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Back in 2005 I picked Josh Klein's "crow vending machine" as one of my favorite projects from the ITP show... and now a year later it seems to be happening - these birds made off with $4,000... So many questions, who is giving them peanuts, is this based off Josh's work or the other way around, a fake?
Bill is the owner of a company that manufactures and installs car wash systems. Bill installed one of these systems in in Frederick, MD. The issue arose when the buyer complained he was losing significant amounts of money each day. He even accused Bill and his employees of ripping him off.Naturally, Bill proceeded towards investigating the issue. He decided to mount a video camera to see who exactly is stealing all the coins. Imagine his surprise when he saw several birds carrying all the coins in their nest. After following the birds, he discovered its quarters on the top of a car wash and more in a tree, an estimated amount of $4,000.
These are both great stories.
The car wash birds story predates the crow vending machine by at least 3 years, so it may well be the case that the vending machine idea was inspired by the news of the former:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/carwash.asp
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@ISnoop- Good find. I am a SNOPES fan too.
@PT- You know I LOVE this site. Subscibed, but didnt renew yet.
Why is this even posted an MAKE? I followed the link - no MAKE'n going on there. Even the two comments there questioned 'Why?'.
But hey- You know I'm gonna be back anyway- I learn too much here to leave!
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@Volkemon -- josh's ITP project doesn't get more MAKE than MAKE... did you see the site, his work, our past coverage... the TED talk he did after our coverage?
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That's a starling....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starling
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/Sturnus_vulgaris1.jpg
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@PT - Tried his link and got "Sorry, we couldn't find www.wireless.is" from roadrunner/brighthouse. MAKE blew another website's bandwidth?
True, the crow vending machine is a modern urbanite's equal to a Chinese fisherman's Cormorant. Quite clever.
And yeah, maybe the ITP coverage did as much for me as the 'Magic' issue...but I have learned that things may come in handy later. So I check them out.
Now agreed, you have to attract the maximum amount of readers. I enjoy this FREE blog, and subscribed to show my support. I encourage others to do so also. Or someday....
But the use of the old carwash/coin story, without any fact checking even...Below your usual, and you have spoiled us! Guess that's my beef....but thanks, and keep up the good work.
BTW:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Cormorant
That was kind of an obscure reference.....
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The car wash birds are not CROWS; they are STARLINGS!
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I might be very wrong, but my bird book says that it is a Starling, not a crow, with the beak-full of quarters.
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@everyone - it's obvious that the bird isn't a crow (and why i said "birds") -- the point of the post is to show that an art project featured here, then featured at TED which had a maker's project training birds has or had happened in some way. i hope that clears it up.
@Volkemon - thanks for the kind words and for subscribing! one thing i'll say, we don't put stuff here to attract the most readers, we put stuff here because it is interesting and not found anywhere else.
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Now if they could just figure out where the stray socks go in the wash....
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