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Radio Controlled Spy Plane
AltGrendel writes: "The US Air Force is sending a radio controlled spy plane on a test flight from Califonina to Australia. Details from Yahoo are here. I like the bit about the early flight termination due to a bad command, maybe someone will hack the control signals and fly it to their home?"
will it develop a sense of self preservation and crash-land in China?
Yes, but remember that the Democratic official in Palm Beach County approved the design of the "butterfly ballot" that supposedly caused so much confusion.
Whether or not the confusion was obvious beforehand or if it could have been prevented is academic. However, it is evident by now that the ballot did confuse a large number of voters, affecting the outcome of the election. The point here is that we allowed several accidents, errors, and just plain dirty tricks to decide our election and the fact of the matter is that no one is quite sure just who won. Both sides need to face statistical facts: when an election is that close, it's a tie. Florida's votes should have been split or thrown out entirely.
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Despite the "war on drugs", it seems that our nations secret security forces still enjoy a bong hit of their own.
dudes...you know what would be awesome??? Remember when we used to, like, fly rc airplanes? Can you imagine making a spy plane out of one of those?
(Gurgles)Dude, is that shit laced? Your ideas are always so crazy!
(Gurgles)Yeah, that's what you said about fixing the Florida election...now back to my spyplane...we can run it all off a nine volt battery!
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Look Ma, no hands! It is not a "remote" spy plane, it flies itself. That is what makes this unique. Anyone can build a remote spy plane by mounting a camera on a plane or something.
One reason it is robotic is presumably that with no puny human inside, it can fly faster and at higher attitude without being loaded down with life support system, crew spaces, etc. More room for spy gears and fuels.
Also according to the article it seems there is some kind of basic image recognition software so that it can identify difference type of targets (eg sedan vs tuck). Possible use? Follow some targets over high-risk area? Circle around certain area to look for activates, like 24hr border patrol?
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Codeala - Just another mindless drone
Northrop has built five Global Hawks so far. One crashed in 1999 when it accidentally received a test signal ordering it to terminate its flight by spiraling into the ground. Two more are being built, with further production to begin this fall.
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maybe someone will hack the control signals and fly it to their home?"
So in the future the chinese won't need to crash their fighter jets to get ahold of american spy plane - they'll just hire a few radio geeks. Now that's progress.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
Mostly true, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's entirely true.
Firstly, through their own criminal corruption and stupidity, they except the travesty of democracy that was the election, and end up with the candidate that lost.
Yep, we got the candidate that lost and he is also proving very obtuse about his lack of a mandate. But a lot of us are very pissed off and I'm pretty sure Dubya is gonna be a one-term prez, just like his dad.
Then, their new president, a man who is renowned for being insanely stupid decides to throw bombs at Iraq to deflect growing concerns about his mental capabilities and lack of foreign policy.
Noticed that, did you? I was wondering if anyone else did.
And the American people do nothing.
Ummmmm... it's obvious you don't live here because a lot of people are up in arms. But it doesn't get reported because, bzzzt, the global media (including those based outside of the US) are mostly owned by the very people who benefit from our stolen election. Why don't you see what these folks have to say about it?
The economy takes a huge nosedive because faith and trust in the country is plummeting.
It didn't help that Greenspan cringed when dubya patted him on the back.
Star Wars is reinstated to "protect" this foolish president and his foolish people.
bzzzt, wrong. Star wars is reinstated to "protect" the pocketbooks of some of the folks who benefitted from our stolen election, in this case the aerospace industry. Nobody seriously thinks Star Wars can protect us from anything military because quite a few of us have enough brains to realize you could just ship the bombs over here via parcel post.
Then a spy plane (a plane used to SPY on possible targets and threats in foreign countries) crashes into a Chinese plane while SPYING on Cina, a country that is know to be hostile toward Americans and who's huge growing strength and might is not something you want to fuck with.
bzzzzt, wrong. You must have missed that part about how our plane was flying straight and level on autopilot when the hot-dogging Chinese pilot crashed into it.
The Americans then proceed to handle the situation as badly as possible, insisting on NOT apologising, and rattling sabres at the Chinese because they feel that their national honour is at stake.
Actually, one of Dubya's rare moments of actual backbone. They should have apologized to us. And they should give us the goddamn plane back right now.
(News: You have no national honour left. We laugh at you while feeling pity.)
Fine, we will take back all the things we have given to the world and build a wall around the country so we won't bother you. We can start with this computer network you're using to bash us -- you do have two tin cans and some string so you'll have a fallback when it's gone?
And you still pay this man, and his criminally corrupt aids and coworkers, and you defend him and his xenophobic policies.
Not sure where you're going with this chumly. He's in office, so he gets paid, and a lot of us are very vocal about not liking it.
Have fun with your recession Americans - this is one financial crisis that you have engineered yourselves, and this time you truly deserve it.
It's been in the works for at least a decade. Hell, I'm looking forward to it. I got my house in the last recession and I'm sure I'll be able to get a good deal on a beemer once a few more twentysomething snotnoses get their reality check.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]