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Send in the Nasal Rangers
sjsoko writes "Is this for real? I see a future in alternatives to conventional Chili cook-off judging (from a distance, of course). Or perhaps that person in the cubicle across the hall can be provided undisputable evidence that the cafeteria lunches should be avoided."
Catch a cold and you're out of job!
No thanks, I need more stability, I think I will apply for that VB programmer job.
Universe is about to destroy Earth and this is what you're discussing on Slashdot?! Have some priorities people!
I can understand air and noise pollution, even light pollution to an extent, but nasal pollution? Smells are a LOT harder to stop, and some things require large amounts of smell (muck spreaders etc). :about $15,500, with another $66,000 spent on equipment is equally absurd.
And the price
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
I can't believe this was even posted! All one needs to do it click on the "More Offbeat News" link at the top of that page to see that CNN has a section of Onion-like articles. Seriously....
The ACFA has been doing this for over 2 years
How long until one of them gets a nose full of something besides a smell?
"Goooood Nyborg!"
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
What does Uranus smell like.
"Their findings will be part of a two-year study to help lawmakers decide if the state "... doesn't use money wisely?
Chili is gooooooooooooooooohd! :P
Obligatory futurama reference:
Did you invent the smelloscope?
No i remembered i invented one last year!
Why couldn't they just test for the presence of chemicals without the nosegun?
Fry: "Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus." *laughs*
Leela: "I don't get it."
Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?"
Professor: "Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you."
Fry: "Hehe, no, no, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here."
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
i read 'anal rangers', does that qualify as dyslexia?
Farts contain a significant amount of hydrogen sulfide... it's only a matter of time for the price to come down low enough that novelty shops will be able to sell $29.95 items that genuinely detect actual farts and sound off with "Major Fart Alert!"
Technology is so wonderful... maybe we won't have manned space travel to Mars, but at least we'll have fart detectors!
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Someone better not let the proverbial fart out of the bag around these guys.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
- Is the nasal ranger patch a scratch and sniff?
- Do nasal rangers get a specially shaped vehicle?
- Do nasal rangers have to brown nose?
- Can a nasal ranger certify potent bodily functions?
- Do nasal rangers get to write stink tickets?
It hurts...US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Better not point it at windows, stinky!!
-Seriv
In addition to DNR officers using the fancy new high-technology portable odor detecting device called the "olfactometer", we've just learned that there is a cheaper, more convenient solution that's competing for market share in the fast-paced market of odor detecting devices. It's called a "nose".
If I had a job like that, I would sign a Do Not Recessitate agreement as well.
FLR
All I can say is get these guys on the public transit in Seattle and San Fran; I'm sick of people forgetting that not everyone likes the smell of urine.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Who cares? I mean who really cares anymore? We got Darth Ashcroft and his stromtroopers marching all over the constitution, RFID tags being plugged into everything, Microsoft trying to stop you from using your own computer, the RIAA trying to stop you from listening to anything without you paying them, and the industry monopolizing ideas. When you look at all that, who really cares if a bunch of staties want to go around smelling other peoples farts with mega phones?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Ever wonder if your crotch is sending out odors, but you can't nose in close enough to tell. Females, and uncircumcised males, the olfactometer may be the answer you're looking for.
They scrambled it with a story about the superior ergonomics of Nokia's latest releases, and leaked a picture of N-Gage II.
This will be very handy for warning us of impending doom from the sky.
Yeah, I agree...this whole story smells funny. In fact, it stinks to high heaven.
TDz.
finally we'll be able to detect giant balls of garbage threatening to destroy earth!
But instead of appraising for good taste/smell, these guys go for the stinks.
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
only the pocket sized version. Remember the smellascope.
A few hours grace before the madness begins again.
I grew up in a small hick town in Ohio, where the major agricultural industry was livestock (pigs, turkeys & chickens). My house was about 1 half mile downwind from a small (100,000 bird) chicken farm. Probably twice a week we would be almost knocked over when stepping outside. Chicken manure reeks for miles if proper precautions aren't taken. The owner of this farm was routinely being visited by the EPA, but he never did clean up his act.
does is qualify for a spot in the "10 worst jobs in science" from popular science?
More music, fewer hits
2003-10-28 11:08:21 AM DownSouth
"A nasal Ranger Patch" Somebody's gonna get a lot of booty.
2003-10-28 02:52:18 PM elzod
We could use some of those Nasal Rangers here at work. Some of the lunches people reheat. Phewww!
2003-10-28 04:18:24 PM Forsythe P. Jones
"Go!Go!Nasal Rangers!"
2003-10-28 04:18:50 PM Jay_Hova
6 month repeat anybody?
2003-10-28 04:19:18 PM PeachyHippy
This makes me think of those cartoons where they have the big nose on the end of a stick and a smell-o-meter, or something. hahaha. I make myself laugh.
2003-10-28 04:19:32 PM Julieahni
"This stinks. This is total B.S."
What does the 2B ton plasma sun fart headed here smell like?
I'm an agricultural economist (IAAAE?) at a Big-10 university, and I can attest that not only is the story real, but the issues are actually quite important.
/.ers are pretty libertarian, and agree that one's right to swing his/her own fist ends at another's face. But what happens when what is being 'swung' is subjective in both intensity and offensiveness? At that point, it becomes very difficult to arbitrate property rights.
Most
As the story points out, the individuals involved are being trained for the evaluation of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). In determining the impact of a CAFO on another's property rights, the strength of the odor emitted by the CAFO is key. But how do you measure 'strength' and offensiveness? Do you just take the property-owner's word for it? In order to be able to assess the actual impact of these operations, there must be some quantifiable measure of their effects on the surrounding property owners, hence the Nasal Rangers.
Futurama's version
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
It's good to know that if Jacques Chirac loses the next French election, he can fall back on his natural talents as a nasal ranger.
This is Dr. Farnsworth's Smell-o-scope!
;)
Oh! And bite my shiny metal ass...
I for one welcome our new olfactory overlords!
Recruits are tested, using a series of felt-tipped markers containing varying levels of the chemical butenol....The test is repeated three times for accuracy
So, they practice by sniffing markers? I guess they'd have to...
I work in the meat and poultry industry. To us, animal waste is not only a nuisance, but a major problem that has to be dealt with on a constant basis. Smell from a slaughter plant isn't just a sensory complaint from neighbors, it's also a health hazard for a number of reasons (ammonia vapors, flies, etc.). All of that waste has to be reprocessed and treated, quickly and effectively, in order for problems to not develop in the first place.
Olfactory testing is a valid, important, and cheap way to determine if problems are happening or will be developing. For you goofs to laugh at it just shows your complete ignorance of the world outside of your little milleu. So how about if you put down your precious code for a few seconds and think about where that burger or chicken sandwich you're stuffing down your face came from in the first place? It didn't appear by magic. It requires a lot of work, and a good portion of that work is messy, smelly, and potentially dangerous.
Hope that you all enjoy your cases of cholera, just to name one of a dozen different diseases that can be caused by improper monitoring and treatment of waste.
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
We die for the One
it has to be hand picked...
muhahhah
I have a Cig, but do you have a light?
I was actually told by several people in Rhode Island Government that "The reason we don't fire tese lazy workers is because then the'd be out of JOBS, it's the government's job to hire these people who normally wouldn't be working."
You can imagine how far that logic is getting us.
How much you want to bet most of the 'nasal rangers' are relatives/friends of local politicians, and how much you want to bet they get full benefits and a decent check with very little real oversight?
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Sorry we did this earlier this week!! I don't want to hear it anymore.
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
Dude, some advice. Breathe every once in a while. It's a great stress relief.
Try it with me now. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
All better now.
Give me a call
and I'll be glad to tell you about nasal sensitivity.
Wasn't this already patented/invented by Professor Hubert J Farnsworth?
I go to college in Des Moines and saw the article a couple days ago. Is it really hard to imagine people in Iowa smelling things for a living? What the hell else are you going to do in this state?
For you goofs to laugh at it just shows your complete ignorance
You're new here, aren't you?
New York City has fined a COFFEE ROASTER for the smell of... umm... ROASTED COFFEE. See also here,
Not some diluted ratio of it. No, an inspector responded to a complaint, walked around outside, and found that yes, he could smell roasted coffee. "During the hearing it was learned that the City inspector on the job 18-months, with no formal training in the detection or measuring of odors smelled coffee in the complainants apartment." (Usenet post) Since ONE person found it objectionable enough to complain over, the company gets fined.
Note: NOT a problem with the roasting chamber exhausts, which were correctly installed and functioning to specification. The smell came from coffee being stored after being roasted - you know, the smell you get in a COFFEE SHOP.
As of the most recent update, the coffee roaster is $40k in the hole for legal fees trying to get this joke of an administrative decision overturned.
I can't understand why they would use this approach, they should just come up with maximum levels of the signature compounds (ammonia and sulfer containing compounds) that are allowed outside of the farm.
Sounds like a union dreamed this one up.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Take it outside, Chickenboy.
You could pay me half of what they're getting paid and I'll tell you if something stinks -- and I don't need specialized equipment either!
So is the 'killing floor' really more of a grate for organic material to sluice through?
> I work in the meat and poultry industry. To us, animal
> waste is not only a nuisance, but a major problem that
> has to be dealt with on a constant basis.
Ugh! The dot-com era really is over, isn't it? No more Aeron chairs -- slashdot readers now work at rendering plants.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The Specials. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181836/ There was a character in that movie that had a machine he put on his face to enhance his sense of smell by like 3000. Great movie.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Well, yet another piece of evidence to show the world depicted in Futurama will eventually become reality.
s a.shtml
First the Japanese gave us the car selling robots... now we have the Farnsworth's Smelloscope:
http://www.leelazone.com.ar/rants/f
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Don't like it? Don't do that business. Else do it somewhere far far away where you won't have to contain your gasses.
I grew up in a town surrounded by farming, dairy among it. Many days per year the whole town smelled of it. Step outside your house? Cow crap smell. Go to the park? Cow crap smell. Go shopping? Cow crap smell.
Not fun.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
More uptight pricks moving to the country and complaining about the farm next door stinking! Well GUESS WHAT! FARMS STINK!!!! They always have they always will.
Farming is a business with profit margins so narrow that thousands of acres of farmland in America are sold out to developers every year. Now, due to the complaints of a few uptight vocal pricks that have no understanding of what it took to get that piece of USDA approved ground chuck on their plate, the state of Iowa (one of the breadbasket states) is looking for another way to make farmers spend more of their already slim profits on some expensive equipment and procedures to lessen the displeasure on the noses of the uptight preppy neighbors who have no idea what the importance to their very survival that stinky farm next door is! IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE SMELL MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE! The farm was here first!
And, no I am not a farmer I am a database developer but I understand that without farms we will all starve to death! And yes that means you vegetarians too. Where do you think that "All Natural" fertilizer they used to grow your salad came from?
My God, I never cease to be amazed at the number of ways bureaucrats in this country find to continually kick the common "working man" in America in the balls!
when you are near a "swine operation" in order to smell anything, you really should visit a doctor. I have friends who live close by and they can not sit outside in the summer. Too bad for them the farm was built after they moved in. Ah the wonders where the city meets the countryside. :)
if the Rangers can legally certify who dealt it?
Or, "Wholly cow," as in answer to "What's the frangrance of Ferndale, WA?" I lived in beautiful Ferndale, WA for about 8 months in 1998. The pictures are beautiful, with Mt Baker standing so proud, Lindon looking so Lutheran and the tulips to die for. But as pictures are worthy a thousand words, the wafting odor of soggy dairy farms with their pools of fermenting cow dung are worth "a thousand miles," or, more precisely, 1500 miles away where I now reside, Southern California (where the air was clear until someone lit a match -- probably to fight off the ordor of dairy farms in Upland, as a matter of fact).
(There's nothing like conversational detours that return you to the subject)
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
It requires a lot of work, and a good portion of that work is messy, smelly, and potentially dangerous.
Another great argument in favor of vegetarianism...
Your post makes it clear you didn't need to add the comment "I'm not a farmer, but.....", since you made it very clear you are clueless about MODERN rural life, which is rapidly getting destroyed by Mega Corporate Farming and all it entails.
NO, these MEGA-STINK farms were NOT there first - the small farms were!
There have always been single owner small (smelly) farms. The new problem is the HUGE CORPORATE GREED PITS that have OPEN SEWER PONDS and thus stink to high heaven, making the real farmers you clearly care so much about SICK.
Why don't you stick to posting your opinions on something you know about?
I think, therefore I thought.
The nose gun mixes the outside air with filtered air 7 times. If the smell is still detectable, it is too strong.
what's worse, is that taxpayer money [that's you, bub] is paying this McDonald's rejects salary.
I used to live in a small town on the plains in the Midwest, and whenever the wind blew from a certain direction, the entire town would smell like the hog operation up wind. It was definitely heavy at times. Controlling this would be a good idea.
That being said, I don't know about this whole "health risk" worry. While the smell may drive some people crazy, I have to say that I don't have any physical defects from inhaling pig stink. Some people just need to calm down a bit, I think.
Oh, and I was thinking that we would be attacked by a new "Power Rangers" series...
:)
Not a bad idea at all... "Nasal Rangers Zeo" would sound cooler.
No, the device attached to the "Nasal Ranger's" nose is not the fabled smelloscope. It actually dilutes, rather than strengthens, the smell with filtered air by a factor of x; the assumption being that if the intrepid ranger can still smell it the stink is too strong. Obviously, rendering plants and the like stink. The question they're trying to answer is how much.
This is likely, IMO, a much more economically viable investment than olfactory testing (which is a relatively impractical and elitist technology, at best). With the implimentation of the devices in the link above, people won't have to worry about the odors, anyway - or electricity.
As far as the intense nature of ranching and animal biproducts, I can personally attest to their vile nature. Cattle waste is by far a lesser offender than swine biproducts, however. Even human waste pales in comparrision to the foulness of swine biproducts.
Out here, in South Dakota, there are large hog barns spotted across the state. Many of them belong to Hutterite colonies (somewhat like a modern-agriculture, German version of the Amish people). Some are commercially run. All of them are the foulest thing you could imagine. They stink up the country for tens of miles in the direction of the wind - which, of course, varies in direction. People hate the things. Even in my old town, where there was a hog processing plant on the outskirts of town, and maybe 150 hogs a day passed through (just guessing, but I seem to recall such a statistic), there was massive stench - and these facilities were scoured daily, and had no perminant storage for the swine, so there wsan't any sort of waste storage concerns.
Your typical hog barn consists of a very sturdy, sterile barn stretching a couple hundred feet. Intense regulation is done to make sure nobody brings in any viruses or sicknesses, because pigs are incredibly sensitive to such things. Pens are washed out several times a day, etc. And yet the inside still stinks (done a little work for my dad, who as an engineer out here, has dealings with these folks from time to time for design purposes).
Then, there is a large pit in the ground several hundred feet away. In this pit, there is usually something that looks like bubbling mud. However, it's not. It's pig shit. Lots, and lots of it. There is enough methane and other such gasses coming from this pool to power a smallish town (a couple thousand?) I've heard, if it were to be harnessed in a fermentor. However, it isn't. They switch between two pools of shit over time, fill one up, go to the next, and let the first one rot off - let all the toxins essentially biodegrade and ferment out (IIRC, there is usually a very thick liner underneath these pools to prevent toxic waste leakage - seriously). Then, once one of hte pools has reached a certain PH, it can be sold for fertilizer, where it is deluted with water and spread on fields (being as it's still too toxic for straight application). I might also add that the toxins in an unfermented batch of this soup are strong enough to kill a man in a matter of minutes, if he were to fall in. There's be no hope in even trying to save them.
The actual strength of the odor is kind of hard to describe, since the odor is actually physically painful, even at a relative distance (half a mile or so?). It will burn your nostrils, all the moreso if you have sensitive skin or other such traits as a strong sense of smell. The whole process that occurs in the shit pools is mostly anoxidous. If any of you are familiar with with composting your own garbage, you've likely run into situations where you didn't turn the compost soon enough, and you ended up with obscenely foul white, yellow, or blue fungus growing between the layers - possibly a bad thing, because that's where things like anthrax like to breed. At any rate, the odor is similar to that, except that in this case, it's not things like rotting leaves, grass, eggshells, bannana peels, or apple rinds - it's pig shit. Pigs stink, and pig shit stinks, innordinately, even before fermentation. That's as close as I can get to describing it.
Needless to say, soething needs to be done about the stench of such facilities (as well as the feeble odor of cattle facilities). Harvesting the methane and other things to power local small communities would, in my opinion, be a very
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I think he'd rather not. Considering the all th eammonia vapors and flies...
Biogas I belive would be a good use of the 'pigshit natural resource' ;-> infact I think it should be a requirement to setup co-gen similar to this. Infact I would be willing to federally subsidize the industry to do it
Nasal Rangers would be a good name for a rock band.
He can't. He lives near a chicken farm.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
The olfactometer helps inspectors determine the level of stink. The instrument dilutes the outdoor air seven times with filtered air. If the odor can still be detected after dilution, it's considered excessive.
/. article text talks about using it for long-range stuff, and so do a lot of the posters here. That is NOT what it is. =p (So you can stop comparing it to Futurama now)
Am I the only one that noticed that the device in question is used to DILUTE air, and then pass it on to the nose to be smelled? The
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
In The Netherlands (call it Holland if you will), they have had skilled nasal workers for years. They are called Pig Shit Inspectors.
It was explained to me thus: Due to the high water table, the Dutch (hey, third term for them now) have to watch the pollution of their water, so the farmers are restricted in how much (ahem) natural fertilizer they can use on their land. So, inspectors drive around the country, stop at places, get out, and have a good noseful, then zone in for further tests before pouncing on the offender (presumably with a peg on nose).
Now, I was told that this was true by a cloggie (fourth term for them; what a schitzophrenic race) mate of mine once, but, thinking about it, what do they do with the pig shit if they can't put it on the land? Perhaps you (and I) should take this story with a pinch of salt.
On the other hand, whenever I can, when filling in forms and the likes, I put my occupation as a "nasal miner".
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
Hit the road you tofu munching troll.
Bah, it'll beat the biggest volcano in the history of the world by a few months or years.
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
Info from the Nasal Rangers application guide (page1) says: (5) Citizen Monitoring - The implementation of citizen odor monitoring with Nasal Ranger Field Olfactometers can be part of an interactive community outreach program. Yeah, guess it is funnier than Caleb and Josiah at my door looking like missionaries.
Homer : Five-alarm chilli, eh? (He tastes it.) One...two...hey, what's the big idea? Ned: Oh, I admit it! It's only two-alarm, two-and-a-half, tops! I just wanted to be a big man in front of the kids Todd : Daddy, are we going to jail? Ned: We'll see, son. We'll see.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Who would go out into the job world and say..... I want to be a NASAL RANGER. To the olfactor and beyond...
I'm sorry I thought that said send in the Anal Rangers.
I work in the meat and poultry industry.
Why do you read slashdot? We are arrogant people with blinders on, we care only about techie geek stuff. I used to work for the USDA doing research related to stress hormones, now I am a techie geek and I to laugh at Prof. Farnsworths Smell-o-scope. If you feel so out of sync with us why are you here?
In more densely populated European countries, they often force farmers to keep smaller scale operations, and use less smelly methods for raising animals.
One thing I found amazing: we're still spreading hog manure ON the ground, they're injecting it IN the soil. Sure, it costs more, but you can hardly smell it even while you're there during the operation. That's elegant.
Smaller scale farming and better ways to deal with our shit are what we need. Training nasal rangers to go after the worst offenders without dealing with the underlying problem is nothing but a kludge.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Why do you have the right to say who does and doesn't read slashdot? Don't exclude people from your little world, cause guess what, it ain't your world to exclude people from.
Obviously, the people who started this topic discussion had no clue of the real problem the smell from this stuff is. So a little reprimand was justified.
Go back to playing your Quake game while eating the McDonalds hamburger you have no respect for because you have no idea or comprehension where the meat your fat turd ass is digesting came from.
Never mind us, we'll just put up with the smell of you gluttony while you hide behind the server rack pretending the world is made up of power-ups and ammo packs.
I live a few blocks away from a huge food baking factory site that makes the surrounding square mile or so smell like fresh baked cookies. I joke with people that I have the world's best air pollution - boy, does it smell good!
Could we use the Nasal rangers too smell out if something's fishy with SCO claims ?
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
No doubt the folks employed doing this will want to those notrils planned.
Clitmap.com: A better adult search engine
You think animal waste smells bad? We used to have a beef slaughterhouse in our community. When the beef are slaughtered, they have to bleed them out. They have to do something with this blood, and there is a lot of it. So, to make the blood safe to dump into the municipal wastewater system, they cook it down...boil it. That smell is WAY worse than waste from a pig farm and it wafted throughout the community. We are talking instant nausea. It got so bad that the community forced the closure of the slaughterhouse.
It's like "looking busy" at your employment - it's actually easier to do real work than to fake it. - bmo
Finally we have a use for the Smelloscope!
/* It's amazing the damage someone with a stunted sense of humor and mod points can do to your karma. */
Don't exclude people from your little world, cause guess what, it ain't your world to exclude people from.
Uh, yeah. My world is my world to exclude people from. I could care less who reads slashdot but for someone who is not quote "the type" to go and blatantly insult anyone who does fit "the type" is a little bit pretentious.
Obviously, the people who started this topic discussion had no clue of the real problem the smell from this stuff is.
Agreed on that.
Go back to playing your Quake game while eating the McDonalds hamburger you have no respect for because you have no idea or comprehension where the meat your fat turd ass is digesting came from.
As I stated Jethro, I used to work for the USDA in ag research, so uh yeah you are not the exclusive knower of beef. I have never played and will never play Quake or any other glorifying violence game because as a former member of the US Army 82d Airborne I find them offensive.
Now, in all earnest thank you for dealing with the smell and slogging the swill and all the other things that you do so that I and all other readers of slashdot can eat our burgers just please respect that simply because we do not understand all about what you do that does not make us morons. Just makes us bad farmers
Great post, but here's the corrected link to the Discover story...
http://www.discover.com/issues/may-03/features/fea toil/
"It's not how many people I've killed - it's how I get along with the ones that are still alive."