So what happens when robots take all our jobs away?

Seriously. Temporarily put aside any doubt that we (as a society) can design and build robots to perform many of the tasks we consider manual or menial labor. Picking fruits and vegetables, cleaning houses, assembling small (and large) things, lifting heavy things. Weren’t we all promised that in “the future,” robots would make our lives easier? What about the people whose jobs have been made obsolete?

I don’t know if it’s just that I’m in a pessimistic mood about the future lately, but I have a hard time seeing how this technological advancement won’t lead to more inequality and disparity in the world. Life will be good if you’re a robot designer, and there will surely be new jobs for technicians and such, but the whole concept is to take lots of people out of the equation, so there will be millions left without jobs. I can only imagine this gets even uglier in the US if Willard (Mitt) Romney is elected. He’s apparently not feeling very sympathetic these days

posted September 17, 2012 – 11:13 pm

Some friends recently offered up some plums from the tree in their yard. Well, implored me to take some is perhaps more apt. I now understand the dilemma of having something as wonderful as a fruit tree — you’re inundated with more delicious plums than you could possibly eat, bake into goodies, preserve, give away or huck at crows, ever, in your life. In the span of a week or two. So I happily took delivery of a small box of plums, and turned them into 5 or 6 pints of delicious ginger plum jam.

And then another friend mentioned they had a plum tree in their yard, and they were going away for a while and did I want to pick some plums? Oh, why not?

15 pounds of plums

15 pounds of plums later came plum cake, plum chutney (two kinds), hibiscus plum jam, not to mention quite a few eaten fresh. I like it all, but I’m ready for the next thing, and also, I’m out of canning jars.

posted September 17, 2012 – 10:59 pm

My car got clobbered Wednesday.

Well that's annoying...

I guess I don’t know exactly when it happened, but sometime between 5 pm Tuesday and 5 pm Wednesday, someone hit my car and took out the front left corner. No note. I did what you have to do: called the police to file a report, called my insurance company to file a claim, took the car to the shop to get an estimate, and got a rental. Cost to repair the damage: $1600, deductible $500. Ouch.

But then today, I got a call from the police that the driver called them and reported himself, saying he “didn’t know what to do” after the collision. I guess he tried calling his insurance company to file a claim, and they told him he had to call the cops, who connected his accident to my report.

I do my fair share of complaining about the Seattle Police Department — and to be sure, there’s a lot to complain about — but they did handle this courteously and efficiently, and it wound up saving me a hefty chunk of change.

posted September 14, 2012 – 8:14 pm
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