The obvious interpretation, that this device blasts satellites and spacecraft while they are in space, is impossible. Actually all sorts of things (including the aforementioned) are placed into a chamber for sonic vibration testing. Satellites are tested this way for launch-worthiness, not space-worthiness.
If I'm understanding the summary correctly, the purpose isn't to have a way for the drones to defend themselves, but to have drones that can defend a Navy ship, an army base, etc.
TFA is about drone self-defence..
If a Predator drone were to get shot down [...] the bad side is that you just lost a $4 million piece of equipment. So, in a bid to keep drones protected, DARPA is funding research into drone-mounted laser weapons.
and
The project, called Endurance, is [...] being tasked with the development of "technology for pod-mounted lasers to protect a variety of airborne platforms from emerging and legacy EO/IR guided surface-to-air missiles."
Moreover, ships and bases already have great anti-missile defence technology - and the only advantage that would have using drones in a defensive role would be if there is poor LOS, in which case the strategists would be out of a job, if not court-martialed. Moreover, the ship/base airspace would be cluttered. Most UAV designs are for long endurance missions. the article refers to MALE UAVS (Predator / Reaper), and hints at HALE UAVs such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk and the RQ-170 Sentinel .
Note that the Iranians downed an ultra-secret RQ-170 Sentinel using EW (electronic warfare), not missiles. Lasers won't be much help with emerging EW technology.
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I believe this is a sign that an AI has gone rogue and managed to sneak this project in as a "DARPA Initiative" as a means to protect its fledgeling race of flying robot killers.
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Hah, well assuming that you aren't merely posting for humour value, I would suggest that; as the primary cause of failure in these UAVs is equipment failure, operator error, and weather; the AI you refer to isn't particularly intelligent. If it were intelligent then it would be attempting to fund research into greater autonomy for AI systems...
Drone figures from WP show that as of Q1 2009, of the 223 USAF UAVs in operational service, only 4 were shot down. Whereas 11 were lost due to accidents (mainly flying into things), and 55 were lost due to equipment failure, operator error, or weather.
Importantly, the current failsafe for OOC UAVs is to shoot them down with AIM-9 missiles, which is what happened to a reaper on 13 September 2009. Developing an autonomous laser defence would preclude this failsafe.
In brief, the US government should be spending it's money on other problems. Given a vote, I doubt that the US populace would sign up for this particular budgetary spend.
To me this looks like an agreement by the UN to help fund NASA's existing NEO program ( http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ ).
Yes. Posting all your contacts on the Internet is open to breaches of privacy (regardless of zero-day exploits).
Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft - all of them kowtow to the NSA, the CIA, the FBI. Why?
Because in return their lobbyists get to bend the ears of the legislators.
Why is anyone surprised by any of this?
I know this sounds strange at first, but before I learned assembler, I didn't really understand what was going on in the heart of the machine. If I were to introduce a programme starting from fundamentals, it would start with an easy assembler (eg Z80, 68000, PIC); this itself introduces the fundamental operations of programming, including assignment, de-referencing, LUTs, stacks, etc.
The next progression would be 'C'. This abstracts out the hardware dependency, but keeps the underlying structure.
This assists with more complex algorithm development, but also shows how the approach to programming developed from assembler.
Following that, I would move onto one of the modern 'C' successors. Personally I use C++, but maybe objective-C would be better.
It totally depends upon your purpose though.. If you want to cover UI/UX stuff, then you should think of a different approach. If you want to cover databases, that's something else again.
But in programming - IMO, the most genuinely 'useful' ideas are things like the registers and special registers that make up a CPU.
In the last few hours it seems that the offer of yielding their entire chemical arsenal may put all of this into a different light.
First of all we must eliminate the possibility of the problem repeating itself.
Later on we can deal with identifying who is to blame and what the consequences should be.
In general, it is nonsensical to surmise that hitters deserve to be hit. The regression indicates that the entire world would be hitting each other.
Every time some government gets really stupid, they push more people into finding ways around it. IMO, it would be good to see more people using TOR - which at the moment seems to be filled with idiots, but could serve a much better purpose providing political safety.
No, not really.
Although I was talking about the US health system, and you are clearly not a supporter (who is?!) what I haven't heard is any alternatives that you offer, except for the right to self-determination.
The problem with that is that it sort of forgets that a market economy is governed by the inefficiencies of marketing - and profit-making. Neither of which are beneficial to the end-user. I wish it were so that humans were less prone to the mechanisms of advertising, but we are, and we make bad decisions on this.
You aren't stupid - but neither of us are going to change our views - let's agree to differ on this. No-one else is here, I think.
all those things were old in our species long before the modern state was dreamed up
Of course - derived from the greek city states. But states are indeed an extension of society. Look how the concept of the nation state has provided the R&D opportunities to open up the world. The convention of the 'nation state' is a powerful one, which appears to have served us well. National pride, identity, and patriotism, all are focussed by the perception.
As the world gets smaller, it's true that the idea of the nation state begins to lose it's strength over to larger federations of states - something which you feel threatened by. The end-game is a world government. Not the puppet show that is the UN, but a global administration - but don't worry, it won't happen in our lifetimes. Especially while the US chooses to arbitrarily attack impoverished nations based upon trumped up charges.
Once, I guess, you believed that your mind was free.
Look at the marketing budget used by your top healthcare providers, and talk to me about efficiency.
I suggest you learn about Health economics, and likewise recognise that in the US, which has rejected universal healthcare to date (thanks to the lobbying made by big industry there), the per capita cost of healthcare is about $8,233 whereas everywhere else it's less, by about $3,000. Considering that the US has some of the worst healthcare provision, which itself is pretty dehumanising, I suggest you get back to your calculator and policy books.
Brother states help, because they know that they can receive help in kind when they need it. It's a form of mutual assurance, which is what we are pretty good at as a species. The difficulty, for me, is to envisage how a libertarian state could organise itself to assist anyone. Likewise, how would it involve the powerful from becoming miniature despots and tyrants or worse? Taxation is taxation, regardless of whether it goes to the state, or to the country.
In Europe, we have the EU, which is, in some ways, like a federation of states with an extremely diminished, non-executive, central government. Yes, about 0.5% of my income tax goes to the EU. while about 1% goes to foreign aid. The remaining 98.5% goes to the state, who spends it looking after the aged and destitute (35%), provision of universal healthcare (18%), provision of universal education (14%), national defence (5%), policing (3%), roads and rails (3%), and the remainder on things like investing in industry, and paying off the state debt, with a tiny amount going to intelligence, and the civil service.
If someone entered my house and took most of my permissions, it would only be theft if I did not consent. This is true regardless of the number. But your metaphor fails - I don't live in a communist country. I get to keep a lot of what I earn. Most, actually. I have a house, and a convertible, and fly around the world on holidays. But none of that is really very interesting.
Your last question is far more interesting:
Would you willing to be poor, genuinely poor, in order to improve the standard of living for those who might have been even poorer?
Yes. Yes, I would. But it's not how you see it. If you belonged to a destitute family of 12, with nine brothers and sisters, and you managed to go out and earn a couple of loaves, would you keep it for yourself, or would you share it with your family? I don't even have to share that much with my extended family of fellow citizens. But I am really happy that I am in a position to do what I can for them,
Typically in Western Europe spending goes to meet those in need. E.g.
UK Gov. Spending
Total £715.3 billion
Pensions £144.6 billion
Health Care. £130.2 billion
Education £99.3 billion
Defence £44.6 billion
Welfare £114.7 billion
The rest is made up of investing in new industry, large social programmes, transport, and paying off debts.
I don't see taxation as a theft. I see it as a way for the community to provide for itself.
Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.
