Growers Are Beaming Over the Success of Lasers to Stave Off Birds | Hacker News Reader

Growers Are Beaming Over the Success of Lasers to Stave Off Birds

npr.org

Birds will arrive the day before fruit is ripe, and the whole flock will strip the berries, trying each one and dropping the green ones on the ground looking for a ripe one. They can strip a tree in minutes. Why? If they waited a day, the whole flock could have ripe fruit. But its a flock, and any bird that waits just loses out to the ones that don't wait. Tragedy of the commons, played out in evolution.

There is an interesting article about Tragedy of the commons in evolutionary biology: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016953470...

There are multiple ways evolution tries to solve this, but it's hard. Insects are particularly good at it.

The article is paywalled but it's a pretty plausible result of group selection.

The self-interested birds will force out the cooperative birds at first, but they are naturally self-limiting by cutting off their own resources.

On the other hand the cooperative birds can ensure that their entire species grow quickly, eventually covering areas that selfish birds haven't reached.

In an alternate universe the cooperative birds might even evolve a "moral" behavior where they actively gang up on and punish cheaters who eat unripe fruits.

I believe because the entire 'flock' has to adopt the same cooperative behavior for it to work. Insects are more genetically uniform.

But, also, if they waited the farmer might take the crop. From the point of view of the bird, not-quite-ripe fruit is nearly as good, nutrition-wise. So, not really a "tragedy".

Nope. They're dropping the green fruit on the ground, and never go back to it. They're nearly destroying their own food supply, in an effort to beat the rest of the flock to that one berry that ripens early.

I'm thinking this is why we'll never find an herbivore race reaching intelligence and civilization in the galaxy. They get stuck in this anarchistic zero-cooperation state.

Didn't we hunt mammoth by driving entire herds off cliffs? (Or is that a Disney-Lemmings situation?)

Likely. We definitely did it with buffalo.

Buffalo being hunted almost to extinction wasn't a case of tragedy of the commons, it was part of a deliberate policy to drive Native Americans from the land.

'Kill Every Buffalo You Can! Every Buffalo Dead Is an Indian Gone' https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buf...

There was a larger species of buffalo that was driven to extinction long before Europeans reached the western hemisphere.

But, you're right about the smaller bison species that we are all familiar with.

About 2 thirds of large mammal species were wiped out in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand within a few millennia of humans stepping foot there.

To be fair that isn't entirely lossy either in its natural environment. "Wastage" of fruit leads to accidental plantings which leads to some more in the future. Just look at how squirrel stashes have turned into accidental tree farming as unretrieved stashes germinate.

It's not really tragedy of the commons, as there's no commons in play here, just a resource that a hunter-gatherer style group stumbles upon, then utilises, then moves on. Unlike human populations that destroy shared resources fully cognisant that they're doing themselves and their society future harm, it's not clear that birds or other animals conceive of time (in the planning or scheduling sense) the same way we do.

I do a bit of 'pottering on the land', and the inability to negotiate with animals is truly frustrating, as the damage done is objectively greater than the apparent benefit obtained (as per the wasted green fruit in TFA). Killing is undesirable, deterrents are often ineffective (incomplete, degrade over time) -- I'm drawn to the conclusion growing things in large cages is the most effective and humane way, though it's also the most expensive.

But what is cognizance, really? I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the dynamic is fundamentally different between humans and birds, or even inanimate objects like genes.

Downvotes coming from people who lack cognizance. The whole fact that we suffer from tragedy of commons shows a general lack of high level cognizance in humans, no? Sure, we're a little brighter than birds, but it's all relative.

>and the inability to negotiate with animals is truly frustrating

You are saying it like there's ability to negotiate with humans!

Oh there certainly is. If there was a way to communicate with, let say wasps, I'm pretty sure that we would come to an agreement that allows me to eat breakfast in the garden without being swarmed, and grants the colony more food, less dead workers, and no fear of eradication.

Birds are territorial. Its a commons, since they essentially 'own' the tree as part of their territory.

> Its a commons, since they essentially 'own' the tree as part of their territory.

If territory is owned, by definition it isn't a commons.

This hardly tragedy of the commons, as in the long term game there will be more trees distributed throughout the landscape this way. By dropping some of the fruit on the ground it is dispersing the seeds.

Fruit seeds need to tavel longer distances than a shrubs roots to be useful. It’s fruit eaten at significant distance that makes fruit a useful evolutionary strategy.

My Vietnamese buddy has a taste for not quite ripe fruit. He said in the old country everyone would come steal your fruit as it ripened. He who could stomach the greenest fruit won.

A bit of high velocity rock salt is a wonderful deterrent.

I did notice that a bit in Vietnam, come to think of it. The also enjoyed eating it with salt.

It's actually quite a nice taste, salty and tart.

I've got a similar problem with chipmunks and the Marian plums I grow. The chipmunks start raiding the trees when the fruit just begins turning yellow and becoming fragrant. But all they do it take a bite and throw the still somewhat green fruit on the ground.

Get a cat/dog guard.

Cheap Chinese pellet gun is cheaper. I'm sure chipmunk will work nearly interchangeably with squirrel in most recipes and arguably would be a little less white trash.

Ha! I lived next to Vietnamese neighborhood in San Jose in the 90's. Never got to taste the fruit on my trees; gangs of kids would come along a few days before it was ripe and boost one another up and take all the almost-ripe fruit.

I’ve noticed a similar thing plays out in tech company offices with bananas. If you wait for a banana to actually get ripe someone else will have already eaten it.

Don't you just take the nearly ripe bananas and store them in your desk drawer?

That's what I do, at least. I guess I'm part of the problem.

Haha yeah that’s the solution - bring the banana to your desk.

This had never occurred to me as something someone might do.

I cannot do this thing, as I don't open my desk drawer very often, and a banana is exactly the sort of the sort of thing I would forget about. I'm thinking through how this would play out for me, and it's unpleasant for all involved.

"Do you want ants?! Because that's how you get ants!" — Archer

Just put it in view on your desk. There's no shame in that.

Well, ripe bananas are too sweet for some people. Bananas that are just starting to ripen are very good (especially because they taste a bit sour with a tiny bit of sugar), better than fully ripened bananas.

I agree. Ripe bananas are revolting to me for some reason. I think it's the mushy texture. I prefer when there is just a hint of green left on the banana.

I cannot upvote these comments enough. I truly dislike the taste of ripe bananas. Sweet yuck. I muchly prefer one that is a bit too green to being a bit too ripe.

Holy shit, I think we work in the same office.

Would this have a terrible effect on insect populations as well?

The Four Pests Campaign of the Great Leap Forward targeted the sparrow, amongst other animals, because they ate grain. Turns out they also ate a lot of insects, so when the sparrows all died the locusts came in and killed the harvest. These lasers don't kill, but permanently scaring them away from fields could have a similar effect.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/5927112/chinas-worst-self-inflicted-...

The advantage here is you can turn the lasers on right before the harvest (when the birds do damage), but otherwise leave them off and the birds can return.

But, if the birds derive a significant portion of their yearly calories from eating berries during the harvest, you will still do damage to bird populations. Also, an open berry field keeps birds nearby. If the birds can't eat the berries, then what incentive do they have to stick around and eat harmful insects?

I'm not necessarily against the bird-lasers, but it's worth considering their side effects.

The blueberries are only there because the farmer is planting them in the first place. Though I agree with your sentiment.

I work on a system that strives for 100% efficiency, I think it makes the it extremely fragile. Loss is also tolerance for upset. It might be cheaper to produce more and not implement this system at all. Innovation comes from increase the size of the solution universe over micro optimizations.

I have a tiny amount of experience in bird control. Birds are devious.

I don't mean evil. They're completely amoral, but they're clever. They'll work out what's going on in order to get their food. Things that might take an insect multiple generations to work out and adapt to, a bird might spend a day or a week on.

In the decade I've been shooting, I've seen many countermeasures (and lures) come and go. Scarecrows consistently fail now. Propane cannons just annoy residents. The birds adapt swiftly because their lives depend on it. That is all to say, lasers won't last. I'd be surprised if they work for longer than a few seasons before the birds are simply used to them.

The silly thing is we know why this is an issue. Intensive farming, outrageous field size, the removal of hedgerows and the removal of predator habitats (mature trees) have all meant massive colonies of pigeons and starlings can exist. If you want to start peddling this back you have to reintroduce the natural controls that used to keep things in check.

Just crank up the power on the lasers until they remove the offending birds from the gene pool. The birds will figure out not to eat the crops.

There's a colossal difference in the amount of power required to blind or even maim a bird and the amount required to humanely dispatch it. You're talking thousands of Watts and pinpoint focussing.

It's just too expensive to park Navy grade laser weaponry on every field.

By comparison this is cheapo clutch of laser pointers strapped to a whirly-gig and that already somehow commands $10k.

>"It's like someone waving a stick in your face," Ackermann says. "At some point, you're going to say, 'I'm not welcome here and I'm going to leave.'"

Having worked a couple of summers in my youth at an apple and sweet cherry orchard, I find this quote comically naive.

When I worked in the fertilizer business both the partners were berry growers. Literally when they figured out their cost of production they allowed for the 'bird's share' of the crop. They tried sound machines, scare crows and air cannons with nothing working very well. They would have been absolutely delighted to have been able to use lasers to deny the birds their share of the crop.

The irony being, entirely possible the birds are providing valuable services in the form of pest control. In other words, maybe they really do deserve a share, & everyone is the better off for it.

A swarm of 3000 starlings descending in the days before the farmers pick the berries probably aren't providing much pest control.

Maybe not for the farmer, but how about the general region? What we don’t know about complex interconnects in ecosystems could fill volumes, but we still are happy to disrupt that system for profit. Sometimes we try to disrupt it for seemingly good reasons, like reducing the impact of a disease by killing vectors, only later to discover said vector was also a pollinator.

We’re just too ignorant to be trusted with levers of questionable power over such a complex system.

@vvanders: I hate to break it to you, but raspberries aren’t native to the Americas either. Calling one species invasive while ignoring the plethora of other species which have no significant history in a place is just a word game. In fact raspberries can be classed as invasive, but so what? Raspberries got about a 100 year head start on the starling, so they’re grandfathered in? Feh.

I would hope and assume that the starlings can and have survived without the rich pickings of farmers' fields.

Maybe, but if we continue to build over what we don’t destroy outright, maybe not. Farmer’s fields used to be wild land, along with highways, cities, suburbs, clear cut forests, mines, office parks, etc. Those same birds also have to cope with dwindling insect populations, toxic runoff, pollution, loss of biodiversity, along with habitat loss. It’s sort of like saying that gulls should be able to thrive without trailing fishing boats or stealing our sandwiches, but of course that ignores how overfishing has crushed their food sources.

I’ve been driving through farmland in central North America recently and have been struck by the lack of insects. 30 years ago, a windshield grew thick with locusts and who knows what... not now. In hundreds of miles of backroads saw couple deer and several mice.

It also shocking how little land was left forested and I utilized for agriculture, in a way wildlife could still use the land, in areas like Nebraska (maybe 2-3% and usually only if it can’t be used for crops or cattle). And where they have left patches of forest, it’s used as a hunting area.

Forrests will be relegated to zoos soon enough.

Nebraska was deforested at least a century ago.

Starlings are generally invasive species and not part of the natural ecosystem in most cases.

Right, so the million dollar question is "what species of bird are we talking about". rmason didn't specify.

Headlines 10 years from now: "Scientists mystified by 'bird blindness' colony collapse" "Laser manufacturers found to be spending millions on lobbyist groups"

Particularly put down by this type of comments.

Such comments are pure negative addition, not adding any value in terms of solving the problem.

It's not even clear if this is a problem: "very little is known about whether lasers can harm the animals' retinas."

The sentiment of this type of comments are also predominantly one-sided, which always is the most important property of any failed attempts of solving any non-trivial large-scale problems.

It's like an invitation to the precautionary principle.

"When the occurrence of any damage, albeit unpredictable in the current state of scientific knowledge, may seriously and irreversibly harm the environment, public authorities shall, with due respect for the principle of precaution and the areas within their jurisdiction, ensure the implementation of procedures for risk assessment and the adoption of temporary measures commensurate with the risk involved in order to preclude the occurrence of such damage"

I like it.

> It's not even clear if this is a problem: "very little is known about whether lasers can harm the animals' retinas."

It's not clear it's not a problem, either. As you cite, we don't know either way yet.

"Let's be careful mucking with an ecosystem" isn't negative, and there's a lot of historical evidence such caution is necessary.

I think this fails the base rate fallacy test; there are lots of times when mucking with an ecosystem hasn't caused problems, but nobody talks about those.

Failure of an ecosystem is very severe. What does the base rate fallacy test have to say about playing russian roulette? No one talks about the 5/6 times it doesn't cause any problems.

Mistakes that can't be unmade. They happen only once.

Maybe so, but the risk of retinal damage is arguably preferable to death from raptors, shotguns or poison.

no way raptors or shotguns can affect close to as many birds.

Maybe no way so far. But what about automated shotgun sentries?

Many birds are already in dramatic decline from threats like forest fragmentation, southern deforestation, windmills, and cellphone towers. I doubt they’ll be able to kill off black birds and seagulls, though.

> cellphone towers

Uh, how?

The birds just don't see them and fly into parts at full speed, more frequently if there are disorientingly bright lights at the installation.

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/technology/229210...

They fly into it and die since giant metal structures are not found in nature. Makes sense, right? Tens of thousands of birds can die in one night on one tower during migrations.

I thought it was house cats killing them off.

Sadly, I think it’s a variety of factors pecking away at them from all directions, so to speak. Habitat loss, loss of food stocks, urban, suburban, agricultural and industrial pollution, more buildings to fly into, intentional killing, pets, climate change, and probably even more. Essentially being a bird isn’t working out for them right now.

Wind turbines do not kill significant numbers of birds, that is a fossil fuel lobby talking point. Communications towers kill about 20x as many birds: https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds/...

Per tower or in total? I don’t understand how a spinning turbine is safer than a tower, so if you’re talking about it in total then how many extra bird lives will be lost when the number of wind turbines increase drastically?

The theory goes that, as birds have excellent eyesight and use it to navigate, they're more likely to avoid a huge slowly rotating object than a very narrow pointy one.

> I doubt they’ll be able to kill off black birds and seagulls, though.

In New Zealand, The Seagull has become an endangered species, even though there are lot of them. "Because it's a species that's quite long-lived it can take 100 years before you see a significant change in the numbers. As long as the adults aren't being killed, it will be a long, slow decline. Seagulls can live up to 30 years."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/10677103/Seagull-is-NZs-l...

The seagulls will just find a way to east the lasers.

I suppose I might be a little naive, I assumed this use of lasers might be as a weapon but the lasers are "merely" used like a scarecrow. [though the article points out that some scientists will analyze whether this does harm to the birds].

The article points out that this is actually more humane than poisons or guns (which are presumably among previous technologies used to protect the crop).

Thanks for saving me a click; I was about to get very interested in how they would have solved the inherent energy-efficiency problems of that route.

Guess we'll have to wait another decade or two for accurate direct-fire air defense systems. :(

Bird-herding by drone is another potentially emerging technology:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17707305

> Researchers at Purdue University are studying the risk of injury to birds. Principal investigator Esteban Fernandez-Juricic says very little is known about whether lasers can harm the animals' retinas. "What we are trying to assess is whether different levels of energy output of these lasers and different levels of exposure time could cause any kind of retinal injury on the animal," Fernandez-Juricic says. "These retinal injuries could potentially be pretty serious and affect the ability of the animal to see and consequently to find food, mates or refuge."

In a separate study about seabirds and lasers, https://wsg.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/SBWG...

> Attending seabirds (all species) showed little detectable response to the laser beam during daylight hours. At night however, Northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) showed a transient and localized response at lower vessel speeds (3.5 kts) while feeding in the offal plume. In contrast, gulls in flight at nighttime in pursuit of the vessel showed a strong aversion at higher vessels speeds (11 kts). These results suggest that laser beam detection by birds may be more challenging at high light levels. The implication is that lasers might be modified to increase its visual contrast during the day. From these field trials, lasers appear more likely to scare birds from an abundant food source at low light levels and success may be species and condition specific.

We have blueberries planted at home but the deer always get them first. We’ve just come to regard this as a cheap form of entertainment. We also grow Rainier cherries, but birds spike them with amazing accuracy. They divebomb the tree and somehow spear only the cleanest, freshest, best part of the cherry on their way down. It is impressively accurate work at very high speed.

can't you tie little rings around the birds necks so they drop the cherries for you?

we grew berries (blackberries, raspberries, loganberries) when I was a kid, but our doberman would always pick the ripe berries before anyone could get to them. she'd peel her lips back and use just her front teeth to pick them and avoid the thorns.

Side note: The plain text site you're served when you disagree with data collection is very nice.

Not sure why you can't have a bit of CSS just because you don't want your data collected.

This is completely off topic but the headline made me immediately think of this: https://youtu.be/TGkPMZxWPpA

Since most here are not Dutch it requires a bit of explanation , this was a parody video made in the early 2000’s of the countless “QVC” style info/commercials that used to be aired during the day or late at night on dutch television to fill airtime. They would take some b-grade TV products from US (and possibly other countries) and just poorly dub it over for the Dutch market, often by the same guy. These “Tellsell” (which I believe was the actual name of the company) commercials everyone would know about and sometimes joke about the crappy products and commercial style. This parody has all the typical cliches of these commercials like every time the name of the product was mentioned it would be extra sloooow and disadvantages of “alternative” products exaggerated to comical extremes. I believe this video came out before YouTube was mainstream, and circulated on USB drives and shared on LAN parties. Ahh the old times (when not every piece of content ever made was instantly available).

Living currently in Japan in somewhat rural area, lots of fruit growing around. I am not sure why but there are A LOT of hawks and other birds of prey around. I am guessing they are doing decent job controlling bird population. Other then that there are scarecrows that mimic bop sort of like kites. Also some people rig ventilators all around trees, spinning blades kill birds perhaps?

Laser sounds really nice but they will need up the power to blind birds or they will just learn to ignore it.

I am also really hoping for razor blade tipped ramming drones :)

> I am also really hoping for razor blade tipped ramming drones

In my high-rise neighborhood we have peregrine falcons. That's pretty much the same thing.

Where can I buy such a laser? My yard is always covered in birds, and at least twice a week birds get caught in my house (very open design). I would love love love to be able to keep them away harm free.

I've seen gardeners hanging old CDs up to achieve a similar effect. Apparently the way they swing around and glint in the sunlight deters birds.

They don’t explain how the lasers repel the birds. Especially in the day you’d they wouldn’t notice green dots on a green background and it doesn’t seem like that would scare them.

The implication seems to be that the birds can see the dots in the daytime, although we can't:

> They also work during the daytime. But in sunlight, the human eye can only see green dots dancing across the berry-laden bushes.

> although we can't

The quote says we can.

Perhaps just the dots is enough to deter them.

Oh great now nature is going to adapt with laser-resistant birds!

Birds that can fly blind? They call them bats. They use echolocation. Some species also like berries.

> Growers Are Beaming Over the Success of Lasers to Stave Off Birds

Once every 10 years there comes a moment when you can use "beaming" with this sense. Funny how they couldn't help using it. I had to read twice to make sure who's beaming lasers over the success.

So, in the case of literal scarecrows, any bird that is naturally less frightened by the scarecrow will be at a disadvantage because they will also be slower to get spooked by the actual farmer (this only worked when scarecrows were dressed in similar clothes to actual farmers, who would periodically come out with a rifle and kill a few birds). In the case of the laser, I don't see the downside for the birds that decide to ignore the laser, and they get extra food, hence more offspring next year. I would not be surprised if this stopped working in 5 years or so.

They'll be slow to react to auto-targeting 100W lasers next year? :D

Maybe we get some kind of mirror bird

I have a nice and bright green laser (10 mW) and I get plenty of birds (I put out grain, seeds, and peanuts on my deck railing to attract birds and squirrels), so some experimentation is called for.

There is a Dark-Eyed Junco [1] on the railing of my deck eating right now. I put a green jiggling spot right on the railing in front of him on and near the seeds he was taking...no reaction. I send the beam through the air in front of him...no reaction. I was not able to find anything that got a reaction from him. I didn't try putting the spot on him, such as on his foot, because I didn't want to get close enough to risk an eye shot.

Unfortunately, it is close enough to sunset and it is cloudy today further darkening things, so it looks like I'm not going to get anything other than that Junco. Everything else seems to have decided it is time to bed down. Too bad...on a sunny day I'd have some Steller's Jays [2] around at this time, and I'm really curious to see what they think about the laser.

I'm particularly interested in comparing the Steller's Jays, and also the crows that often come by, to small birds like the Junco, and also the Chickadees and assorted types of Sparrows, because I've already observed interesting behavior differences between the bigger birds in general and the small birds.

The Jays and the crows are corvids. They are among the smartest birds. I had expected when I started putting out food for these, especially the crows (which are known to be able to easily learn to recognize individual humans and learn which humans are threats and which are not) to quickly learn that I'm not a threat. In fact, I was worried that they might end up learning to beg for food.

I had expected the little birds, on the other hand, to always see me as a threat.

In fact, it seems to be the opposite. After about 10 months of feeding, the crows still will not come anywhere near if I'm outside on the deck. If they are there eating and I start to come out they immediately fly away. They have seen me come out and put out food. They have never seen me aggressive to any bird (or other animal). Heck, they have seen me let squirrels come and take peanuts from my hand, and seen my hold out a hand of seeds for small birds to land on eat from.

The Steller's Jays are only slightly more accepting than the crows. They immediately leave if I start to come outside, but if I stay outside, but a couple meters away from where the in-shell peanuts are on the rail, they will fly in, quickly grab one peanut, and fly away. (If I'm inside, they pick up and put down several peanuts, apparently judging by weight which are the most worthwhile, and then take the best--or take two if there is also a smaller one that they can stuff in first leaving room to also carry one).

The little birds, though, after only a few weeks or so of my regularly putting out food, would come and start eating while I was still putting out food. They had no problem landing and eating newly placed food less than a meter from where I was currently placing food.

These little guys, the Chestnut-backed Chickadees [3], went even farther. Their favorite of what I put out seems to be out-of-shell peanuts (these birds are too small to deal with in-shell peanuts). If I had put put seeds and grain already, but not yet peanuts, I found I could hold out a palm full of out-of-shell peanuts and the Chestnut-backed Chickadees would actually fly over, land on my fingers, pick out a peanut, and leave [4]. They also would sometimes fly over to me when I came out the door, and hover near my hands--I'm guessing looking to see if I've got food for them.

(It's only the Chestnut-backed Chickadees that do this. I also get Black-capped Chickadees, a couple different kinds of Nuthaches, and some other birds of about that same size, and none of them got past the "will eat a meter away" stage).

[1] https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco/id

[2] https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Stellers_Jay/id

[3] https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Chestnut-backed_Chickade...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShPgZhSbxU0

> I had expected when I started putting out food for these, especially the crows (which are known to be able to easily learn to recognize individual humans and learn which humans are threats and which are not) to quickly learn that I'm not a threat.

Birds are second-level smart. They've seen hundreds, thousands of humans. Most of them are a noops. The next largest fraction of them are pains in the ass. The next largest fraction feeds birds, but still hates crows. Then there's some fraction that feed animals just to trap/shoot/kill them, like rats, squirrels, rabbits, doves, even deer. Ain't hardly nobody in hell that feeds birds because they just like doing that.

Birds are smart and they see everything. They aren't gonna chance it. Forget about being friends.

But kudos on your careful eye.

Makes you wonder how long it will take for the birds to adapt... and adapt they probably will.

I'd guess 5-10 generations at the minimum.

One of advantages of greenhouses and vertical indoor farming is removing pest/weed/animal access.

yup, that's what all the cannabis growers out here in Cali say!

> ...lasers can burn your eyes if you look into them. It's the same danger as pilots being blinded by irresponsible people aiming laser pointers into the sky.

It's worth noting that there are no records of ground based lasers causing damage to a pilot's eyes or causing an aviation accident. Not that it's a good idea to point lasers at airplanes.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. A laser pointer (limited to 5mW) isn't capable of causing eye damage anywhere past 50 feet. Even a big 500mW laser is causing no damage past 500 feet.

They can distract for miles, but that's not the same thing at all.

I presume by "blinded" they mean temporary blindness due to losing their night vision, not permanent damage. The reason they don't cause accidents is because they generally happen on approach or departure which are (or can be) fully automated and therefore easy to abort. It's still very unpleasant for the pilot.

> I presume by "blinded" they mean temporary blindness due to losing their night vision, not permanent damage.

It says "burn your eyes" so I don't interpret it that way.

> The reason they don't cause accidents is because they generally happen on approach or departure which are (or can be) fully automated and therefore easy to abort.

If you're not on approach or departure, what kind of accident would even happen? Especially when even a total loss of external vision still leaves you with all your instruments.

So just how effective is this? What's the resulting yield compared to without it?

next, make it kill insects but not blind people when the ML goes wonky and it shoots a kid in the eye

A Microsoft CTO is working on it https://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_could_this_laser_z...

they could keep their profit were they also a bird farm.

they could recalibrate the laser for that task.

Lovely, after destroying their habitat, now we hunt them with lasers :)

Actually starlings are an invasive species in the United States. So “we” have done no such thing.

This comment breaks several of the site guidelines, including the one that asks you not to post shallow dismissals, and the one the asks you to please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. "Someone" here applies to stories just as much as to comments. Also, the guidelines ask you not to snark.

You may have a good underlying point, but if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and express your good underlying points more thoughtfully from now on, that would be much less destructive and we'd appreciate it.

I found those two guidelines ironic considering that calling something a shallow dismissal without making reference to the original argument is in itself a shallow dismissal that encourages weakening the interpretation of the strength of an argument. It only gets worse when you consider the case of domain experts giving concise commentary using domain specific language. Is an argument shallow if you don't understand it?

I came for the pun

Lol @ the thought of threat to the bird’s eyes. An average beam is a few mm across, and divergence quickly spreads the beam to trivial power. It would probably happen once in awhile, but it would be incredibly rare to catch one right in the eye. Add to that fact the birds seem scared away so it makes it even more unlikely.

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