Self-Driving VW

Self-Driving VW Prototype
Self-Driving VW Prototype

Cool! Someone leaked a pic of Volkswagen’s new self-driving car. ๐Ÿ˜† Apparently they’ve had the tech since 1968 but are just now in the process of bringing it to the auto market.

Tags: | | |

Your Future Is Now

I’ve said before that raising the minimum wage in order to provide the “poor” with the material standard of living they feel entitled to is a plan that will backfire, causing incalculable financial harm to the very people it’s meant to provide for.

mcdonalds-automat

McDonald’s New Kiosk Model
(Click to Enlarge)

Well, it appears that, if you’re one of those who’ve been screaming to make $15 / hr to flip burgers, your future is now. McDonald’s is piloting a new, cashier-free kiosk system in several major US cities after having great success with them in Europe. And this is just McDonald’s; others are moving this way as well.

What is as telling as it is interesting is that, despite the hype, that these kiosks were developed to reduce labor costs, they weren’t. They were developed in order to speed up the ordering process and overall improve the customer experience…because the workers, who now want more money, couldn’t or wouldn’t do job as well as a self-service kiosk.

And the above are just about the cashiers. Other automated systems are in development or early pilot to completely automate the fast food cooking process. Hence, soon there may be very few people employed in the fast food industry at all.

Yes, to all those who’ve pushed, and pushed, and putsched to jack up the minimum wage I say, your future is now and it is bleak.

Tags: | | | | | | | | | |

Field Expediency

One thing that everyone should count upon is that soldiers and sailors will be creative and reuse and misuse any and materiel at their disposal in order to achieve their ends. Many of these field expedients are for direct combat or support operations but even more are creative – sometimes overly so ๐Ÿ˜‰ – means of providing basic comforts that personnel in combat zones normally lack.

A case in point…

field-expedient
Field Expedient – TALON EOD Robot Bartender

When you’ve seen: bunkers made of cases of beer; chess, checkers, and cribbage sets made out of anything and everything; nearly every place in every vehicle’s engine compartment used for warming rations; and just about every possible part of small arms used as bottle openers, the fact that some serviceman decided to send his TALON EOD Robot to get him a beer is not shocking.

Of course I always thought the purpose of the TALON was to keep our soldiers from getting bombed. ๐Ÿ˜†

Tags: | | | | | |