Amazon's Prime Air Drones Will Soon Make Deliveries In Texas - Slashdot

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  What I look forward to is spending 15 minutes putting on and another 10 minutes taking off winter clothes to take each delivery for half of the year. It will also be nice to not be able to say "bring it to the back door", "ring the doorbell and wait" and, especially awesome, not getting anything delivered unless I have an app installed on my phone set to record everything I say, do and type.

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    And after shooting down your package, ask a refund from Amazon!

  • Re: What a lovely idea

    Except for that Federal law about shooting at aircraft. Minor detail.

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      aircraft have people in them, these are soulless drones. At east that is how I see it. The feds probably disagree.

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      EMP isnt a bullet and doesnt kill anyone.

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        Shooting a drone doesn't kill anyone either, unless it hits them in the head.

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    As someone living in the Bryan/College Station metro area, we also have laws that say we’re not allowed to discharge firearms within city limits.

    And yes, they do enforce that law. This isn’t the Wild West. This is a sleepy suburban-feeling area without a neighboring urban center.

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      For now. Soon the Tech Industry will come for you as they have come for many other college towns.

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        Maybe “sleepy” gives the wrong impression of how things are here.

        Texas A&M is the biggest university in the US (both in terms of land area and student population), and is one of only a handful to have land, sea, and space grants, so tech is already here to the extent that it wants to be here. Aerospace, oil & gas, automotive, finance, chip design, robotics, genetics, defense, construction, etc.. You name it, it probably has a branch here in B/CS, especially since land is cheap, student l

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          Looks like your data is a little out of date. University of Central Florida is now the largest university by student population. (71,948 vs 71,109) https://www.worldatlas.com/art... [worldatlas.com]

          If you start adding remote/online enrollment, things get even more confusing.

          = Community College of the Air Force -- 351,715
          = Phoenix University -- 165,743
          = Southern New Hampshire University -- 80,000
          = Liberty University -- 75,044
          = UMass Online -- 75,000

          https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/. [uopeople.edu]

• Pharmaceuticals are an ideal low weight high cost item to deliver. I look forward to getting abortion pills delivered in Texas by drones from neighboring states.

• Re: What a lovely idea

  What are you going to do about your neighbor's tractors, ATVs, or shooting shit in their own backyards? Or the general aviation airstrip a town over. You still live in a place that has neighbors, and you might enjoy some of those things yourself. I can't imagine drone deliveries really being a problem out in the country honestly.

• 1 hidden comment

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  WE don't want to pay humans, because WE want next day free delivery:-(

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  Nah, the he-boy shooter will just send Rover out to pick up the now fallen package..."who's a good dogie, who's a good dogie?!!" Texas dog stands up on hind legs, pulls out a six-shooter, plugs ownwe in ass...."who's a good human, who's a good human?!!". Wife comes out of the house, "who's a good dogie, who's a good dogie?!!".

• Given the high level of gun ownership in USA won't people just shoot them down then steal the delivery?

  High level of gun ownership does not equate to high levels of competence in gun use. Most US gun nuts struggle to hit even a stationary target at anything except the closest of ranges never mind a moving target and that's not me talking, that's me quoting several of my American gun-owning friends who put some ambition into being good at using the guns. A whole lot of US gun nuts are also blissfully unaware of the fact that what goes up, must come down and that bullets that miss don't just come to a screeching halt in mid air and drop to the ground, they keep going and hit stuff you weren't aiming at.

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    Hopefully most of them will use shotguns, which are the least dangerous gun to fire into the air, at least if loaded with bird shot. And that seems the logical load for drones.

    Most US gun owners have inadequate range time period. It's not cheap. It's also not even easy to find a rifle range in most places, though handgun ranges are everywhere. And when you do, many if not most private gun ranges require NRA membership, because the NRA provides range insurance to members.

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      I sometimes correspond with a few US based guy enthusiasts who are pretty strict on safety. They tell me that there are some ranges they just don't go to due to these ranges begin full of muppets that seem to be blissfully ignorant of even the basics of gun safety. They prefer the ranges run by an old retired soldier that yells at people for safety violations. As for range insurance, I'm surprised that is not included in your household insurance?!? That begin said, I'm theorising that these drones will prob

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    Plus, if you shoot it down the package will come crashing to the ground at terminal velocity. Maybe with a bullet hole in it.

    I expect these things have cameras all over them too.

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  This is in Texas so multiply the number by five or six.

  I'm not sure how many of those are shotguns though. Drones will be hard to hit with handguns.

  Birdshot or buckshot? Maybe alternate them when you load.

• Re: Airway robbery

  Probably not worth years in jail for some $20 made in china crap.

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  Shall we rerun Sheryl Crow: Wouldn't wanna be like you?

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  Of course they haven't thought through all of the potential issues.

  This drone stuff is a product of the "Move Fast and Break Stuff" generation.