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U.S. Will Use Robots to Patrol Water Supply
bl8n8r writes "By the summer of 2005, the United States will have an underwater network of robots monitoring the nations fresh water supply. Realtime environmental details will be used to help safeguard the nations drinking water. The robots would take on the painstaking, time consuming, and sometimes dangerous, task of collecting water samples which is currently being done by carbon based lifeforms."
Let's certainly hope not.
The Army reading list
The article only mentions a project to monitor the Seneca River, some connected lakes, and an existing system that monitors part of the water supply for New York City. That's not quite "the nation's fresh water supply," although it is certainly a promising technology.
Wouldn't it be easier to just use sharks mounted with lasers on their friggin' heads?
Are these robots going to be powered by fish flatulence, by chance?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Oh please, will someone please think of the robots!
Wait till they unionize, we're fucked.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Are robots any more trustworthy than humans, and less likely to pee in the water just to get back at their fleshy masters?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
From the terrible secret of space!^W Water!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I have this image of a man pulling over to pee in a resevoir, only to have a many tentacled robot emerge from the water to cut off the source of pollution.
Case in point: He built a water preheater out of some foil-backed foam insulation, some pipe, black paint, and a 55 gallon drum. He built a box out of the insulation with the foil facing in, painted the drum black, and hooked it up between the water supply and the hot water heater. On sunny days it gets the water hot with free energy before sending it to the water heater. This reduces the amount of paid energy he had to use. Total material cost: $100. And it saved him $175 in the first year.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I just hope these robots arent made with anything that can contaminate the water supply if they malfunction/leak/blow up.
With all the robots patrolling US waters, who's going to play chess against the humans?
You've been watching too much hentai. No more anime for YOU!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
welcome our new underwater robot overlords!
Millions die from water contaminated by rusty robots.
I don't know if it will make the US's lakes and rivers safer but I bet they'll be less skinny dipping.
...to actually implement and enforce some decent environmental standards? AFAIK, the past four years has been a tremendous step backwards regarding water quality regulations.
In other words, patrolling the rivers isn't going to do a goddamn bit of good when whatever minimal laws don't even have any teeth.
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cripes - does no one see anything creepy about this. I'd be worried about sitting on the toilet, you might get a nasty (painful) surprise.
Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government." - Lenny Bruce
you know that the alien/accidental mussel called the zebra mussel has cause more of an increase in water quality increase in the great lakes than ANYTHING ever done by any technological means?
one little creature filters a bunch of fricking water a day.... about 3 gallons worth... now couple that with the things INSANE reproduction rate.
the best solution is not technology but finguring out how to use the natural systems that are so hugely more efficient than anything we can design.
Lake michigan is clearer than I ever remember... and Lake erie is actually looking like it's containing water and not industrial waste anymore.
Granted, it IS trasnferring the problem into the sediment as these buggers die, but now it's in a location we can clean easier than the raw water.
anyways, Cince I live near the absolute largest fresh water supply on the planet, why havent we seen any of these things being tested, talked about,etc... the NOAA research station here has nothing about them, and nither does the University of Michigan research station...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
National Security brought to you by Aibo.
I had a conversation with these robots, and they explained to me how they will protect me from water-borne pollutants.
The first one declared that his function was to push a water sample into a purification chamber. The second one then declared that his function was to shove pollutants out of the water.
After a brief debate over which function was superior, they agreed that water-borne pollutants have a terrible power. Then they politely asked me to go stand by the stairs. That was weird.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
By the summer of 2005, the United States will have an underwater network of robots monitoring the nations fresh water supply
Hah, they have robots in there now.
I've been slowly leeching arsenic into my pipes trying to lure it to my workshop.
-Adam
"... task of collecting water samples..."
We have been using 'robots' to collect water samples for many years - I believe the article states that the new breed of robots will directly sense the water quality, with no sampling required. A small but important semantic difference.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Recently in Canada a good number of weather stations went from human operated to just a set of instruments and a network connection. It does save money but you occasionally get wonky readings like a "Recent snowshower" in July which a human would never report. Perhaps better programming could be used to ensure that multiple readings are used to filter out extraneous data but there will always be a need for at least a few carbon-based testers to go out there and install them, maintain them and check them when they act up. Similar issues will likely appear with robotic water testing.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Breakfast served all day!
Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face. A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Stranded.org
The problem with drinking water is not the potential threat of a terrorist attack in one densely populated area, it's the constant ongoing damage to waterways everywhere done by chemical plants, pesticide use, logging, etc etc. There's an elephant in the room! Right here! RIGHT HERE!!!
Let's not notice the elephant, let's build some robots to see if we can detect any subtle hints of poisons in the water.
"The robots would take on the painstaking, time consuming, and sometimes dangerous, task of collecting water samples which is currently being done by carbon based lifeforms."
I'm sure these carbon based lifeforms are happy they are having their jobs outsourced to robots next year. Why make it sound like we are doing these divers a favor by taking away their work?
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Ipswich River in Mass
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
This and similar technology, should go a long way to prevent those Catch 22 situations.
This is a boring sig
Jeeze... We are right here. You dont need to talk about us like that.
I'm sure that John and Sarah Conner and Neo all felt that way. At first!
As we're marched off to our pods to provide energy for our robot overlords, in a dazed stupor because their water monitoring robot cohorts slipped us a collective mickey, I hope you have enough consciousness to remember this moment.
This is interesting. A similar situation, a friend of mine with hundreds of acres of farmland, once dedicated a 25'x25' flat area, dug it out 6", laid 3" of gravel, and put 25x25 of ribbed steel roofing on the gravel after painting it black and running copper pipe through the ribs underneath.
Plug a pump into it, and he instantly had hot water for his outdoor hottub. Unfortunatly, this don't work too well in Canada under 24" of snow, but none theless, the system could easily be bypassed in the winter.
It was an effective method, except for the fact that the water tests always showed unusually high amounts of e coli and chimp hair. If you get convince the robots to wear diapers and hair-nets, you might be on to something.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I have well water you insensitive clod!!
Of course my supply has to come from somewhere but I'd assume the public supply would be tainted and noticed loooong before anything reached my own private well. I occasionally get some sand and grit but I'll take that over a blistering agent any day.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Yet.
And they will continue to not do anything we don't tell them to do unless we tell them to do things we haven't told them to do (that made much more sense in my head...).
Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.
thank goodness... now these robots can replace the humans who before were exposed to deadly dihydrogen monoxide every time they took a sample!
thank you, robots, for doing such dangerous work!
This is crazy. You're talking about millions of gallons of water. Do you know how much it'll take to pollute that? Maryland wastr treatment plants are known to be dumping 8x the legal limit of fecal bacteria, and they have yet to have anythign happen to them.
Poinsoning the nations drinking supply can only be effectively done in an area close to a user. Maybe a city block or street at most. Anything else would take HUGE amounts and would definately be suspicious.
If you really want to protect the country from terrorism, get us off a centralized power grid. And get off petrol. The day american homes supply the businesses with power, (with the power company securly locked int he middle to manage it) will th the day that we'll be safe. Unless you can't telecommute. Which is when you should be driving an electric vehicle. Hell your house will prooduce your own fuel for the car. It's "free" energy.
Water can be purified from almost any kind of contaminant. Energy can only be made (currently) at dams, reactors and windmills. (Solar is not big in the US, and nat-gas fuel cells still need a central line to the fuel company)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Yes, zebra mussels do CLEAR the water, but they do not CLEAN it. What they do is they remove all the sediment that other creatures oftem feed on, thus making it unavailable. However, they pass most pollutants right on (except for some heavy metals and such which they bioaccumulate like crazy, poisoning any creatures which then eat them.)
And the clearing of the water actually causes problems in and of itself. There is still a super high nutrient load in the water, and the extra light allowed in causes several noxious weeds to grow out of control, choking out most normal vegetation, destroying habitat several animals use (especially for egg laying) and choke waterways from human navigation.
While their unchecked growth in the wild does cause problens, zebra mussels could make an interesting part of a constructed bioremediation system (at least in waterways which are already infected by the zebras anyways.)
A couple of links on zebra mussels:
Wisconsin DNR
Minnesota Sea Grant
Missouri Department of Conservation
Iowa DNR
And slightly more technical link outlinking some ofthe risks of overfiltration
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
protecting us against the terrible dangers of dihidrogen monoxide in our water supply. Our water needs to be clean and safe from all impurities!
I'm looking to get rich. I've got steps #2 (????) and #3 (PROFIT!) planned out, but am having trouble coming up with #1.
1) Create in the general population a sense of fear of something. (It can be an irrational fear)
2) Make a product or service that helps reduce that fear. (And patent it)
3) Call the government and make them buy your patented product or service
4) Profit!
Or alternatively
1) Make a product or service. (And patent it)
2) Create in the general population a sense of fear of something so your product or service helps reduce the fear.
3) Sell the product or service for a reasonable price
4) Profit!
If we buy the idea that anything is at risk, that terrorists can do anything and I mean anything, there's nothing we can affor not buying to help us feel safer.
Fear and shopping, great combination. An it is good for businiess too!
By the way, who was the one sending anthrax in letters back in 2001, remember?
And I don't buy a plane crashed in the pentagon. Too much evidence against it.
My computer will do precisely as it's told, barring hardware failure. Whatever instructions I feed it, it will execute faithfully. However, it has no concept of if what it is doing is right or wrong. If my instructions are bad, even just one of them, it can go off and do something totally undesirable. Compare that to a human. If my instructions aren't perfectly clear, or one is wrong, they can usually figure that out and either correct it or ask for clarification.
Computers are much more reliable than humans at doing a task right, but onyl one you are absolutly sure they will do it right. You have to test ALL contengencies. Humans can react to unexpected situations, computers can't. Every situation must be expected and must have code to deal with it, or there can, and probably will, be problems.
As for people getting unemployed, while this is bad in the short term for those that it happens to, it is good in the long term for scoiety and the economy. The more machines free us from menial and even not so menial tasks, the more efficent we are and the more we can apply ourselves to tasks they can't do.
Agriculture is the best example. With no machines (and we are counting even simple ones that grant mechnical advantage like a plow) nearly all of your labour force must involve themselves in food production. It is so inefficient that there isn't much left over for other labour. Now we can maintain the food supply with a tiny percentage of our labour force, machines have taken most of the menial jobs, which frees people up to do other things, like invent Nerf balls.
The International Brotherhood of Robots, Automatons, and Intelligent Devices - local 00110000111 (underwater workers), announced today that they will be working to organize the robots involved into a collective bargaining unit.
In a related story, a huge outcry from the environmental lobby about the increased lead, nickle and lithium in the National water supply due to leaky robot batteries.
Robots can pee
Far from being the panacea which you describe, Zebra Mussels are an ecological disaster, which have led to the killing off of many native north-American bivavles. Go back to square one, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
So we unleash wave after wave of Chinese Needle snakes!
Don't forget the lovely possums that your charming Aussie neighbours gave you, too. I hear they are everywhere in NZ too.
Rabbits have been pretty damaging here too, but I'd say that bird and plant species have had the worst impact. Starlings, Indian Mynahs and pigeons, and weeds like blackberries and so on.
I very much agree with your conlusion that introducing new species to an ecology is usually a very foolish thing to do.
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
What is this "terrorist" crap? As the article states, these robots have been developed to patrol such waterways as "Onondaga Lake, a federal Superfund site that is considered the nation's most polluted waterway". Is terrorist poison more poisonous than industrial poison? These robots are a welcome safeguard, but let's not pretend we're not under siege by domestic corporations, without hyping the terrorist bugbear.
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make install -not war