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Startup Plans To Clean Up Cigarette Butts Using Crows (popularmechanics.com)
AmiMoJo writes: A startup in the Netherlands is developing the "Crowbar," a bird feeder that takes discarded cigarette butts as payment for dispensing food. A camera recognises cigarette filters and rejects any other objects placed in the Crowbar. The idea isn't entirely original, a gentleman in the US has already built a similar device and trained crows to deposit coins. The hope is that crows will be able to keep cities clean, sort through refuse and perform other tasks for our mutual benefit.
Popular Mechanics notes that crows "are some of the smartest animals in the world," suggesting this means "we could harness their abilities for the greater good of our planet."
Popular Mechanics notes that crows "are some of the smartest animals in the world," suggesting this means "we could harness their abilities for the greater good of our planet."
To crows smoking marijuana.
Next thing you know they will be robbing liquor stores and pirating music!
"it's okay for me to throw my butts into the street, because a crow will pick it up and get fed. I'm thinking of the crows"
how about robots that pick up smoldering butts and use them to burn the faces of the smokers that throw them. I think this kind of negative reinforcement is a better solution and doesn't involve enslaving animals.
Crows are smart, but I'm not sure about being smartest. I found an injured crow when I was a kid and took it home to nurse it back to health. It eventually got better, but didn't seem to have any interest in being returned to the wild. Whenever I would take it outside it would flop around like it still had a broken wing. It got to the point that it would start flopping around in the house anytime my mom would start bitching about it. She eventually threw it out the third story window, and it tried to fly back in. As soon as I opened the door to the house, it flew back in. It learned to ring the doorbell to get someone to open the door after a couple of days. I think my mom was happy when we moved, in part, to get rid of my pet crow.
I wonder what the unintended consiquences of rewarding a bunch of crows could be? They may start raiding public trash and ashtrays for food.
It's too bad some humans can't be trained not to litter in the first place.
There was a college experiment several years ago where people put on masks, some of which then messing with the crows. It became clear that they remember faces. https://www.popsci.com/science...
Can you train birds NOT to shit on my car? 'Kay, thanks...
The solution is similar: find an animal that can get rid of the problem.
Some kittehs are afraid of anything bigger than a fly or spider. My current one has dragged in a couple of jackdaws hardly smaller than himself. No poop bombs from these two anymore!
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
... why should you bother to keep anything less vital to you clean?
If cigarette butts are that big of a problem why not just hire some bylaw enforcement officers to patrol the areas and give out tickets for littering for anyone throwing the butts on the sidewalk/street. After people get a large fine, or two, for littering they will change their ways.
We are a part of nature. It doesn't exist for use to use as raw materials. Until we change this attitude that everything is here for us to exploit then we will continue to seeing nature "fight back".
I don't know what it is, but even nice respectable people who smoke don't seem to have any issue pitching their butts out the window when finished, often not even making sure they are out. Not just a few wildfires have been started by this behavior.
Bizarre.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I'll end up saying something similar to the Reverend, maybe less angry. We're (at least not me) aren't intolerant of smokers, especially now that little of it is done inside. I recognize it's a tough addiction to kick (I can't even kick my mild desire for sugary sodas). What I don't care for is cigarette butts all over the place. I don't throw my soda cans on the ground, they go into a recycle bin. If smokers would do something similar and get the other smokers to do the same, I'd have no problems with it.
...why train them to pick cigarette butts? Why can't you train them to poop on the smokers?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
We have a large pack of livestock working dogs on our farm. I taught one to pickup trash for treats. Others observed this and picked up the behavior. One of them figured out how to increase the price by breaking trash up into pieces and getting treats for each piece. Doganomics.
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2011/0...
It's quite successful.