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Army To Launch Spy Blimp Over Maryland
FarnsworthG writes: A multi-billion-dollar Army project will soon be able to track nearly everything within 340 miles when an 80-yard-long blimp is hoisted into the air over Maryland. Way to be subtle, guys. From the article: "Technically considered aerostats, since they are tethered to mooring stations, these lighter-than-air vehicles will hover at a height of 10,000 feet just off Interstate 95, about 45 miles northeast of Washington, D.C., and about 20 miles from Baltimore. That means they can watch what’s happening from North Carolina to Boston, or an area the size of Texas."
You can't tell me that thing doesn't look like it has a scrotum.
I guess you missed 1980, when the first one went into service in the Florida Keys. Today they're all along the southern border and the Caribbean...this is just the first time one has been stationed farther north.
Aerostat -- a lighter than air craft that gains its lift through the use of a buoyant gas
Balloon -- an unpowered aerostat, which remains aloft or floats due to its buoyancy
Moored/Tethered Balloon -- a balloon that is restrained by a cable attached to the ground or a vehicle and so cannot float freely
Airship or Dirigible -- a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft which can navigate through the air under its own power
Blimp -- an airship without an internal structural framework or a keel
Rigid Airship -- a type of airship (or dirigible) in which the envelope is supported by an internal framework
Zeppelin -- a type of rigid airship named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
I am sick and tired of people using improper terminology to refer to aerostats. The proper term for the subject of this article is a "moored balloon" or "tethered balloon." All definitions above are from Wikipedia. You're welcome. Now get off my lawn, because a zeppelin will be landing on it shortly.
Technically considered aerostats, since they are tethered to mooring stations, these lighter-than-air vehicles will hover at a height of 10,000 feet
What do you make a 10,000ft tether out of, and what are the dangers? Presumably it's going to limit air traffic in the area, and will the angle and direction of the tether will vary depending on wind strength and direction?
What would happen if the tension provided by the balloon's lift was removed, for whatever reason?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
...for news of this coastal radar surveillance system to find its way onto /.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
How convenient, right at flight level of commercial jets.
This is the very bottom of the airspace used by commercial jets so it's not a problem. Below 10,000 feet you have possible uncontrolled aircraft operating VFR without communications equipment to talk to ATC. Above 10,000, you have to have a minimum set of equipment and be talking to ATC.
Commercial jets won't be bothered at all. Civil aviation likely won't either, except that there will be a new bit of restricted airspace they will now need to avoid or fly around, from the ground to 10,000 feet. Likely this airspace is already restricted as a MOA, so it won't be anything new.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I drove past it Sunday. It is located at Cudjoe Key and was due to be shut down in 2013, but found funding and it currently still in operation.
I share your outrage and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
There will be no danger of privacy violations because they said so.
No one in those fields has ever lied to the public before.
husband: I wonder what my wife wants for christmas
booming ominous sky voice: SHE WANTS YOU TO DECRYPT YOUR HAAAARD DRIVE.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Soon Big Brother will have these everywhere.
This will get abused. This will get expanded in scope. This will be used by the spy agencies to do massive, warrantless surveillance. The government will claim they're allowed to monitor everything because terrorists, kiddie fiddlers, and copyright. Despite what they say, I assume this has as much capability as they can cram into it.
This is just more crap in the ever growing ubiquitous surveillance state, and yet more ways they'll find to make sure Big Brother has his boot firmly on our necks.
*sigh* There isn't enough tinfoil in the world for this to be spun in a way that isn't terrifying.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
What has to be remembered here is whatever they publicly tell us it does, secretly it does a shit load more, and will be used in ways they claim it won't be.
Mark my words, before long it will come out that they can track your car from the moment you leave your house. And it will be able to simultaneously do it with a lot of cars. And this information will abused by spy agencies. And some government lawyer in front of a secret court will argue that they need this and that it needs to remain a secret.
What they'll be able to tell about you incidentally and with just "the metadata" will scare the shit out of you. What they can do when they're specifically looking for you will make Enemy of the State look like amateur hour.
There is simply no way they wouldn't at this point, because this stuff has developed its own intertia.
Now, where the hell did I put my Guy Fawkes mask?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You mean commercial jets fly at 16,000 feet below sea level? Isn't that reeeally dangerous?!?
Fat Albert was used for drug interdiction. It bears responsibility for helping turn the '80s into the "Cocaine Decade" in the U.S. because it became much more difficult to import the the heavy and bulky drug marijuana into the U.S. through Florida. Instead, those involved in boot-legging drugs into the country switched to a lighter, more compact drug -- cocaine. This quickly led to the development of crack cocaine and the rest is history. As a kid growing up in the Keys back then, the cultural change this brought with it was immensely obvious.
I remember when Fat Albert, tethered in Cudjoe Key, broke free from its mooring. Jets were scrambled and shot it down.
It is also recently responsible for a deadly general aviation accident, when a Cessna 182 hit its mooring line.
Fat Albert is also used for US propaganda directed at the Cuban population (TV Marti). It was supposed to be decommissioned last year. I don't know if it is still there. You could see it from pretty much anywhere in the lower Florida Keys.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I know the Army's getting tired of losing to Navy every year, but launching a spy blimp on the Naval Academy is just getting ridiculous...
You know very little about the English court systems. They were actually several courts in competition with one another, and common law was used because it was least influenced by the special interests and even incorporated (gasp!) professional jurors. That's why it had to be taken over by the government. The Scots lived for 1000 years with no central government. The 'wild west' of the U.S. was essentially stateless and was actually one of the most peaceful regions in the history of the U.S. All of the core assumptions in your argument are wrong, and of particular note is your unwillingness to address how common law applied in the U. S. worked very strongly to protect individuals from pollution while the government pollution laws have worked to protect polluters from individuals.
As long as some entities have a higher capacity to absorb temporary setbacks than others, they can trade on this ability like any other good. But I suppose that doesn't make as good a soundbite.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
why didn't hash win out, or for that matter, heroin, or synthetic opiates active in the lower microgram range?
Economics. Cocaine was available in the U.S. for a long time and never had the market share that it had until the 1980s. It wasn't until the cost of marijuana became too high to transport and purchase that the switch to cocaine happened. Hash and heroin were equally expensive. Hash also requires marijuana to produce. At the same time Fat Albert was flying, the DEA was busy spraying marijuana fields, reducing crop yields and driving up the price of hash.
I am no expert, but my sense is that people gravitate towards the cheapest drug that will "do the trick" without getting in the way of a normal life. Alcohol, the official drug of the United States, doesn't do it for all of us. LSD is fairly inexpensive, but it requires a lot more free time than many of us have.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
You know very little about the English court systems.
More than you do, apparently.
They were actually several courts in competition with one another, and common law was used because it was least influenced by the special interests and even incorporated (gasp!) professional jurors. That's why it had to be taken over by the government.
It was created by the government, or at least the king. The professionals of the court were employed by the king (Henry II started this off). I'm sorry if this doesn't fit the liberal anarchist narrative you've built for yourself, but history is clear on this. The Wikipedia entry seems to match pretty closely what the book I was using when teaching the subject in university says....
The Scots lived for 1000 years with no central government.
Erm... the entire history of Scotland up to the union with England was one of a hereditary monarchy. If you mean no democratic government, that's a different thing entirely and irrelevant to your point. Even though the king held sovereign power, like most medieaval monarchs, he held parliament in his court, from the 13th century at the latest. If the Lordship of the Isles sometimes went against the king, that doesn't imply there was no central government, just that it wasn't 100% effective. Some consider the Lordship of the Isles as effectively a second "kingdom" within Scotland -- a second state with its own effective government under the "Mòd" (parliament) that MacDonald of the Isles would call with the lesser clan chiefs.
The 'wild west' of the U.S. was essentially stateless and was actually one of the most peaceful regions in the history of the U.S.
And what is the biggest hangover of frontier law in modern US law today? Plea bargaining. Buying testimony with a "get out of jail free" card.
Besides, there was law in the "wild west". There was a state. There were sheriffs, and judges, and marshals. I fail to see your point.
All of the core assumptions in your argument are wrong, and of particular note is your unwillingness to address how common law applied in the U. S. worked very strongly to protect individuals from pollution while the government pollution laws have worked to protect polluters from individuals.
Well, before restating that you'll have to actually present some facts to support your ridiculous notion of a "government-less" Scotland, and to deny the accepted wisdom of the Platagenet kings' common law courts.
As for pollution... well, all that proves is the system is corrupt. All systems can be corrupt, stated or stateless.
Now, tell me this: without a state, how would a legal system work?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'