, you failed, but not because of your comments about work. You seem to be suggesting that when a baby wakes up in the middle of the night, it is beyond comprehension for the baby's father to get up and take care of it.
The quote is out of context, the article was referring to the safety of robots versus human driven forklifts,
the gender of the forklift driver is not an issue.
Robots are never affected by having a bad night with the baby and falling asleep at the wheel. They are extremely accurate and they always do the same task in the same way.
Oh really? So, so...if the rest of the world could only take this brand new revolutionary idea from the Australian mint and apply these "robots" to all kinds of industrial tasks.... oh, wait they already do since about 50 years ago
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
You think that's interesting check out the port of Hamburg, shipping containers being zipped around on robotic trucks/lifts/etc.
Terminal Automation
Ahhh... I thought it was about the gender of the forklift. Now it all makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up!
I wonder if the Australian Federal Police (AFP) setup security for the mint?
Might try a blank root password and see about getting that robot to do a home delivery.
Across most of the people that I know that have had babies the woman still does 90% of the heavy lifting once the baby is born.
Despite what the cool inner city chattering classes like to believe traditional roles are still absolutely dominant in western society and really have hardly budged in the last 50 years except where financial necessity requires it. It's a tiny, tiny fraction of people (generally from the same cool inner city chattering class) that have bought into the strange ideology of suppressing and heaping scorn on a womans natural motherly instinct.
So yes while it's accurate to say that "Its not just women who look after the baby you know." for the most part for 90% of couples, it actually is the women who look after the baby and for most they wouldn't have it any other way.
I'll await the tidal wave of "but they don't know what they want because it's not what I say they should want you patronsing misogynist!!11" (without seeing the hypocrisy of course).
That doesn't mean you aren't succeeding.
Do you really think that women are the only people kept up at night by babies?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Or does anyone else think the Australian mint was modeled after a level in Doom? I'll bet if I shot one of those barrels it would take out any nearby imps.
I'm one of those people who hates seeing mums with their strollers everywhere as well. But for a different reason, they remind me how I still haven't gone odne a vassectomy and am sexually active ... it's very frustrating this prospect of losing one's whole future to something as silly as two halves of a genome accidentally making a new infinitely replicating (cancerous?) cell.
It really doesn't make much difference. If the baby is crying at night (esp. if it sleeps in your room) they your night isn't going to be so great. Trust me! (father of an adorable but sleep-depriving 6 month old baby girl).
Even without the disrupted nights a baby is going to make you tired since there's no downtime. If mom is feeding and looking after the baby, then guess who's shopping, cooking, washing up and then looking after the baby while mom has a shower, does the laundry, etc, etc?!
Wow. I work with kids on a regular basis and either you're a troll or you've never had experience with kids.
A good parent interacts with his or her young child ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. It's more than a full time job if you're doing it right. Childrens' minds need constant interaction for their minds to develop properly. It's how they learn to interact with other human beings and otherwise function in society. As children get older, their friends and classmates start to take some of the load off the parents, but that takes years. The first several years of a child's life are critical and the parents are the major influence.
When I eventually have kids, I will do everything possible to make sure either I or the mother is home for at least the first several years of their lives. Not that it's impossible for a child to be well-adjusted without a full-time parent, but it's certainly harder. I see it all the time; the ones with active parents are, almost across the board, more attentive and better behaved. They tend to get along with other children better, too.
To summarize: It's not necessarily the physical work (though there's more to that than you're acknowledging). It's the interaction with the child that's important.
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
Well it's no longer rated funny :).
Maybe it's because most US people don't know that Iraq was considered an ally (or at least a useful tool) of the USA before Iraq invaded Kuwait.
The USA was amongst the many countries supplying Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=815&blz=1
After the Iran-Iraq war was over, Saddam even spoke to the US ambassador and complained about Kuwait.
And the US ambassador (April Glaspie) said: "I think I understand this. I have lived here for years. I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.
I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us? "
http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspie.html
After that discussion, how was Saddam to know that the USA would be against them in that war? Don't forget the US actually supported them in their war against Iran.
So the Iraq-Kuwait war began, and then the USA came and smacked Iraq.
And this is how the coins go round, out of your pockets and into certain people's pockets :).
You don't lose your whole life, that's the militant feminist rant talking. Your life changes, that's all.
Then again, it changes every time there's a major event. Marriage, new job, car crash, theft, death of family member. I've heard a few women complain about losing their life to marriage. While I agree that you lose your former life, that doesn't mean you don't get a new one in return. People complain about losing their life to ailing family members. People complain a lot (human condition).
Death is the only item where you really lose your life. The rest is what you make out of it. For everyone that weeps a tear for the days of lesser responsibility, there's a person who would never go back to how it was. If you don't want to have a child, that's fine. If you want to not be bothered by someone else, then don't have a child, husband, family, etc. I'm not being facetious, not everyone is cut out to live like everyone else.
Likening a child to a cancer is just silly, unless I can call you, your parents, your bothers, and sisters cancers. In that case, you've mis-defined cancer; we all call that life.
The irony is that children are the only future which really will keep you in mind after you are gone. Eventually that won't last, but if you want a longer future than the one you will experience, you need to put your stamp on things that will outlast you.
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