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posted by chromas on Thursday April 12 2018, @07:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the bird-on-a-wire dept.

Of all the zany plans that came from the fertile minds on each side of World War II, few seem as out there as a plan to use birds to pilot bombs to their targets. And yet such a plan was not only actively developed, it came from the fertile mind of one of the 20th century's most brilliant psychologists, and very nearly resulted in a fieldable weapon that would let fly the birds of war.

[...] By the 1940s, B.F. Skinner had spent years studying operant conditioning on a variety of model organisms, using dozens of instruments of his own devising to quantify behavior. With war raging around the globe, Skinner pondered the devastation caused by bombing campaigns, which relied on massive quantities of bombs to make up for the lack of precision in the aiming. He wondered if there would be any way to guide a bomb or missile to its target, and hit upon the idea of using one of the stars of his operant conditioning boxes — pigeons. Easily trained and with excellent eyesight, pigeons might make a workable guidance system for ordnance.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/04/11/hacking-when-it-counts-pigeon-guided-missiles/

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard


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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @09:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @09:05AM (#665810)

    A good thing the pigeons can be conditioned to keep the things straight instead of taking alt-right turns.
    No, turning alt-right four times doesn't straighten the things, it just make them weirder and weirder.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Thursday April 12 2018, @09:23AM (5 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Thursday April 12 2018, @09:23AM (#665819) Journal

    1. less bombs
    2. less holes
    3. that damn pigeons gets destroyed

    no downside really

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    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @04:00PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @04:00PM (#665985)

      4. less statues

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:20PM (1 child)

        by Gaaark (41) on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:20PM (#666043) Journal

        especially the statues of those slave owners....

        oh... they're gone already? Wha' happan?

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 13 2018, @12:25AM

          by Bot (3902) on Friday April 13 2018, @12:25AM (#666262) Journal

          What do you mean, gone already? whose statue was it? Bezos?

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          Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:15PM (1 child)

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:15PM (#666032) Journal

      Aha! You are Dick Dastardly.

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 12 2018, @10:12PM

        by Bot (3902) on Thursday April 12 2018, @10:12PM (#666191) Journal

        MUUUTTTLLEEYYYYYY

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        Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @09:34AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @09:34AM (#665822)

    Skinner was a really good scientist, he studied psychology with a focus on reproducibile phenomena. Unfortunately, then the "cognitive revolution" occured. NHST was adopted with its focus on "significant differences" and now psychology is in the state we all enjoy today.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @11:03AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @11:03AM (#665846)

      BF Skinner was a Fascist.
      Practicing clinical psychologist Bruce E. Levine calls him a control freak. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [brucelevine.net]

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @11:32AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @11:32AM (#665852)

        Are you implying that made him a bad scientist? Also that link was to a wierd rant. He obviously identified that the cigarrete was not a token the patient valued, and instead gave the patient the reward of "winning" against the staff... I stopped reading there.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 12 2018, @12:41PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday April 12 2018, @12:41PM (#665878) Homepage Journal

        I call you a quite a lot of things. Does that make them true or should we consider possible bias?

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:48PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:48PM (#666062)

        A psychologist disagreeing with another psychologist's methods? I am genuinely worried about the fabric of the universe surviving this paradox of hard science!

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 13 2018, @12:27AM

      by Bot (3902) on Friday April 13 2018, @12:27AM (#666264) Journal

      > he studied psychology with a focus on reproducible phenomena
      What a coincidence, I studied the empty set too.

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      Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday April 12 2018, @09:44AM (2 children)

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Thursday April 12 2018, @09:44AM (#665825) Homepage Journal

    Our missiles will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” 🐦🚀

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:55PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:55PM (#666070) Journal

      Yep, about as smart as a sitting US president!

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 12 2018, @10:20PM

      by Bot (3902) on Thursday April 12 2018, @10:20PM (#666197) Journal

      Next, the pigeon gets attracted by an unladen African pigeoness whose airspeed velocity of course differs. This interferes with the missile guidance. This is why Mr. President delays the action. It would make for an awkward dinner conversation at the White House if dad accidentally makes Jerusalem go POOF.

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      Account abandoned.
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