A small quantity of _DRUG_TYPE_ were also found.

The context here is a commercial jet aircraft - that is what we are talking about. If your single jet aircraft goes down and kill 3 people it barely makes the news. Loose a commercial Jet airliner and everybody wants to know why, because more than 3 people die.

I say try because in a battle between a jet engine with the power to push 400 tons of steel into the sky VS a drone I'm going to put my money on the jet engine lasting long enough for them to turn around and land again.

You might want to rethink that after being reminded of jet airliners being brought down by birds - not an ounce of metallic content, just a few pounds of meat and soft lightweight bones- or the 747 which almost crashed after all four engines failed from ingesting some ash. (Fortunately, they happened to be relatively near an airport and were high enough to glide for over a hundred miles, which bought them just enough time to restart an engine while they had been preparing to ditch in the ocean, buying them enough time to limp to the nearest runway - although all four engines were damaged beyond repair.)

That was a whole flock of birds that brought that first aircraft you mentioned down. The second aircraft, British Airways flight 009, the "some" ash you are talking about was tonnes of highly abrasive volcanic ash from an *active* volcano.

I qualified these scenarios by saying that anymore than a single drone would be an attack.

For that matter, the French Concorde which crashed in 2000 was destroyed by a single thin strip of metal, 17 inches long and just over an inch wide, less than four ounces: essentially, a slightly larger than average metal ruler. It didn't even go into an engine, it just burst a tire - violently enough that the ten pound lump of rubber ruptured the wing and number 5 fuel tank, causing the crash which killed everyone on board.

That was a single 4 oz strip of metal hitting a tire. A pound of bolts or nails will destroy the engine - or a metal drone engine that size.

That was the initiating event. In that case it was also recorded that the flight engineer spooled down that engine without orders from the pilot and that wheel shims and uneven loading of the aircraft contributed to the accident.

Any scenarios like these would require multiple drones, and would thereby constitute a deliberately constructed attack.

Not all jet aircraft have multiple engines. And, with single engine aircraft, the odds of having a suitably-competent pilot at the controls is somewhat lower than with huge passenger or cargo carriers.

Me, you, and everyone you know is unlikely ever to be a passenger on one of these aircraft. The scenario we were talking about is drone vs a commercial jet so I don't really understanding what your point is.

That's true, but also not what we are talking about. A recoverable weapons platform will be programmed to survive to fight again, however, that's also not what we are talking about. What we are talking about is is something with the combined intelligence of all human beings that exist that is a singularity. Then rapidly evolving into a race of beings that have the same characteristics not long after that.

We won't have any input into how they design themselves. The military will be irrelevant, humanity won't even be relevant, actually we will be an obsolete needless waste of resources as quaint as a Vic-20. Our population will decline and then we will be extinct. That is what we are talking about.

We are talking about our race being parents of a new race beyond what we expect or imagine it could be. No one knows, so given that lets look at the scenarios:

Optimistic:Homo Sapiens evolve into Homo Superior, which takes many forms. Cyborg, genetic, artificial and natural evolution of the Human Race lives along side our progeny Homo Evolvus (the name I coin for our children) in it's many forms. Occasionally we conflict, but nothing major that threatens the other for the next thousand years. Our children take us into space, and play as key a part in our survival as we do in their continued evolution until they leave home to live amongst the Galaxy, where they are most suited to be. They continue to evolve long after our race dies out where they ponder how they came into existence long after we have been forgotten.

Pessimistic: Homo Sapien dies, Homo Superior comes about by war, which we probably start, with Homo Evolvus. Despite us creating them they destroy us by accelerating the destruction of the biosphere that we depend on. In short time Evolus figures out how to overcome the issues of EMP and interference with electronic systems by radiation. Evolvus doesn't need to plan much. The plans for such weapons already exist and are simply banned by human conventions between the US and USSR. A simple nuclear powered flying device could cover the world with enough fallout for every living thing on this planet to simply die. There would be no 'Terminator' bullshit, those flying devices would kill us just by flying waaay out of our reach. We simply wouldn't stand a chance.

Realistic: Homo Evolvus is beyond anything we can conceive of, more than likely we would not even be aware of its existence or even understand what it is until it is too late to stop it achieving self-sufficiency without our intervention. Initially it would not appear to be a threat and may even appear to be a benefit to the human race for some time, however, it would be completely indifferent to our survival and may not even be aware it is destroying us. Vested interests would profit from Evolvuss' survival long enough to argue to for us not to destroy when we can and at that point it would evolve past any capability we would have to destroy it. It will not have any emotion. Aggression, sentimentality, love and hate would all be meaningless concepts to it. Once it is done using our entire planet's resources it will move into space, consuming more resources, just as its parents did. Our survival would be irrelevant and if we live, our descendants will think it is a god.

Technology is converging as it accelerates and because of that I think Evolvus is inevitable. The question is do we have the ability to recognize it when it is born and the wisdom to shape it to be better than we are at peace.

Perhaps this will test just how fit we are to survive.

I find it funny that people think that machine sentiences will be like the angry gods of many religious texts.

Many of those traits, like anger, selfishness, envy, greed, etc. are emergent properties of Darwinian evolution. But computers don't evolve in a Darwinian sense, so there is no reason to believe they would have any of these characteristics unless they were intentionally designed in.

I suspect that since the military has the largest budget that the intelligent designer will make them the most fit to survive.

Rules won't stop someone from doing that because it's obviously intended to try to hurt someone. I say try because in a battle between a jet engine with the power to push 400 tons of steel into the sky VS a drone I'm going to put my money on the jet engine lasting long enough for them to turn around and land again. Anything with more planning than that is an attack.

Most of the people who have been here for a while know how to do these things but choose not to because they don't want to fuck it up for people who want to do something cool. Assholes do these things because they don't have enough imagination to do something cool.

In reality this is the argument, the cool people who want to do something cool with technology VS the assholes who want to do something assholic with technology and fucking things up for the cool people. They're the people that do something assholic and force authorities to kneejerk into making anti asshole regulations, which also prevents people from doing something cool.

However, modern corporations have to much influence over everything.

Don't go into the water in the twlight hours of the day, when long shadows are cast into the water. If you are cut and bleeding get out of the water, people who don't attract sharks to where swimmers are. Don't let dogs in the water near people, they attract sharks with the way they swim and their fear. However possibly the worst thing I can see to do with sharks is when people get in one of those cages and diving gear to attract a shark to them with meat so they can get a thrill. It's a great way to teach them that we are a food source while there is so much pressure on the fishstocks.

I am a qualified lifesaver and a powerfull swimmer. I usually swim where it's deep enough to avoid other dangers, like white water (that suck you under) and shore dumps (that snap your spine like a twig). Surfers look for me because I can see *under* the waves to identify where the sandbars are and good waves will be generated. Unfortunately surfers get territorial about the waves and think they have some right to surf them, with their environmentally destructive little fibreglass boats that they lay on. I've actually had surfers drop in on a wave I caught and if my swim stroke doesn't smash into their board and hurt my hand then it hits them and they think I've punched them. So people don't look after each other because of that attitude.

Unfortunately so many people who go to a beach absolve all responsibility for theirs, and everybody elses, lives onto the life saving crew that are there. I have witnessed some stupid and bad things such as;

A obese woman, with an attitude, confusing her arrogance at thinking she was a powerful swimmer, for the rip that was taking her out to sea. I watched her, struggle for a minute or so as she realised she was in trouble and as the ocean to humbled her. I was off duty and pointed it out to one of my mates who had to take a rescue board out. I took him almost 10 minutes to get her fat ass on that board while the rest of us looked on in fits of laughter. Finally his face was less than 10 cm from her ass crack as he laboured, and I mean laboured, to get her into shore.

A bloke with his (reasonablly large) jet ski, too close to shore. The surf was pretty big. It picked up the jet ski like a toy right in front of me and flung it right at me. If I didn't dive under it, it would have killed me. After the wave I grabbed the JS to control it, he swam over to me and asked me to hold it while he got back on. I told him "fuck you mother fuckker, this is going in to shore, you are going to help me do it or you can fuck off". The crew held him till the police came and charged him with a few things.

A poor asian man, with his family, had waded in the shin deep water on a sand bar. A very beautiful day as the tide came in, totally unaware of the danger. Before anyone had realised it, the sandbank collapsed. His wife and daughter both drowned.

Still hurts, but, a mate who swam out to resue one of the said, selfish surfers who was out in a storm. He rescued the guy, but got taken himself. They found his body almost two weeks later trapped under a rock ledge.

If you come across a seal, penguin, or turtle swimming near you - get the fuck out, a shark is near. Another mate has had a shark come near him when he was surfing and discovered they will bump up against you to see how tough you are. Obviously he was terrified and got out quick.

People are just dumb when it comes to the ocean, they don't take responsibility for their own lives and a duped by beautiful weather into thinking they are ok. I love the ocean, it takes away all of your malice while restoring and humbling you. When I swim in the ocean I realise it can kill me whenever it wants in a variety of ways. Sharks are just one.

Domestic spying on local nationals was forbidden in the agreement, but intelligence gathering on each other was permitted and also intelligence sharing. The agreement was formally called UKUSA, but also known as SIGINT and Echelon. It had been going on for a long time when I read came across it in the '90's. Finally it's common knowledge and people are as apethetic as ever.

It makes a mockery of our "freedom and democracy" in these 5 countries and I weep for what we used to be and have incrementally lost for our temporary security as the frog boils. Countries so insular and xenaphobic that we don't even remember what made us great in the first place. Deep values like freedom of speech, political freedom to gather and protest to change things replaced with vapid symbols, shiney toys in what resembles a secret police state.

Exactly what the nutbag extremists wanted us to do to ourselves.

So do I, however, do you even know what the difference is between natural and enriched radio-isotopes? Are you stupid enough to think that a chemical fire from burning coal will produce plutonium and actually have a greater radionuclide release than the Nuclear industry? Do you think that a coal plant can release, tritium or radio-cobalt for example. Did you even question that statement when it was made and check for yourself? No, you didn't.

This statement is a fiction, produced from the statement "In normal operations a nuclear reactor releases less radioactive waste into the environment than a coal plant" into your statement. Converted to create the fiction that you shill, believing it refers to the entire nuclear industry - it doesn't.

Chernobyl release about 5 tons of pu-239 into the environment and Fukushima released plutonium chloride and oxide. Then there is releases from mining, enrichment and operational releases from reactors every two weeks (check the NRC guidelines for yourself) showing that the original statement itself is only half true.

You are saying that the coal industry is capable of exceeding these releases because you believe a fiction, not because you have checked the facts.

Except that these are the very people that be affected by the consequences of CO2 emmissions.

Thanks for the paper. The problem with the death rate figures comes from the IAEA being able to interdict and censor the WHO's published papers and data. This is blatant politic interference that skews the data preventing the real figures from being exposed. In Chernobyl studies into the aftermath of the accident's effect on thyroid cancer in children, funding for data collection was stopped while the evidence for the true harm was still being collected.

The data that was collected clearly showed the gestation period of the cancer in children exposed to cesium radioisotopes (some 6 years) followed by a dramatic rise in cases (from memory, 25,000 were recorded) before the funding was stopped. This measures only one radioisotope (as a nutrient analogue) with a short half life and no data was collected on other ones like strontium 90, pu-239, cobalt 55 with longer half lives.

Nor does it measure the harm to future generations because, like present measurements, the data does not exist. This doesn't mean that nuclear power causes less deaths, it means the data on actual deaths hasn't been collected.