Carrier pigeons used by police in the Indian state of Odisha
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
""" Good food, comfortable lodgings and being treated like royalty is what makes your pigeons want to come back.
Start by taking your pigeons 1 mile from home and releasing them. Do this several times a week.
Expand the training distance by 5 miles per week.
Pigeon clubs all have lost bird reporting processes that you can take advantage of if you lose a bird ... Some pigeons might simply get tired on their return journey and need time to rest. While they may normally come back to the loft in one day, it may take them a few days to return if they've stopped for a break.
Create a second “home” for your pigeons. """
[1] https://www.wikihow.com/Train-a-Homing-Pigeon#:~:text=To%20f....
(I remember a similar article posted here with more discussion, but I can't find it.)
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
(We've changed the title to be more neutral now btw)
I'm asking you to stop posting flamebait, in keeping with the site guidelines.
I don't think this is hard to understand, if you've read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html?
Seems like at least in 1999 they served a vital function that probably helped save bunch of people.
> the police pigeons of Odisha also proved to be the only dependable method of communication during devastating floods in 1982 and a 1999 super-cyclone that caused widespread destruction in the coastal state. Indeed, the handlers say pigeon post helped save many lives.
> The state government spends £4,900 a year for the upkeep of the pigeons and salaries of the staff ... The police handler, who does not want to be named, says: “Many government officials view the ‘pigeongram’ as a waste of resources.
Alaska has six times as many pilots per capita as other parts of the US because there are relatively few roads up there.
Some African country addressed one of its issues by created a service for drone delivery of blood for medical emergencies. IIRC, it was both cheaper and more reliable than trying to keep blood on hand in rural areas because blood expires and you need the right blood type.
There was a piece on HN yesterday about the labor and delivery department in a hospital in a town of 9000 people shutting down. Although small, it's a commercial hub for the region because the region is so rural.
I found that the area has a midwife service. Perhaps that's a superior service for that situation. I don't know, but do we really need to medicalize the birthing process in all cases? Seems to me that's not absolutely necessary.
But we seem to generally default to thinking that "big city solutions are best" and when those solutions are a poor fit logistically for some more sparsely populated area or simply financially unsustainable, the default seems to be that service is simply removed entirely rather than replaced with something more suitable.
We also routinely build housing in disaster-prone areas that doesn't withstand the type of disaster in question and then put people in trailers when they inevitably end up homeless. Seems to me we could do better.
Why? Dragnet censorship doesn't care about collateral damage, assume all traffic is potentially "dangerous" and shoot every bird at sight. Or just capture them and release if confirmed free of harmful information.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.One of the first computer scientist I remember learning about a decade or more ago when I started getting into FOSS and learning how these great tools work! Thanks for bringing those memories back.
Kidding aside, I really appreciate that you got an accurate estimate on how much data a pigeon could potentially deliver today.
I'm sure a lot of poor Americans languishing in jails because they couldn't afford a good lawyer and just accepted the plea deal offered to them would rather have had a couple slaps and a cane to the calves.
Edit: also don't forget the police is doing what the general public wants. A lot of victims would rather see the perpetrator get beat up by police swiftly rather than wait 10 years to see them get sent to jail.
Also, the apparently many cases of women who go denounce a rape and police rape them themselves.
Is it really the general public that wants the police, or just the wealthy elites? because I suspect that the masses would rather be free to protect themselves on their own...
> You know nothing about the laws
Personal attacks usually indicate defending a flawed position. The farmers participating in the largest protest in history definitely knew how the law affected them, as opposed to the govt who passed the laws without discussion.
> Regardless, it's a lie that police beat up farmers.
There are literally tons of videos police beating up farmers. So I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
> Stop spreading propaganda.
The Indian news media did propaganda against farmers. These news channels who never say a word against BJP govt tried so hard to undermine the protest that they were banned from covering the protest. They literally have a name “Godi Media” meaning media sitting in the lap of Modi.
> Also, the apparently many cases of women who go denounce a rape and police rape them themselves
Do you have a citation or did you pull it out of the echo chamber subreddit called two x chromosomes?
And I am ready to bet my ass that police brutality against men in India is at least 100x as compared to women. But no, let's talk about the fictional narrative that you want to push.
https://nypost.com/2022/05/05/indian-girl-who-reported-gang-...
Also, they were just examples. I have no doubts that men are affected too. And now you talk about "police brutality", weren't you saying they are good guys?