I watched a piece of roadside equipment today. I'm very ignorant of these things and don't know the names for the different machines along the streets and highways and public utilities today. This is the second time this week I've watched intriguing machinery. The first one that was breaking up road surface would take a while to describe. This one is a little easier, maybe. I'm so ignorant I don't even know what parts to focus on, or how to label the parts. The first thing I saw that caught my attention was a kind of jointed metal arm maybe ten feet long when extended, with a hinged, beak-like scoop at the end. It was attached to a vehicle. When I arrived, it was making a lot of racket, the arm aiming down at the ground and knocking like a slow-motion jack hammer, although not designed like a jack hammer. It looked like a shore bird pecking the sand for shellfish. It pecked in one spot, then cautiously tried another, as though it were searching for the right spot. Then it changed function. It gently scooped crumbled earth into a vehicle behind it. Very gently. I know these adverbs like 'cautiously' and 'gently' give it life-like attributes. Yet, they seem to suit what I saw. As I left, I could see there was a human in the little cabin of the vehicle. Was I watching a close-knit human and machine team - like that described in the very old children's book, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel? How does the machine function with replacement drivers? With basic physics and our definition of life, we know the machine is not alive. But does it have feelings?