Oh what the hell, while we're on the subject of work

[kortirion_among_the_trees]

I find the conjunction of this, dating from the year I was born:

(In particular the lines: 'We've got a machine can learn the knack / Of doing your job, so don't come back ... Watch out for the man with the silicon chip')

With this: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n05/john-lanchester/the-robots-are-coming (to be read in full)

Utterly fascinating.  MacColl as a prophet of the socio-economic consequences of 'machine learning' (!!) - who'd have thunk it?

P. S. It's also just occurred to me that the LRB is the only present-day equivalent in this country of a 19th c. толстый журнал.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Could you translate the last two words into English? - Google suggests "thick log", which I suspect is missing something.

[arda-unmarred.livejournal.com]

That is a funny image! It means 'thick journal': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick_journal The parallel is by no means exact, I was just thinking of a periodical publication for a general readership containing high quality in-depth long analytical essays. The thick journals were much more than that, but the British periodical landscape is so poor nowadays that the LRB's the closest we've got.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks!