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Microwave Pain Ray Keeps Frost From Killing Crops
An anonymous reader writes "Philip K. Dick's novella Project Plowshare was set in a world where deadly new weapons are 'plowshared' into consumer products. A few years after that book was set, defense giant Raytheon is spinning its raygun-like Active Denial System from a weapon into an agricultural tool to prevent frost from damaging citrus and grape crops."
So now they're going to microwave my food before it's even done growing? That's...nice...
Imagine the fun we could have with one of these on a corn field.
What sequence of moral thoughts goes through their heads?
I'm interested.
("To turns swords into ploughshares" is cynical nonsense, of course - why really? Is it just the money?)
...and most of the former Eastern Europe, they used old T-34 (with turret removed) as tractors in the 1950'ties and 1960'ties.
No, not the usual "In Soviet Russia..."
What are the microwaves going to do to the nitrogen fixing microbes in the soil? What about the worms that keep the soil tilled and fertile? I'm wondering if the vinyard owner is going to wake up next year and find his land unfarmable. Not to mention the question about what happens to other wildlife, or people.
Who is this Frost guy and why do they need a pain ray to stop him from killing crops?
Just arrest him already if he's damaging property. Sheesh...
I don't think greed is an actual issue. I would imagine that there are two distinct major camps of people that work for Raytheon and similar companies. People that feel that they are doing the right work, and people who just don't think about it at all.
Some people who work for these companies (a friend of mine included) genuinely feel that they are doing the right work. They've come to the ethical conclusion that Raytheon and similar companies are doing work that makes them and other people safer. Think 2nd Amendment types who scream about the need to have a personal arsenal of weapons with which to "defend" themselves. Not that I agree with these people, but it's a legitimate perspective.
Then there are people who just don't think. I would say that this is the minority of the people who work in the more intellectual ends of the military industry. You have to remember that half of people are below average, and it doesn't relate just to academic (or cognitive) intelligence. Socioaffective (or emotional and interpersonal) intelligence is also an important mental factor. These people view their work in the same way that all of the rest of us view our work, just something to do between 9am and 5pm every weekday.
Of course, there's variations on the theme, but I'd say that in the end 90% of people in the military industry can be categorised one way or the other.
I might be wrong here - but doesn't the fact that microwaves pass through ice crystals more easily than squishyt fleshy stuff mean they'll cook the oranges and leave them with a light dusting of frost?
"Pain that's too cheap to meter!"
Some such rubbish was spouted about civilian application of nuclear technology (which also started as a weapon).
Or more realistically, how about private & city lands covered in helpful signs like:
"Keep off the grass. Violators may experience discomfort or agony!"
"Keep out. Or else."
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
What I want to know is, how does the frost feel pain, and should we be concerned about humane alternatives?
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
It may shock you to learn but plenty of people are perfectly ok with the idea of developing weapons. They understand that human history is fraught with wars, and that things often go badly for the losers of those wars, sometimes they are completely wiped out even. Thus they are fine with the idea that we ought to have the very best weapons for our own military. They understand that even if the US did give up all armaments, the rest of the world would not.
People work for Raytheon because it is a place where you can do interesting engineering, and they aren't troubled by the fact that it has military applications.
While you can certainly say the world would be a better place if humans stopped fighting, you are naive if you think that Raytheon stopping the development of armaments would lead to that.
Maybe this "Active Denial System" could be deployed on ships to ward off Somalian pirates? I mean, deploy a series of these around the perimeter of the deck of the ship, so the crew doesn't actually need to aim them, just flip a switch. This would create a "ring of pain" around the ship. The crew can be holed up in their safe room.
First Mate: "Captain! There's pirates off the starboard bow!"
Captain: "All hands to the safe room!"
In the safe room . . .
Captain: "Now let me read the instructions. Set power to 1000 W. Cook until pirates have fled. Cooking times will very depending on how tough or tender the pirates are.
Meanwhile, back at the pirate cove . . .
Pirate #1: "How was your pirating today?"
Pirate #2: "Terrible, I am like totally fried . . . "
Unfunny Comedian: "Thank you! Tip the veal, try the waitress . . ."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Each time I thought it said it keeps frost from killing cops. I was starting to wonder if frostbite was the leading cause of police fatalities.
was proposed in a 70's IEEE publication I read while killing time at the computer center help desk as a student.
It was thought at that time that microwaves could be used safely to heat the occupants directly, without raising the
ambient temperature. Apparently this idea did not fly after later scrutiny.
After looking at the body of a dead girl, slaughtered for the crime of going to school, I decided that wasn't happening to my daughters while I'm alive. The idealist bullshit here is nice, and I bought into it until I realized that the consequences would be slavery. Literally. War is a disgusting, brutal thing, but I now know why it's worth it.
you know, bees, birds, ladybugs and other beneficial creatures. And how about soil biology? without healthy dirt, you end up dumping more chemicals on your food to get in to grow (nitrogen, etc). I'm not a PETA nut, hell I love bacon, but just wondering. If people run from that thing, everything in the orchard may too.
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This brings a whole new meaning to "get off my lawn!"
I read Microsoft too. Is it bad I wasn't surprised?
1. I've read The Zap Gun (Dick's novel-length version of Project Plowshare ). The "plowsharing" metaphor is heavily ironic: "plowshared" consumer goods are useless, or purposeless, or trivial, or outright annoying -- e.g. there's a talking ashtray named "Ol' Orville", if memory serves.
2. "Operation Plowshare, better known as Project Plowshare, not to be confused with the anti-nuclear Plowshares Movement, was the overall United States term for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes."
-kgj
Even if that was true (and it's the first time I'd heard it), how do you think it got big enough that it had sufficient market power to abuse its monopoly in that way?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How do you reboot a frozen crop?
Most "beneficial" insects are not active during frost periods - i.e. below freezing or near-freezing with clear night skies.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
why do people work for Raytheon? What sequence of moral thoughts goes through their heads?
Just a few thoughts:
("To turns swords into ploughshares" is cynical nonsense, of course - why really? Is it just the money?)
It's a business so of course it is mostly about money. Many technologies have civilian and military applications. Why not make some cash on the civilian side of the technology too? The social effects can often be bigger on the civilian side as well.
To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a Nazi is just a well-known example of some of the worst in the human race. As the extreme terminator of a range definition whose other end was "Greek Democracy", it sets an appropriate boundary
There's Godwinism and there's False Godwinism.
Greek Democracy... so now you're advocating slavery?
I predict this will have the unintended consequence of tripling crop damage by pests, as the microwaves also help keep them warm and toasty - and hungry - through the winter months. :-)
So, we're about to prevent $800+ million dollars of crop losses. Hey, maybe we can use the food we used to lose for export so we aren't that behind China on the whole export thing. Or, we could always the now slightly greater surplus to feed the poor and hungry.
Typically, frost forms on crops when a cold front comes through - and typically where cold air meets warm air - the atmosphere becomes charged.
Now - it is known that holding a cell phone call in a lightning storm is a really bad idea - because the cell phone is a localized microwave source that can become the origin of a grounding path for lightning.
An Active Denial System antenna array certainly has all the characteristics of generating a localized microwave source with about a ten million times more wattage than a cell phone.
Perhaps, the really interesting question is: Can we use mobile ADS systems to DRIVE tornadoes away from large ground planes like mobile home parks, hi-voltage power lines, and tin-roofed warehouses and farm buildings?
The idea would be to focus an array of ADS beams in a way to disrupt the downdraft side of a cumulus cloud by vaporizing water droplets and perhaps reduce the wind velocity that drives tornadic winds.
If Raytheon can demonstrate even limited control of a tornado using a multi-unit ADS deployment, my bet is that the US insurance companies will be investing heavily to make sure that local national guard units have ten or twenty of the mobile ADS units fully networked and ready to roll by next year's tornado season.
Why? Because simplification of chaos means higher storm wind velocities - and global warming is simplifying weather patterns across the US prairie, midwestern, and southeastern states. An ability to steer tornadoes could save lives and limit property damage - and that is something Raytheon could be proud to deliver.
DarkStarZumaBeachSurfinApocalypseWow
No seriously! There's radiation!
Bibo Ergo Sum.