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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
To add a simple date to a tombstone in the late 90s, Ron Richard, an engraver based in Southern Massachusetts, would trace the numbers onto a sheet of rubber and cut them out with an X-acto knife. By the time he'd placed the stencil onto the stone and run over it with his sandblaster (sand bounces off of the rubber portions of the stencil and carves rock exposed in the voids in between), about 20 minutes had passed.
Today, the same process takes Richard about five minutes. "It's far, far different," Richard says of his job nearly 20 years after he started his business, Northeast Stonewriters.
Richard now uses his laptop computer, which he brings with him to the cemetery, to lay out the text he wants to engrave. He uses a specialized printer, designed for the sign industry, to cut the rubber stencil according to the appropriate sizes and fonts.
Engravers and etchers like Richard, according to a survey by the US Department of Labor, now have the most automated occupation in the United States.
In the context of the current narrative of robots and software taking over jobs, this sounds like a sad story. But when I called a handful of etchers and engravers who have been in the business for decades, that's not the story they told me.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:55AM (5 children)
Engravers and etchers like Richard, according to a survey by the US Department of Labor, now have the most automated occupation in the United States.
If he's still got a job, and he still has to shlep his equipment somewhere its not automated all that much. Sure he has better tools, works faster.
But he's still doing it.
If the company owner comes in to work to oil the machinery once a week, or add raw materials once a day, that's probably more automated, so much so there is not many jobs left.
By the same token, those jobs that have been totally take taken over by machinery no longer employ laborers and therefore disappear from view of the Department of Labor.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:20AM (2 children)
But.. Think of the chimney sweeps
And the weavers,
And the dyers,
And...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:53PM (1 child)
But.. Think of the chimney sweeps
Chimney Sweeps still exist, just not quite in the Mary Poppins sense. They're the people you call when your need the brickwork touched up on your chimney or an entirely new one built. Many of them handle steel flue pipes as well as it's a somewhat different type of install from regular ductwork with more safety codes and considerations.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:12PM
Chimney Sweeps still exist, just not quite in the Mary Poppins sense. They're the people you call when your need the brickwork touched up on your chimney or an entirely new one built.
Or... ya know, have your chimney swept. People who have actual fireplaces that they use regularly in their houses still need to have their chimneys swept periodically for safety reasons. They have equipment now that makes chimneys much easier to clean (and greatly decreases the mess), so you no longer need 4-year-olds to climb into the chimneys... but lots of people still have chimneys swept regularly.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:55AM (1 child)
Indeed. Look up how things like screws and springs are made.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:52PM
It is mesmerizing to watch.