[HN Gopher] Footage of Australian Raven Attacking a Wing Drone i...
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Footage of Australian Raven Attacking a Wing Drone in Canberra,
Australia
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 223 points
Date : 2021-09-20 08:20 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.linkedin.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.linkedin.com)
| mrweasel wrote:
| That is also an extremely noisy drone. I live below the approach
| of an airport and the noise from the commercial jets are less
| annoying.
|
| Would it help if the drones where less noisy? If the birds don't
| get them, the complaint from neighbors will.
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| Sounds noisier in the video than they really are.
| cheschire wrote:
| Am I too cynical now? I feel like this is an advertisement. The
| guy is a director of communication.
|
| Maybe I've just become overly sensitive.
| mdoms wrote:
| It absolutely is an advertisement. Look at the OP's posts in
| this thread, all he is doing is defending the drones and
| singing the praises of the company.
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| I am the guy who posted the video on my account, and I assure
| you I am just an avid user of the service. I've been in
| lockdown for a month and we will be in lockdown for another
| month, with exposure sites everywhere in my city, so this is a
| far better alternative than venturing out.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| Was that a food delivery? Are they in production there?
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| It had a large cappuccino and a small hot chocolate in it.
| spoonalious wrote:
| Yeah they do food deliveries in part of Canberra. It's Google's
| Wing, has been operating for probably 3-4 years now
| contingencies wrote:
| Q. What search engine do _Currawongs_ use?
|
| A. Duckduckgo.
| maverwa wrote:
| Seems to be a coffee delivery, and Wing seems to be "a
| subsidiary of Alphabet" that offers drone delivery as a
| service?
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| They deliver other stuff too, and yeah it is part of Google,
| but I only use it for coffee
| drpixie wrote:
| I think it's a proof-of-concept operation. Last thing I want is
| 5 minute old, bad coffee, left in the garden.
|
| (Australians are generally very selective of their coffee, we
| like proper Italian style coffee. Melbourne (Aus/Vic) is quite
| proud that we're the only place where Starbucks went bust, gave
| up, and left - they tried but I think there's only one
| Starbucks left in the whole city, thankfully.)
| sparsely wrote:
| How much noise do these make? Camera drones in parks are already
| pretty loud and that thing looks even bigger.
| mjsweet wrote:
| I live in Logan, another test area in Australia. The drones are
| relatively quite. Surprisingly so. Generally can't hear them
| inside the house. Sometimes I will notice them when they are a
| few houses away if I'm outside. I rarely take notice of them
| now and I don't find them distracting. They seem to fly quite
| high too.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| > Generally can't hear them inside the house.
|
| So you can sometimes hear them inside the house? That sounds
| possibly-OK in a sparsely populated area. But in more dense
| areas with lots of deliveries and people walking outside who
| can hear all the noise, I'm not sure this will scale well.
| csomar wrote:
| > Sometimes I will notice them when they are a few houses
| away if I'm outside.
|
| > Generally can't hear them inside the house.
|
| Dude, I think they are _very_ loud. I 'm in an office nearby
| a busy street and I can barely hear the traffic (no special
| insulation, just regular windows).
| mfer wrote:
| I can't see all the lights on outside from inside my house at
| night. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of light
| pollution.
|
| Houses dampen the sound which animals don't have the luxury
| of having. All that noise could be a real problem for them
| caf wrote:
| One of the reasons they're fixed-wing is that it's considerably
| quieter (when they're not hovering) than rotary-wing flight.
| melbourne_mat wrote:
| It's springtime here. The birds get a bit aggressive this time of
| year.
|
| https://www.environment.sa.gov.au/goodliving/posts/2017/08/m...
| Hamuko wrote:
| Are they attacking the drones because they're carrying food?
| Ravens are incredibly smart birds so I don't imagine them
| attacking the drones for no good reason.
| petepete wrote:
| I suspect it's more of a invasion of territory thing. Around
| here both crows and magpies don't take kindly to other big
| birds coming too close during nesting season.
| high_5 wrote:
| That's a delivery raven fearing for its job.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| Given the choice between a world that has delivery drones and
| one that has delivery ravens, I definitely would prefer the
| latter.
| adolph wrote:
| _By 3000 BC, Egypt was using homing pigeons for pigeon post,
| taking advantage of a singular quality of this bird, which
| when taken far from its nest is able to find its way home due
| to a particularly developed sense of orientation._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homing_pigeon
| nights192 wrote:
| It's somewhat baffling to me that there's such a large pushback
| against getting coffee delivered via drone, and I don't see many
| reasons expressed as to why, exactly, this is iniquitous--could
| somebody explain this in greater detail to me, please?
| i_am_jl wrote:
| ...did you watch the video on mute?
| nights192 wrote:
| I understand the noise in the video is fairly unpleasant;
| however, others within the thread with more experience with
| the technology have testified that they are not, typically,
| perceived as this disruptive. (Whether due to the rotors
| straining less when not countering a raven/crow, or simply
| due to the frequency band of the phone microphone
| exacerbating the worst qualities of the sound.) Many express
| rancor about the very concept of delivered coffee--not merely
| the practicalities of it, and this is intriguing to me.
| i_am_jl wrote:
| I fly quads recreationally, though I'm far from an expert.
| I've flown a wide variety of fixed wing and multicopter
| drones, both payload/filming drones and FPV drones.
|
| Drones that have payload capacity are loud, full stop. This
| one isn't especially loud as its payload is relatively
| light.
|
| The comment I believe you're talking about mentions they
| can be heard from multiple houses away. That isn't quiet by
| any means.
| nights192 wrote:
| They also state, however, that the drones are typically
| high enough to provide little disturbance prior to
| descending for the drop. Regardless, this doesn't
| primarily confuse me; rather, the hostility to the idea
| of delivery coffee writ large.
|
| Thanks for clarifying the noise issue!
| jakecopp wrote:
| Ahh those last few frames reminded me of just how sprawling
| Canberra's suburbia is and how large the nature strip/easement
| zoning is - no wonder it's such a good drone testing area!
| InsomniacL wrote:
| My plan to train Ravens to steal drone payloads is progressing
| nicely.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Hehe, that's really funny. The value of what you can transport
| by drone is likely dwarfed by the value of the drone, why not
| go for stealing the drones themselves?
| InsomniacL wrote:
| The Pact with the Ravens is conditional on them remaining the
| dominant aerial intelligence. This necessitates the
| destruction, rather than the repurpose, of the drones.
| scrumper wrote:
| I'm glad that awesome ballsy bird didn't get injured by the
| blades on that ridiculous noisy irritating gimmick. I mean, a cup
| of coffee, not even a pound of ground coffee so you can make your
| own and only force this intrusion on your neighbors once a week
| instead of every day.
|
| Obviously I still need _my_ morning coffee.
| [deleted]
| clairity wrote:
| lately there have been a couple drones flying around my
| neighborhood and hovering in front of, and behind, houses. they
| instinctually feel creepy and intrusive. it seems we need to
| extend the legal expectation of privacy a little further.
| drclau wrote:
| Ravens are among the smartest birds out there. The fact that it
| was not injured is probably not a matter of luck. It most
| likely understood to some degree the danger of spinning blades.
|
| They're also pretty skilled at flight. A wildlife photographer
| snapped a few great shots with a raven landing on an eagle's
| back _in flight_.
|
| See: https://iso.500px.com/the-story-behind-the-incredible-
| photo-...
| ed_elliott_asc wrote:
| I'm with you, if my neighbour had this delivered every day I'd
| speak to them and ask them not to.
| Lamad123 wrote:
| LinkdIn.. Link me out, please!!
| null_object wrote:
| I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but there's something
| about this footage that suggests to me these birds are more
| intelligent than we are.
| fogihujy wrote:
| I'm not sure your average raven is smarter than your average
| human, but Corvids are *very* intelligent.
|
| If they've figured out the drones drop food when attacked then
| they'll keep attacking, and teach others of their species to do
| it too.
| kragen wrote:
| Average ravens know how to make tools out of wire and how to
| drop rocks into a bottle to raise the level of its water so
| they can drink it. I think that's more than your average
| human can do.
| fogihujy wrote:
| A human would be quite capable of constructing a tool out
| of wire. Humans figured out water displacement too, and
| ravens have culture and pass their knowledge on to their
| young just like we do.
|
| The interesting thing isn't exact measurements of
| intelligence, though, but rather the fact that intelligence
| has developed independently. We know that we and our fellow
| primates are amongst the smartest animals on the planet.
| The thing about ravens is that they prove we're not the
| only ones.
| kragen wrote:
| I think you're giving the humans far too much credit.
| _Some_ humans, and most _larval_ humans, are capable of
| doing that kind of thing. Most of them just imitate.
| After puberty, almost all of them just repeat their
| previously acquired behaviors except when imitating.
| Instead of reasoning, they just rehearse past memories
| and fictional scenarios, unable to distinguish reality
| from fiction. Most of them can 't remember what they ate
| for lunch yesterday or the license plate of the car that
| passed two minutes ago. They engage in complex verbal
| behavior that's ultimately incoherent, to the point that
| often even severe senile dementia in a human goes
| undiagnosed until its victim is in a new situation where
| their previous mindless habits no longer apply.
| valvar wrote:
| If you're joking, do be aware that it's not very obvious.
| samhw wrote:
| They aren't joking, based on their later comments. This
| "humans are stupid" trope is quite common. It usually
| becomes clear that it originates from thinly-concealed
| classism: " _People like me_ can solve differential
| equations, but most people just sit around watching TV
| and playing the lottery. No, I haven 't met those people,
| but I know that's all they do."
| kragen wrote:
| Oh, no, I wish I could except myself from these comments,
| but I can stupid right up there with the stupidest of
| them. In fact, right at this moment I can't remember what
| I had for lunch yesterday. And I'm talking to _you_. If I
| were sitting around watching TV, as I was doing a few
| hours ago, that would at least be pleasant and therefore
| somewhat rational.
| samhw wrote:
| I applaud your adroitness at self-deprecation, but I
| think it's pretty implicit in your comments that you hold
| yourself above other people, or else you logically should
| be simply imitating their views:
|
| > I think you're giving the humans far too much credit.
| Some humans, and most larval humans, are capable of doing
| that kind of thing. Most of them just imitate. After
| puberty, almost all of them just repeat their previously
| acquired behaviors except when imitating. Instead of
| reasoning, they just rehearse past memories and fictional
| scenarios, unable to distinguish reality from fiction.
| Most of them can't remember what they ate for lunch
| yesterday or the license plate of the car that passed two
| minutes ago. They engage in complex verbal behavior
| that's ultimately incoherent, to the point that often
| even severe senile dementia in a human goes undiagnosed
| until its victim is in a new situation where their
| previous mindless habits no longer apply.
| adolph wrote:
| > . . . I think it's pretty implicit in your comments
| that you hold yourself above other people . . .
|
| This is a common enough cognitive bias that it should be
| expected.
|
| _The Dunning-Kruger effect is a hypothetical cognitive
| bias stating that people with low ability at a task
| overestimate their own ability, and that people with high
| ability at a task underestimate their own ability._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effe
| ct
| kragen wrote:
| Clearly in this case it's so strongly expected that it's
| being asserted in the face of strong evidence to the
| contrary!
| adolph wrote:
| How does one signal a commitment to the falsability of
| one's assertions and yet remain convincing?
|
| Am I stupid to think that I am smart? Am I smart to think
| that I am stupid? If I think I am stupid and desire
| smartness can I fake it until I make it? Does the
| simulation of a smarter self developed to better attain
| smartness through faking it become real?
|
| Tank, I need an exit!
| kragen wrote:
| The Dunning-Kruger effect isn't actually the same thing
| as overconfidence effect or the superiority complex I'm
| manifesting here, although there's definitely a
| relationship. What Dunning and Kruger hypothesized was
| that sometimes people are bad at an activity, like being
| funny, because there are important things about that
| activity that they don't know. This impairs both their
| performance at that activity and their ability to assess
| their performance, as well as, for example, other
| people's performance. In their experiments, they did find
| the predicted effect, with the result that, while people
| who were really terrible at an activity had a lower self-
| assessment than people who were pretty good at it, the
| really terrible people overrated themselves by a lot.
| They also found that the more competent people underrated
| themselves by a little, which was not a prediction of
| their hypothesis, and is the opposite of what the
| overconfidence-effect theory predicts.
|
| At least, that's how I remember it. Would I even know if
| I were misremembering it?
|
| I think "How do [I] signal a commitment to the
| falsifiability of [my] assertions and yet remain
| convincing?" is mostly the wrong question. Convincing
| someone, like a salesman, is a different activity from
| collaboratively exploring ideas with them, and they are
| not only mutually exclusive with one another, but also
| with the kind of self-righteous dominance discourse samhw
| is engaging in upthread, where the object is to persuade
| other onlookers to side with you against your
| contemptible interlocutor (in this case, me). Projecting
| cocaine-like irrepressible confidence is often a very
| effective way to convince people of things, because they
| assume your confidence must be well-founded, but that
| effect is poisonous to collaborative exploration of
| ideas, which involves looking for their flaws as well as
| their merits. It can also damage their confidence in you
| over time, although fraudsters like Lacan and that
| delusional coke freak Freud often get away with it for
| more than a human lifespan, by virtue of carefully
| crafting their theories to be nonfalsifiable.
|
| In cases where your beliefs are based on objective
| evidence, you can share that evidence, as Darwin did with
| his studies of finches and reflections on pigeon breeding
| and whatnot. This turns out to be very effective at
| _collectively_ progressing toward the truth even when
| none of the individual people involved is very smart (and
| none of us are) or very detached from their beliefs.
| Semmelweis was eventually convincing about handwashing,
| for example, but not about the cadaveric-particle thing.
|
| Unfortunately, without computers, this doesn't work for
| procedural knowledge; every generation has to learn it
| from scratch by practicing, so, for example, our jokes
| aren't any better now than they were in Sumeria 5000
| years ago. And there are a lot of cases where our
| knowledge has a basis that isn't objective, so we can't
| put it into words and numbers, with the result that
| people who trust us believe it, while people who distrust
| us don't.
|
| Anyway, so people often misunderstand Dunning and Kruger
| to have found that the least competent people rated
| themselves as being the most competent. While that does
| happen sometimes, that wasn't what they found. However,
| sufficient levels of overconfidence in your knowledge
| will totally close you off to new information, as
| happened to samhw in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28592769, so you
| totally stop learning, eventually making you the least
| competent. As I said, though, that usually also happens
| to humans when they go through puberty! In my case, my
| overconfidence stunted my learning about all kinds of
| things for many years and probably still does in areas I
| haven't noticed yet. And probably never will, since I'm
| apparently totally failing at actually thinking.
|
| The "simulation of a smarter self" thing can actually
| work, because often what keeps people trapped is not a
| lack of intelligence but various kinds of mental
| formations they use to avoid discomfort. Doesn't have to
| be a self, or smarter; "what would Jesus do?" is a
| Christian reminder that a mental simulation of a more
| morally commendable person can be a useful guide.
| imtringued wrote:
| Me: I can read and write in English while knowing how to
| operate a computer.
|
| The bird: Drops objects into a tube filled with water to
| get food.
|
| In the human realm nobody gives a damn that I know
| English and can use a mouse and keyboard. People are so
| good at these skills they don't even realize they are
| skills, they are so abundant they count for nothing. The
| bird wins because of that.
| kragen wrote:
| I'm guessing you learned those skills before puberty? A
| Markov-chain bot also "knows English" and "can operate a
| computer", though probably posting a comment like yours
| would require at least GPT-2.
| adolph wrote:
| > nobody gives a damn that I know English and can use a
| mouse and keyboard
|
| If you think they don't, behave as if you can't for a
| day.
| kragen wrote:
| I _am_ simply imitating their views. I haven 't got an
| original thought in my head, at least not one I haven't
| had for 30 years. And here I am sphexishly replying to
| you again like a sucker. Is there anything I could
| possibly be doing that would be less intelligent? Any
| raven would have long since flown away, or possibly
| pecked your eyes out.
| samhw wrote:
| I don't suppose you'd be so kind as to just imitate my
| beliefs? It would really save me some time here!
| kragen wrote:
| How would that help? Wouldn't it just make the problem
| much worse? Instead of futilely arguing against the kind
| of scumbag that turned Twitter into the vile cesspool it
| is today and is now infesting HN, I'd become another one
| of them!
|
| I may not be any _smarter_ than you are, and I can 't
| solve differential equations, but at least I can remain
| _less of an asshole_ , and continue making helpful
| contributions like
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28592961,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28591650,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28467260, or
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28466492 instead of
| sinking this place further into chimpanzee dominance
| games by launching baseless calumnies at strangers as
| you're doing.
|
| I mean, I _do_ hold myself above you. But it 's not
| because I think you're even stupider than I am, which
| would be quite a remarkable feat. It's because you're
| spending your efforts to try to hurt people and I'm
| spending my efforts to try to help them.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > but Corvids are _very_ intelligent.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerUbHmuY04
| monkeycantype wrote:
| Were we live the (australian) ravens move in in spring to
| raise their babies, they'll be here soon. There's something
| extraordinary about the way they look at you. It says :
| 'yeah we see each other. don't make me come down and smack
| you'
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| What the hell? This is magic. Can reinforcement learning do
| THIS?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| They're smart, sure, but nowhere near as intelligent as we are,
| and I'm not sure why you're pushing this narrative. It's really
| downplaying yourself.
| [deleted]
| kar1181 wrote:
| Even the Australian wildlife will not accept bad coffee! Bit like
| how Starbucks got ran out of Adelaide.
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| The coffee was great actually.
| ajkdhcb2 wrote:
| I keep seeing Australians online saying this meme that
| Australians care a lot about coffee quality, but when I lived
| there everyone I knew would make instant coffee at home. Then
| they were often highly critical of espresso at cafes. Odd
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Combining the worst of American and British coffee culture,
| then.
| thethethethe wrote:
| This is my experience in Australia too. Outside of the big
| cities, the coffee is almost undrinkable, Starbucks would be
| welcome. The coffee in Sydney and Melbourne was good but a
| city having good coffee is unremarkable
| sien wrote:
| Guess the kangaroos will attack Gloria Jeans then?
|
| With 460 outlets in Australia and worse coffee than Starbucks
| they should start pretty soon.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Jean%27s_Coffees
| achow wrote:
| Another interesting discovery for me..
|
| This 'Wing' drone delivery is actually an Alphabet (Google)
| company, and they have "found success in Australian suburbs,
| recently hitting 100,000 deliveries milestone." [1]
|
| Anyone from Australia care to tell how much it costs to deliver a
| (or multiple) cups of coffee using this service?
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/25/22640833/drone-
| delivery-g...
| technion wrote:
| I'm a four hour drive from the test area but I tried to look
| into costs. It seems they do quite a few things beyond just
| coffee: https://wing.com/en_au/australia/canberra/
|
| All the stores listed appear to only show their on-premises
| offerings, with some saying "download the app now" for a
| delivery price. The fact I apparently can't place an order or
| even see a price on a desktop has to hurt sales.
| neaanopri wrote:
| I know their "pet" category is pet food, but it's just so
| funny to imagine that drone lowering a kitten to you
| xattt wrote:
| It almost seems that the original post is a humblebrag promo
| about the Wing delivery service, to get us aware about some
| newfangled product/service via some quirk or curiosity.
|
| But I could be cynical.
| acrobatsunfish wrote:
| It's on LinkedIn, everything is an ad
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| Nah mate I legit just like it
| echelon wrote:
| This should be a top level thread. I'm blown away that this is
| a real service and that it's hit 100k transactions. That's
| incredible!
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Not the good kind of incredible though.
| seldom0 wrote:
| Here's something to consider: "xjet - The real reason Google is
| delivering stuff by drone" https://yewtu.be/watch?v=asJ8GSQZjGk
|
| Some speculation into the pricing reveals that they are doing
| deliveries well below cost and perhaps free as an investment to
| get their number of successful deliveries up. Google is vying
| to gain license to be the de-facto ubiquitous drone flight
| traffic control service.
| mongol wrote:
| I am shaking my head. Is this the future we are entering?
| Drones delivering coffee? Super-annoying sound to further drown
| any hope of tranquility in the mornings. There are certainly
| many meaningful uses of drones, but delivering coffee is not
| one of them.
| cronix wrote:
| At least they won't be winning any lawsuits over coffee that
| is hot enough to cause burns.
| biesnecker wrote:
| Though tbh nothing sounds more relaxing than a warm cup of
| homemade coffee and some net gun target practice in the
| morning :-D
| trident5000 wrote:
| shotgun would be way more satisfying
| exporectomy wrote:
| Wow. The amount of people here who would have wanted to ban
| cars when they were first invented is incredible. Luckily the
| world has plenty of inspired people actually doing novel
| things and these stuck-in-the-muds don't have much power.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Agreed. Medication to inaccessible spots: fine. Coffee to
| spoiled yuppies: really not the way to go.
| BigJono wrote:
| Those spoiled yuppies paying a 50%+ markup on coffee just
| to have it delivered by drone are the ones subsidising the
| research and engineering efforts that go towards delivering
| medicine to inacessible spots. If the market isn't there
| then the investment isn't either.
| Loic wrote:
| This "delivering medicine in inaccessible spots" is
| simply not true. We can already deliver Coca-Cola
| everywhere on Earth reliably.
| rewq4321 wrote:
| > This "delivering medicine in inaccessible spots" is
| simply not true. We can already deliver Coca-Cola
| everywhere on Earth reliably.
|
| Your comment is so profoundly wrong, and yet so
| confidently written. You're comparing Coke, a long-shelf-
| life mass market product, with (often) _emergency_ /low-
| latency delivery of products which would be impractical
| to stockpile in every remote village, even if they could
| affort it (e.g. certain types of medicine and consumable
| medical products, blood, etc.)
|
| Coke doesn't need low-latency delivery - they can use
| high-bandwidth + warehousing. This isn't
| possible/practical for some types of products.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delivery_drone#Healthcare_d
| eli...
| hef19898 wrote:
| And still there is a way to reliably reach even the
| remotest areas where people live. Getting medicine there
| can, at least to a degree, piggy bag on that.
|
| Unless it is a AI powered blockchain drone, that would be
| unbeatable!
| samhw wrote:
| Like the comment said to which you are replying, there
| isn't a fast enough supply chain for deliveries which 'go
| stale' far more quickly than Coca-Cola does. Therefore,
| no, they can't piggyback on that existing supply chain.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Given that cooling is a thing, yes they can. Unless stuff
| goes shale within minutes, in which case even a drone
| won't help you.
| rewq4321 wrote:
| What are you actually getting at here? If I had to
| pessimistically guess, it sounds like you're trying to
| signal "I'm part of the group that can see through the
| drone marketing hype. They can't fool me."
|
| Drones are much faster than cars at getting to remote
| places. There are many, many villages throughout the
| African continent that can take several hours to get to
| due to lack of paved roads (you need a 4WD, and it'll be
| a bumpy, slow ride). Sometimes the territory is dangerous
| to drive though. Drones can also be used even in more
| developed areas when roads have been completely washed
| away by a flood/hurricane/landslide/etc. The industry
| certainly has been hyped, and it's still early days, but
| your claim that they're not useful is absurd.
| adolph wrote:
| _Zipline is delivering blood to 25 hospitals and clinics
| across[Rwanda] every day. Zipline is betting that
| transporting lifesaving medical supplies, which are often
| lightweight and urgently needed, will be the killer app
| for delivery drones._
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/in-the-air-with-ziplines-
| medical-d...
| nisegami wrote:
| Coca-Cola doesn't require a cold supply chain. The bulk
| of its weight/volume (water) can also be combined with a
| much lighter and smaller syrup or equivalent to be
| produced in a near-local fashion. It also has the benefit
| of scale.
|
| Consider a rarely needed but life-saving antivenom that
| is expensive to produce, requires careful+chilled storage
| and is just not that abundant outright due to difficult
| production. A snake bite could happen anywhere, but its
| infeasible and potentially wasteful to have it stocked at
| every local facility. If a drone could be used to deploy
| it from a central facility to where its needed in a
| timely manner on-demand, that could save lives. In the
| developed world, roads make ground transportation a more
| suitable approach for this problem (in addition to
| everything else that makes the problem itself less
| frequent), but in many parts of the world the ground
| infrastructure is simply not there.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| This feels like one of those feel good bullshit quips
| that is probably technically sort of true but only
| partially or some such. But I haven't had my coffee
| delivered so I am not all there yet to figure out what
| the fallacy is.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The fallacy is that there are other ways of society to
| "subsidize" the research, e.g. via taxes. There is no
| need for the yuppie and the coffee.
| adventured wrote:
| > e.g. via taxes ... There is no need for the yuppie and
| the coffee.
|
| The taxes are also paid for by the yuppies at a
| disproportionate rate to their income share.
|
| See: share of income taxes as broken out by income
| segment, in most every developed nation.
|
| One of the central defining characteristics of a yuppie
| is a well-paying job. That means paying higher,
| progressive tax rates in most affluent nations, including
| Australia.
|
| https://www.ato.gov.au/rates/individual-income-tax-rates/
|
| See: what happens to California if you remove the tech
| yuppies pulling down $200,000 - $500,000, as well as
| their party buckets of equity compensation, the taxes of
| which the state rolls around in during the good times.
| California would become a formal second world disaster
| with no ability to fund anything. Illinois with nicer
| weather.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I meant no need for yuppies to pay for coffee delivered
| by done in order to accomplish the goal of researching
| how to deliver medicines in hard to reach places. They
| may coincidentally have to do with each other (emphasis
| on "may"), but not causally.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Norway tried this with carbon capture.
|
| It ended up with a big payday for big oil IIRC.
|
| Now that we are getting the socialists back in power
| (they was the ones behind the last attempt) they've
| promised to have companies buy into it too instead of
| just using taxes.
| skinkestek wrote:
| It would be interesting to know why this is downvoted:
|
| I consider myself fluent in Norwegian, did I still miss
| something?
|
| Edit: to be clear, I don't care at all about those stupid
| point. For that matter dang should be free to reset them
| every day like he seems to do with his own.
|
| I only care about them as an indication of whether what I
| said came across as wrong or something.
| shkkmo wrote:
| It seems to be bringing up an relatively off topic
| political dispute without doing the work to justify the
| relevance or the claims being made. This makes it easy
| for people to see nothing more than anti carbon tax, anti
| socialist political baiting. This doesn't tend to lead to
| productive conversations and thus is likely to get
| downvoted on a political basis.
|
| A more productive comment would have talked about how the
| Norwegian carbon tax was intended to fund research and
| how exactly it failed to do that and instead just created
| profits for oil companies.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Ok, I see, thanks.
|
| I don't have time to fix it now, but yes, this is my
| point:
|
| I'm not against taxing pollution or using tax income to
| fund research, only against the part where we (Norway)
| literally gave money to companies without demanding
| results.
| samhw wrote:
| The response to this is normally the same as the response
| to trophy hunting subsidising conservation: namely,
| "yeah, that's true, but reality shouldn't be that way". I
| don't find that a very compelling argument, but
| apparently some people do.
| cochne wrote:
| I think this argument is true and it is easily
| demonstrated with GPUs. They were able to be financially
| successful products largely because consumers wanted them
| to play video games.
|
| Now they are necessary for academic research in deep
| learning and other fields, which would not have gotten
| GPUs as advanced as they are without the market boost.
|
| Of course that's just a theory and it's never possible to
| go back and see what would have happened. But it seems
| reasonable to me.
| mirker wrote:
| I mean it's a bit murkier than that:
|
| 1. GPUs used to be much less programmable and had fixed-
| function graphics pipelines.
|
| 2. General purpose GPU computing was demonstrated a
| decade before the 2012 deep learning craze. OpenCL/CUDA
| was quite mature in 2012 and used by high performance
| computing.
|
| 3. Transistor scaling (Moore's law) has been speeding
| everything up exponentially.
|
| 4. There are a lot of non-GPU solutions now.
|
| If GPUs didn't exist, someone still could have trained a
| deep model on a cluster of CPU, and then we'd end up with
| GPUs (or similar hardware) again. So it's not necessarily
| true that gaming->GPU->deep learning implies that GPUs
| couldn't be used for deep learning without gaming,
| because you could have had CPU->deep learning->GPU. I
| think this was much more of a case of the stars magically
| aligning than some preset goal by Nvidia/AMD.
|
| In fact, there are plenty of cases where you had
| CPU->research->HW accelerator. One example (on top of
| gaming/rendering) is compression or parity coding, which
| was slow initially and then had add-on cards and/or CPU
| extensions.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I can see the ads now.
|
| We at .com are delivering medicines to poor people in
| this unfortunate country that has no infrastructure.
| (baby crying, dog being kicked away from table with flies
| on the food, and sad music playing)
|
| Disclaimer: This was done one time for advertising
| purposes, and is not indicative of how our whirlybirds
| will be used.
|
| (Off topic, but here goes. You know those drug
| commercials that state if you can't afford the
| medications, we a Whizzerbio will help out with costs
| because we are there for Everyone.
|
| This is how it worked when I looked into it. You, and
| your doctor have to fill out a bunch of forms.
|
| The meds are only sent to the doctors office. So you will
| need to go there to pick the medication up, and I imagine
| setting up another appointment. I have no idea why they
| don't deliver to the patient, or reimburse the pharmacy.
| I imagine they want it delivered to the office so the
| pharmaceutical rep can have a real reason to talk with
| doc?
|
| Only one patient per doctor are allowed to participate in
| this promotion. Doc has 1000 patients, but only one poor
| guy gets the free med.
|
| I looked into this ten years ago, so things might have
| changed?
| matthewmorgan wrote:
| Trickle down coffee, heard it all now
| hef19898 wrote:
| Once raven get more experience, it will no more like
| splashdown coffee.
| cabalamat wrote:
| > Those spoiled yuppies paying a 50%+ markup on coffee
| just to have it delivered by drone are the ones
| subsidising the research and engineering efforts that go
| towards delivering medicine to inacessible spots
|
| Really? Are spoiled yuppies ordering coffee a significant
| fraction of projected drone deliveries? I doubt it.
| path411 wrote:
| Except time has shown that companies aren't taking on
| their real cost to their communities.
|
| How are people chuckling about this video when this is
| clear signs this will have real environmental effects and
| costs that if we are,"lucky" might be a taking point to
| politicians/CEOs in a couple of decades after
| irreversible damage is done
| samhw wrote:
| What's the environmental effect? It seems like a clear
| improvement over current delivery mechanisms, since it's
| lighter and can be powered with electricity. Is your
| argument based on some assumption of induced demand, i.e.
| that it will encourage people to get more deliveries?
| elliekelly wrote:
| > If the market isn't there then the investment isn't
| either.
|
| This is probably news to a lot of VCs who regularly make
| investments in hope of an eventual market.
| mc32 wrote:
| Most of it gets funded by BigCos with too much money, VCs
| looking for the next unicorn or things like DARPA.
|
| 50% markups may make it viable if it gets off the ground
| and becomes and ind operation but that's not footing R&D.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Are you sure? It doesn't seem believable that drone
| advancements have been significantly subsidized by coffee
| delivery, not even right now let alone over the past
| 10-20 years where huge advancements were made.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It's about the service existing going forward. If all
| these are gonna be used for is remote medicine delivery,
| then that's hardly any missions, thus hardly any money in
| it, and thus it wouldn't attract investments. The only
| reason these autonomous drone delivery companies exist is
| in anticipation of high demand, being as commonly used as
| Uber/Amazon/GrubHub.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| What is about that?
|
| I find it difficult to believe coffee delivery even now
| or "going forward" significantly subsidizes drone
| technology development. Even if you expand that to
| delivery of other frivolities.
|
| Do you have any numbers? Or reasoning?
|
| Drones have already long had the capability to do all
| this, lift and endurance, auto flying and navigation,
| GPS, even cameras and some autonomous visual recognition.
|
| What drone technologies are being subsidized by coffee
| delivery?
| lolc wrote:
| Well these guys say they've delivered quite a few
| packages with their drones. To hospitals.
| https://flyzipline.com/
|
| Coffee wasn't on the agenda it seems.
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| The coffee is the same price as at a cafe. About $7,
| which is standard for a large with two extra shots which
| is about standard here.
| walrus01 wrote:
| there's a reason many municipalities have banned small
| gasoline engine leaf blowers. I'd be willing to bet the
| decibel level from a wing drone delivering coffee, two houses
| away, and a leaf blower might be similar.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Leaf blowers are also banned because they emit an
| outrageous amount of pollution. These electric drones at
| least don't have that problem.
| ansible wrote:
| Typical gas-powered leaf blowers use a 2-cycle engine.
| These in general are not efficient, and need oil combined
| with the gas to lubricate the motor. This oil is of
| course burned as part of the combustion, which generates
| a lot more pollutants than an efficient 4-cycle internal
| combustion engine (such as in your car).
|
| These leaf blowers also don't have much of a muffler
| system (due to size / weight) and of course no exhaust
| gas recirculation or catalytic converter to further
| reduce emissions by-products.
| OJFord wrote:
| For some reason this confused me more than normal (just
| not the usual context I'm familiar with it in I suppose)
| - so just to be clear, you mean the same 'gas' that goes
| in your car right? Not that you can get, I don't know,
| propane leaf blowers or something?
|
| They are noisy and smelly as hell, there was some going
| on just outside my window (not that I'd hired) recently,
| the operators wearing ear protection of course, but I was
| barely any further away. Do wish they'd use electric -
| can do it from a battery even these days. (And mitre saws
| etc. too, quite incredible.)
| ansible wrote:
| Yes, many of the gas leaf blowers use regular automotive
| gasoline, with a 50:1 mixture of oil added to the
| gasoline.
|
| They _do_ have electric leaf blowers, but those offer
| minutes of runtime instead of hours. So those might be
| suitable for a homeowner, but aren 't very practical for
| professional lawn care use.
| OJFord wrote:
| I know they (the blowers) exist - I meant I wish they
| (the specific people operating beneath my window) would
| use them.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > They do have electric leaf blowers, but those offer
| minutes of runtime instead of hours
|
| This confused me for a second, as the electric leaf
| blowers that came to my mind have 'infinite' runtime. I
| then realized you're referring to _cordless_ electric
| leaf blowers.
| shkkmo wrote:
| The 2-cycle vs 4-cycle engine distinction applies to
| gasoline engines used for a wide variety of applications.
| OJFord wrote:
| Ah sure (mix with oil for 2 stroke right?) - it was just
| the US 'gas' terminology that threw me off. Somewhat used
| to hearing it for cars, but in this context my first
| thought was of pressurised cannisters of butane, propane,
| whatever strapped to the back of someone operating a leaf
| blower!
| anonfornoreason wrote:
| Nit pick, apologies up front. Two stroke motors are
| actually more efficient than four stroke motors, they
| just emit a bunch of pollution due to the oil in the
| gasoline, which is a much dirtier combustion than
| gasoline.
|
| A two stroke motor is considerably simpler than a four
| stroke, they often come in at around half the weight for
| an equivalent power output, and have less moving parts.
| This is why they are the default engine of choice for
| hand powered tools - almost no maintenance, very little
| warmup cycle, high power:weight ratio. The downside is
| dirty exhaust.
|
| Modern two stroke dirt bikes have actually all started
| moving to fuel injection to help combat this. No premixed
| oil/gas, oil is injected at an optimal ratio given the
| load of the engine. Light cruise / idling, they run at
| 100:1, at heavy throttle they drop down to 50:1. Much
| more pleasant than something set to constantly run, via
| premixing, at 50:1 gas:oil.
|
| Other note: large ocean freighters are two stroke
| engines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%A4rtsil%C3%A4
| -Sulzer_RTA9...
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| There are different types of efficiency. I think you
| might be referring to power per weight, while the parent
| comment is talking about emissions per (unit of) power.
|
| To dig further, you can also differentiate between peak
| and sustained power; MTBF, maintenance (and dollars of
| maintenance) per hour of operation, volume, overall
| environmental effect (due to lifespan and manufacturing),
| etc etc.
| anonfornoreason wrote:
| I am referring to both thermal efficiency, and power to
| fuel ratio. Meaning, for any given amount of work needed,
| a two stroke will produce more work for the same input of
| fuel as compared to an equivalent quality/design four
| stroke motor.
|
| Your point is a good one though, but I think the common
| use case of the word efficiency, when talking about
| vehicles, if fuel required to produce a given amount of
| work (miles, horsepower, etc).
| ansible wrote:
| I actually was talking about thermal efficiency of two-
| stroke vs. 4-stroke, and believed that overall four-
| stroke does better.
|
| Reading about just a little bit, this may not be the
| case... depending on what application you are talking
| about.
|
| I would expect to be _some_ differences between a 10-ton
| marine two-stroke on a ship vs. a 49cc two-stroke on a
| moped in terms of efficiency.
| akudha wrote:
| Except in rich areas probably, they will find a way to still
| do it, but without disturbing the residents somehow
| dnautics wrote:
| electric blowers are pretty quiet (not that i would ever
| use one, I prefer the mark 0 rake)
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >I am shaking my head. Is this the future we are entering?
| Drones delivering coffee?
|
| Like it or not as wages creep up relative to "things" these
| sorts of business models will become economically viable.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > Super-annoying sound
|
| drones are quieter than cars
|
| > delivering coffee is not one of them
|
| perfect item to master the skill tho
| imtringued wrote:
| >drones are quieter than cars
|
| Children are quieter than cars and yet I hear them from the
| 3rd floor because sound travels in a direct line with
| nothing obstructing it. You don't hear cars 3 blocks away
| because of all the buildings between you and the cars.
| You'll hear a drone 3 blocks away because the air doesn't
| block sound as much.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > drones are quieter than cars
|
| People get coffee delivered by car? If that is so it is
| rather depressing.
| samhw wrote:
| Yup, a friend of mine gets his morning coffee delivered
| every morning. I felt like Marie Antoinette when I stayed
| at his house and he ordered me one ('you have a coffee
| machine right here! are you mad?').
| CydeWeys wrote:
| That's insanity to me. How much are they paying?!
| ssully wrote:
| I am not the OP, but I just checked what it would be for
| me. This morning I got two medium coffee's (Dunkin) which
| came out to about $5. The same order on DoorDash is $12,
| $15 if you included a $3 tip.
| samhw wrote:
| Annoyingness is not the same thing as volume. Nails on a
| chalkboard is also quieter than a car, or an orchestra
| playing Mahler's Fifth.
| wiz21c wrote:
| This 100% ! I live not far from an airport (airplanes are
| like very big drones is you will :-)). And although the
| number of decibels is probably inferior to the one of the
| cars passing by my street, I can assure you it's a hell
| of a lot more annoying. First there are much more infra
| bass, second it lasts much longer than a car passing by,
| third, they like to fly at 5 or 6 in the morning where
| most of the car drivers sleep (side note: according to
| city's rule, they can't fly at that time but they just
| pay the fine to do so...)
| samhw wrote:
| > third, they like to fly at 5 or 6 in the morning where
| most of the car drivers sleep (side note: according to
| city's rule, they can't fly at that time but they just
| pay the fine to do so...)
|
| "If a fine costs less than the crime pays, then it's not
| a penalty, it's a cost of doing business"
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| How about lawnmower?
| aix1 wrote:
| There are no lawnmowers in the airspace above, or near,
| my house.
| andrekandre wrote:
| for now...
| analognoise wrote:
| Invest in my aerial lawnmower drone company. We use
| Blockchain based tokens for lawns mowed. The mining pays
| for your lawn mowing with our drones.
|
| We'll get an aerial lawnmower to you real quick, just
| sign up on our page.
| LightG wrote:
| Not quieter than electric cars/bikes.
|
| Pizza delivery / grocery motorbikes used to annoy the hell
| out of us. But the switch to electric mopeds has been a
| blessing.
|
| Credit to Getir in London for standardising electric bikes
| across their fleet (at least where we are).
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| > But the switch to electric mopeds has been a blessing
|
| In terms of noise pollution, yes. But it has meant some
| less spatially aware delivery riders flying silently
| around corners on pavements which is an annoying problem.
| LightG wrote:
| Makes for some good youtube videos though (sorry).
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| I think even ebikes would cause now pollution than this
| drone - microplastics degrading off the rubber wheels and
| other components, as well as fine brake dust from pads.
| samhw wrote:
| I don't know why you're being downvoted. You have a good
| point. I hate these vague accusations of "that's
| environmentally unsound" which get bandied around,
| without any evidence at all and in the full knowledge
| that they're as impossible to refute as they would be to
| prove, just because it's an unfalsifiable way of
| attacking something you dislike. No one ever calls them
| out on it either.
| LightG wrote:
| I was specifically talking about noise-pollution.
|
| My ear-devices-pro+ record decent data and I submit that
| data as verifiable evidence in this matter.
| loudmax wrote:
| To be clear, the issue here is noise pollution, right? If the
| deliveries were silent, we generally wouldn't care how our
| neighbors were getting their coffee.
|
| I think the distinction is important because that points us
| in the direction of the type of policy we want to focus on.
| We shouldn't aim for laws to ban drone delivery. Instead we
| should have rules to limit the amount of noise you can make
| in residential areas.
| troyvit wrote:
| Maybe the issue is people getting off their butts and
| making some coffee. We're turning into a species that's so
| fat and lazy that we don't even want to go to the store
| anymore to get our empty calories.
|
| Maybe on paper silent drone deliveries are a great idea for
| people who can't get out of their homes but even then what
| we're doing is removing yet another chance for them to
| interact directly with another human being.
|
| So I dunno. What actually is a positive use for drone
| delivery?
| veidr wrote:
| No doubt some fat and lazy people appreciate coffee
| delivery, but I think probably a lot of slim, highly
| motivated and productive people do as well. (Also,
| surely, a few serial killers and pedophiles.)
|
| Adequate human interaction (modulo the ongoing pandemic)
| is indeed important (I think, at least for most people),
| but a wide swath of people probably have an overabundance
| of it, and wouldn't benefit from the additional
| interactions involved with physically going get their own
| coffee from some human in a coffee-vending establishment.
|
| The positive use for drone delivery is the same for any
| other delivery service. The pros and cons compared to
| human delivery, animal delivery, wheeled robot delivery,
| etc. are debatable.
| gpt5 wrote:
| Why don't you trust people to do other "important" things
| with the time they saved making food or coffee?
| Voloskaya wrote:
| Because we all very well know it's overwhelmingly not the
| case.
| nsonha wrote:
| You know that, I dont
| wavefunction wrote:
| Personally, it's because I know other people. Having gone
| through artificial panics and unreasonable demand-based
| shortages based entirely on fear I know that my fellow
| human being is often irrational, selfish and short-
| sighted when left to their own devices. The _only_
| solution to resolving those periods of irrationality I
| experienced were limits placed on their behavior like
| rationing of gasoline or toilet-paper or water or etc.
| exporectomy wrote:
| Another solution is to not worry about it. Rational
| people will have enough toilet paper to survive the
| shortages caused by panic buying of irrational people.
| You did have enough toilet paper, didn't you? Or were you
| short-sightedly assuming the shops would always have what
| you wanted when you wanted it?
| speed_spread wrote:
| If you don't have time to make coffee or go grab one,
| you're overspecializing and not working for the same
| humanity as I am. Your work output is never worth _that_
| much. Go out, breathe in, take the time to accept time
| constraints of the physical world.
| cabalamat wrote:
| > To be clear, the issue here is noise pollution, right?
|
| That's one, another is how difficult is it to make a cup of
| coffee in your kitchen?
| caf wrote:
| Shall we start policing exactly what you're allowed to
| order through Uber Eats? No sandwiches, but a croissant
| is OK? What if I get a coffee with my croissant, is that
| allowed?
| bagacrap wrote:
| Coffee is mostly water and we already have far more
| efficient ways of delivering water to the home, so yes,
| it seems incredibly wasteful to me to switch from
| plumbing to drones.
|
| I would also be happy banning k cups fwiw.
| troyvit wrote:
| Policing? Nah. Mocking? Sure!
| Lamad123 wrote:
| 2% anti-spillage fee! 3% thermal imballance fee!
| mdoms wrote:
| Yes absolutely. Personal food delivery is a scourge.
| Perhaps we should be policing "no one-off personal meal
| delivery".
| bittercynic wrote:
| Noise pollution is one issue, but the loss of privacy is
| another. These must have cameras on board, and I'd prefer
| Alphabet/Amazon/whoever not be flying cameras over my yard
| all the time.
| Loughla wrote:
| This is it right here. The 'no expectation of privacy in
| public' mantra is increasingly extending into places that
| I absolutely have an expectation of privacy.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Time to breed some pet ravens in the yard.
| xanth wrote:
| It'd be continued progression of the services that are
| already on offer[1]. And I don't see aus enacting any
| legislation to curb this sort off cooperate surveillance
| without a massive shift in voters general apathy towards
| their privacy.
|
| [1] https://www.nearmap.com/au/en
| potatochup wrote:
| Yeah, I think noise pollution is the most egregious aspect.
| In my neighbourhood, there is one main thoroughfare that
| you can drive 50kph/35mph on, and all the remaining roads
| are intentionally narrow and uncontrolled, so traffic is
| naturally limited to around ~30kph/20mph. If you move into
| a place on the main road, you are implicitly accepting the
| noise that comes with faster moving traffic. Otherwise you
| have a reasonable expectation of quiet, especially because
| at 30kph road noise is quite low, so quiet vehicles like
| EVs/hybrids are almost silent. Drones that make noise
| everywhere will break those expectations.
| mongol wrote:
| Yes or just general disorder. If drones are delivering
| coffee, then we can expect to see 100s of drones in the sky
| at any time, at least further down the road. Is that
| progress of the better kind, or would we not at least want
| to discuss the pros and cons before we are there?
| burkaman wrote:
| Noise pollution, disturbing the wildlife, light pollution
| at night, inevitable accidents.
| amelius wrote:
| Also: how much power do they consume? Probably more than
| a truck if you amortize over multiple packages, since the
| poor thing has to fight gravity all the time.
| kragen wrote:
| A truck weighs three tonnes; a quadcopter weighs 3 kg.
| You can't amortize coffee delivery over very many
| packages because you have to deliver the coffee within a
| few minutes after it's ready; otherwise it gets cold.
| Hoasi wrote:
| > Noise pollution, disturbing the wildlife, light
| pollution at night, inevitable accidents.
|
| Don't forget ridiculousness. That raven knows, and we
| should all be thankful for birds leading the protest.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| All legitimate concerns, but presumably delivery trucks /
| lorries are guilty of all of those right now? I would be
| unhappy if drone delivery made things worse, but there's
| also the possibility it could make them better (I'd
| rather be hit by a drone than a truck, for example).
| JoshTko wrote:
| Delivery trucks aren't flying over back yards.
| burkaman wrote:
| Yes, but I'm thinking about what happens if a single UPS
| truck delivering 500 packages is replaced with 500
| individual drone trips. One drone is probably better than
| one truck, but that's not the right tradeoff to consider.
| gambler wrote:
| As a reminder, 6 questions about technology outlined by
| Neil Postman:
|
| What is the problem to which this technology is a
| solution for?
|
| Whose problem is it?
|
| What new problems might be created by solving the
| original problem?
|
| Which people and what institutions will be most seriously
| harmed by this new technology?
|
| What sort of people and institutions gain special
| economic and political power from this new technology?
|
| What changes in language are being forced by these new
| technologies?
| mattmanser wrote:
| The laws around noise pollution are surprisingly pathetic
| here in the UK, I imagine almost all countries are too.
|
| It's perfectly legal to deconstruct scaffolding, with
| power tools and chucking metal poles in the back of the
| van at 8am on a Sunday morning for example. Right next to
| multiple residential block of flats with hundreds of
| residents.
|
| And the number one issue if you poll residents of almost
| any large town is usually noise issues.
|
| If you want to see one of the big disconnects between
| government and the people, it's a big one.
|
| Saying it's already an issue that's under legislated
| doesn't mean we should allow it to get worse.
| jfk13 wrote:
| That sounds like a failure on the part of whatever
| authority licensed the scaffolding work.
|
| Picking one from a quick search: Greenwich, for example,
| says that "Noisy work is prohibited on Sundays and bank
| holidays", and explicitly mentions "Erecting and
| dismantling of scaffolding" in its examples of "noisy
| work".
|
| (https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/info/200205/pollution_
| and_...)
|
| Presumably other authorities may have different rules,
| and they may or may not be effectively enforced. But in
| principle, at least, it's not a free-for-all.
| nsonha wrote:
| My neighbor mows the lawn really early every Sunday. I
| don't think I can do anything about it.
| patall wrote:
| In Germany, they are not that pathetic. You can
| theoretically be fined upto 50.000EUR for mowing on
| Sundays. The two days before Easter, even dancing is
| forbidden in many federal states.
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| Mate we have been in lockdown for a month, covid exposure
| sites are everywhere in my city, and we are in lockdown for
| another month yet. This is better than venturing out - and it
| is less carbon emissions than a car.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| We have had several extended lockdowns of more than a month
| in the UK. I just ordered ground coffee beans and made it
| at home. Yeah, not as nice as real espresso, but it's not
| the end of the world.
| ehnto wrote:
| We have a big espresso culture in Australia, so a lot of
| people have espresso machines at home anyway. Compared to
| coffee from the shops every day it's pretty cheap to buy
| and run a consumer espresso machine at home.
|
| That said, part of the fun of coffee is the cafe
| experience; covid willing, I still go out to cafes as
| well. Best not to optimize all of the fun out of life.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > a lot of people have espresso machines at home anyway.
|
| The Australian-designed/made Breville espresso machine is
| a gem.
|
| I have no idea how I lived without it.
| Voloskaya wrote:
| The entire world has been in lockdown for months, we have
| all survived without drones delivering one mug of coffee at
| a time.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| We haven't all survived, somewhere in the neighborhood of
| 5 million people have been killed by COVID. Obviously not
| all of them died from contracting COVID at a restaurant
| or coffee shop, but I suspect the number of deaths from
| trips to get coffee is significantly higher than zero
| (and that's before you take into account other factors
| like traffic accidents)
| marcodiego wrote:
| Those propellers may hurt the bird. These flying automated
| monstrosities should be well regulated with we want to do ahead
| with them.
| duxup wrote:
| Small birds will attack / harass the eagles in my area a great
| deal. But they've left my drone alone, probably because it is
| smaller.
| moedersmooiste wrote:
| Dutch police actually trained eagles to do this...
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00szWWrTNnE
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| What are we becoming, getting cofee deliverd by drone.
| eska wrote:
| This is what happens when you only ask yourself whether you
| can, not whether you should..
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Well, it's better than driving to the coffee place and back, I
| guess.
| eertami wrote:
| I just don't understand how it makes sense to get coffee
| delivered by drone (or by driving to pick up) every day
| instead of just buying an espresso machine.
| kragen wrote:
| One espresso machine can make coffee for 30 people an hour;
| complemented by six drones, it can provide coffee for 60
| people. That's a lot more capital-efficient than buying 60
| espresso machines; the other 57 espresso machines' worth of
| capital can get invested in something that improves
| people's lives instead of useless stranded coffee
| production capacity. It's probably a lot less labor-
| efficient, though, because it means tying up some poor
| schmuck's life making coffee for other people instead of
| learning topology or writing poetry or something.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| We just need to invent flying espresso machine
| mhh__ wrote:
| How much is a good espresso machine and also consider that
| any machine is potentially a bit of a faff if you rent and
| then move etc. Etc.
|
| I have got a coffee delivered before but I usually only do
| it if I'm working and I can't spare the distraction-risk of
| walking to a store.
| siva7 wrote:
| Please tell me you're joking
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| It's hard to make an espresso as good at home. It's
| basically an in depth hobby not a convenience appliance.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Any Mokkaexpress will beat 5+ minute old Espresso by far.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| That might be true I've never had one delivered by drone
| so I can't say!
| dewey wrote:
| Maybe it's coffee beans instead of an actual cup of coffee
| in this case?
| eertami wrote:
| I expect you would get beans delivered maybe once or
| twice per month though, not daily.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Only costs you quiet enjoyment of the skies.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Seriously one benefit of covid had been hardly any noise on
| the flight path I live on. If you have 24/7 drone
| deliveries it would drive me crazy. Probably have to set up
| some surface to air defence against it.
| sharmin123 wrote:
| Your phone can never be hacked? Think again:
| https://www.hackerslist.co/your-phone-can-never-be-hacked-th...
| froj wrote:
| I used to work with small fixed wing drones [1] and had birds of
| prey remove the battery pack from the aircraft while in flight. I
| always wondered whether they _knew_ or if they just instinctively
| went for the "head" of the plane and got lucky that the battery
| was right there.
|
| There were also reports from customers in Australia where eagles
| would just shred the drone to pieces almost every flight. Putting
| big googly eyes stickers on the wings seemed to help to some
| degree.
|
| [1] https://www.sensefly.com/
|
| Edit: Found the blog post about the eagles in Australia
| https://www.sensefly.com/blog/bird-drone-attacks-avoid-threa...
| csomar wrote:
| Birds of prey are territorial. That drone looks like them and
| so it's not welcome. They probably messed with it a bit and
| found that removing the battery kills it. Birds are generally
| pretty smart, some are self-aware and have high level of
| intelligence and awareness.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > I always wondered whether they _knew_
|
| Surely you don't mean that they'd have an understanding what
| the function of a battery is, so I'm not quite sure what you
| mean?
| tbabb wrote:
| They might not know how it works, but they _might_ have
| learned that it 's the part to pull on to make the drone
| "die".
| LightG wrote:
| Nothing suprising here. I've seen ravens gang up, bully and chase
| away large birds of prey.
|
| I'm more suprised to see the drone delivery. Didn't realise that
| had already started.
| titzer wrote:
| Go Ravens!
| vernie wrote:
| Lol fuckin get em
| willvarfar wrote:
| So in the footage it looks just like when the crows and other
| birds mob birds of prey. So presumably the raven is mistaking the
| drone for a predator.
|
| It will be interesting if the ravens soon determine the drone
| itself is no threat, but that drones carry food...
| m3kw9 wrote:
| The is not what I want to see or hear for Amazon drone delivery.
| usgroup wrote:
| The comment section is absolutely hilarious. Defs read it.
| Fiahil wrote:
| Wait until one of the raven manage to actually shut down a drone.
| These birds are very intelligent and absolutely capable of
| sharing their attack strategy with each other. Even better if
| there is a big payoff (food) as reward.
|
| They might even put the entire business at risk.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| Corvids are smart. I'm hoping the ravens start using the drones
| as personal transportation devices.
| foobar1962 wrote:
| I bet they work out they only have to crap on the bag to
| achieve their goal.
| dqpb wrote:
| I can hear the squawking now... "Flat white! Flat white!"
| petre wrote:
| They'd more likely attack drones carying dry pet food, a
| favourite treat of corvids. We saw them steal the ice cream
| paper cup containing the cat's leftover lunch. That pretty
| much explained why we found paper cups tens of meters away
| from the feeding spot.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I can't wait.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if that already happens, and they're
| calculating a loss factor to 'environmental' circumstances. I
| wouldn't be surprised if they mass-produce these planes to a
| low price point because of the loss factor.
| platz wrote:
| I imagine the birds getting hit by props when attacking it cant
| br a good think. im surprised the raven in tfa managed to avoid
| them
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I'm hoping somebody is staying on top of this because if it
| gets to the point the business model will get threatened, there
| will be pressure to _" mitigate"_ or _" solve"_ the problem
| somehow. I'm hoping the solution will be to tell the business
| (Google, in this case, apparently) to go do something else.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I used to live in Canberra, right now it's magpie season.
| They are super aggressive and are also super protected. It's
| more likely the Raven will experience regulatory capture
| before the drone company does.
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| These particular ravens are attacking all the drones in the
| neighborhood, a garbage truck, and I saw them intimidating
| a cat earlier.
| bool3max wrote:
| More likely Google will find a way to eliminate much of the
| raven population in the area.
| sen wrote:
| They've been seen using things as tools, I'm waiting for the
| next video where they realise they can shove a stick into the
| props to take the drone down.
| gpderetta wrote:
| wait until they get their hands beaks on the remote
| controller.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Those birds are a lot smarter than the people ordering coffee to
| be delivered by drone.
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| Hey!
| pqs wrote:
| Honestly, the whole idea of delivering coffee by drone seems
| very inefficient to me. I guess that making my own coffee with
| an aeropress takes less time than going to the garden, picking
| the package, opening it, etc. It is much cheaper, and it
| releases far less CO2 to the atmosphere!
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| But then you have to get the coffee beans delivered, although
| snail mail would be fine I guess!
| Hamuko wrote:
| You're probably not getting coffee beans on a per-cup
| basis. I personally order a batch of tea leaves a handful
| amount of times per year. I think coffee beans are a bit
| more sensitive than tea leaves, but even they should be
| fine for months if stored properly.
| OJFord wrote:
| Ideally you wouldn't keep them for months after roasting,
| but the difference between say one month and several is
| probably slight.
|
| I get a bag a week delivered within days of roasting, and
| I've not tasted blind but I'm sure I can tell the
| difference if I've come back to one from holiday or
| otherwise let it go 'stale'.
| Softcadbury wrote:
| Still better than driving a big SUV I guess...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Making coffee was a solved problem 100 years ago.
| mongol wrote:
| It surprised me to learn that automatic drip coffee makers
| were invented only about 50 years ago.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The predecessor (the percolator) was invented 150 years
| earlier and still has a dedicated following today, and
| then there is the cafetiere. Both of these do not have
| any waste other than the coffee grounds, which I think is
| a big point in their favor. Oh, and no DRM either, nor
| any subscription components. I guess for the
| manufacturers that is now a point against them.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Making this coffee and delivering it instantly clearly
| isn't or this service wouldn't work :)
| jacquesm wrote:
| It most likely isn't instantly.
| cinntaile wrote:
| That's kind of my point, you said it was a solved
| problem. This is obviously not about just making coffee,
| you were misrepresenting the problem being solved.
| Convenience is a thing. If this coffee could be made and
| delivered on the spot exactly when you want it then this
| service wouldn't exist.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I meant that the other way around from how you wrote it.
| As in: you probably can make coffee well within the time
| that it would take some service to make it and deliver it
| for you, and likely your locally brewn coffee would be
| hotter.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's either drone delivery or DRMed cofee makers, Keurig-
| style. How else will you turn a perfectly good product into
| a service?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| False dichotomy; there's many ways to make coffee.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yes, but the goal isn't to make coffee - it's to create a
| recurring revenue stream. Coffee is just a bait :).
| OJFord wrote:
| Clearly you need to register each bean on a blockchain to
| be sure of its organic provenance; then you can grind,
| destroy, and turn them into a Non-Fungible Brew.
| [deleted]
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| The trick is to be a tad snobbier about it each passing
| year to keep it slightly unsolved.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| You probably haven't tried Australian coffee
| trhway wrote:
| ravens are the neighborhood watch of the kind i like - they chase
| away falcons and eagles who occasionally venture into our
| neighborhood. The ravens would sit at the very top of the
| redwoods chatting up each other across the space. Though i
| haven't seen that much of them recently - we lost a lot of large
| trees to the new developments (Mountain View is more and more a
| faceless barrack dormitory for Google) - somehow building while
| preserving large trees (already growing in the developed areas
| and with each tree being a small bustling city of the birds and
| small animals) is believed to be impossible while cats/whatever
| will as usually be blamed for birds population decline.
| bumbada wrote:
| The nest must be near. Instead of torturing the birds every
| single day because you want your coffee(or you just enjoy
| torturing birds) you can change your reception point 20 meters or
| so and probably the attacks will stop.
|
| I have done speleology on things like old mines and had attacks
| from small birds to big ones like vultures and eagles that make
| their nest on the mine. I have marks on my helmet from that.
|
| It is very interesting how small birds will pretend to have a
| broken leg or wing just to divert your attention from the nest.
|
| I also have seen eagles attack friends' macaws in the open space
| or a group of magpies attacking an enormous eagle.
|
| The animal world is not as peaceful as some people believe.
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| You can't actually choose your landing zone - it's assigned by
| Wing. And I have spoken to them and they are pausing operation
| for a few days while their bird expert gives them advice, they
| told me.
| medo-bear wrote:
| Finally, someone in Australia is fighting against surveillance
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Can't speak for Australia, but in the US there are _many_ places
| that a noisy drone like that would have people taking shots at
| it.
| ffwacom wrote:
| Good
| 0xdeadb00f wrote:
| Is that a Raven? It looks and sounds like the typical crow you
| see around QLD Australia.
| ravendroneguy wrote:
| Corvus coroinodes- Australian raven - according to the book of
| Canberra garden birds.
| caf wrote:
| Queensland has both Australian Crows and Australian Ravens. The
| tropical north and Western Australia has Australian Crows, and
| the south-east has only the Australian Ravens.
|
| They're often confused, but this video is in Canberra so a
| Raven it is.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| The confusion is made worse by the fact that the bird
| supposedly called a raven (though whether it's _Corvus
| coronoides_ or _Corvus mellori_ or something else I can't
| certainly say right now) is, at least in Melbourne and the
| part of western Victoria where I now live, _exclusively_
| called a crow. If you called it a raven, many, perhaps most,
| people wouldn't know what you were talking about, because we
| simply _don't have_ any bird called a raven, though we might
| have some vague sneaking notion that they're a northern
| hemisphere version of our crows or something like that.
|
| I can't confidently speak further than that, but I'm under
| the impression the same is true in Sydney.
|
| If taxonomists call them ravens but _everyone_ else calls
| them crows, I wish the taxonomists would accept the reality
| that _usage_ defines language, not encyclopaedia, and give up
| on trying to pretend they're ravens and not crows.
| kragen wrote:
| Zoologists don't care what random Australians think of
| them; they want to communicate successfully with other
| zoologists.
| agustif wrote:
| So that coffe is warm? You can gat warm coffe thrown at you from
| the sky now? Great
| swayvil wrote:
| Evil : God isn't interested in technology. He cares nothing for
| the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his
| time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!
|
| Robert : Slugs.
|
| Evil : Slugs! HE created slugs! They can't hear. They can't
| speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a
| lunatic?
| [deleted]
| vmurthy wrote:
| Since I don't quite like LinkedIn , here's the direct video link
| [0] . Works with no authentication on browsers. Tried to do a
| wget but got a 403 forbidden.
|
| [0]https://dms.licdn.com/playlist/C5605AQHVTN_fA4rRcg/mp4-720p-..
| .
| rkagerer wrote:
| Thank you. Title link should be updated to this.
| cproctor wrote:
| thank you.
| f00zz wrote:
| wget works if you set an user agent string, e.g.
| wget -U Mozilla [url]
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Look at that heading hold performance in the wind
| mastazi wrote:
| I live in Sydney, I love Australian ravens!
|
| Once a raven got ran over by a car near my home and sadly died. A
| group of ravens were "guarding" the body and not letting any
| human near it. They were exhibiting highly sophisticated social
| behaviour, it almost seemed like... a funeral?
|
| Of course we shouldn't attempt to anthropomorphise animal
| behaviour, it was not a funeral but I would like to get an
| explanation from someone who knows about this topic. What were
| those ravens doing?
|
| (Edit: it was very impressive they were doing a type of
| vocalisation that they don't usually perform, and they were close
| to the ground and near the body, not up among the trees where
| they usually spend most of their time).
|
| (Edit2: the birds were not on the ground, but near the ground, on
| top of a low fence and on top of a couple of parked cars)
| 867-5309 wrote:
| protecting their next meal?
| comprev wrote:
| I misread "ravens" for "ravers" and wondered why a bunch of
| people probably off their nut would be guarding a body...
| dwd wrote:
| Closer to a post-mortem. They apparently do a threat assessment
| so this particular cause of death can be avoided in future -
| though standing in a group on the road is maybe not the
| brightest idea.
| samhwr wrote:
| > though standing in a group on the road is maybe not the
| brightest idea
|
| I wouldn't judge ravens too harshly. Insurgents in Iraq and
| Afghanistan were notorious for booby-trapping bodies in order
| to take out first responders - so humans are clearly not
| impervious to making the same mistake.
| mastazi wrote:
| > Closer to a post-mortem. They apparently do a threat
| assessment so this particular cause of death can be avoided
| in future
|
| wow that's interesting I would love to read more about it if
| you have any links.
|
| > though standing in a group on the road is maybe not the
| brightest idea.
|
| They were not exactly on the road pavement but on top of
| lower objects e.g. a couple of nearby fences and a couple of
| parked cars just next to where the other raven died.
| melbourne_mat wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixYVFZnNl6s&t=1
|
| From my son's favourite YouTube channel. These are American
| Ravens but probably similar to the Aussie variety behaviour
| wise.
| mastazi wrote:
| Wow thank you, yes this is very similar behaviour, the
| only thing that was different with the Aussie ones was
| their call
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Closer to a post-mortem. They apparently do a threat
| assessment so this particular cause of death can be avoided
| in future
|
| It a sounds more like an occupational health and safety
| investigation, or am inquest.
| danielheath wrote:
| > Closer to a post-mortem.
|
| You mean... a murder investigation?
| mastazi wrote:
| Sort of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28593034
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| > Of course we shouldn't attempt to anthropomorphise animal
| behaviour
|
| Why not? Our behavior emerged from a primitive animal state.
| It's not crazy to think it can happen again.
|
| The only mistake would be to pretend it's the definitive
| answer, but unless we got one, it can be one of the theories.
| drclau wrote:
| > Of course we shouldn't attempt to anthropomorphise animal
| behaviour
|
| I'm not holding this against you in any way :), but I wanted to
| say I'm getting tired of this "don't anthropomorphise animals"
| trend. Some bird species are clearly highly intelligent, and I
| feel that this 'opposition to anthropomorphising' is used to
| downplay this fact, and animal intelligence in general.
|
| Regarding the crows funeral or vigil, I suspect this has been
| observed a long time ago by humans, and is the reason for the
| association of crows with death in some cultures.
| mastazi wrote:
| When I say don't anthropomorphise animals, I don't mean it in
| a diminutive manner.
|
| I grew up on a farm. People who know next to nothing about
| animals are often quick to let me know that it's not humane
| for farmers to treat chickens that way or to treat sheep that
| other way, because "how would you like being treated like
| that".
|
| Two examples of why this line of thinking is flawed: taking a
| sheep from standing position down to the ground, will have
| the effect of calming the sheep. Some types of fish that are
| used in aquaculture will calm down and decrease their stress
| levels if you turn off the lights.
|
| If someone suddenly takes you down while you're walking down
| the road, or suddenly turns off the light while you are in a
| stressful situation, you will probably freak out. That's
| because you're not a sheep or a fish.
| harpersealtako wrote:
| I think the complaint against anthropomorphism is usually
| about ascribing _emotions_ , not intelligence. Nobody can
| deny that ravens exhibit complex behavior around their dead,
| suggesting some level of understanding of death and
| mortality. But if one starts to claim that the ravens feel
| "sadness" or "grief", that is a much less grounded or
| provable claim, that is more likely based in our human
| reaction to death than the ravens' understanding of it.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I've seen grackles in Austin, Texas, USA do something similar
| around one of their own that had flown into a window and was
| badly stunned. It did seem to prevent any feral cats or other
| predators from being tempted to come by, and the noise might
| have been an attempt to wake up the stunned one (who wasn't
| there when we came back from lunch, so I assume survived).
| modernerd wrote:
| Kaeli Swift (https://corvidresearch.blog/ and
| https://twitter.com/corvidresearch ) has an FAQ on this at
| https://corvidresearch.blog/faqs-about-crows/#crows-funeral:
|
| > 4) Why do crows gather around their dead? Certainly one
| reason is that the death of a crow can offer a "teachable
| moment" that other crows use to learn that the place and
| responsible party is dangerous. You can read more about this
| behavior here: https://corvidresearch.blog/2015/09/26/why-
| crows-gather-arou...
| mastazi wrote:
| Great, thank you for the link!
| fogihujy wrote:
| According to Wikipedia, European Magpies have been observed
| performing funeral rites (alas, the link to the study is gone).
| It's not impossible you witnessed a similar but undocumented
| phenomena.
| mastazi wrote:
| Thank you, I will try and find that study.
|
| European magpies (unlike Australian magpies) are actually
| related to ravens (family corvidae, whereas Aussie magpies
| are in the family artamidae)
| rozab wrote:
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/151003-an...
|
| This is well documented in a variety of corvid species.
|
| I think it's unfair to dismiss this as anthropomorphising. Our
| grief, too, has an evolutionary purpose.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what is the evolutionary purpose of grief
| in your opinion?
| skhr0680 wrote:
| If someone from your party dying makes you sad, maybe you
| will try harder to keep them alive
| wavefunction wrote:
| That act of communal mourning can also serve to reinforce
| social bonds among the living members of the group, at
| least in my estimation. I recently held a memorial
| service for my father (shakes fist at Parkinson's) but
| the thing that struck me was the younger members of our
| extended family experiencing some of that shared bond
| between the older ones, perhaps learning to appreciate
| their family members more. They hadn't known my father as
| brother or uncle but their parents and grandparents had.
| A sense of belonging to something a bit larger than the
| individual experience... I have no scientific evidence to
| support these suppositions but it seems they must be
| real, to me.
| tomhoward wrote:
| Also, when we gather to share stories of a person's life
| (and circumstances of their death), we can gain valuable
| insights and motivation to help us live a good and long
| life.
| rozab wrote:
| This breathtaking ramble by lindybeige about covers it (I
| don't agree with a lot of what he says but he's well
| qualified and it illustrates the point):
|
| https://youtu.be/WFxOxU9qQyQ?t=1170
| robomartin wrote:
| I've been flying all types of radio-controlled aircraft for
| decades. I've had two encounters with birds. In both cases it was
| while flying thermals with gliders. In both cases the birds went
| for the tail section.
|
| The first was a hawk. I was going up a thermal on my own. The
| hawk came into the same thermal and decided it wanted to own it.
| It flew incredibly fast towards my plane and grabbed it from the
| latter quarter of the fuselage. This was a strong and fast
| kevlar/carbon fiber F5B competition class motorized glider, 2.4
| meter wingspan.
|
| The hawk could not destroy it but sure did with it as it wished
| for a few seconds. When it let go I went to full throttle and
| climbed straight up like a rocket (high power/weight ratio) to
| get away. After that I landed safely without damage.
|
| The second case was a raven. Similar situation. It went for the
| tail and ripped it right off. All I could do was watch it crash.
|
| They own the skies.
| motohagiography wrote:
| I need a rookery. Incentivising wild birds to menace and attack
| annoying drones seems like a lot of fun.
| kleiba wrote:
| Australian wildlife is the best.
| erickhill wrote:
| I couldn't applaud the raven more strenuously. Ravens, unite!
| You're doing the entire world a favor.
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