5 ms·

How birds can fly into a tree at speed, and land on a branch without poking an eye out (or anything else) several times per day is amazing to me. "Bird-brain"

by MR4D 5y ago

How birds can fly into a tree at speed, and land on a branch without poking an eye out (or anything else) several times per day is amazing to me. "Bird-brain" may be an insult to people, but I'd bet their 3-D processing capabilities blow away an RTX 3090 - especially when considering power use and heat. We have a lot left to learn from them.

trhway 5y ago
the trick i observed crows doing - somewhat similar to the opening of the Cobra maneuvers - they come about a foot below branch or whatever their landing target is and by quickly angling up they extinguish their horizontal speed by trading it for that foot of the height - ie. they get 0 horizontal speed right over the branch. Thus they avoid the overwise would be needed horizontal speed slowdown in the level flight and associated stall risk.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
clairity 5y ago
also amazing are gibbons. they literally fly through 3d tree-space using branches that flex generously, making the split-second routing calculations they’re making seem unbelievable.
- jrootabega 5y ago
  Gibbons are actually not that good at tree swinging, they have just developed paracausal abilities. When they miss a branch, they actually fall out of the spacetime continuum entirely, and to us it seems it never happened.
  - clairity 5y ago
    > “Gibbons are actually not that good at tree swinging…” having done research in this area, i’m fairly confident in my assertion, but am open to any new information/evidence you may provide. the rest of your statement provides one evolutionary mechanism by which gibbons became good brachiators, not evidence that they’re currently not.
    - jrootabega 5y ago
      Good lord, you're right.
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
And yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a single human on the planet willing to trade their brain in for a GPU.
- trhway 5y ago
  You actually describe the NVDA's next major revenue source. Initially of course it will be just a co-processor to the wet-ware, and with time it will start to beat it in computational power, features, ... Upgradeability and cloud connectivity of course are among its advantages from the start.
- crazysim 5y ago
  Pretty sure there are a bunch on Mechanical Turk. Slow though.
qq4 5y ago
Birds are also much smaller than you and I. Bugs, fish, humans etc can all navigate a complex environment at speed.

by MR4D 5y ago

trhway 5y ago

the trick i observed crows doing - somewhat similar to the opening of the Cobra maneuvers - they come about a foot below branch or whatever their landing target is and by quickly angling up they extinguish their horizontal speed by trading it for that foot of the height - ie. they get 0 horizontal speed right over the branch. Thus they avoid the overwise would be needed horizontal speed slowdown in the level flight and associated stall risk.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

clairity 5y ago

also amazing are gibbons. they literally fly through 3d tree-space using branches that flex generously, making the split-second routing calculations they’re making seem unbelievable.

jrootabega 5y ago
Gibbons are actually not that good at tree swinging, they have just developed paracausal abilities. When they miss a branch, they actually fall out of the spacetime continuum entirely, and to us it seems it never happened.
- clairity 5y ago
  > “Gibbons are actually not that good at tree swinging…” having done research in this area, i’m fairly confident in my assertion, but am open to any new information/evidence you may provide. the rest of your statement provides one evolutionary mechanism by which gibbons became good brachiators, not evidence that they’re currently not.
  - jrootabega 5y ago
    Good lord, you're right.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago

And yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a single human on the planet willing to trade their brain in for a GPU.

trhway 5y ago
You actually describe the NVDA's next major revenue source. Initially of course it will be just a co-processor to the wet-ware, and with time it will start to beat it in computational power, features, ... Upgradeability and cloud connectivity of course are among its advantages from the start.
crazysim 5y ago
Pretty sure there are a bunch on Mechanical Turk. Slow though.

qq4 5y ago

Birds are also much smaller than you and I. Bugs, fish, humans etc can all navigate a complex environment at speed.