again, reading the comments on CNBC? I gotta stop reading the comments. it just shows me how low and divided and nasty the public has become.
USUALLY on BoingBoing, there is at least a commonality, we all read this for a reason.
Yes, technology is cool - Drones can be fun.
. Sadly, Amazon doesnt sell common sense.
Christ, what an asshole!
Damn it. This is why we can’t have nice things.
I’m not sure bacteria that has been happily living in near-boiling water for millions of years is going to give a crap about some extra goop in the water. Obviously you want to punish the offender for breaking the rules, but I’m pretty sure as long as it remains an isolated incident there won’t be any long term impact to the landmark.
But on the other hand I’m just an internet poster, not a biologist or geologist. What do I know. 
Um, I read the comments and there’s nothing especially nasty about them at all. Basically they’re variants on what most people would say: Golly, what a dope.
I wonder why you feel a need to misrepresent a comment thread for a whole other website on this comment thread.
All those pretty colors in Yellowstone are made by dissolved minerals in the hot water. The drone will make a bit of the geyser just a bit more colorful after it dissolves in the hot water.
“Park Official” isn’t necessarily going to turn out to be any sort of scientist, either. Sounds like an officious comment meant to reserve the rights of the Parks Service to charge the guy with a plethora of crimes is anything resembling melted plastic bubbles up.
Yeah, it was a stupid thing to do, but can anyone explain why a drone might more badly damage the geyser more than any of the other myriad of things that have probably dropped from the sky into this geyser in the past several thousand(?) of years…?
I guess I just don’t understand the science of geysers. I grew up very near Niagara Falls and if someone crashed a drone into it, it might chip a rock or get stuck and re-direct the flow of the water, which I suppose is “damage” but still doesn’t detract from what the Falls is…
The moron who crashed this one has not been prosecuted.
Why not?
To anyone that thinks that there is no problem with a bit of plastic being dropped there I have two words: battery chemicals.
With that particular environment who knows what can destroy the balance and turn the whole thing grey.
I’m pretty sure the concern over the pool is not contaminants, it’s about the drone blocking off the water source. These pools are usually fed from a single opening in the rocks below, so anything that blocks that will kill the pool. Pools and geysers in Yellowstone have been destroyed from people tossing coins and other stuff into them.
Not so bad, actually. The materials are some mostly inert polymers, a few drops of organic solvent for the electrolyte, some lithium ions, carbon cathode, and lithium cobalt dioxide as anode. Neither is especially toxic.
The mechanical blockade mentioned by @Starshine is a bigger concern. I looked it up and found a list of damaged or destroyed geysers.
http://www.wyojones.com/destroye.htm
And if the guy had gotten great footage the BB headline would gush over the awesome footage and decry the National Parks ban on drones…
Drone’s-eye view of fireworks goes bonkers viral, spawns internet freakout
Ok.
It is still a stupid thing to do and exactly why people are forbidden to take this kind of gadgets into parks.
Leave it as you found it so other people can appreciate the place.
god fucking damn it!
The official reason is annoying the nesting animals, or so.
With the advent of smaller and smaller drones, this will all go moot; what is a noisy quad today is a somewhat overgrown hornet of tomorrow.
Yep, blockage is really the problem here. One place where metal content is an issue is in cave pools, where just copper pennies can kill everything living.
