01 October 2009

Driving home the reality of assembly-line food


The video above shows food being made in a factory - something you can see on television documentaries any day. But when the "robot pancake sorter" kicks into action it seems to transcend reality. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't watching a parody or a brilliant spoof by some Pythonesque wit.

But it's real.

Via Kottke.

9 comments:

  1. You can't fool me--those aren't pancakes, they're Soylent Green!

    (I really don't understand the concept of packaged pancakes in the first place. It's like packaging fried eggs.)

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  2. "speaking about the final solution" (2:28)

    Uh... what?

    That statement is quite creepy...

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  3. I see what you mean...it's pretty surreal isn't it.

    I really do love my prepackaged pancakes though.

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  4. I love this machine! It's wonderful. See how fast and accurate it is in handling the pancakes without damaging them.
    Of course, in order to understand my enthusiasm, you would have to know that I spent most of my working life in high speed manufacturing engineering.

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  5. Cool.
    Where can I get one?

    Getting robots to replace humans who are doing mind-numbing tasks is a good thing.

    I cannot imagine what that job would have been like pre-robot.

    Getting a person to act like a machine for hours on end and paying them minimum wage is a form of economic torture.

    I wonder what the workers who were "replaced" by the robot are doing now with all their "free time." Perhaps reading Homer or Plato.

    :-)

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  6. I for one welcome our new pancake picking overlords.

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  7. I did notice near the begining when the workers are checking for consistency that they were using ungloved hands to handle the pancakes. Yech!!

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  8. And who cleans the "queue" area for the pancakes?

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