Teleidoscope

Thu, Jul 12, 2007

Milking Robot

Posted at 10:07 pm MDT to Technology

Oh, neat. A program on Food Network just did a sequence about an advanced robotic milking machine.

The cow walks into the booth and the machine identifies her by a chip in her collar. Then it gives her a snack to eat while she is being milked, cleans off the udder, and uses a laser-sighted control system to locate the teats and attach the milkers. It does the milking and immediately disconnects, so the cow does not need to wait for the farmer to get around to disconnecting her.

The cows can get milked whenever they want (unless the machine is busy with another cow), and some of them choose to get milked as many as 6 times a day (even during the night), not just the twice daily milking they get when humans need to set up and remove the milking equipment.

And the farmer is not the prisoner of morning and evening milkings either. He commented that the cost ( about $160,000) is cheaper in the long run than the combination of regular milking equipment and a hired hand.

Somehow it makes sense that the machine was invented by the Dutch.

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Financial Safety

Posted at 9:47 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

First, a handy link I found at the blog of author Andrew Dennis. This site, GetHuman gives phone numbers and instructions for how to reach an actual human customer service rep -- instead of getting stuck in phone-menu-hell --for many major corporations. My link is to the US page. Andrew (who is British) also has a link to the UK site.

My credit union has been breaking their website login functions again, and they changed the site so that if you can't log in, there is no way to send them a message oneline: no more support email address. Fortunately, their phone tree is not also broken: I was able to get to a live person.

Not that the live person did anything. I called yesterday and today and both times was promised a callback by the end of the workday. Next payday I'm going to open an account at another credit union so I have options the next time the Bellco bozos decide to make their website unusable for non-Windows users.

I have not received the promised calls, but when I retried the website at lunchtime I was finally able to log in and move the money from my savings account to checking so that I could write the check for the Septic System rebuild.

Today I wrote the largest check I have ever written that was all my own money, not derived from a bank loan. This was like paying cash for a well-equipped new car. And until that check clears, my checking account balance is huge. It won't be wiped out even after the check clears: I have enough to cover my usual expenses for this pay cycle, including the mortgage, and the unusual expense of 6 months of car insurance which is due this month without coming near the minimum balance on the account.

And my savings are not wiped out, : I didn't touch my non-IRA CD (much less any of the retirement funds) and there is still some money in regular savings too.

I don't have quite enough cash before next payday to pay cash for the truck repairs that are going to be coming due any day now without hitting the CD, but that isn't a problem since I have plenty of headspace on my credit cards: high limits and low balances. I can spread paying for the truck repairs for a few months without a problem.

This is the first time in my life that I have been in such a stable place financially. I can handle financial emergencies without counting pennies to pay my utility bills this months, or worrying that the next thing that goes expensively wrong will wipe me out, or leave me facing the need to take out a bank loan or cash in my retirement funds.

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