I am seeking neighboring stores! Sometimes I crave gum on the street, Gum drop anyone?
To summarize, I used:
1. Low weight but very cool product (like Propeller Hats)
2. Raspberry Pi for controlling everything
3. Adafruit stepper motor for the dropping mechanism
4. Yarn for holding the hat
5. Roboflow for the AI
I will be honest, while the project is actually neat, it showcases some of the issues with technological advancements as related to society ( and happens to also touch on one's exposure in a big city ). One could easily imagine a scenario ( or scenarios ), where this could be misused.
Right? I can already imagine the government doing this to drop nuclear bombs on dissidents.
You seem to be making it unnecessarily dramatic for comedic effect and it does not have be government in attempt to dismiss genuine concern. The only reason I am not expanding on it is because I do not want to give people ideas.
As the saying goes, "ideas are cheap, execution is everything".
I guarantee you that you haven't come up with any ideas in the few minutes you've been thinking as a casual and presumably non-criminal observer that haven't been thought of already by countless criminal and terrorist groups. The only thing you're accomplishing by being vague is making it hard for us to understand what you're getting at.
People are influenced by what they read.
Whether the idea has occurred to a bad actor and if they choose to act on it are very different.
We effectively “promote” bad ideas with detailed public discussion; it’s literally what influencers get paid to do.
Hmm. On this very forum you will often see me argue actions vs speech and how the two are very different from one another and how only one of those can actually be construed as violence.
<< I guarantee you that you haven't come up with any ideas [...]that haven't been thought of already by countless criminal and terrorist groups.
It is likely. My imagination is somewhat limited, but this is kinda the point. If I can think it, a sizeable portion of the population can as well. The difference is that it just made it now is easier to deploy in non-benign manner. My concern is not with terror orgs. Those can and do their own thing. I am worried about a casual kid, who uses it for 'pranks' that will happen, as they seem to invariably eventually do, to go too far.
You realize anyone can throw a rock off an overpass and sometimes people actually do it right? People just choose not to.
The two situations are not alike. People choose not to throw rocks directly as the action is direct, immediate and likely against the law with all the things that it would influence. On the other hand, we have a remote system capable of dropping things on unsuspecting heads in an automated manner.
Do you really not see the difference?
Perhaps it can be used to drop water balloons full of Gatorade on parched travellers. Or, to extend the earlier concept, miniaturised atom bombs on beatniks.
The only reason I am not expanding on it is because I do not want to give people ideas.
Well and because your ideas are either fantasy land or old hat.
You don’t need to aim that well with a nuclear bomb.
This sort of tech could clearly be applied to the “last mile” problem in hand grenade deliveries as well, so close range jammer based solutions seem pretty hopeless (I think that’s been pretty obvious for a while, but this hobbyist project really emphasizes the fact, right?)
Surely, if this got into the wrong hands evildoers could lower all sorts of things people order:
Toupees
Pianos
Air conditioners
Enriched yellow cake uranium
Specially trained mice with machine guns
Robert De Niro in Brazil
Etc etc
We must mobilize to stop this now before it’s too late. Hopefully this will be addressed during next week’s presidential election.
Like a gun?
I'm old enough to remember fishing poles hanging out of windows in Alphabet so you could buy drugs.
I love this kind of project.
A lot of states are working on legislation that includes requirements for watermarking AI generated content. But it seldom defines AI with any rigor, making me wonder if soon everyone will need to label everything as made with AI to be on the safe side, kinda like prop 65 warnings.
This is not quite like the "AI" that's hyped in recent years, the key component is OpenCV and it has been around for decades. Few years ago, this might have been called Machine Learning (ML) instead of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
You have discovered a secret area of my personalized "pet peeves" level: just a few days ago I saw an article (maybe video) about how "AI" tracks you in a restaurant. Screenshot was from an OpenCV-based app with a bounding box around each person, it counted how many people are in the establishment, who is a waiter and who is a customer, and how long they have been there.
Image recognition is AI.
There's an old saying: "Yesterday's AI is today's algorithm". Few would consider A* search for route-planning or Alpha-Beta pruning for game playing to be "Capital A Captial I" today, but they absolutely were back at their inception. Heck, the various modern elaborations on A* are mostly still published in a journal of AI (AAAI).
This is a fair point and maybe someone more well versed can correct me but pretty much all state of the art image recognition is trained neural networks nowadays right? A* is still something a human can reasonably code, it seems to me that there is a legitimate distinction between these types of things nowadays.
We will likely develop more accurate names for the different shades of AI after the fact. Or the AI will.
Apparently there was a big scare that AI would take programmers' jobs away... decades ago, when the first compilers came out.
Maybe it is easier to define what isn't AI? Toshiba's handwritten postal code recognizers from the 1970s? Fuzzy logic in washing machines that adjusts the pre-programmed cycle based on laundry weight and dirtyness?
Thank you! I was wondering how they managed to wedge an AI model into a RasPi. And I couldn't figure out what the AI was needed for.
I'm guessing we'll just end with every website has a button where you have to accept:
[ all cookies and ai stuff ]
It’s going to be like those “made in a facility that processes nuts” warnings that are on most foods these days
Love this! I play recreational ice hockey in an Adult league and for the past many years I've desired to use AI/Object recognition to recognize who was out on the ice during what times during the game to attribute who impacted goals and which players were taking longer than usual shifts ( every team has those one or two players!).
This may be achievable for me with the current state of AI and GPT to help fill the gaps that my knowledge is lacking in. Thanks for showing what you made and how you did it. It's encouragement to me.
This would be interesting, feel free to email me if you get stuck. If you had a camera at eye level, you could try to train it on recognizing the player jersey numbers.
Facial recognition would be better. Don’t forget that canonically in Mighty Ducks D2 Goldberg and Russ switched jerseys so that Russ could get his infamous “Knuckle Puck” shot off undisputed because everyone thought the puck was passed to Goldberg until the mask came off. So the ML training on jerseys would have missed this critical moment and potentially assigned the score to Goldberg, when really it was Russ (wearing Goldberg’s jersey) who should have gotten the credit.
One might argue that this sort of thing rarely happens so it’s not worth doing more complex facial recognition vis a vis Jersey numbering. But I say that while it may be rare, when it does happen it’s a major event, so no complexity should be spared to ensure we capture it accurately.
Typically beer league players wear full face cages so facial recognition is harder to do
I would have multiple camera footage. One gopro would be just be a wide-angle of the bench behind the players, another would be on the game clock, and additional ones would be on-ice footage. Typically my gopro set-up has been behind the goalie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCavsdzc-OY) and the rinks have Livebarn feeds (here's one on my YT from 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WEE9y4cAHg) but there are challenges in quality abound.
I play in a rec soccer league and had a similar idea, except to also have everyone on the team wear a smartwatch that could intelligently buzz at you to sub out based on your heartrate and how long you've been in.
should give this to the coach too - Texas players get heat exhaustion
Trace and hudl use shirt number and person tracking. I bet they could add skin color and gait analysis to do this as well.
Iirc, LiveBarn offers this as a service if your local rink has it set up. Annoyingly, my local rink uses 30 minute video slots so it only ever captures half a game.
The NHL just sticks an airtag equivalent into the jerseys.
Sometimes you can notice a little nob on the back/shoulder of a player.
https://www.google.com/search?q=nhl+player+tracking+jersey
https://old.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/u5707w/wha...
If only LiveBarn feeds weren’t such a pile of crap I’d have some hope.
Picture a world where you can walk around New York City and everything you need is falling out of windows onto you. At a moments notice, at the drop of a hat. That's a world I want to live in. That's why I'm teaching you how to do yourself. Remember this as the first place you heard of "Window Shopping."
I truly love the concept of pun-driven development (PDD). As a motivating economic principle, a world where every human being has the resources, time, and personal safety to dedicate absurd amounts of their time to inane levels of pun-driven development is perhaps my favorite definition of utopia.
That's the best justification of Universal Income I have seen so far
It can't be the best. It's only one of many positive consequences. Not even a main justification, but only a point of defense for those so irrationally against the concept.
It's a bad idea, so it might well be the best.
Pyramid Scheme comes to mind. It’s a scheme (as in, a lisp for purists) which compiles to Solidity, the language backing Ethereum.
http://www.michaelburge.us/2017/11/28/write-your-next-ethere...
“Hot today, I could go for a cold drink. OH NO!”
Sometimes I feel we live in a simulation in a real world a few levels down with universal income or something like that. They got bored so had to forget their existence by creating a simulation (or nested simulations).
We want to try this out, what's the address?
You will need to book a spot first
He seems to be already fully booked until the 13th of August, must have been really successful, or maybe just the result of the exposure on HN? Hopefully people aren't booking spots just to troll.
The exterior photos provide enough info that you can figure out the intersection/building if you’re curious
Hacker way Menlo Menlo vaishali
I can’t wrap my head around how that hat drops in a straight line. Between the propeller and any wind, how is that hat not all over the place?
If you watch the video, it actually falls several sidewalk tiles away and he has to go pick it up. From the text of the blog, I had assumed he was using AI to actually land it directly on a person’s head, which would’ve been crazy impressive.
Not your mistake, he does his best to imply that the hats are dropping on heads.
He's got a future in marketing.
That’s because you aren’t supposed to wrap your head around a hat, you’re supposed to wrap the hat around your head.
that's what I thought. What if there's a gust of wind?
I feel like such a killjoy, but the first thing I thought of is the ongoing lice “epidemic” among people with school aged children in NYC.
I have never liked it when the ACs drip on me in midtown let alone a hat dropping on my head!
This is a consensual hat, not a villainous hat that attacks virgin tops.
Although I think the idea of nonconsensual hat drops is so fun and fantastic.
I wish I could register myself as being up for any sort of serendipity like this. While I like the idea of a hat randomly dropping onto my head, some people may not.
My hats are completely new and unworn! Lice free since June 23
you have to request the hat lol, you dont just walk buy and get shit dropped on you, you book a drop
No wonder people hate tech bros
Feed the world? Nah let’s do more stupid stuff
Strange article to be so offended by.
Do you work or develop things that don't "feed the world?"
Oof. Are we not to enjoy life until all are fed?
This is a lame criticism. One guy doing a silly little project to entertain himself (and also developing useful skills along the way) is far better than the millions of people who work in politics, industry, etc. that also aren't actively fixing the world and are instead actively worsening it.
Is this legal? Imagine everyone doing this.
Why would this be illegal?
Like there would be a law against lowering hats on a string? I think it may be more funny to have a government create such a law.
Everyone doing this seems wonderful.
You're asking why dropping things out of a window in midtown Manhattan might be illegal?
It's a boring question anyway; this is HN.
Yes, that’s what I’m asking.
Dropping things shouldn’t be illegal. Negligence that causes harm should be.
Someone lowering a hat down on a string seems perfectly fine. Throwing a chair out a window seems bad. I think the details would affect whether someone is illegal, not just a blanket “thou shall not throw things out the window.”
There’s already laws about littering and assault, so I don’t think that would matter how many floors up we are.
Why ask boring questions?
Typical mid-western humor, spends almost as much time describing how to open a window as how to build an AI agent. Very fun project.
All experiences are equal. They all come and go. Its the ego which gives higher importance to building an AI agent over opening a window.
Typical mid-western Buddhist humor.
Well now I feel bad for laughing and having a good time.
Can you go a bit more in depth for the part regarding training the Ai to recognize the heads? Like what software(s) did you use ecc... I'm an undergrad who's seeking to do similar computer vision internships for his thesis and I find this kinda fascinating
That would most likely be the OpenCV bit
No the opencv was just to capture video frames and they were iediately passed to the roboflow model through the ssh client.
Which is what many would also call 'Image Processing'
I have a few qualms with this AI-assisted hat delivery service[1]:
1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting a kaggle account, learning by doing computer vision projects, and then using opencv to build the vision parts of the system. From Windows or Mac, you could build using a cloud system such as Amazon Bedrock.
2. It doesn't actually replace having a hat for the period from your own front door to OP's apartment. Most people I know own hats themselves or borrow from friends to be able to attend specific events, but they still carry a hat in case there are weather problems. This does not solve the availability issue.
3. It does not seem very "viral" or income-generating. I know this is premature at this point, but without charging users for the service, is it reasonable to expect to make money off of this?
[1] Actually I don't. It's really awesome.
You're trolling the trolls by witty trolling. Approved!
For any of today's lucky 10k:
This concept is great, it’s also a brilliant idea for a webcam on a Bourbon St balcony in New Orleans to throw beads at parties below. I am friends with a guy who owns a multistory bar in the middle of the strip and would be open to this, so if OP or someone else is interested in developing an AI/remote control bead thrower, drop some contact info and I’ll reach out
I live in Louisiana, have done object recognition projects before, feel free to reach out. Email in bio.
I live in New Orleans. Happy to help as well. contact in bio.
This is so cool and just brings me a lot of joy :)
Also, I've been working on a project (non-commercial) that looks down on people and have found existing models don't work super well from that angle so thank you for publishing your work on Roboflow.
I've been working on a project (non-commercial) that looks down on people
TIL my dad’s entire life has been a non-commercial project
Is this legal?!
"Regulatory Entrepreneurship"
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
Oh I could use this to deliver my home made lunch boxes to customers from my 15th floor apartment!
I'm no AI expert, but I think you could do that with some twine.
I'm confused. The article describes a really cool project as if it were already implemented, but there is no video of it actually working? Am I missing something?
it's a conceptual art project / hoax.
Ok folks, how does this impact our AGI (Aerial Gear Installation) timelines?
I think it has already propelled us ahead by 2 years.
I was hoping to get in on the ground floor of this investment opportunity but it looks like I'm too late.
Your check height may just be too low?
That's a great idea! Did I tell you about my cousin and his flower pot/anvil/piano business idea btw?
Amazing. Hats on to you!
Finally someone accomplishes something meaningful with AI! /s
This is one of the most beautiful things made with AI
Pretty cool! Any info about the maximum height of AI head detections?
Love the creativity and humor which is often the spark for true innovation.This guy is a real life Kramer from Seinfeld. Reminds me of the episode where Kramer drops a ball of oil from his nyc apartment while testing a business idea.
This is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.
I can’t believe someone would spend the time and effort to do this.
I love it. You’re brilliant.
Is there video of any successful drops?
This seems wonderful. I’m in New York next weekend and wanted to buy a hat, but sadly you’re all booked up. Too bad.
Although since it only takes a few seconds, I’d expect you to be able to sell thousands of these a day. If you don’t mind me asking, how many slots do you release each day?
This is beautiful. Have you ever dropped a hat on someone's head a a surprise?
will this create an organic HN meetup next under this dudes window?
Our team already uses cap.ly. How does this compare to that, or, say haberdash.er? Congrats on the launch.
What an unexpectedly cool post, I clicked the link thinking it would be "typical dumb", but it ended up being the atypically dumb in the best way! Fascinating. The author overcame many challenges and wrote about them in a style as if he solved the hardest parts with only a little fiddling. Maybe he's already seasoned in the ML and robotics domains? So much fun to read.
Regarding the Video Object Detection:
Why does inference need to be done via Roboflow SaaS?
...(api_url="https://detect.roboflow.com", api_key="API_KEY")
Can anyone comment contrasting experience with Roboflow? Does it perform better than Frigate and DOODS?
Asking for a friend. I totally don't have announcement speakers throughout my house that I want to say "Mom approaching the property", "Package delivered", "Dog spotted on a walk", "Dog owner spotted not picking up after their beast", and so on. That last one will be tricky to pull off. Ah well :)
[0] https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate/pkgs/container/fr...
This is visionary.
Fantastic, I love this kind of silly stuff. The clear next iteration is a 4-prop hat, which can be guided to the target head.
Of course, that starts to verge on what's spooky about the idea, but either way, this is really fun and cool.
Really, really liked it! Also, would be glad to hear where you got that helicopter heads. I've been looking for one for some time but my head is large sized so I can't find one that fits here where I live.
Amazing. Any chance of Top Hats as a premium upgrade?
Mad hatter
Cool. Now replace hats with explosives and sell it to the military.
From a fellow midwesterner - was this great? “You betcha!”
Finally some window shopping that interests me.
looks like AGI has been achieved externally
Just wait until some bozo walking down the street starts litigation about harassment and spinal injury.
I really want to use llama3 8B Q4_0 llama.cpp for some fun automation tasks so I tried following this guide: https://voorloopnul.com/blog/quantize-and-run-the-original-l... but all I get out of it is rambling nonsense. Glad ollama exists I guess, running that works fine for me.
Next step: add EEG electrodes
I dream of a world where I merely open my mouth and wish it and the gum just flies down into it, already unwrapped.
You’re working toward this world and I commend you.
People still use gum in 2024? I thought it's a wide knowledge that it's bad for you in every single way
I do, specifically Mastic gum.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1026426/global-chewing-g...
Since you haven't seen someone chewing gum in a while, I'm now curious about where you live. North Korea? Singapore?
Apparently the knowledge isn't wide enough, because this is the first I'm hearing of it... Why is gum bad for you? I knew it was in a downward sales trend, but I figured that was just consumer preferences changing over time.
Why does this sound like something out of an old point and click adventure game
"You used the GUM on yourself. Nothing special happens. You now have 0 GUM."
I'll hold out for the teleportation-based version so I don't have to go through the effort of opening my mouth.
I would hope that we have invented error-free software development by then, though. Otherwise, a small error leading to the wrong coordinates could really ruin your day (or head)... ;)
Or use lasers and tiny gum-shaped smoke bombs to sample and model the local air column currents, pre soften and flatten a portion of the gum paper-thin with some sort of wettimg/rolling assembly, stage, then let it drop and form its own miniature gum parachute or replica of one of those whirling propeller seeds that have a built-in wing to slow their fall.
At the speed of gravitational fall, it might choke you!
This is part of the challenge, as I want a pleasant experience. Not a terminal one.
Perhaps small guided parachutes that receive an auto-correction location from the RPi and track the mouth? The issue is that the gum will be expensive.
Pre-chewed, perhaps.
For a slight additional fee.
My immediate response to this was “ew, there’s already so much gum on the street”. Then I realized you meant you want to chew gum while walking down the street and I became enlightened.
What do you think happens after they have enough of the gum? :)
After gum on the street, there's gum on the street
Slightly unrelated: Did the building owner/landlord complain about that? Is it legal?
I know a friend of mine whom the building asked to remove a camera they had. It was a camera used only to record the hill view in front of the building, so it isn't violating any privacy, and it was attached with magnets, so no damage whatsoever.
This is legitimately awesome. Nice job sir.
i work on roboflow. seeing all the creative ways people use computer vision is motivating for us. let me know (email in bio) if there's things you'd like to be better.
the biggest thing he's overcoming is the rent?! how's he doing that while goofing off with projects like this?