Slashdot Mirror
Giant Chinese Desert Mystery Structure Solved
Velcroman1 writes "Slashdotters read Monday about strange symbols in the Gobi Desert recently imaged and indexed by Google Maps. Alien landing zones? Some military thingy? Bizarre art project? Nope. The grids of zigzagging white lines seen in two of the images — the strangest of the various desert structures — are spy satellite calibration targets, according to one NASA scientist."
Free satellite calibration provided over China
Doesn't explain why some of the structures have heavy bomb damage.
Assuming no foreign power has been bombing China- I can't fathom why China would bomb their own calibration units.
(unless it was to test what would happen- before an enemy did it to them)
Could just be for training in photo/radar interpretation for damage assessment, etc. Seems reasonable to set up a few "known" scenarios so you can train the people (or software) that will be dealing with the actual intelligence product. Probably helpful to see the results of a few known explosions when you are trying to determine how big a bomb France dropped on Libya that one time (actually, France didn't drop any ordnance on Libya; they merely surrendered it from altitude).
Who wants some Wang?!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Thats what they want you to think. No one can stop me from imagining the most paranoid delusional scenario. It is a free country and I have the freedom to be fearful of future, gays, the 99% hippies, the mexicans. I will not be pacified, I will not be ameliorated, I will not be persuaded from using words like ameliorated, It is my time, It is my mind, and I'm gonna blow it on the most trivial stuff.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
An old friend of mine told a story of developing fake fighter jets for the Airforce. Lightweight, easily deployed, looks like a plane from 1000 feet or farther away, and must withstand winds of up to 50 knots "from any direction." Thought being, three guys in a truck could drive to an existing airfield and "deploy" a squadron of jets there in a matter of an hour or less.
The fun part came with the review by the brass... "Very impressive solution with the lightweight canvas and all, but what about the wind requirement?" "Yes, sir, General, these decoys have been tested to withstand 60 knot gusts and 50 knot continuous winds for over an hour from all sides." General looks like he's found a gotcha and says: "But what about from a 50 knot wind from underneath? The requirements say "from any direction."?"
Are you sure they are Chinese bombs? Perhaps they are UFO crash landings?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Just got off the phone with him, he says you're full of shit and also that your mom says "Hi."
Srsly u guys. U guys, srsly.