[ExI] Bee Watch

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of BillK
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2015 11:19 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Bee Watch

On 16 December 2015 at 00:48, spike  wrote:
>>... Well ja, but I can imagine a big crowd-funding deal or research bucks 
> being granted to set up a bunch of these to see what we can learn.  As 
> scientific instruments go, this one is a bargain.  That power concern 
> is perfectly valid, but I am envisioning a version of this which can 
> run on battery power, perhaps a scaled-down version.
>


>...The project appears to be in the very early stages. ...As Dave says, the
big boys have fields out in the country, far from power lines and Wifi, so
further development will be required to cater for them...Still, it's a
hopeful start.

BillK
_______________________________________________

Ja it is a good start.  Of all the bee yards I have seen, at least several
dozen, I don't recall any of them having plug power.  But electronic
equipment takes wall power and transforms it down to sip just a tiny amount
of energy.  My notion is that we can use a car battery and a low end cell
phone.  I can imagine using the camera and processor in the phone and do
low-end stuff, such as count of arrivals vs exits, or activity around a
known pollen source and so forth.

Big picture stuff, this is a dream: having computers watch wildlife.  They
could see stuff we cannot, because wildlife knows we are there and generally
does not like us.  Bees don't care, most birds don't.  But most other beasts
will get scarce before you arrive.  I think they can smell humans on trails
and get on out of Dodge.  

I would like to set up cameras cheaply enough, perhaps based on GoPro or old
cell phones, to watch for beasts moving and doing.  I have watched birds for
most of my long life, yet even now I often see behaviors I had never
witnessed.  It stands to reason beasts occasionally do things when no one is
around, and perhaps only a few hundred living people have ever seen that
behavior, but no one would believe them if they told of it, so they don't.
I have seen beasts do things I don't even bother to tell for it sounds too
outrageous.

spike