You couldn't make it up: "The Far Side" gets ever closer..

Between the Islamic State (formerly ISIS), Rotherham, and various other horrible stories there wasn't much of a "silly season" this summer but I noticed one story which almost could have been one.

Cartoonist Gary Larson's "Far Side" strip projected a future "Age of Cows" and it seems that high tech cows are getting closer and closer.

Earlier this year details of a scheme for "Connected Cows" through a product called Silent herdsman" was announced here, with the tagline Connected cows produce more milk."

Now it seems that the National Trust has given BT a contract to put large numbers of rare cattle on the phone, but putting a SIM card in their collars to track them.

The mind boggles ...

Comments

Jim said…
Not really buying into the "produces more milk bit" but it does make sense for identity from a distance.

People have been micro chipping dogs for years. Just really a replacement for the old bone on a collar with a phone number stamped into it.

I guess this is the modern replacement for the freeze branded number or the ear tag used for idenity cows have had for years.
5:29 pm
Jim said…
In fact the more i think about this, the more it makes semse.

not only can the farmer tell at a glance which a cow is, but they also know what treatment its had, where its been all night, what its done, which cows it likes, which cows it avoids. when its about to go into calf..............

all at the tough of a button, much better than spending min wage on someone watching all night huh.

all you need is a vet and a computer programmer.

as you quoted earlier “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”

Now tell me agian why you wanted to raise the min wage a couple of months ago.
8:30 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Absolutely.

Will come back to the minimum wage.

I have a collection of comments on the National Trust cows contract, see forthcoming post ...
11:20 pm
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