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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."
Uh, those articles ARE all real, they're just put in the "strange news" section. Yahoo news has a similar section.
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.
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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.
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?
Well, for one thing, the question isn't whether chemical $FOO exists -- the question is whether the smell is too bad (where "too bad" is defined as "detectable at 1/7 concentration").
Even having results on which chemicals exist in the air and in what amounts doesn't necessarily answer whether that smell is sufficiently offensive to the nose as to be a legal violation -- and I'd be unsuprised if translating between the two is a hard problem on par with determining which sounds (out of a set which are being played at once) people will actually perceive: Solvable, yes, but not without a lot of expensive research.