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Aside: It's going to be a great time when the crows, raccoons, and other semi-intelligent wildlife discover that these drones have food in them at seemingly ra
by Balgair 1y ago
Aside:
It's going to be a great time when the crows, raccoons, and other semi-intelligent wildlife discover that these drones have food in them at seemingly random reward schedules.
Sure, you can give the drones little tasers to keep the animals away, depending on your locality. But knowing what I know about bears and crows, almost nothing is going to stop them. Especially when some influencer jerk tries tempting a bunch of them with a box just oozing honey or some other high value food.
- adolph 1y agoI can definitely see a future time when small autonomous air vehicles start to have problems with the local wildlife, either from the thick flocks of grackles in winter or from the more mischievous neighborhood corvids.
- seanthemon 1y agoThey'll have protecto-drones and decoy drones following them until it's so expensive we go back to good ol' launching packages by trebuchet
- adolph 1y agoThe advantage of the trebuchet or other indirect fires is that the package need not contain and carry a large energy source. For so long as it has enough kinetic energy to maintain maneuverability, soft landing in a yard or porch could be done maybe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Precision_Airdrop_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Precision_Airdrop_System
- nostrademons 1y agoFriend of mine recorded this video 10 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhDG_WBIQgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhDG_WBIQgc
- rurban 1y agoBiggest problem already for the last 10 years. This guy uses reflective tape: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=muP8eZasOFs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=muP8eZasOFs
- adolph 1y agoLove how that guy even tried googly eyes
- bigiain 1y agoCrows are smart, and seem to for relationship with "friendly" humans, and are "trainable". I wonder how long it'd take to befriend a few crows, and teach them there's valuable stuff in delivery drones?
- kelseyfrog 1y agoUnfortunately it runs afoul of the same laws against training apes to steal[1] or pickpocket[2]. 1. Dunston Checks In (1996) 2. Monkey Trouble (1994)
- DaSHacka 1y agoI somehow doubt the crows will cough up the perps name when interrogated....
- georgemcbay 1y agoThey definitely won't, crows are very loyal and they abhor snitches.
- fuzztester 1y agocrows are know to eat crow.
- stavros 1y agoThat's why they get away with their murder.
- fuzztester 1y agothen they are traitors
- fuzztester 1y agolooks like some people didn't get the word play. perps + traitors ... :) or alternatively, which some of us know, HNers don't like humor by some people, but like it by others. seen many examples of that in the past.
- anitil 1y agoA friend of mine suggested that being able to stop eagles attacking his drones used for land surveying would be worth a lot of money, they often come back with scratches and damage. I'm not sure if he's lost any drones (yet).
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- hippari2 1y agoI wonder what's stopping them from erecting random wire mesh that will damage drone flying through them.
- IAmBroom 1y agoVertical towers require permits and provably safe design.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- m463 1y agoactually, I've been thinking that with the encroachment of man, birds are up off the ground and are the survivors that coexist with us. But now I wonder if we will "silent spring" them too.
- dzhiurgis 1y agoHave they learned same happens when car delivers food?
- Someone 1y agoThey only have to recognize the packages. Tits learned to open delivered milk bottles as far back as 1958 (https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/1958-news-tits-opening-milk-bottles/510619865977715/ https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/1958-news-tits-op...)
- aeternum 1y ago>almost nothing is going to stop them Except for those 4-8 prop blades spinning at high rpm. Then multiple layers of packaging to get the item. It'll be interesting to see if it actually happens, my prediction is that trash bags will still be preferable risk/reward.
- wiether 1y agoAccording to the company's own video, there's a lot of attack surface outside of the blades. And birds incidents with actual planes show that it's not the same reasoning as human warfare : inflicting damage to the enemy while taking none. For delivery companies it won't matter if the birds got out safely or died in the process of destroying their $$$$ drones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW5LbZMx6Wo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW5LbZMx6Wo
- DrillShopper 1y agoI would argue it would be worse for the company if the birds died because once that gets all over the Internet I have a feeling that demand for any service that kills birds would drop significantly.
- mystified5016 1y agoCounterpoint: lots of people are still actively advocating for more coal power plants