[HN Gopher] Technical Manual TM 11-410: The Homing Pigeon (1945)
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Technical Manual TM 11-410: The Homing Pigeon (1945)
Author : wolfgang42
Score : 113 points
Date : 2024-03-13 03:18 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gutenberg.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gutenberg.org)
| sema4hacker wrote:
| > The records and reports required for each pigeon unit are
| Breeding Card, Pigeon Breeding Record, Pigeon Flight Record,
| Pigeon Pedigree, and Monthly Pigeon Loft Report.
|
| Wow. Red tape city.
| xbar wrote:
| Somehow I am inspired to write a variety of WWII-era US Army-
| style training manuals for operating my complex systems.
| gausswho wrote:
| Please also produce an audiobook reading it.
|
| Things like this can happen:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1401,_A_User%27s_Manual
| rl3 wrote:
| > _Wow. Red tape city._
|
| At least it was more auditable than a modern Boeing assembly
| plant.
| RoadRageRyan wrote:
| This doesn't appear as red-tape to me.
|
| Breeding animals takes many generations to get desired traits,
| so all this information would help to identify a problematic
| lineage. Since these pigeons were used to deliver critical
| messages if you had a lineage who began to lose their homing
| abilities it could be very costly.
|
| Imagine a small group of scout soldiers whom find an unknown
| opposition encampment. They need additional forces to get there
| quickly or they may lose the chance to weaken those forces. If
| the pigeon is less likely to return home, they likely wouldn't
| want to leverage them for these critical missions.
|
| Having a clear and traceable record makes it so they can
| selectively breed the best pigeons and/or assign the best
| pigeons to the right tasks. Without clear and consistent
| records like these it would be akin to pissing into the wind
| and hoping you don't get wet.
| samstave wrote:
| Pigeons are amazing.
|
| THey may have a very large hippocampus, like that of a
| Hummingbird (my favorite bird) - which have a huge
| hippocampus and this is how they recall so many food
| resources.
|
| Both birds can fly thousands of miles (some hummingbirds
| migrate from washington state to mexico)
|
| But, Yeah this is for selective breeding of the best
| r/birdsarentreal stock
|
| Pigeons are incredible critters.
|
| * pigeon droppings were important in making gun powder, and
| at one point in the UK ALL pigeon droppings were property of
| the Crown for this reason
|
| * pigeons can fly incredibly high and fast
|
| They have exceptional biological compass
|
| Self-Recognition and Social Intelligence:
|
| Pigeons can recognize themselves in mirrors, a rare quality
| among birds.
|
| They can also differentiate between humans in photos.
|
| Their self-cognitive ability rivals that of 3-year-old
| children.
|
| -
|
| Impressive Flight Speeds:
|
| Pigeons are not the fastest birds, but they can reach speeds
| of up to 92.7 miles per hour during flight.
|
| Their sustained velocity is around 60 mph.
|
| Pigeon racing showcases their remarkable flying abilities.
|
| -
|
| Cleanliness and Spiritual Significance:
|
| Pigeons are clean and do not spread diseases significantly.
|
| In various religions (such as Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu),
| pigeons are considered spiritual and cared for.
|
| -
|
| Social Creatures:
|
| Pigeons prefer living in groups of 20 to 30 birds. They are
| social and tolerate human interaction better than many other
| bird species.
|
| Navigation Abilities:
|
| Pigeons use a combination of cues:
|
| Visual Landmarks: They recognize familiar landmarks along
| known routes.
|
| Magnetoreception: They sense Earth's magnetic field for
| orientation. Olfactory Navigation: Their sense of smell helps
| them find their way home.
|
| Sun Compass: They use the sun's position as a compass. Homing
| Pigeons and Their Inner Ear:
|
| Scientists have explored iron-rich material in pigeons' inner
| ears. However, this material is unlikely to be their primary
| magnetic sensor.
|
| Pigeons likely rely more on olfactory cues for navigation.
| Memory and Recall:
|
| Pigeons can recall locations even when transported far away.
|
| Their impressive navigational instinct allows them to find
| their way home.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > pigeon droppings were important in making gun powder, and
| at one point in the UK ALL pigeon droppings were property
| of the Crown for this reason
|
| Bet that's been struck of the books.
| samstave wrote:
| > _This was not always the case. That people are turned
| off, I mean. In the 18th Century, King George I of
| England decreed all pigeon droppings to be property of
| the Crown. He even put guards at sites where the birds
| perched to enforce his edict. He was no birdbrain. There
| was a practical reason for his order: Pigeon manure was
| used in making gunpowder._
|
| https://www.chicagotribune.com/2003/04/27/in-praise-of-
| pigeo...
|
| However, who knows if it has since been disproven...
| cameron_b wrote:
| Further than genetics, the training section of the article
| touches on directional and non-directional training, and
| training at distances.
|
| It seems that you would likely be working with a message
| sender, and a pigeoneer preparing resources for the teams in
| the field. The pigeoneer could possibly have cohorts of
| pigeons at different stages of training and performance, and
| it would be bad to foul up the bird selection when sending
| them into battle. The specialization of this reminds me of
| one of the things my grandfather ( Korean War era ) used to
| say, "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well"
|
| A System is laid out here so that any qualified private could
| go through the basic training and have the tools he needs to
| be a successful pigeoneer, supporting his unit and providing
| the records in standard form to lower the bus-factor impact,
| and enable his promotion.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Unfortunately, without the threat of red tape, many humans have
| cashed subsidies for imaginary domesticates, or worse yet,
| gained a little margin by keeping other living beings in
| inhumane conditions. Compare 9(a) with
| https://www.pigeon.org/pages/loftregistration.html
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| You can see what happens if they compromise on these things at
| Boeing at the moment.
| Loughla wrote:
| Any successful breeding program of any animal for desired
| characteristics tracks every single input and outcome. They're
| all important.
|
| Now combine that with work that can get humans killed. I would
| be very, very interested in making sure everything about these
| birds was absolutely perfect.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| If you need a large group of people to do something correctly,
| you need to document how to do it and train them on how to do
| it. The Army can't just assume that every pigeon handler comes
| from a background with pigeons, will just "figure it out," or
| that within recruits / draftees, there will be enough people
| who are interested in pigeons that it will "just work."
|
| Nor can the Army assume that the pigeon expert, who wrote that
| book, will be available to handhold every pigeon handler with
| their pigeons.
|
| This, BTW, is an important lesson for scaling a successful
| business. Properly documenting processes and training employees
| is critical.
|
| Finally, this extensive attention to detail is why the US Army
| is one of the best armies in the world.
| ljf wrote:
| Racing pigeons and homing pigeons are amazing, and can be so much
| fun to look after.
|
| My wife's grandfather kept racing pigeons back in the 50s and
| 60s. He would go to football matches across England, with 3
| pigeons inside his coat pockets. He'd then write down the half
| time, full time and extra time scores - setting one pigeon off
| home each time.
|
| My wife's father would then wait at the coop, and as soon as the
| scores came in, he'd run to the 5 pubs in their small town and
| announce the scores (getting a penny or so for his trouble if he
| was lucky).
|
| This was before local radio was common, and certainly before live
| football broadcasts of smaller teams. (Once those who had been to
| the football match (which could be across the country), got back
| they'd be expected to regale the pub with a description of the
| game).
|
| I thought it was pretty cool that the birds had a 'real life'
| use, other than just for the fun of racing them.
| burrish wrote:
| that's an awesome story, thanks for sharing
| dutchbrit wrote:
| I use to keep homing pigeons as a kid and participate in racing,
| it use to be quite popular in The Netherlands and Belgium, the
| area where I live. But it's a dying hobby. The biggest race is
| Barcelona, 1000 km or 600 miles, which birds can fly in 10 hours.
|
| I recently built a coop and finally have a few pigeons again
| after not having them for almost 20 years. They are intelligent
| animals that are fun to keep and bring me peace having them
| around me.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Mike Tyson would be proud
| hn8305823 wrote:
| I get a weird feeling reading these technical manuals from the
| 1940's. It feels like we used to know how to do things correctly,
| and can describe them with precise language, but somehow we lost
| those abilities?
|
| I know that doesn't make much sense but that is exactly the
| feeling I get reading these.
| toast0 wrote:
| This type of writing takes a lot of effort. In computing, the
| pace of change is high, so in many cases, by the time you've
| published the manual, the product has changed. In the old days,
| software would come with large manuals, and then a brief
| pamphlet of things that changed between when the manual was
| finalized and when the software was finalized, and then usually
| a one sheet with installation instructions.
|
| Of course, "noone" read the manuals, in part because they were
| out of date, in part because hopefully the software was easy
| enough to use that the manual wasn't required, in part because
| reading the manual is boring. Since they're a lot of effort to
| write, and nobody reads them, they stopped getting made.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Well said. This type of writing is perfectly doable but it
| does take effort and a lot of experience.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| Well, things were simpler back then, but for the ww2 manuals in
| particular, I wonder if it wasn't also that the manuals were
| written for rapid comprehension because it was quite likely
| that the reader was someone who just took things over in the
| field after the expert had been killed.
| gregschlom wrote:
| This isn't really a technical manual, though, like the one that
| may come with a dishwasher or something.
|
| This is more like a training manual meant to help a person with
| no prior knowledge become proficient in some topic. You should
| compare it to a textbook or online classes.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Thing is, it still compares very favourably. Hell, going to
| school in 90s and 2000s, I remember old textbooks and
| exercise books books from 1950s-1970s, that my grandfather
| would occasionally give me. Those old English books (for
| English as second language - geographical context: Poland),
| in particular, were miles ahead of the stuff we had to buy
| for classes.
|
| My working theory is this: those old books of my grandpa that
| I liked so much were, just like the manuals GP mentioned,
| written _with reader 's self-education in mind_. They're
| supposed to teach you things as you read them and work
| through the exercises. In contrast, textbooks of my time seem
| to be written _for supervised learning_ - the student gets
| content-light, fluff-heavy books that _cannot_ be used in
| isolation, as crucial information is restricted only to
| teacher 's companion books.
|
| My cynical addendum is this: the latter is a great way for
| ensuring recurring revenue: the student book is not a
| complete solution, forcing dependence on teachers; schools
| are easier to convince that the last year's edition is
| obsolete and needs to be replaced with this year's edition,
| and then teachers will pressure students to buy new books, to
| avoid the hassle of supporting multiple editions of textbooks
| that are all incompatible with the most recent teacher's
| companion book. The market wasn't this diabolically wasteful
| a few decades ago.
| layer8 wrote:
| The quality and precision of technical documentation indeed has
| gone down a lot. This is not merely because (some) things have
| become more complex, and because people tend to jump between a
| growing multitude of things, but also because people just don't
| take the time anymore to do it right, and increasingly don't
| even experience good technical documentation, and thus don't
| know what it would look like.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| There are still plenty of local homing pigeon communities for
| racing and other purposes (most often, it seems to help with a
| dazzling show for events like funerals, weddings, and other
| celebrations).
|
| But... it's still faster to transfer large amounts of data via
| homing pigeon than the Internet--up to a certain radius:
| https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/pigeon-still-faster-i...
| frob wrote:
| And here I thought this was going to be about Operation Pigeon,
| the time the US military tried to design a pigeon-guided missile.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
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(page generated 2024-03-13 23:02 UTC)