ne of the earliest posts on Ratchet Up was about men hunting naked women with paint ball guns: “It's a new form of adult entertainment, and men are paying thousands of dollars to shoot naked women with paint ball guns...”I've done this three times,“ says Nicole, one of the three women allowing themselves to be shot at. ”I've done this seven times,“ says Skyler, another woman participating.” Quite an auspicious start, aye?
Well, Bambi turned out to be an elaborate hoax that snookered even CNN. So I am a little skeptical when it comes to the idea of hunting via the internet. On the other hand, the notion of “tele-robotics” isn't new and the practice of extending our visual-haptic senses via video has become common. Doctors do it. Video gamers do it. And so do artists.
“Hunters soon may be able to sit at their computers and blast away at animals on a Texas ranch via the Internet, a prospect that has state wildlife officials up in arms. A controversial Web site already offers target practice with a .22 caliber rifle and could soon let hunters shoot at deer, antelope and wild pigs, site creator John Underwood said on Tuesday. [...] Underwood, an estimator for a San Antonio, Texas auto body shop, has invested $10,000 to build a platform for a rifle and camera that can be remotely aimed on his 330-acre (133-hectare) southwest Texas ranch by anyone on the Internet anywhere in the world.
The idea came last year while viewing another Web site on which cameras posted in the wild are used to snap photos of animals.”We were looking at a beautiful white-tail buck and my friend said 'If you just had a gun for that.' A little light bulb went off in my head,“ he said.
Berger expressed reservations about remote control hunting, but noted that humans have always adopted new technologies to hunt. ”First it was rocks and clubs, then we sharpened it and put it on a stick. Then there was the bow and arrow, black powder, smokeless power and optics,“ Berger said. ”Maybe this is the next technological step out there.“ Underwood, 39, said he will offer animal hunting as soon as he gets a fast Internet connection to his remote ranch that will enable hunters to aim the rifle quickly at passing animals.”
[Reuters via Boing Boing]
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