or "Look, you who think the gods have no care of human things, what do you say to so many persons preserved from death by their especial favour?", to which Diogenes replied: "Why, I say that their pictures are not here who were cast away, who are by much the greater number." - Diogenes
Leanna Garfield writing in BI this week outlines how the the New Zealand-based robotics company, Scott Technology Limited is developing fully-automated meat processing bots, which can extract different cuts from lamb, pig, and beef carcasses. Many meatpacking companies believe using this type of technology (rather than human workers) will make processing more efficient. Garfield points out: The world’s largest meat production company, JBS, is already investing in it. As NPR reported, the Brazil-based corporation bought a controlling…
A film created by Carl Schlesinger and David Loeb Weiss documenting the last day of hot metal typesetting at The New York Times.
Certainly a growing and contentious policy debate on the role and purpose of autonomous robots in the "workplace". The potential of existential challenges to what we understand the "middle-class" to be [ in the context of a 20th Century definition of a "labour-force], coupled with genuine and profound advances in autonomous and now artificial intelligence, gives one a moment [at…
Australia tops Global Creativity Index Mapping the connection between cities, inequality, and creative economics http://t.co/ZaHzQscksk pic.twitter.com/0Udmiy6Z6S — CityLab (@CityLab) July 9, 2015
For those living and working in rural areas, the importance of providing genuine pathways to skilled employment for local populations, particularly young-people, is paramount. We understand in great detail, the challenges of ageing rural populations and structural adjustments. This is more than just a "microcosm" of the challenges facing our national economy. Working in the field of skills development, labour…
Can a 3D printer cool the Planet? Stay with me on this.. As we once again hear that the 1990 IPCC Climate modelling for the planet is "on trend" or "coming true", I ponder the relationship between some of the major policy challenges Australia faces and see opportunity where at present we seem only to be experiencing confusion and much…
Food for thought.. http://youtu.be/g8mynrRd7Ak Links: Frans de Waal - Dutch primatologist and ethologist Google Scholar - Teachers and Performance Pay Google Scholar - Does performance pay for teachers work? Debating the merits of merit pay - Andrew Leigh
At a time when Gender equity is so prominent in much media coverage, both within Australia and across the Globe, it is also sobering to consider the structural challenges faced by girls entering the workforce and adult-hood for the first time here in Victoria. This graph shows Vet is Schools [VETiS] enrolments for Girls as a ratio of the Boys…