[HN Gopher] Smart Goose Deterrent System
___________________________________________________________________
Smart Goose Deterrent System
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 66 points
Date : 2024-09-19 02:47 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (irowbot.duckdns.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (irowbot.duckdns.org)
| alwa wrote:
| The hand-hewn quality of this venture charms me. I can't tell
| whether or not it's a serious business, but it's clearly borne of
| a lifetime's frustration, and it reads with the catharsis of
| someone having "finally cracked the code."
|
| _> How often do geese poop?
|
| > Sources are all over the place on this. Some say as often as
| every 12 minutes. Some say as much as 2 pounds a day. Others
| suggest these numbers are inflated. One thing for sure, geese
| poop too often and too much._
| hinkley wrote:
| Geese eat grass which is not very nutritious. Quantity has its
| qualities but it makes a lot of poop.
| milesward wrote:
| We are building an AI tool that we've code-named goose and so uh
| this was super funny and timely :)
| dylan604 wrote:
| any AI deterrent system seems worthwhile though. how many more
| useless chatbots does the world really need. it's like
| candycrush clones.
| broabprobe wrote:
| darn, I was really hoping the solution was building more habitat
| for them
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Habitat is not the problem for many avian pests, that's the
| thing. Doves, geese, ducks - they all don't require much else
| than a food and a water source to _thrive_ , and _that_ is the
| problem.
|
| With no predators in place to eat them - cats don't hunt
| anything larger than a dove and they prefer mice and smaller
| rats anyway, stray dogs get killed off, wolves are extinct and
| birds of prey don't like urban areas - there is no upper
| external boundary to control their population.
|
| Meanwhile, food is plenty. Unlike rats and mice, people
| (particularly the elderly) _willingly attract the birds_ , when
| they go and walk through a park they deposit bread, grains,
| dairy, whatever they have on hand. I mean, I get it, watching a
| flock of birds is among the most relaxing experiences in green-
| devoid urban areas there is. But from a higher up POV, it's
| actually endangering these rare green spots (all that bird poo
| can literally lead to a stagnant body of water "flipping" from
| oxygen starvation from all the decomposing poo), and people
| don't get it. On top of that people are just careless, they
| throw their trash wherever they want (and all kinds of pests
| can pick them up), authorities don't take care about installing
| bird/raccoon/bear proof bins... it's an utter madness.
|
| And just shooting up larger gathering places isn't an answer
| either. The locals may protest (either due to misguided love
| for the birds or due to the noise), it may not be legal to
| shoot them up in the first place, you can't poison them off
| either because any kind of poison would contaminate the water,
| and in doubt you'll just have a bigger population the next
| year.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Now replace geese with homeless or peasants, and we've reached
| our goals for 202X "future" dystopia life.
| throwanem wrote:
| Nah. If the free-fire authorized guards are kept (mostly)
| human, it's a jobs program _and_ a political wedge among the
| hoi polloi.
| coreyburnsdev wrote:
| *utopia. fixed that for you
| hinkley wrote:
| I thought this was a system to thwart an army of smart geese
| created by centuries of interactions with humans. But instead
| it's a smart system for dealing with regular geese. My
| disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
| sonofhans wrote:
| I'll save your day :) In fact, these _are_ smart geese created
| by centuries of interaction with humans. Why do you think they
| prefer human-created environments given a choice?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| My pet theory is that aliens will assume the geese are our
| gods given all the toil spent preparing food for them.
| hinkley wrote:
| If they talk to the pigeons then we are in trouble.
| speerer wrote:
| Your day will brighten up again: it is both the geese _and_ the
| solution that are smart. From the article:
|
| > Geese figure out each system's weakness and eventually have
| their way [...] To outsmart geese...
| hinkley wrote:
| I missed that part but got the goose/not goose part.
|
| This is going to turn into that engineer trying to keep
| squirrels off of his bird feeder. He progressively taught a
| squirrel to be more clever in the process.
| bzmrgonz wrote:
| This is a brilliant project. public buildings need a sentry
| turret airsoft solution for pigeons.
| kowbell wrote:
| A beautiful coincidence this goose-deterrent article's URL
| preview is just "duckdns.org" :)
| binary132 wrote:
| I too found this highly amusing
| EricE wrote:
| Brilliant! I used to work in a building where they would go
| through the front driveways and walkways on a routine basis,
| covering them with poo and creating a seriously hazardous
| situation!
| ysofunny wrote:
| coming soon to a dystopia near you:
|
| smart homeless "detterrent" system. it uses a government database
| to determine net worth, if too poor for the neighboorhood the
| system activates sprinklers
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Link doesn't load for me.
| pavon wrote:
| duckdns.org is a dynamic DNS service used for servers that
| don't have a static IP. That is, this is being hosted out of
| someones house, and I wouldn't expect it to able to handle HN's
| load.
| cyberax wrote:
| "If you've got a problem with Canada Gooses then you've got a
| problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate!"
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| It's all fun and games until it gets your cox wet.
| AriedK wrote:
| I had a similar issue with geese on a patch of grass in front of
| the house where the kids played. Flocks of geese in the 10s would
| ruin it in half a day.
|
| I found a 532nm green laser to be extremely effective. Let the
| dot approach them and shine near their feet for best effect. (Of
| course avoid the eyes and keep the laser power down so the
| reflection doesn't harm them either!). It took some time to get
| into the flocks psyche. You had to get the entire group distress
| level to a certain level before they would take off and leave.
|
| The next step I got to was building a turret for the pointer.
| Goose detection image recognition was underway to make the system
| autonomous but I haven't been able to finish it and have moved in
| the mean time so it's not likely I'll finish it.
|
| If anyone else wants to have a go at it let me know.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I live in a small town in the UK, and I was wondering if I could
| adapt this system to prevent a local goose from stealing our
| beautiful golden celebration bell every year? The goose is a
| menace! Last year he tied my son's shoelaces together and tore up
| my neighbor's garden!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-09-23 23:00 UTC)