Cyber Sexers
August 13, 2003 8:32 AM Subscribe
Surprisingly work safe. It was while reading this WashPost article that I first discovered the joys of professional Sexing. Sexing work used to be a job for independent workers, but it is increasingly organized. It's still a fun hobby, though. Choose your keywords wisely when googling for more information.
My grandmother was apparently a pretty good chicken sexer. I'd never heard of such a thing before my parents mentioned that she knew a bit about "sexing chickens" and I was speechless with shock until they explained it.
I still wish I'd had her teach me that, just so I could say I'd once sexed a chicken.
posted by stefanie at 9:44 AM on August 13, 2003
I still wish I'd had her teach me that, just so I could say I'd once sexed a chicken.
posted by stefanie at 9:44 AM on August 13, 2003
stefanie, it's made very easy if you stick to sex links -- chickens that are different colors depending on their gender. (Choose your keywords extra wisely when googling for more information.) I have heritage breeds at my farm, so chicken sexing has to happen the old-fashioned way. No sex links for me!
posted by ewagoner at 9:53 AM on August 13, 2003
posted by ewagoner at 9:53 AM on August 13, 2003
Years ago, after reading about it in a Washington Post story, I composed a poem from almost-random words taken from my working copy of the Standard Occupational Classification manual and submitted it to poetry.com. Much to my surprise, the poem made it onto their website. Here it is, in all its glory:
Cryptographic Clerk
plan, organize, direct, control, coordinate
fillers, buckers, chicken sexers
disaggregation, fungibility
onet detail was not adopted
action: aggregate to residual
posted by MrMoonPie at 10:10 AM on August 13, 2003
Cryptographic Clerk
plan, organize, direct, control, coordinate
fillers, buckers, chicken sexers
disaggregation, fungibility
onet detail was not adopted
action: aggregate to residual
posted by MrMoonPie at 10:10 AM on August 13, 2003
Chicken sexing came up in a philosophy science of mind I can't remember if it was philosophy of science or philosophy of mind, but the professor brought it up because it was one of the tasks that computer scientists and process / management engineers tried to "solve" in the 1950s and 1960s.
You see, from the article that chicken sexers were highly sought after and were paid handsomely for their work. Apparently they made more than anyone but the owner of the chicken farm. And the craft was passed down from parents to children, to keep it in the family. So this inefficiency was targeted by the management and computerization guys, but to no end.
It shows up in philosophy for two reasons:
First, there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for sexing chickens. In other words, no one could write a book with a step-by-step procedure that would, at the end, identify a chick as either a male or a female (at least not reliably above chance). The decision is not algorithmic, at least according to this philosophy professor.
Related, is the idea of learning and teaching. Aristotle says that everything that can be learned has a teacher (in the Nichomachean ethics). But this example proves that some things can't be taught, but they can be learned. Another example is riding a bike. No one can teach you to do it. They just give you bike and point you down the road and you have to teach yourself.
posted by zpousman at 10:35 AM on August 13, 2003
You see, from the article that chicken sexers were highly sought after and were paid handsomely for their work. Apparently they made more than anyone but the owner of the chicken farm. And the craft was passed down from parents to children, to keep it in the family. So this inefficiency was targeted by the management and computerization guys, but to no end.
It shows up in philosophy for two reasons:
First, there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for sexing chickens. In other words, no one could write a book with a step-by-step procedure that would, at the end, identify a chick as either a male or a female (at least not reliably above chance). The decision is not algorithmic, at least according to this philosophy professor.
Related, is the idea of learning and teaching. Aristotle says that everything that can be learned has a teacher (in the Nichomachean ethics). But this example proves that some things can't be taught, but they can be learned. Another example is riding a bike. No one can teach you to do it. They just give you bike and point you down the road and you have to teach yourself.
posted by zpousman at 10:35 AM on August 13, 2003
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Sometimes it's good to hear where the food actually came from. There are so many random food and other industry related jobs that I'd never figure were out there. For example, I met a man once who's job was to record the messages people here when they're on hold to a company. The more technology increases the more specialized we have to become I suppose..
posted by woil at 9:29 AM on August 13, 2003