Drones

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GIThruster
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Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Re: Drones

Post by GIThruster »

Diogenes wrote:I fear we shall see much more electronically governed nanny-state oversight of our behavior.
That is necessarily a requirement of high air traffic. I don't think anyone believes the flying cars will be human directed. There may be overrides, but people will not generally be free to direct their carriages by flying them manually. What we are seeing right now with self-driving cars is the precursor to flying cars, and we will need to relinquish some control as there is just no way to have flying cars with pilot controls and Islamo-terrorists on the same planet. That's a no-can-do.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Tom Ligon
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Re: Drones

Post by Tom Ligon »

Diogenes wrote:
Tom Ligon wrote: They could not to a demonstration flight because the thing knows good and well that it is at an airport and it won't fly there.


This is the thing I find most disquieting about your comment. I fear we shall see much more electronically governed nanny-state oversight of our behavior.


Behold our new silicon praetorian guards.
So far as I know, this was not a government requirement. There was a micro-quadrotor being flown in the same booth, and a local model club was flying helicopters and an F104 jet model (under tower control). None of the serious camera platform quadrotor makers want any part of people flying these things in the flight paths of airliners. Their target market is responsible users, and they'll sell more to that group if they can get rules passed to allow commercial use of them. The fewer reports of idiots hovering on approach paths, the easier it will be to get favorable rules.

It turns out the rock star hurt by the quadrotor had attempted to grab it out of the air so he could turn it around and give the audience a shot of his POV. It was being operated by the concert organizers. Sounds to me like he should have had a Go-Pro with a wireless connection if he wanted that shot.

Diogenes
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Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Re: Drones

Post by Diogenes »

Tom Ligon wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
Tom Ligon wrote: They could not to a demonstration flight because the thing knows good and well that it is at an airport and it won't fly there.


This is the thing I find most disquieting about your comment. I fear we shall see much more electronically governed nanny-state oversight of our behavior.


Behold our new silicon praetorian guards.

So far as I know, this was not a government requirement.

You say that like it makes a difference as to the result. What need have we of government directed electronic stasi, when companies embracing rushing to embrace modern day fascism are all too willing to act as the government's stooge?


Did you note how google used the power of their data crunching systems to assist Barack the Stupid in getting elected? Have you not notice how they and others brought their power to bear on Indiana and Arkansas because they dared enact laws which conflict with officially sanctioned morality?


The difference between what is government and what is private industry is now blurring greatly. Forward thinking businesses are perfectly willing to toady for the New National Socialism which they imagine is sweeping old ideas away.


When the Automobile Industry voluntarily installs mileage and tracking devices in all their equipment, do you think it's going to make any difference that the government did not mandate this? Washington state, I think, is even contemplating using on board monitoring systems in vehicles to charge appropriate taxes for every mile driven.


I know this is really a side track of the primary topic being discussed here, but I can't help noting how many ominous things all lead in the same direction. Our future chains won't be slave collars. That's old technology. Our new chains will be electronic minders. They will be "virtual" chains.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
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Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Re: Drones

Post by Diogenes »

GIThruster wrote:
Diogenes wrote:I fear we shall see much more electronically governed nanny-state oversight of our behavior.
That is necessarily a requirement of high air traffic. I don't think anyone believes the flying cars will be human directed. There may be overrides, but people will not generally be free to direct their carriages by flying them manually. What we are seeing right now with self-driving cars is the precursor to flying cars, and we will need to relinquish some control as there is just no way to have flying cars with pilot controls and Islamo-terrorists on the same planet. That's a no-can-do.


It is my opinion that the Islamic religion is incompatible with the foundations of Western civilization, and therefore I have no interest in any system which accommodates Islam in our society. It has failure built into it.


But I don't see the point of conflating one problem with another. That Islamics can never be trusted with large amounts of power is irrelevant to the point that neither should we allow the control of such power to be concentrated in any one group of hands, and most especially not that of the Government.


We are moving in a direction where dissent is not only dangerous, but worse; Impossible. Our society is increasingly becoming a STASI wet dream.


This is the junction at which this topic intersects my other thread topic; Skynet is Coming. I will once more point out that my visualization of "Skynet" has nothing to do with computers/robots taking over the world, It has to do with oligarchs using computers/robots to guarantee their control over the rest of the population.


We move more in that direction with each passing year. In that direction there be monsters. We are already catching glimpses of them.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

hanelyp
Posts: 2261
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:50 pm

Re: Drones

Post by hanelyp »

Diogenes wrote:This is the junction at which this topic intersects my other thread topic; Skynet is Coming. I will once more point out that my visualization of "Skynet" has nothing to do with computers/robots taking over the world, It has to do with oligarchs using computers/robots to guarantee their control over the rest of the population.
In such a world people with serious computer skills will be on the front line. He who understands "skynet" well enough to evade, locally blind, or subvert it is an elite soldier.
The daylight is uncomfortably bright for eyes so long in the dark.

Tom Ligon
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Re: Drones

Post by Tom Ligon »

GIThruster wrote:
hanelyp wrote:I've seen videos suggesting it's not so easy, unless you have a LOT of bullets to throw at it like a shotgun.
I'm sure anyone authorized to blast drones out of the sky would choose a shotgun.

BTW, I am not suggesting all drones be regulated. I think just as we regulate the airspace around the White House for general aviation traffic, we should regulate the lower down airspace used by these toys such that we don't have them crashing into people's lawns, be they government officials or anyone else. And there need to be laws to protect people's privacy. The bikini clad women scampering around the pool in my back yard have not given their consent to be filmed by the twelve year-old next door, and should not be subject to that. There's a fence for a reason. Drones that fly or peer over the fence are deliberately violating my privacy.
I'm digging up this old thread because of a video I just ran into on Linked-In. You can now buy 12-ga shotgun shells firing small weighted nets, specifically to take down small snooping multirotors. They turn out to be one of the most cost-effective countermeasures. I thought the video might be amusing to all.

In the interim, ISIS has been using modified hobby grade foamies and quadrotors since this thread was active.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlGdPrhRvBA

paperburn1
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Location: Third rock from the sun.

Re: Drones

Post by paperburn1 »

The shadow has gone dark, RQ-7B is finally fully retired after its last mission during the rim of pacific exercise.
trainer was pulled a few months back. we might have one or two people on this form that would be interested in knowing that.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

Tom Ligon
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Re: Drones

Post by Tom Ligon »

paperburn1 wrote:The shadow has gone dark, RQ-7B is finally fully retired after its last mission during the rim of pacific exercise.
trainer was pulled a few months back. we might have one or two people on this form that would be interested in knowing that.
Heh, I expect they can no longer get processors to keep the control systems running. My company built the brains and I calibrated them. They were not bad in their time but gyro and accelerometer improvements have advanced by leaps and bounds since then, and the processors were ... adequate ... but out of production. Control system design in these things is a moving target.

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