When all else fails, there’s amateur radio — and handwritten notes. Both ham radio and clear thinking helped rescue a mother and her son from a recent California camping trip gone wrong. While driving to the campsite in the Stanislaus National forest, the 49-year-old mother had the not-uncommon experience of GPS leading her and her 9-year-old son on a merry chase, sending her down a series of forest roads. Eventually the foliage got too dense for the GPS signals to penetrate, leaving the pair stranded in the forest with no guidance on how to get out.
Luckily, our heroes followed the first rule of being lost: don’t panic. Knowing that a search would likely be a needle-in-a-haystack affair thanks to the terrain and heavy cover, they wisely increased their footprint by venturing out a mile or so in different directions to post handwritten notes along the trail. They also used their car’s hazard lights at night and periodic triple blasts on a whistle to signal rescuers, who eventually found them thanks to the notes and a tip from someone who remembered seeing the car. As for the ham radio, that came into play when rescuers in the field were unable to get through to their command post on the regular radios thanks to the dense vegetation. A ham operator in the group was able to punch through and reach a ham at his home, who closed the loop by calling into the sheriff’s office, who were then able to contact the command post.
If like us you’ve always resented having to prove your humanity by clicking on a checkbox, you’re really going to hate OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent, which rubs the whole CAPTCHA thing right in your face. OpenAI fans on Reddit discovered that the Agent, which is able to conduct a series of tasks, effortlessly clicked on one of those “I’m not a robot” checkboxes to advance to the next step in a video conversion process. What’s worse, Agent gave a play-by-play narration of the process, noting that it would have to “click the ‘Verify I’m human’ checkbox … to prove I’m not a bot.” We’ve always felt — perhaps optimistically — that these checkbox CAPTCHAs would be easily defeated even with one of those screen recorder macros from the Windows 3.0 days. Thanks to OpenAI, it appears that there’s absolutely no justification for them at all, and yet we’re sure we’ll keep seeing them for many years to come. At least the simple checkbox ones — let’s see a bot try to solve one of those traffic light puzzles!
Back in May, we covered a fantastic video captured during an earthquake in Myanmar in March. While most earthquake videos capture the destruction by showing goods flying off store shelves, water sloshing out of swimming pools, or ceiling tiles collapsing into office spaces, this video was far more subtle, and yet far more terrifying. The video showed a massive slab of earth suddenly shift three meters in a few seconds. That footage has now been analyzed by geologists in Japan, who have concluded that this was the first direct observation of a curved fault slip, a type of quake that had only been theorized before. It appears that the curving and sinking seen in the video, which we noted in our original article, were the key to identifying this unusual type of earthquake. Maybe we should have gone with geology instead of biology all those years ago.
And finally, we’ve all heard tales of ecological control gone wrong, the classic example of which is the introduction of cane toads into Australian sugar cane plantations. The toads were supposed to eat cane beetles, which were devastating the sugar cane crop, only to find that the toads couldn’t reach the beetles and instead preyed on their natural predators, multiplying fruitfully in the process and becoming an invasive pest species in the process. So it’s with some trepidation that we read about robotic bunnies being used to control invasive Burmese pythons. The plan is being tested in Florida, because of course it’s Florida, but also because there are a lot of pythons in the Everglades thanks to the exotic pet trade. The idea is to take the guts out of 40 stuffed bunny toys, add motors to provide motion and heaters to simulate a warm bunny snack, and place them around the marshes. The goal right now is to just lure the snakes out of hiding to study their habits, in the hopes of finding a way to control their population. One could think of a few ways this could be accomplished more directly with a few additions to the robobunny payloads, but we imagine that wouldn’t go over too well with the snake lovers out there.
Even Florida Man is losing his job to a robot.
I don’t get it. If you got lost while driving a car, why not just make a three point turn and go back? It’s not a highway but some narrow asphalt or dirt road used mostly by locals and farmers. And more important, why not look at the map a couple of times and roughly memorize the way you’re supposed to take? Even if satnav goes funny (which it often does!) this is not an issue, because you still remember where to go. Even if the car craps out, to walk 10 miles and seek help is not going to kill you.
This all sounds more like a case of learned helplessness and doing tryhard cartoonish heroism where a bit of reason would’ve been enough to avoid all the mess.
You seem to have no idea what a maze these roads become Also, these GPS things turn off our own pathfinding, we don’t notice we’re lost until it stops working. More people should practice not using them.
Walk 10 miles in what direction, with a 9 year old with you?
I’m assuming the story is missing a few details.
Anyway, have you ever been on a fire tail? 3-point turn? Where? Lol.
Also easy to get confused when in a maze, er forest what all the trails look the same. Same as hikers who “just step off for the trail” and wind up dead a short while later. They did they correct “stay with the vehicle” thing and lived.
Pay $0.25 per documented snake kill. Rednecks armed with .22LR will make them extinct within a year.
Ever heard of the Cobra Effect?
22lr is about 10 cents a round+ these days too, grandpappy.
That is just a general estimate going forward. Also the “rednecks” can machine their own bullets. A lot cheaper than you can figure out. They can make that work and maybe the state will double the ransom.
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to go up against a python with a .22 LR. A 12 gauge loaded with 3 inch turkey loads (maybe a “duplex” style load with a mix of copper coated #2 and lead #6 shot) would be a better choice IMHO. With extra full choke should be good for head shots out to 25 yards. Probably result in complete python decapitation closer than 10 yards.
Funny. One place I used to live we called the .410 a snake gun. Heckuvalot nicer on the shoulder than a 12 ga. Enough for prairie dogs at 15-20 yds, but I can see it might just piss off a grown python.
Yes, a .410 with 3 inch shells would do a good job too. At least up close. Any shotgun shell that can hold at least 3/4 ounces of shot and push it around 1300 FPS should work. But the bigger 12 gauge shells hold a lot more shot and give a more dense pattern at the same range. Also I am afraid of snakes; don’t want to get too close. Thus 12 gauge.
A novice was speaking with his master.
“Master, what makes us human?”
“Clicking all squares with bicycles”, replied the master.
The novice was then enlightened.
Perhaps Duracell could help, the bunny from their adverts goes on… and on… and on… and on… this way “the guts out of 40 stuffed bunny toys” do not have to be removed and perhaps only one Duracell bunny would be enough because it goes on… and on… and on… and on…
Energizer…
Look into it, one company was first and one took the bunny later. A lawsuit ensued and the compromise was some countries have an Energizer and some a Duracell bunny.
Robot bunnies… Another weird robot enemy from the Megaman series ticked off…
Wait until those robot bunnies start to replicate.
You say it is not possible, but did you know that the femele robot bunny has a 3d printer inside?
Then the snakes will start calling to complain: “there’s plastic in our food”.