Corrupting nature... CoH style.
By
Amanita,
Posted on: 2009-05-29 24:20 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
That's awesome.
A girl I was serious with had a horse that learned, after a bit, that when an alarm went off in the morning...about 15 minutes later she would get feed from a hand.
She started imitating the alarm clock and actually became good enough that she started waking up the hand earlier and earlier for food.
Silly nature.
Magpies are freaky like that. They also like shiny and interesting things, so keep an eye on your drops.
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
Yeah, I like magpies. It's always fun when you find one who's learned to mimic noises that just shouldn't come from a bird. When I was younger, we had a park nearby where a pair of magpies were nesting. One would come by our yard fairly often, and it had the strangest repertoire of sounds. It barked like a dog, it laughed like a kid, and it also whirred like a garage door. Strange.
My story arcs: #2370- Noah Reborn, #18672- The Clockwork War, #31490- Easy Money
Sartre once said, "Hell is other people." What does that make an MMO?
Hehehehe that's so cool.
I wonder if your magpie friend would be willing to learn more if you fed it... 
Thing I've noticed around here, where we dont' have magpies but we do have mockingbirds, is that most of the birds in San Diego proper have "learned" those long complicated car-alarm sounds as their "song". They're losing it a little now, because fewer of those alarms are around. But about 12-15 years ago there were HUGE numbers of those stupid car alarms that ran through 8 or so sounds (whoop whoop whoop wee-ooo wee-ooo braaaaabraaaabraaaabraaa etc). All the birds in the area around the parking garage across the way from my apartment learned it pretty quickly. And pretty soon I hadn't heard a proper, non-alarm sounding song in years. :/
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
I remember my folks had parakeets. They were kept in the same place where my dad would often do his arts and crafts works. One of the tools he has is a small roller that tended to make a distinct squeaking sound. One of the parakeets started mimicking that squeak. It was cute.
Didn't I hear somewhere that birds are starting to mimic cell phone rings in place of their natural calls? Like, that might be one of humankind's everlasting legacies or something.
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Didn't I hear somewhere that birds are starting to mimic cell phone rings in place of their natural calls? Like, that might be one of humankind's everlasting legacies or something.
[/ QUOTE ]Quick! Everyone set Hotel California to your cell ringtone and teach the birds how to sing! 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Lady friend many years ago had a parrot that could do a PERFECT imitation of her telephone's electronic ring.
Unfortunately, I didn't know that when I agreed to housesit one weekend.
When she got back, she asked why I had moved the phone away from the table near the parrot.
"SO I COULD TELL WHICH BLOODY ONE OF THEM WAS RINGING!!!"
That's awesome, it immediately reminded me of this , freaking amazing.
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That's awesome, it immediately reminded me of this , freaking amazing.
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Holy hell that's just incredible.
Goodbye, I guess.
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AH! I was looking for that clip when I heard of this but you scooped me! Drat! Lol.
I remember hearing a bird perfectly imitate the crosswalk-beeping noise. You know, the one they have in place so that blind people know that the crosswalk is open for going across?
Those poor blind people.
The ones in our town used to be the sounds of birds chirping... talk about nucking futs. Now its a guy saying "Cross sign is now one".
Bladerunner, here we come . . .
"Cross now. Cross now. Cross now."
I thought I was going to be so cool with this, but you guys have so much more interesting stories...
I had a friend in school, and she had a parrot in her house out of town. That parrot was apparently kept in the kitchen, and it had learned to imitate the sink pretty much perfectly. "Everything, including the kitchen sink."
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Quoth the magpie... FREEM!
Back when I lived in the country, I swear there were at least three kinds of birds that sounded like alarm clocks. Not so much in the city (late at night I just hear gunshots, hot rods, cop choppers and UFOs), but I do feed spiders to my pet lizard.
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(whoop whoop whoop wee-ooo wee-ooo braaaaabraaaabraaaabraaa etc)
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Sounds like you can imitate them pretty well yourself, that's prefect!
Holy heck, that lyre bird was unreal. Leave it to me to notice not just the freaky sounds coming out of that thing, but its gorgeous tail, which it was fluffing up all over the place. Lovely bird!
A (Golden Gate) Bridge Too Far- arc 299315
Crazy NIMBY's, Railroad robber barons, and kickboxing Engineers, Oh My! Go back in time and join the fight to save a San Francisco icon!
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That's awesome, it immediately reminded me of this , freaking amazing.
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is it sad that the noisese reminded me of R2D2
Volt Sentinel Reference
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but lightning does the work.
this is the cutest I found
it's a bird mimicking a wheel mouse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m2BOz0P0R8
Volt Sentinel Reference
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but lightning does the work.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(whoop whoop whoop wee-ooo wee-ooo braaaaabraaaabraaaabraaa etc)
[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds like you can imitate them pretty well yourself, that's prefect!
[/ QUOTE ]
Oh trust me. With a hospital parking garage directly across the street from my apartment? And one car that literally went off *every single day at the same time*? Yeah. I can do that alarm pretty well thanks.
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
This girl I used to work with had a dalmation and an African gray parrot. They used to come home from work to find their dog dead tired, and couldn't figure out why. So they set up a video camera.
When the doorbell rings, the dog goes crazy and runs around with excitement.
Parrot learns to mimic the doorbell to "play" with the dog.
Doorbell "rings" all day, so dog gets worn out.
Mystery solved.
--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
This happened in a case handled by a friend of mine from back when I worked for the government. As a bit of background, I should point out that American search and seizure law generally permits police to enter dwellings and search things that are in plain view without a warrant if a resident permits them to enter but cannot do so without a warrant if no one has consented to the search.
In this case, a sheriff's deputy arrived a house to serve some papers in an unrelated case. He knocked on the door and was told, "Come in." Just to be sure he'd heard correctly, he announced who he was and was, again, told, "Come in." He entered through the unlocked door. No one was inside, but there, sitting on the table out in plain view, was evidence of a crime (some tax thing, I think). And sitting in a cage nearby was a parrot . . . that had told him to "Come in."
The person who owned the house asked the court to suppress the evidence the deputy saw lying on the table, arguing that no one had consented to the search. The court disagreed and let the government use the evidence, pointing out that a consent to search is valid if the officer reasonably believes it has been given by a resident.
Therefore, just to be safe, people should probably gag their parrots before leaving the house.
"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"
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Hehehehe, yeah and "if you're going to deal in narcotics or illegal activities, don't BUY a parrot"
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
My aunt has a pet parrot that will occasionally mimic select sounds it hears over it's lifetime. One little phrase that the bird will mimic every now and again, the bird had noticed distinct connection between that phrase, a certain item in the house and one of the home's residents.
My aunt's daughter, making her my cousin, had many friends in the little town where she lived. So, often times, someone calling the house phone where she lived was looking specifically for her. My aunt would hear the phone ring, answer it, then realize just whom the phone call was for. This would happen over and over again, sometimes multiple times a day. Eventually, the mother stopped looking for her daughter to give her the phone and stuck with a less strenuous shout, loud enough to reach to the basement where her daughter's room was located. The mother continued the trend, seeing as hardly a phone call would come for her.
But something strange happened one day. I suppose at this moment, we should know at least one of the names of the characters in this story. So let's call the cousin of mine 'Gina'. The phone rang one evening, and as the mother walked to grab the phone, a familiar cry came from farther down the living room. The mother stopped and took a moment to think, Did I just call Gina? No, I couldn't have... The phone is not in my hand. I haven't picked up the phone. I'm not near the phone. The phone is still ringing. I must be going senile. Oh, wait, the phone is still ringing!
She took another step toward the phone and picked it up, but the line was dead. She had waited too long. Someone stretched out her hand to take the phone from her mother; it was Gina. Garnering no response, Gina took the phone for herself and answered, but she too came to the conclusion that the phone was dead. She put the phone back on its little pedestal and walked away, glaring at her mother in a slightly dark way, blaming her mother for what she assumed was a prank.
She had barely made it to the stairs when the phone began ringing again, most likely it was the same person attempting at calling one more time. The mother, having moved a few feet away since the phone had been set down, turned to move toward the phone. Her daughter, Gina, had done the same. But before either of them reached to the phone, just after the first ring, Gina heard her mother calling from behind her. But that couldn't have been right, because her mother was in front of her! Both Gina and her mother turned toward the general direction of the noise, stared at a number of items in the room, then back to the phone.
The mother answered, said hello, and requested the name of the person talking. Once she had her information, she politely asked that person, "Would you be alright with calling again here in about... Oh, thirty seconds?" The caller agreed, no doubt confused having not been given a reason. The mother hung up.
Now, the mother and her spouse stood staring down the length of the living room, counting the away the time for when the phone was to begin ringing again, after exactly thirty seconds had passed. They waited. Both counted to thirty. Then the phone rang. And in the very corner of the living room where the most grand of bird homes resided, "Gina, phone!"
Both stared directly at the source of the noise. It was their pet parrot, Pecker, so used to hearing the mother call for Gina that it began calling for her himself. I assume the sound had stuck with him as interesting and something he wanted to mimic. After all, he was good very good at it.
I still travel to my aunt's house today. Everyone once in awhile, whenever the phone would ring, Pecker the impatient parrot will call for Gina even after the mother stopped. Even after Gina had moved out. I suppose it's his way of letting the house know for certain that someone was calling. Perhaps he was trying to Gina a more physical presence with the family. Or, maybe, it's just entertaining to repeat what most would consider now useless memories. Either way, I still laugh and remember,
"Gina, phone!"
So, it's a nice day out, and I decide to open the windows and patio door in my apartment so it doesn't get overwhelmingly hot. Plus, since my computer is directly adjacent to the door, I get a nice cool breeze and I can look outside. So, I'm on playing CoH, trying to get my Dark/Stone brute to 22 when I notice that every time I hit Smite, there's a noise coming from outside.
I turn to look, and there on my balcony railing, I'm being watched by a magpie. The bird is looking in, watching me play CoH, and mimicking the sounds that my dark melee attacks are making (apparently, the council rifles aren't as interesting.) I tried to grab my video camera to get video of it, but the movement startled the bird away.
So, if one day, you're outside and suddenly you hear Dark Melee sound effects... Yeah, that's my bad.
My story arcs: #2370- Noah Reborn, #18672- The Clockwork War, #31490- Easy Money
Sartre once said, "Hell is other people." What does that make an MMO?