Dogs prefer digital to analogue TV

On Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:41:41 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller
wrote:

On Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 at 14:20:43h +0100, Albert Ross wrote:

Wood pigeons however are a major economic problem,
their numbers and their biomass are humungous.

As they are a source of edible protein, could they not
be harvested and used to combat world hunger and starvation?

Well the gamekeepers supply rabbits and deer and game birds (in
season) to the local butchers etc. but pigeons are a bugger to catch
by comparison (and of course you don't know what they've been
ingesting) I was put off them semi-permanently by a major bout of food
poisoning at a party many years ago, and IMO they taste like crap
anyway.

Start by building a stack of bales to hide behind (they have excellent
eyesight and can spot the difference between someone with a stick and
someone with a gun). Put some decoy pigeons out in the field, some of
them have movable wings which flash white so overflying birds can spot
what they think are other pigeons landing and fly down to investigate.

As you shoot them, put them out in the field with their wings propped
open with sticks so it looks like a bigger and bigger flock and
attracts more participants.

The point about the shot is also well made. Disrupting their breeding
by waiting until they have eggs and poking out the nests is a lot
cheaper.

The last couple of hard winters dropped their population (or sent them
abroad) but they soon build back up again, they'll only have two eggs
but can breed several times and in any month. They easily outcompete
the more interesting species like stock doves and turtle doves, pretty
much the only controlling factors are food supply and human
intervention. A bit like people really . . .

On Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:38:05 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller
wrote:

Are alternatives to lead available?

Tungsten (expensive) and depleted uranium

On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 02:55:36 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

Johny B Good wrote:
On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:49:24 +0100, Bill Wright
wrote:

Kennedy McEwen wrote:

Whilst we now know about gravity and its origin in the mass of the
planet Earth, hence true "down" is relative to the centre of the
planet, we had no knowledge of that during our development. So, why
the brain forces that interpretation of our orientation, with the
overhead of inverting the visual image, seems a remarkable
anticipation a universe of which we had no knowledge.

Why should the brain invert the image? Invert it relative to what?
When the image passes to the brain it's a series of electrical pulses,
not a picture in a frame. There's no plumb bob in yer 'ed.

Not strictly true, Bill. We do posses such a 'plumb bob', actually a
pair of them. They're located in the inner ear.

The inner ear only detects movement. It can't tell which way gravity is
pulling if the head is perfectly still.

Bill

The same applies to the eye. With practice, it is possible for
individuals to experience the 'image fade out' effect when staring at a
point of focus within a fixed image for as long as the 15 or so seconds
required for this effect to kick in.

Trying this experiment out for yourself requires a considerable amount of
conscious effort to override the eyes' natural tendency to flick from
point to point within the observable scene, never mind the micro-tremors
at between 50 to 80Hz that are part of the visual detection strategy
employed.

It's worth remembering that the eye is, effectively an outpost of the
brain and our visual perception is a far from passive process as far as
the brain's use of this organ is concerned. For instance, most people
don't realise that when they pan their eyes across a scene from one point
of interest to another, the visual cortex totally blanks out the resulting
jumble of 'noise' produced by the panning action. Since the brain is the
controlling influence, it knows exactly when to ignore such input
(presumably to avoid wasting processing resources on useless and confusing
data coming from the eye).

If you observe a scene on a monitor via a TV camera which you directly
control, the act of panning from one fixed point to another produces the
classic 'smeared image' when observing the scene on the monitor, an
artifact of the panning process that isn't visible when you directly
observe what the camera is seeing and rapidly pan between the same two
reference points.

--
Regards JB Good

On Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:38:05 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller
wrote:

If there was a giant grinder being fed with thousands of culled wood
pigeons, would there be a suitable use for all of the animal protein?
....
Are alternatives to lead available?

On Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:52:00 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller
wrote:

And there is a manufacturer in Kingston-Upon-Hull which is
providing a lead free alternative.

But what would that do to your grinding machine?
--
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On Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:28:59 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

But what would that do to your grinding machine?

Yes one would have to extract the stainless steel shot first,
obviously.

Would a sonic gun be effective in stunning wood pigeons?

http://www.futurehorizons.NET/sonic.htm

On Friday, August 26th, 2011 at 12:18:34h +0100, Albert Ross wrote:

Disrupting their breeding

How about feeding them corn laced with birth control chemicals?

This technique has been used in bringing down the numbers of
other pest species.

waiting until they have eggs and poking out the nests is a lot cheaper.

Only so long as it is legal, and if it is not, then the law should be
changed so that wood pigeons are not offered any protection at all.

Bill Wright wrote:

In this country one failing of democracy is that the rural vote is
swamped by the urban vote.

There is no such divide. If I live on the edge of a town, with fields
on one side and houses the other, am I in the country? If not, why
not?

If my house stands on its own a hundred feet beyond the town boundary,
is it rural? A hundred yards? Half a mile? Explain where the line
between 'urban' and 'rural' is, and why it's there.

What if I live in a village? How big must a village be before it
counts as urban?

For some reason, a certain sector of the population considers itself to
be 'rural', and they seem very keen to form a 'tribe' on that basis
(the Countryside Alliance, for instance).

In my experience of living in various places and seeing many more,
there is simply no obvious dividing line between urban and rural.
Rural begins with an empty moor and proceeds from there to the odd
farmhouse, to a cluster of houses, to a tiny hamlet next to a river, to
a dispersed village with houses petering out in various directions, and
so on until I'm in the middle of Birmingham or London.

At no time is there any obvious divide. Instead, there is a continuous
spectrum from moorland to a city centre. Any such claim otherwise is
just silly.

--
SteveT

Steve Thackery wrote:
Bill Wright wrote:

In this country one failing of democracy is that the rural vote is
swamped by the urban vote.

There is no such divide. If I live on the edge of a town, with fields
on one side and houses the other, am I in the country? If not, why not?
You are a town dweller if you live on the edge of a town.


If my house stands on its own a hundred feet beyond the town boundary,
is it rural? A hundred yards? Half a mile? Explain where the line
between 'urban' and 'rural' is, and why it's there.
This is utterly fatuous. The divide isn't a line on a map, in fact it's
barely a geographical concept. It's more to do with culture and
attitudes. Someone who's moved from Leeds to Wensleydale, who works from
home in the IT industry, doesn't use the locals pub, and shops once a
week in Richmond and once every few months in Newcastle, is a townie.
Someone who lives in a council estate in Nottingham but has worked all
their life as a farm labourer, driving four or five miles to work each
day, is a countryman.

For some reason, a certain sector of the population considers itself to
be 'rural', and they seem very keen to form a 'tribe' on that basis (the
Countryside Alliance, for instance).
Self defence. All minorities do it.

Bill

Doubt it, they're tough blighters, and you'd be unlikely to get close
enough for it to work ...

On Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:43:10 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller
wrote:

Would a sonic gun be effective in stunning wood pigeons?

http://www.futurehorizons.NET/sonic.htm
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Bill Wright wrote:

Self defence. All minorities do it.

Again, though, you are making a "minority" out of an imaginary group.

You chose to define "townie" and "countryman" in different ways than I,
but can't you see that they are equally fatuous?

Culture and attitudes are never "either/or". A newcomer into
Wensleydale may choose any level of engagement with the local
community, from the extreme you describe to the other extreme of
immediate and total integration. At what point does he/she become a
"countryman"? When he shops in the village more than 50% of the time?
80%?

What cultural values separates a townie from a countryman? Your farm
labourer who lives in a Nottingham housing estate - what cultural
values do you expect him to display that separates him from his
neighbour who works down the road at the Raleigh factory? The party he
votes for? The friends he goes down the pub with? The hobbies he
keeps outside of work? His choice of interior furnishings?

It's a nonsense to think you can divide the population into two groups
like this. There is a continuous spectrum of geography, and a
continuous spectrum of culture. Our society does NOT need any more
divisions, especially when they are created artificially from imaginary
differences.

--
SteveT