tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post6922138748510116403..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: Links 20 November 2020Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-53667617838373831522020-11-20T11:35:45.043-05:002020-11-20T11:35:45.043-05:00Starlings, a highly adaptable animal with relative...Starlings, a highly adaptable animal with relatively little genetic diversity. You would think otherwise.Shadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05353532874773316117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-89188542385591319922020-11-20T08:35:26.574-05:002020-11-20T08:35:26.574-05:00In northern Japan, deploying robot wolves to scare...In northern Japan, deploying robot wolves to scare off prowling bears.<br /><br />I clicked through, and I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything or the picture would have had me perform a spit take. So then I clicked further to get the actual video of the thing in action, and I practically fell out of my chair laughing.<br /><br />It's so bad. It is SO BAD. Imagine a halloween haunted house soundtrack CD with that one cheesy stock stereotypical wolf howl you've heard a million times, played on the cheapest, tinny-est speakers you can imagine. Then add in cheap plastic laser gun sound effects that activate in time with the red eyes flashing haphazardly. It's absolute junk, and I don't know whether it's offensively stupid or endearingly dumb.<br /><br />The thing is, it will probably work just fine - like most wild animals, bears try to avoid strange noisy making things. They even did the right thing and put it on a motion sensor, and not just constantly active all the time, because the latter presents an opportunity for the bears to get used to it and learn to ignore it.<br /><br />I just have no idea why 1) they tried to make it look like a wolf, since there have been no wolves in Japan for hundreds of years; 2) they made such an <i><b>unconvincing</b></i> wolf with such cartoonish features; and 3) why they built it five or so feet off the ground on thick metal stilts.<br /><br />The best part is, this isn't even the first time or place someone has done this! There's a link to another article from a couple years ago showing off a different "robot wolf" in another village, which is almost identical in design, but not built on stilts, and weirdly only about 2 feet tall.<br /><br />That said, supposedly they have an effective range of about a kilometer, so I imagine it doesn't matter what they look like, just that they make weird noises when bears trip motion sensors nearby. Which is part of why it's so weird - they could have made it look and sound like anything, and they went with cartoonishly bad halloween store wolf monster robots, for some unfathomable reason.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com