I'd rather "spend" my tax money to be used as kindling than to be used to help these people survive.

Forget the myth of someone who's just down and out, and needs a little help to get back on their feet. Those kinds of homeless don't stay homeless for long.

The ones who are out there month after month, year after year, are worthless. They will never get off the streets so long as they can keep taking the handouts from enablers like you.

Being too kind can be cruel.

Candyman

GadgetPlay

However, I think it would be near impossible to draw any data along political lines, since the lines are more climate based rather then anything else. Add in that larger cities tend to be blue, and it would be damn near impossible to ascertain anything from political lines.

hypereric

GadgetPlay

Elect George LeRoy Tyrebiter. He never lies, and he's always right.

GadgetPlay

So add in supersoaker. Or a Daisy BB gun .. not the CO2 or pump-action air type... too powerful. The spring loaded type.

All this because I tried to help the guy out. A pa-sickie on all the commenters who think homeless always means someone down on their luck. They need to lay-off and work a soup-line for at least a few weeks and discover the different sub-cultures that exist under the media's term of "homeless".

hypereric

I know you can't lock the doors, but can't you put alarms on them, at least at night? It's really hard to take a dump when there's an alarm blaring at you. I know this.

BasicBlack

Nylo

So far, the only thing that has worked without his retaliation is pure fear, which happened after my neighbor was drunk and caught him in the hallway (and, of course, you know what happened then... I don't need to spell it out). But that only lasted about a month.

We thought about piping the barney song over and over again through a wireless speaker (12 foot ceilings)... the only time he comes into the hallway is usually after midnight, and leaves before dawn. Anyway, that still leaves the risk of retaliation.

That's why I fully support this guy's efforts (if he is dealing with the Earl type of homeless addicts). I would need a mini-one for the hallway and the regular size for the back courtyard/alley area.

Ah to have been born back when truly destitute people were helped by relatives and townspeople and addicts that didn't give a shit were either "taken care of" by a po-po and then sent packin', or you just loaded a shotgun shell with rock salt and gave them an experience they would never forget.

hypereric

How about loud music from a speaker that's too high for him to reach? Block off heating vents in the hallway? Piercing remote activated alarm (they make them for stopping dogs from barking? Mirrors? Start a rumor that he's child molester (not recommended; just brainstorming)? Pawn him off on a soft-hearted friend? Start quoting bible verses and trying to save his immortal soul every time you see him? Remote activated mister behind a heating vent?

BasicBlack

ANoel

Funny thing is, the only person downtown that has successfully dealt with Earl is a guy who owns a clothing store. He threatened him with water, and when Earl wouldn't leave, he dumped ice cold water on his head. Of course, that store owner doesn't live and work in the same place like I do... so he doesn't have to worry about slashed tires, keyed car, poison laid out in back for my pets, or my plants getting killed at night.

Intolerant? Of Earl, you betcha.

Ignorant? Yep, that's me too. I can't find a solution to him.

So far, we have thought of using a video camera, but the cops said he had to physically be there when they come (and that still entails retaliation). So next, me and my neighbor thought about 'trapping' him in the hallway. But that would be kidnapping. Oh, and the door of the hallway cannot be locked because of our fire codes. Whole downtown burnt down about 150 years ago, so any building on the main street that has a hallway to the rear cannot be locked.

BTW, I had already told you in my last reply to you we have "called the police multiple times" ... which led to retaliation. So please be careful who you are calling ignorant... your twice-demonstrated lack of reading comprehension is... ummmm... interesting.

So, now what? Again, it's real easy to slam someone's decision in dealing with this genre of homeless people, but you have yet to even propose a solution except offering one that I had already said did not and will not work.

So again, WWJD?

hypereric

I've often hoped for this, but then I was undone.

BasicBlack

Treat them like people. Are they behaving like assholes? Call the cops. Call them again. Again.

Eventually they'll move on.

JesusDeSaad

johnnyabnormal

"so, according to the people who applaud this article, if the target bums are assholes, they deserve to get sprayed by a robot. During Winter."

Yep. That about sums it up.

If they are still hanging around puking and shitting and pissing on your property after you have politely asked them to leave multiple times, screamed at them to leave multiple times and called the police multiple times, it's time for action.

I am interested. What would Jesus do (you, not the guy a few millenia ago)?

Because, as I said in a previous comment, Earl is back. So tell me, O wise one, how do I get rid of him?

It's quite easy to slam someone for their decision on how to deal with the problem, so how would YOU deal with it?

hypereric

1. Why people don't beat the crap out of the robot when they see it. Or shoot it.

2. How this is useful if it requires line-of-sight control via the RC radio. You would need a video link to enable full "safe distance" remote control from inside the bar.

Is this just a rolling loudspeaker that runs 20 feet in front of the controller? Lame.

bandit

Apparently the answer is a bullhorn, a supersoaker, and an addiction to publicity.

BasicBlack

Here in New York, we have a way of dealing with them: we ignore the problem. It's wonderfully effective.

OMG! Ponies!

I do know of one guy who was a vietnam vet that turned to alcohol to escape PTSD. His resultant alcoholism put him out on the street.

In my experiences, and I am by no means a full time worker with the homeless, they tend to be untrustworthy as to their history until they feel safe with you.

No offense, but the guy shooting smack that you see might be a case of someone escaping a mental illness like PTSD. It takes awhile to get to the bottom of it.

OTOH, once they are addicted, there is usually nothing you can do for them. A night or two in jail for sh!tting on your doorstep isn't going to dry them out. It takes a felony around these parts to get them into jail (which once they go into withdrawals, *then* they get transfered to rehab) long enough for drying out. But until then, expect sh!t and p!ss in your hallway, slashed tires, stuff stolen and on and on when you piss them off.

And for the record, Earl has returned after my neighbor just about beat the sh!t out of him for the sh!t and p!ss in the hallway, which means I'm back to square one: how to get a bum away with pissing him off and then incurring his wrath.

hypereric

I presume because then they (the wet bum assholes) will have to leave law abiding citizens alone by leaving to change into some warm dry clothes and find some heated place.

You're totally right, I can't judge you because your city has a lot of bums and I don't know what it's like.

No wait...

JesusDeSaad

America NEEDS a new leader. Rufus Terrill.
Wait, he already is the President?

ANoel

Or the homeless person can stay away from the property being protected by Bumbot...it's their choice really. I don't think the robot is patrolling the streets and going into their cardboard boxes and spraying them...pretty sure it is stationed on one property and sprays people loitering and trespassing. Up to them if they want to stay away from the protected premises.

Saboth

Everybody else, if you haven't walked past the front entrance of the homeless shelter at Peacthree and Pine, you're not allowed to comment.

dlab

92BuickLeSabre

I let a homeless teenager live in my garage for months till I found a permanent place for him to live complete with counseling, and a vocational program. Many guys off the street went through this program and ended up in college.

Anyway, this kid had no interest in any of it and after a few weeks decided he preferred the streets. What thanks did I get for my trouble, but a knife attack.

fightcopyright

I'd say it's the other way around, most of the time. I've never met a sober homeless person in San Francisco. The only variety I ever see are the ones shooting heroin between their toes.

johnnyabnormal

ANoel

All the sanctimonious comments about how bad this guy is for doing this to a homeless person(s), which proves in itself that said posters have never dealt with the homeless or they would know the various sub-cultures of the term 'homeless'. There is a certain sub-culture, like Earl in my first comment, that do not want help, that calling the police on has no effect other then a one to three day holiday and pissing him off, who will then will rip you off (even after you gave them food, coffee and a place to sleep), and care more about the rock or smack then they do you or the Law, so you get slashed tires, shit/piss in your hallway, poisoned pets, obscenities.

Come'on Keyboard Commando's of Moral Superioty (henceforth known as KCMS), step away from your desk and start learning and trying to deal with the problem of homelessness. It's a hell of alot more complicated then the 30 second soundbites you hear from policiticans and newscasts.

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: the shitting and pissing and ripping-off and doing heavy drugs is one sub-culture of the term "homeless". I hate having to add this disclaimer, but a reply or two has shown me that not everyone is concerned enough about the problem to learn and differentiate between the different sub-cultures. But they sure like to show their "concern" (from the keyboard, anyway).

hypereric

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

Josh_Geyer

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

Final

I suggest you take a course in 'reading comprehension'. None of what you imply I said did my comment actually contain. Quite the contrary, actually.

But this is to be expected from someone who is on his high horse and probably has never "got his feet wet" in trying to deal with the problem of homeless by choice, homeless by poverty, homeless by substance abuse, homeless by mental problems (or any combination of the above).

Your jumping to conclusions to show your moral superiority over me is also quite evident in the fact that you could not take two seconds with Google and produce an article, with accompanying chart, of states with the highest homeless populations.

So that you do not have to climb down off your off high horse and get your feet wet with the problem, I will supply you with one:

[www.usatoday.com]

Notice which state is ranked number 2 in homeless population?

I suggest you stop watching re-runs of Miami Vice, ignore the ads for Disney World, Busch Gardens, SeaWorld and the likesuch and delve into the problem at hand.

I stand by my statement, "I wouldn't make a sweeping assumption about this guy's method until I knew what type of 'bums' he was dealing with" (emphasis added to help your lack of comprehension). And notice the quotes around bums, an obvious implication that all are not truly 'bums'.

hypereric

whootowl

They can't be all that bad. They haven't beaten the living shit out of him, have they?

BasicBlack

Go two more blocks down the road (thankfully away from my place) and you'll encounter the Peachtree Pine Shelter. This is by all accounts the worst-run homeless shelter in the city (click here and here) - even the city has revoked its funding, but it still runs from private donations. Their clients aren't the "we're all two paychecks away from homeless" types - those folks get into better shelters that actually screen their clients for drugs, require job training, etc. Peachtree Pine takes in all the folks that the other shelters kick out, and many of them loiter in the immediate area (along with the dealers they buy their crack from) at night. This has created something of a no-man's-land between Midtown and Downtown, where no one seems to be interested in living or developing.

Oh yeah, and if you didn't notice from my links, the "Bum Hugger" woman in the clip is Anita Beatty, the shelter's director. She's not too popular around these parts :)

O'Terril's happens to be in this area, so I can certainly understand the frustration. Also, don't forget that the bot is not running the bums off from street corners - it's patrolling *his own property* and that of an adjacent child-care center who explicitly requested his help.

There aren't a lot of people other than Ms. Beatty who see a problem with this.

rekoil

On the topics of drug and alcohol abuse, Mitch Hedberg made a surprisingly good point in the phrase "alcoholism is the only disease people get mad at you for having".

Canadian Impostor

Problem is, they aren't just homeless. If they went to live under an underpass and didn't bother anyone, no one would care. When they are pissing in your garage, stealing your mail, harassing you daily on your way to take out the trash, dumping out your trash, shitting in your yard, puking on your sidewalk from cheap wine...they cease being innocent homeless.

Saboth

92BuickLeSabre

This would be a fine name for a bio-waste disposal facility.

BasicBlack

sharmanova

O'Terrill's (I just put the O' on to make it seem cooler, so people think I'm fiery and Irish instead of just another white guy.)

And down the street, I've got Asshole Mcjerkwaddouchebaggery's, which, really, I didn't have to change the name at all."

92BuickLeSabre

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

Go ahead and park your car around Piedmont and Pine and see how long it takes for someone to peer through the windows for anything they can sell. Go ahead and leave your sunglasses on the seat. I dare you.

Go for it, keep a couple of dollars in a pocket and hand them out one at a time... wait about thirty minutes and watch them scurry up to North or Ponce and see how long it takes them to retreat back to Renaissance Park and shoot/snort/drink your money away.

I know more then a dozen people who live in the area that have their cars broken into, and windows in their apartments smashed because of these "people".

Long live the BumBot... too bad a 12 gauge mounted on that thing might topple it over.

The Atlanta Police are some of the slackest cops around. Even if you do call it takes them a hour or more to get there. Now the esteemed Mayor doesn't want people to carry concealed anywhere...

There is a serious problem with Atlanta, and I think the BumBot is a step in the right direction.

ga_celt

it got on Giz Nuff said.

vote Obama

You are correct, sir! If he had been yelling at those folks with a bullhorn and soaking them down with a super soaker, he would have been arrested. But since his actions have been deferred to his "robot", it's perfectly fine.

I particularly like the "security" stencil on the side. It's one of the few feelings it doesn't instill.

BasicBlack

the turd herder... don't you mean the flaming "shits" of death?

Mith

LordZedd

No, scratch that, if you did it to animals there would be Animal Control cops giving you a fine for animal cruelty.

So worse than animals.
Yeah, i totally get your point, you're right because there's a lot of bums in Florida.

*sarcasm*

JesusDeSaad

BasicBlack

blackwand

The second line of defense: the giant buzzsaw firefighting robot from yesterday.

There is no third line.

OMG! Ponies!

Ya'know, I try to help the homeless out the best I can, but allow me a little story:

I had a bum living behind my building. I bought him a "zero-degree" sleeping bag, my neighbors (I live and work downtown) fed him from their restrurant, and when it was too cold, I let him sleep in the hallway outside my office/apartment. Oh yeah, and also take showers.

How was I repaid? Let's see, he asked me to use my cell to call a "relative", which as I stood behind the door turned out to be a rock dealer and that "I" was guaranteeing the $200 deal... then after I told him to get the 'f' out of my building and never come back, he tries to hide a stash of pot in my building, and a neighbor witnessed it (who had already had her tires slashed by him and her car 'keyed' and her elderly mom is called a 'f-ing b!tch' every time she walks by him), so I get to call the cops before she does lest *I* go down for possesion. Which was OK, since it was ditch weed anyway.

Then he starts sleeping in the front hallway, and after we kicked him out repeatedly, he took a sh!t in the front hallway, and several days later, took a p!ss.

911/the police? That is vacation time. The police had done everything but said, "we don't anything to do with him".

I have worked soup lines, had conversations with alot of 'bums', and found that alot of them have underlying mental problems. I have also ran across one fellow that wass completely sane but said "he just didn't want to work'.

I have also ran across the few people and families that were truly homeless. They were provided for almost immediately by the Episcopal church I used to attend (which also ran the 'soup line').

Homeless does not always equal bum, but alot of the time it does. And even in the bum category, alot of them are using alcohol/drugs to escape mental problems.

But until the ones using alcohol/drugs stop using and seek help, or at least seek help to stop using, there is very little you can do for them.

The escape they are using is more important to them then their health, you, me, our possesions, anything.

I wouldn't make a sweeping assumption about this guy's method until I knew what type of 'bums' he was dealing with.

At least in my town, it is a total fallacy that one can be homeless for any extended period of time without one of the church's or non-faith based groups kicking in and helping.

And I live in Central Florida, where the homeless population is way above the national average because of the temps year 'round.

hypereric

strider_mt2k

Very Dalek like. Are we cross posting to IO9?

That being said, this robot is missing something: Flashlight Nipples [gizmodo.com]

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

Look out folks, mechanized order is coming, brought to you by the exact people who should be bringing it: The people that know how to build and operate one. :\

The problem is that there aren't enough of them to simply herd the homeless into the sea.
Let the Dolphins handle 'em.
Little smartasses won't be so happy THEN.

strider_mt2k

geekinky

IrisMR

What happens when one of the homeless, gets a home and then decides to sue
the inventor?

Well I'd call that justice.

MadCrazy

heretik

To be really affective that bot need to be inserting a pineapple up the bums are...... OH hang on I normally pay for that WTF

fastmike

I just bet there are rich assholes out there thinking about sicking the same bot at low-income home owners as well.

JesusDeSaad

Rabid Penguin

I'm like, Bumbot isn't a hero! It's a scooter with a squirt gun! You control it with a remote! There's no way it could find Osama bin Laden unless you were there steering it around! Publicity stunt is right.

It was a great clip. Kudos for posting. Colbert rox.

Gizmog

GadgetPlay

DeadWriter

nojo

Vorin

thechansen

ideaman2020

Then you don't have to pay anyone royalties...

ideaman2020

"I wanted to put a flamethrower on it, but they wouldn't let do that."

It's a good thing the robot doesn't shoot alcohol, or the bums would never leave. But as it is, they fear water.

Rabid Penguin

dink23

...........wtf?

Shockage

johnnyabnormal

demiwashere

Because really I'm just trying to turn a profit, and paying two bums after the fight is just too expensive. Of course, one usually dies, but even paying just the winner is getting too pricey.

So really, what I want to know is would the cost of making that sucker lethal outweigh the benefits of not having to pay bums post-fight?

mhlaxp

daversW