What's New on the PRR Panhandle 2.0?

[rogruth]

AI is, IMO, vastly overrated. We will see.

Quite true.

Underlying problem is the real thing is getting to be in extremely short supply.

Yes and I often wonder about mine these days.

[G3750]

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That's the big fallout from the last economic collapse. Industries that had been sitting on the fence regarding automation brought in machines instead of bringing back workers. The new jobs are either well paying technical work (programming/monitoring/fixing) the machines or low level unskilled jobs feeding in raw materials or packing up the manufactured product. The companies haven't got their heads wrapped around the fact that while the machines don't get sick/need vacations/insurance/etc they also don't buy sh*t and at some point that becomes a very big problem when you only have a handful of people at a plant making enough to buy maybe 1% of what you are producing. Who buys the rest?

Over 100 years ago, Henry Ford was smart enough to pay his employees enough to be able to afford his automobiles.

BTW, there is about to be a roll out of AI based accounting. You don't need to have someone that knows how to use Excel, Excel will be able to run itself. There will be low level data entry clerks and a few "supervisors" that will review/analyze the data. Even "white color" jobs won't be safe. I'm going to laugh my * off when this stuff is screwed up an no one notices because a lot of humans don't notice now. Garbage in, garbage out on a massive and almost instantaneous scale.

OMG, you're absolutely right. I worked for a company that succeeded by promoting and having managers with technical experience in the field. Eventually, these were replaced by Excel-jockeys who only knew the numbers, not what they meant or how to do the actual work. You know the outcome - loss of contracts, lost money on jobs, staff layoffs, and promotions for the idiots responsible.

All of this has happened before, many times. The railroad industry went through a massive upheaval when steam loco's were shut down in a very short time in the early 50's. All of those skilled workers in the back shops suddenly had no jobs. I feel the biggest difference between what's been happening in the last 20 years and pretty much everything that went before was that the people that were focused on making money understood that they needed to make and sell "something" to make money. Now there is too much focus on making money period. It doesn't matter whether I actually have anything to make/sell, I just need to accumulate money. It used to be companies had five or ten year forecasts/plans. Now it's tomorrow or next week, next quarter at the latest. This is not sustainable.

Unfortunately, it has happened before and yes, it is unsustainable.

George

[G3750]

Spoiler Alert: This is a bit of thread drift. (God knows I'm allowed given the continental drift that has taken place on this thread. )

I'm happy to announce that my short article and photo spread on Weirton Steel was published in the January edition of the Steel Mill Modeler's Journal. This is the quarterly publication of the NMRA Steel Mill Modeler's Special Interest Group.

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George

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Spoiler Alert: This is a bit of thread drift. (God knows I'm allowed given the continental drift that has taken place on this thread. )

I'm happy to announce that my short article and photo spread on Weirton Steel was published in the January edition of the Steel Mill Modeler's Journal. This is the quarterly publication of the NMRA Steel Mill Modeler's Special Interest Group.

Congrat's!!!!!!!

[G3750]

Congrat's!!!!!!!

Thank you, Marty!! I'm very excited about this. It came out great (kudos to the Journal's staff! ) and the Weirton Area Museum and Cultural Center (who made the whole article possible) got some exposure for the great job they are doing.

George

[chuck]

Ditto on the congrats.

[G3750]

Ditto on the congrats.

Thanks Chuck!

[healey36]

Congratulations George! Where can one get their mitts on a copy?

Healey

[G3750]

Congratulations George! Where can one get their mitts on a copy?

Healey

Thank you!

I would recommend contacting the editor, Steve Meyer at sdmeyer007@hotmail.com

George

[rogruth]

Ditto on the ditto.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[G3750]

Ditto on the ditto.

Thanks Roger!!!

George

[G3750]

George

[webenda]

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[G3750]

Thanks, Wayne!!