6 ms·
Back in the 1930s there was pancake-making-robot outside the diner across the street from the apartment where my dad grew up on 72nd St in Manhattan. My dad lov
by lkrubner 7y ago
Back in the 1930s there was pancake-making-robot outside the diner across the street from the apartment where my dad grew up on 72nd St in Manhattan. My dad loved to watch the thing work. He'd put in a penny and a mechanical arm would come out and pour some batter on a hot grill, then a few moments later another arm came out and flipped the pancake, then a few moments later an arm would come out and move the pancake to a paper plate, which then got shunted out to my dad. Sometimes my dad would put in a penny when he wasn't even hungry, he just loved the elegance of watching the robot move.
I often wonder why there are no such robots in Manhattan now? I have to assume this is simply a matter of fashion. Robots seemed very futuristic in the 1930s, and even something as simple as a pancake making robot helped a little boy feel in touch with the future.
- umvi 7y agoNot saying this is the reason NYC doesn't have pancake robots anymore, but it seems like New York in general has banned certain types of automation in order to preserve jobs. For example, that's why you still see - in 2019 - manual toll booth workers sitting in glass boxes in NY instead of automated tolls like every other state has.
- warent 7y agoSomething about that seems wrong. I definitely respect the fact that someone will do the job, but isn't that basically the equivalent of a universal basic income except you're forcing the person to waste half their day doing trivial work? (FWIW I support a UBI)
- JackFr 7y agoIt's worse than that -- you're making them suck exhaust fumes all day.
- hanniabu 7y agoPlot twist, their real job is to be a human air filter /s
- zhoujianfu 7y agoThat’s exactly why UBI is the right answer and a “guaranteed jobs” program is 100% the worst answer and terrible!
- psychometry 7y agoIt "seems like"? Do you have any evidence for such a state law?
- umvi 7y agoI'm not a NY resident so I don't know. If not a law, it's possible labor unions push back against automation, allowing their union members to continue to be toll booth collectors
- genericlogic 7y agoActually the conversion to fully automated is in the end stages. https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/news/2019/06/18/cashless-tolling-new-york-state-thruway-bestpass.html https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/news/2019/06/18/cashless-...
- wonderwonder 7y agoNot sure if this law exists in relation to toll booths but there are some laws in place that do seem to be geared towards what you describe such as being unable to pump your own gas. NY does have EZ pass though on toll lanes
- sillypuddy 7y agoAre you talking about a specific toll booth? There is Fast-Trak in NYC.
- 0xffff2 7y agoSome California toll roads still have manned booths (others have been 100% automated for many years). It's not a matter of providing jobs; it just costs a lot to put the infrastructure into place so it doesn't happen overnight or all at once.
- perl4ever 7y agoNY has EZ-Pass, which is an automated toll-collecting system. Things aren't as efficient as they could be, but you are being misleading.
- shantly 7y ago> For example, that's why you still see - in 2019 - manual toll booth workers sitting in glass boxes in NY instead of automated tolls like every other state has. Does Kansas have the same protections? Plenty of humans in booths on the Turnpike.
- porknubbins 7y agoI think its more likely they just don’t fire a few hundred people on the few bridges and tunnels in from NJ that probably pull in millions a day. All new bride tolls I’ve seen have cameras and toll processed do not stop signs.
- Larrikin 7y agoAs someone from a city covered in tolls, Richmond, the workers serve what may seem like an insignificant but very important role. They provide change and do so quickly. Atleast in Virginia, the attendants are usually off to the right side with the other slower traffic. They have the change available right away, usually in several different sets for the most common ways of paying. I believe the big bucket machines used to provide change back when tolls were well under a dollar, but they would just overfill since most people didn't even know they could get change back and were just mad they didn't have correct change. Some kind of vending machine style system of people trying to insert dollars on the highway would just cause more problems. Its been especially awful recently when they've tried to remove them. EZ-Pass has started to become fairly common, but so has the ubiquitness of debit cards and credit cards so people are lacking cash and change more often. The automation on tickets has increased to near perfect levels, so when someone doesn't have change on hand they end up trying to back up and cross over several lanes to the single one or they root around in their car for minutes looking for any change when there are no attendants.
- roel_v 7y agoLots of hotels have pancake 'robots' ('machines' is probably a better word, they don't have arms or anything, just look like a big toaster) at their breakfast buffets.
- mrkstu 7y agoIn my experience they have been 'waffle' machines rather than pancake ones.
- AshleyGrant 7y agoSome have waffle irons, but they still require the user to put the batter in them. The pancake machines that OP is talking about automate the entire process of making a pancake (and don't require flipping the pancake). Here is an example: https://uncrate.com/chefstack-automatic-pancake-machine/ https://uncrate.com/chefstack-automatic-pancake-machine/
- starpilot 7y agoAh, business travel feels.
- tareqak 7y agoYour dad's story reminds of my experience with the Krispy Kreme machine [0]. They have one at Daly City [1]. I remember going to see the first Krispy Kreme that opened in Canada since I lived within driving distance from it at the time. It seemed to me to be remaining part of fully automating Homer's Donut Hell [2]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu0ISv_GeHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu0ISv_GeHI [1] https://www.krispykreme.com/location/daly-city https://www.krispykreme.com/location/daly-city [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtEFEdrrXc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtEFEdrrXc4
- jborichevskiy 7y agoThank you for reminding me about this! I remember being mesmerized watching a few donuts go all the way through every time we stopped by when I was young. Sadly that location has been closed down.
- maliker 7y agoSounds like an automat[1]? Interesting theory in the link that they died off in the 70s because coins were no longer worth enough to buy a decent amount of food and bills couldn't be accepted by machine yet. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat
- OJFord 7y agoThat is interesting, but IMO what's interesting is that USD coinage doesn't go as high in value as anywhere else I'm aware of. (Continental) Europe has €2 coins, worth just slightly more than two dollar 'bills', here in the UK we have £2 coins (worth slightly more again) (and commemorative £5s), Canada has 'twonies' too. The 50¢ top-out seems surprisingly low now that I think about it. Is there any particular reason it's developed that way?
- suzakus 7y agoUS has a 1$ that you don't see that commonly, but I have (anecdotally) gotten it back from Vending machines as change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_coin_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_coin_(United_States)
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoIn San Jose they used to use them for trolley tokens! But that was years ago. The price has probably gone up.
- crazygringo 7y agoYeah what happened to those? A decade ago I remember being surprised that they were becoming a "thing" -- getting them as change, might have been from vending machines too -- but now I realize I haven't seen one in years.
- elgringoloco 7y agoI lived in Ecuador for a while and they use USD as their currency. They have all of the dollar coins.
- untog 7y ago> I often wonder why there are no such robots in Manhattan now? It sounds like it only made one pancake at a time? A person stood at a griddle can make a dozen pancakes at once. And we don't know how often that robot broke down. I somehow suspect the novelty was one of the reasons to have such a device, not necessarily the efficiency of the thing.
- contingencies 7y agoI often wonder why there are no such robots in Manhattan now? As someone in the food automation space, I would suppose this is probably some combination of: (1) Cost to custom-manufacture in small volumes, where small < 1000s. (2) Patent encumbered. (3) Food safety regulations. (4) Low output volume. (5) Reliability not 100% (eg. fails in winter temperatures) (6) Cost of site-call engineers to resolve semi-frequent issues too high. (7) Electrical consumption rather high. (8) Potential issues connecting to public water system, limiting viable sites and potentially introducing issues of pest ingress. (9) General novelty / wow-factor wears off. (10) You can't eat it every day.