Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

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Tuesday, January 11. 2022

Tuesday morning links

 Deere Goes Autonomous With Its Farmer-Free Tractor


 The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'


 NYT: Omicron Presents a Danger That's No Different Than the Seasonal Flu


 Amazon Cuts COVID-19 Paid-Leave To 40 Hours For US Employees, Following Walmart


 Why I Soured on the Democrats - COVID school policies set me adrift from my tribe.


 Omicron Makes Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Obsolete. There is no evidence so far that vaccines are reducing infections from the fast-spreading variant.


 End Stage Covid Craziness in New York


Yes, our pal did sing in Carnegie Hall this weekend 


 In wake of controversy, superintendent defends elementary school’s dropping of ‘Jingle Bells’


 NBC Suggests There May Be ‘Very Little Evidence’ of a Gender Performance Gap in Swimming


Democrats are trying to scare America over a civil war they're trying to start


 America’s Asymmetric Civil War - It’s within metro areas, not between the states


 Updated and Reposted: RealClearInvestigations' Jan. 6-BLM Riots Comparison


 "When we fail to recognize the moral legitimacy of a range of positions on controversial topics, disagreements about these issues inevitably become judgments about other people’s character."


 Democrats’ Top Priority Before Fall Elections Is Rigging U.S. Voting Rules



Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:01 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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Good luck to John Deere going full-robot. They tried that in the oil business years ago on offshore drilling rigs, where supporting the offshore staff is a major expense (food, accommodation, transportation, safety, etc). What they quickly found out was that fully automated rigs require an even bigger army of technicians and mechanics to keep the gear running. End of experiment. Now in modern times, they've automated rigs with machinery that functions as an extension of the worker (roustabouts, roughnecks, drillers) to reduce the amount of physical labor and hazardous risk. And the machinery is serviceable by the rig team; a good balance.

Deere has been gradually shifting to a subscription model with all of its equipment, raising some serious 'Right to Repair' issues with its customers, who are often facing harvest deadlines to bring in their crop. Deere wants only their licensed technicians to be performing maintenance and repair. I see this full-robot approach being a natural progression of the concept, and suspect the outcome will be similar: enhanced functionality for the operators, owner-repairable. Not SkyNet.
#1 Aggie on 2022-01-11 09:50 (Reply)
By the way, the Maggies Farm link isn't working this morning - it gives this error:

"/ Incorrect key file for table '/tmp/#sql_28d8_0.MYI'; try to repair it"
#1.1 Aggie on 2022-01-11 10:58 (Reply)
It didn't work for me at all yesterday and maybe the day before and up until now.
#1.1.1 JC on 2022-01-12 08:43 (Reply)
Case IH has had a prototype robot tractor for several years now.
It's more like a drone. It's remote controlled either directly or through a pre-programmed profile, not fully autonomous.

The Case IH one works quite well apparently, though AFIAK they've no plans to put the current model into production so it's more of a proof of concept vehicle than a real prototype.
But I do see them being useful for very large farming operations where it can take several days to work a single field and drivers tend to take shifts and keep going 24/7.
#1.2 JTW on 2022-01-16 22:32 (Reply)
Hear, hear! for biphasic sleep. While I was up at 0-dark-30 during my misspent military youth, my second career doesn't require me to be awake and lucid until around 11am. So I often do two sleeps, with some very productive and quiet time between midnight and 3am. Great for reading or laptop work, but a rude time to practice the piano.
#2 Michael Anderson (Link) on 2022-01-12 08:55 (Reply)
IN reference to the misunderstanding regarding the song "Jingle Bells", it is clear in context that the verb "smells" in transitive. Batman is olfactorially sensing that Robin has "Laid an egg", a euphemism for defecating in an inappropriate place, or passing gas with an offensive odor. Thus it is Robin who should be the target of ridicule, not the Caped Crusader himself.
#3 Another guy named Dan on 2022-01-12 10:33 (Reply)
Regarding the “two sleeps”. It is still a way of life to those of us who have lived in the deep rural parts. Having been in the woods since 1982 it is customary to sleep when one is tired and awaken when one is not.

In the military we learned about
“before morning nautical twilight” (BMNT)
That is when the enemy is at their sleepiest. Their 2nd sleep.
Many a mission is timed to occur during that event.

The only time I can recall getting 8 straight is when copious amounts of alcohol were involved. Ugh.
#4 Jon from Illinois on 2022-01-12 11:22 (Reply)
The "two sleeps" article was intriguing, and may explain why I often wake up in the wee hours of the morning and have trouble going back to sleep for two or three hours. I always thought it was a form of insomnia. Now I realize it just may be natural for me.
#5 RebeccaH on 2022-01-12 11:52 (Reply)
Law-blogger Ann Althouse https://althouse.blogspot.com often talked about the "two sleeps" phenomenon.
#6 Kenneth C Mitchell on 2022-01-12 19:22 (Reply)

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