Drones?? .what me worry ??,

[Wade]

".When people debate the coming era of civilian drones, they probably aren’t taking into account the strange thing that happened at a Texas A&M student production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Brittany A. Duncan, a doctoral candidate at the university, and her faculty adviser, a professor of computer science and engineering named Robin R. Murphy, were on the team providing technical support for the micro-helicopters and the AirRobot quadcopter-style drone that were used to represent Shakespeare’s fairies. In rehearsals, the actors tended to behave as if the AirRobot—roughly the diameter of a large pizza, with four exposed rotors—were as safe as the fist-size micro-helicopters. So Murphy urged them to think of the AirRobot as “the flying weedwacker of death.” But when audiences also displayed a high level of comfort, she began to wonder whether small drones “are just not scary to people..."

http:www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-people-comfortable-with-small-drones-180951433

This will be the next step to acclimate people to all those flying weedwacker of death that will soon be buzzing about

 

[Charlie Prime]

Better link: Why Are People So Comfortable With Small Drones? | Science | Smithsonian

Interesting theory...

Why would people steer clear of a robot on the ground but let a flying contraption buzz their heads? Duncan speculates that most of the predators in our evolutionary past would have approached at ground level, not head height. Perhaps small drones bypass our usual defensive response because of a certain birdlike disconnect from terra firma.

Thanks!

 

[boomerang]

Maybe what we need is not smaller drones but larger fly swatters.