Something that may be relevant to "encouraging people to go up to   
   landed flying objects". At some point you have to think of your   
   legal liabilities when you build stuff and have people use it, especially   
   if you tell them it's "OK" to use it in certain ways for certain things.   
      
   The Kill Switch   
   ===============   
      
   At one time I was interested in robots. Building robots.   
   I got pretty deep into the tech and built a few kits and experimented.   
   I pulled some strings with contacts and managed to get some   
   contract work building robots.   
      
   The most successful was a "truck bot" with a stable platform on it.   
   The specification for the machine was to safely carry a $30,000   
   camera at high speed through the Australian bush and desert,   
   follow some small running animal like a lizard or rat up to 40 mph,   
   and avoid smashing the camera or hitting a tree.   
   If possible improve the quality of the images by providing extra   
   image stabilisation. At 40 mph they had found radio-controlled cars   
   had been too bumpy to get anything useful. The camera had both   
   electronic and mechanical stabilisation built in, but the bumps   
   running across normal ground -- even sandy desert -- was too much.   
      
   After some experiments I build a big truckbot about 1m x 1m by 1/2m   
   high that could run around at 45 mph. 2 big elec motors to propel it.   
   Battery+P/S  that could give 500W for a short while. :)   
   A simplified stable platform on top (upside down pyramid with   
   pivot around the apex and actuators at each corner). Small car computer   
   (x86 "atom") to run my old BSD version of Unix with vision s/w to control it.   
   Some pre-built learning algorithms to navigate it around simple   
   terrain with bushes and the occasional tree maybe. It had different   
   down-loadable s/w for desert, light bush, thin forest. It could not   
   handle full forest but there isn't much of that where it was going.   
      
   I have a youtube page under my name -- I no longer am active with it much --   
   showing "truckbot" and a few other robot projects from 10-20y back.   
   I went blind a few years back.   
      
   A production company back then eventually used it to make a few nature   
   documentaries. It's possible you have seen footage of camera   
   chasing a lizard or rat and the camera is real steady and didnt hit   
   a tree. That might by Truckboti 1.0. :)   
      
   I know this is a long boring story. But there is a real point.  Here it comes.   
      
   At the time it was fairly standard practice to try to make robots   
   safe around people. Especially if they maybe could move at 40 mph.   
   If something weighing 100 kg hits you at 40 mph you know about it.   
   There were some bad accidents in factories when e.g. "security robots"   
   started chasing people they thought were intruders and ran them over.   
   Can get nasty if they are a company exec.   
      
   So  sometimes it was REQUIRED to have a safety switch clearly mounted   
   on the top of a robot. If it started acting funny anyone nearby   
   could hit the big red button without getting hit by the thing   
   and all power to the robot was immediately cut and it stopped.   
   It was required for some industry robots.  It was required for some   
   robot-fighting situations they had in the UK.  It was required for robot   
   competitions at e.g. CMU.  It was anyway a good idea in general.   
      
   Here comes the point.   
      
   Maybe 2 mn years ago humans suddenly came down from the trees   
   and started exploring. For some reason not fully understood they   
   developed big brains unlike 99.9% of other creatures on the planet.   
   They got so good at planning and understanding what they saw   
   they became the dominant species on the planet. That they knew of, anyway.   
      
   It has been speculated some places this did not happen by pure luck.   
   Some people think "help" was required to build some of the big   
   ancient architecture we see surviving today. Some even speculate   
   maybe the human species had "help" coming down from the trees.   
   We are currently experimenting with genetic engineering and some   
   of the results can be pretty amazing. It seems a very powerful toolbox.   
      
   Now it would seem to be a very good idea when you are building   
   some kind of new species -- stop me if you've heard   
   Rutger Hauer say this in some movie -- you put in a kill switch.   
   Like the kill switch people maybe put on robots today.   
   Sometimes it is even REQUIRED before "authorities" will let the thing   
   out in public.   
      
   In human-built robots sometimes you want the kill switch to be easy   
   to access. So even a kid could hit it, if they need to.   
   But in a new species you probably want the kill switch to be   
   easy to activate for you, even your kids, but you don't want it to keep   
   getting hit by accident. You don't want the new species switching each other   
   off all the time. You don't want them falling down or getting chased   
   by a tigar and switching themselves off. But you want it to be easy to switch   
   off the thing. Just not by accident. There might be some requirement   
   that it should not allow anyone to just switch the things off maliciously.   
   Maybe there is some kind of password or fingerprint recognition security on   
   the kill switch.  It's a balancing act.   
      
   In the UFO folklore there is a concept called "missing time".   
   It's all very mysterious. But some people say all they have to do it   
   *look* as some odd hunk of junk hovering in the sky and they suddenly   
   wake up and its 1 hr later.   
      
   Easy to switch off. But not by accident.   
      
   So, really, I would not be thinking you can go up to some kind of   
   odd craft that just landed in the park down the road as if it was a rock.   
   The wrong kind of people or buggy version of their planetary exporling   
   s/w in that think they might just switch you to "idle mode" and no amount   
   of hardening of your cell phone alert system is going to save you from   
   getting snatched and/or ate.   
      
   These ideas flashed before my eyes one morning.   
      
   I was out in one of the yards on my semi-rural property.   
   That yard has a few nice big trees in it. I sometimes like to sit under them.   
   This early morning I was hoping to see some odd things in the sky.   
   The Greater Melbourne area was locked down for Delta (I think it was).   
   It had been locked down for weeks. It would be locked down for many weeks more.   
   There was no traffic. Melbourne Airport had been closed long back.   
      
   I had been seeing things in the sky at night. Hell. I had been   
   seeing things flying around during the day in the prev 12m, too.   
   Last night nothing much had shown up. So I was trying to see what   
   was happening around 5am.   
      
   The sky was fairly clear. Lots of nice stars. No haze. No moon.   
   I was partly under the Big Tree in the yard. I could see 75% of the sky   
   to my right -- west -- but the tree blocked the view to the east.   
   Directly above me was a line of fairly bright cloud with darker patches --   
   illuminated by street and highway lighting   -- going N/S.   
      
   I had been there 10-15 mins when the usual happened. A bright little dot   
   came from the N (behind me) along the line of clouds, heading south   
   much faster than a satellite should. The speed of a fast passenger jet.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)