“What are we havin’ for supper?”
“Oh! I found a limping leg of lamb at the butcher's today. So, limping leg of lamb.”
“Limping?! What’s that mean?”
“Don’t you ever read the news? Finally, someone has developed a sensor that can detect whether or not a sheep is lame. Big problem you know for shepherds and big-time shepherding, definitely a concern of “experts” from the University of Nottingham and Farm Wizard, an agricultural software developer. Sure, you get your occasional leg of lamb to wolf down, but those people concerned about the sheep industry have to worry about losing $100m/year because of lameness. Anyway, I’m sure that this leg isn’t from a limping lamb. It looks fine.”*
“What’s the limping from, jumping over those imaginary fences people use when they try to fall asleep? I’ve often wondered how that started. Sheep don’t seem to be great jumpers. But, then, I’ve never shepherded sheep, and I never made them jump over imaginary fences just so I could count them. Seems cruel, even if imaginary. I mean, why not animals that can jump, like horses? Sheep? It doesn’t even seem realistic. If sheep could jump over fences, wouldn’t they jump the real fences that imprison them as they await being sheared or having a leg amputated so that people can have leg of lamb. ‘Hey, what are you doing with my leg,’ asks the sheared sheep. ‘I don’t mind an occasional trip to the barber, but I can’t make more than four trips to the butcher. How am I supposed to jump those fences for people who can’t sleep? You know that if you take one of my legs, you’ll be contributing to world insomnia?’
“Anyway, what’s the cause of all this lameness that costs the industry to much?”
“The article says ‘foot rot.’”
“Okay, wait a minute. You mean you’ve possibly been feeding me legs that end in rot all these years?”
“Well, you don’t eat the hooves. They cut those off.”
“But, it was on the leg? What am I? A carrion-eater? A crow?”
“Oh! you’re just being silly. If it were a problem, someone from the FDA would have marked the lamb in an inspection.”
“Sure, that’s all I need to know. Someone, some highly motivated government official whose only job is to look at a million lamb legs catches the diseased one before you happen to buy it for my dinner. What if the guy has insomnia that results in lack of attention? What if he can’t count sheep because he spends days counting lamb legs? After tonight, no more legs of lamb! ‘Legs of chicken,’ as comedian Brian Regan says in one of his skits, for me.”
“You’re missing the larger point. Think of the technology. These scientists have made an ear tag for sheep that contains an accelerometer and a gyroscope to track a sheep’s behavior because sheep apparently don’t want anyone to know that they have a gimpy leg. And the information gets sent to the Cloud so that shepherds can monitor standing, walking, and lying activity in sheep to detect which sheep have a limp.”
“See. It’s all about those sheep jumping fences for people who can’t sleep. The Cloud? Isn’t that the stereotypical image, plump sheep jumping fences with puffy clouds in the sky?”
“No, no, no. Not some cloud in the sky. THE Cloud, you know, the one that keeps everyone’s phone and computer stuff on that vast network of servers. Give these guys some credit; their purpose was to improve sheep health and industry profits.”
“Okay. But what about that lame lamb that changes its behavior just enough to fool the shepherd? What about that human who inspects the butchered legs before they get shipped out to the local grocery store? There’s that occasional human error regardless of the sophisticated algorithms the computer guys put into their system. See, this is what we’re becoming, totally dependent upon some AI or some algorithm to run our lives; and yet, we still depend on some human to decide whether or not something is good for us on the basis of spot inspections. No, start serving legs of chicken, and I’ll pretend they are legs of lamb.”
“But don’t you realize that for all of human history, we’ve depended on spot inspections by humans? And some of them might have been sleep-deprived as you say, lessening their ability to concentrate on their jobs? You have to trust somewhere. You should be thankful we have a better system. But, hey, whatever you say, unless you want leftovers, tonight I’m serving leg of lamb.”
“With mashed potatoes and gravy?”
*Anscombe, Charlotte. 15 Jan 2020. Lame sheep adjust their behavior to cope with their condition, study finds. Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-lame-sheep-adjust-behavior-cope.html Accessed January 15, 2020.
“Oh! I found a limping leg of lamb at the butcher's today. So, limping leg of lamb.”
“Limping?! What’s that mean?”
“Don’t you ever read the news? Finally, someone has developed a sensor that can detect whether or not a sheep is lame. Big problem you know for shepherds and big-time shepherding, definitely a concern of “experts” from the University of Nottingham and Farm Wizard, an agricultural software developer. Sure, you get your occasional leg of lamb to wolf down, but those people concerned about the sheep industry have to worry about losing $100m/year because of lameness. Anyway, I’m sure that this leg isn’t from a limping lamb. It looks fine.”*
“What’s the limping from, jumping over those imaginary fences people use when they try to fall asleep? I’ve often wondered how that started. Sheep don’t seem to be great jumpers. But, then, I’ve never shepherded sheep, and I never made them jump over imaginary fences just so I could count them. Seems cruel, even if imaginary. I mean, why not animals that can jump, like horses? Sheep? It doesn’t even seem realistic. If sheep could jump over fences, wouldn’t they jump the real fences that imprison them as they await being sheared or having a leg amputated so that people can have leg of lamb. ‘Hey, what are you doing with my leg,’ asks the sheared sheep. ‘I don’t mind an occasional trip to the barber, but I can’t make more than four trips to the butcher. How am I supposed to jump those fences for people who can’t sleep? You know that if you take one of my legs, you’ll be contributing to world insomnia?’
“Anyway, what’s the cause of all this lameness that costs the industry to much?”
“The article says ‘foot rot.’”
“Okay, wait a minute. You mean you’ve possibly been feeding me legs that end in rot all these years?”
“Well, you don’t eat the hooves. They cut those off.”
“But, it was on the leg? What am I? A carrion-eater? A crow?”
“Oh! you’re just being silly. If it were a problem, someone from the FDA would have marked the lamb in an inspection.”
“Sure, that’s all I need to know. Someone, some highly motivated government official whose only job is to look at a million lamb legs catches the diseased one before you happen to buy it for my dinner. What if the guy has insomnia that results in lack of attention? What if he can’t count sheep because he spends days counting lamb legs? After tonight, no more legs of lamb! ‘Legs of chicken,’ as comedian Brian Regan says in one of his skits, for me.”
“You’re missing the larger point. Think of the technology. These scientists have made an ear tag for sheep that contains an accelerometer and a gyroscope to track a sheep’s behavior because sheep apparently don’t want anyone to know that they have a gimpy leg. And the information gets sent to the Cloud so that shepherds can monitor standing, walking, and lying activity in sheep to detect which sheep have a limp.”
“See. It’s all about those sheep jumping fences for people who can’t sleep. The Cloud? Isn’t that the stereotypical image, plump sheep jumping fences with puffy clouds in the sky?”
“No, no, no. Not some cloud in the sky. THE Cloud, you know, the one that keeps everyone’s phone and computer stuff on that vast network of servers. Give these guys some credit; their purpose was to improve sheep health and industry profits.”
“Okay. But what about that lame lamb that changes its behavior just enough to fool the shepherd? What about that human who inspects the butchered legs before they get shipped out to the local grocery store? There’s that occasional human error regardless of the sophisticated algorithms the computer guys put into their system. See, this is what we’re becoming, totally dependent upon some AI or some algorithm to run our lives; and yet, we still depend on some human to decide whether or not something is good for us on the basis of spot inspections. No, start serving legs of chicken, and I’ll pretend they are legs of lamb.”
“But don’t you realize that for all of human history, we’ve depended on spot inspections by humans? And some of them might have been sleep-deprived as you say, lessening their ability to concentrate on their jobs? You have to trust somewhere. You should be thankful we have a better system. But, hey, whatever you say, unless you want leftovers, tonight I’m serving leg of lamb.”
“With mashed potatoes and gravy?”
*Anscombe, Charlotte. 15 Jan 2020. Lame sheep adjust their behavior to cope with their condition, study finds. Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-lame-sheep-adjust-behavior-cope.html Accessed January 15, 2020.
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