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A Power Outage In Silicon Valley Was Caused By A Drone Crash (mercurynews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the San Jose Mercury News:
A drone crashed into a high-voltage wire Thursday night, causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage and knocking out power to roughly 1,600 people for about two hours, police said... "The FAA has rules and regulations in place to prevent this exact type of incident from happening," said Mountain View police spokeswoman Katie Nelson. "We simply ask that people comply with the rules and that they operate drones safely and sensibly."
The town's city hall was without power -- along with the rest of the 1,600 homes -- prompting a Google software engineer to tweet that "drones are fun until someone flies one into high-voltage power lines." They added later that "apparently the owner 'fled in a white hatchback', which is the least dignified way that someone can flee, I think."
The town's city hall was without power -- along with the rest of the 1,600 homes -- prompting a Google software engineer to tweet that "drones are fun until someone flies one into high-voltage power lines." They added later that "apparently the owner 'fled in a white hatchback', which is the least dignified way that someone can flee, I think."
Respect is earned, not thrown into the back of a white hatchback and hauled off to somewhere people don't know where you got it from.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
I'll bite. I have a drone for the same reason as I own an assault rifle: for fun (the rifle is strictly for the range). And that most definitely is a good enough reason. Citizens shouldn't have to justify why they need or even just want drones (or guns); the onus is on the state to come up with reasons why we shouldn't have them. Now if the state wants to regulate these things because of problems, that's fine. Require a license. Require registration. Whatever. But a ban should be the last option, and should require both extremely strong reasons for a ban and proof that a ban is effective and the only effective measure. If you want to take these things from the thousands of responsible operators because of a single irresponsible asshat, then lets start banning knifes and cars too.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
No, it's in a tank. Just ask the Italian army.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Not all ranges are indoors... do you know what you're talking about?
Over here, semi-auto civilian versions of military weapons are often called "assault rifles" as well. As long as they look scary enough (that criterium actually appeared in a few EU memos)
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I thought I'd shed some details I witnessed as it happened. I live on Hope St, which is about 1.5 miles from from Polaris Ave. This is what I saw:
1. Incident happened at 20:14 PDT (UTC-0700),
2. Effects were: immediate loss of power, ~0.5 second delay, restoration of power, ~0.5 second delay, restoration of power, ~1-2 second delay, brown-out (as in incandescent lights at half brightness) for ~2-3 full seconds, restoration of power. My UPSes kicked on during this event. Black-outs are one thing, but a brown-out is serious and dangerous. I wonder what the input AC voltage was at the time, same with the waveform. Probably not pretty,
3. For many in Mountain View, this impacted Comcast service for about 1.5 hours. Comcast's nodes have in-line equipment (on utility poles or underground (varies per block/area)) which are powered directly off of PG&E wiring on the same utility pole (or underground). Some of the equipment is battery-backed, some is not; and those which *are*, many of the batteries do not hold a charge any longer (i.e. have been neglected). No idea if power conditioning equipment is used. In this case, I have a feeling a piece of equipment fried/failed due to item #2,
4. Restoration of Comcast service was at 21:34 PDT. Comcast appears to have routed around the failed equipment (at the cable network level); my signal levels were substantially different after the workaround was put in place,
5. Further Comcast repair was done the following day (2017/06/09) at roughly 04:58 PDT and lasted until 05:04. Signal loss was seen during this time; my guess is network/maintenance reverted the workaround from several hours prior. Signal levels were restored to normal values after this.
About drones in general: in the past 3-4 weeks, I've seen several of these being operated *at night* within my local area. There's no way to easily identify who or where the operator is, but noticing the drone is easiest due to sound -- the best analogy is to that of a swarm of bees, except slightly higher in octave. The first time I heard this, I thought "why are bees swarming at night? Wait a minute, what's that thing with blinking red LEDs in the sky? Drones, sigh. Why at night?!?!"
Unless there is a way to track the owners of these things when - not if - they do serious damage, we're pretty much fucked in terms of holding anyone truly accountable.
I'm pointing out that (see above, I was right) the poster does NOT own an assault rifle. Owning an assault rifle (in the USA, where the drone story is based) requires a special tax stamp and around $70,000 minimum. They are no longer legal to manufacture or import for civilian use and therefore the supply is severely restricted. I found it highly unlikely a poster here takes a rifle worth a small fortune out to the range, and as it turns out I was right. He's verified this already, above.
Flying these things around other people and their property without liability insurance is pretty foolish. It leads you to doing things like running away when an accident occurs and making everything much worse for yourself.
That's actually the definition of an assault rifle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Assault Rifle By U.S. Army definition, a selective-fire rifle chambered for a cartridge of intermediate power. If applied to any semi-automatic firearm regardless of its cosmetic similarity to a true assault rifle, the term is incorrect." - https://www.nraila.org/about/g...
You should stop while you're way behind
I was too young at the time to notice, but anyone know if there was this kind of "lets-ban-all-evil-things!" reaction when remote control cars first became available to average consumers?
Is this a natural reaction to something new, or is there really a never before seen level of danger with tiny unmanned drones in the skies above us?
An AR-15 is not an assault weapon. The term 'assault rifle' originally referred to a battle rifle that fires fully automatically but is lightweight. The AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle that looks like an particular assault rifle (the M16) but is not itself an assault rifle.
The use of the term 'assault weapon' applied to the AR-15 seems to have followed an arc from "assault-type rifle" (based on its appearance but admitting that it wasn't actually an assault rifle), to leaving off the "-type" but adding on "weapon" in order to avoid the argument that it isn't an assault *rifle*. This seems like a rather disingenuous ploy to confuse the public.
If you want to argue that people shouldn't own rifles that shoot centerfire rifle cartridges, or shouldn't own rifles that exceed a certain level of muzzle energy or just muzzle velocity, then we can have that argument, and we'll include all available firearms that have those capabilities. But to get all hot and bothered about the appearance of the firearm seems pointless to me. The Clinton Crime Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act included a provision to ban certain types of firearms that have come to be called "assault weapons". The ban also included a provision to track the use of these weapons for crimes. It is my understanding that the sunset provision for the ban was not blocked in part because no significant use of these weapons in crimes was found.
As for drones, and as far as "ordinary people" are concerned, I'm not sure the many people using drones for useful purposes would agree with your cavalier assessment that they don't need them. I have a friend with a drone business who provides a service to local farmers to assess the conditions of their fields using the drone. This saves the farmers a lot of time while providing them with a much more comprehensive view of their fields than they could achieve otherwise.
I'm not thrilled with some of the annoying things people do with drones any more than I'm thrilled about how some people use ATVs, personal watercraft, motorcycles, weed whackers, blowers, and other such devices, but they do have useful purposes, and many many people use them carefully and within legal limits. Let's enforce existing laws against the misuse of technology, whether its firearms or drones, but let's not go around making things illegal without evidence that they are a significant problem.
Been flying R/C for 30 years
So you've been flying since a time where drones were very different to what they are now. Let me catch you up with what has happened in the last 29 years: Drones are now up down left right forward backwards controls with no skill required.
You never catch R/C people flying their stuff around power lines
Sorry but horseshit. Drones hitting power lines are nothing new. The R/C crowd has had idiots since the R/C crowd existed. The only difference is there's more people in total now that the price and the required skillset has come down.
Just because your life is free of the fear from random gun violence does not mean everyone else is so fortunate. Your argument is based solely on your social privilege, which is why your analogies are so blindingly stupid. You just insulted everyone who has to face gun violence on a daily bases and you obviously are implying that they have no right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
Why is Snark Required?
The 1994-2004 so called "Assault Weapons Ban" and several similar current state laws define "Assault Weapons" by a number of means including in some cases "certain specific features". That is not the same and should not be conflated with an Assault Rifle, which the US Army and other military organizations have a strict functional definition of:
"Assault Rifle By U.S. Army definition, a selective-fire rifle chambered for a cartridge of intermediate power. If applied to any semi-automatic firearm regardless of its cosmetic similarity to a true assault rifle, the term is incorrect." - https://www.nraila.org/about/g...
If I want to be pedantic, both weapons (I'm pretty sure) also qualify for the title of "assault rifle."
To keep it simple, and short, I have an M-14 and a Chinese made AK-47, made in 1968. I have posted pics of both. Depending on which definitions they're using, they are either "assault weapons" or "assault rifles."
The only time they (usually) get taken out is when I take them to a "machine-gun shoot." It used to be open to the public, but insurance kinda stopped that. We still hold it and all proceeds go to the DAV. We no longer invite the public, via radio ads. Those who know, and want to show up, do show up. We still donate about the same amount. We just no longer open it up to the public, so to speak.
(It's held down in Starks, as our home in Emden has dried up.)
And yeah, it's pretty much the only time either of mine come out. I also bring two M1s and our favorite shooter is a guy we have to "steal" from the VA. He's 92 and was in WWII, in the Pacific. One, or more, of us will go to the Geriatrics Unit and claim we're family. We sign him out for the day and he gets an M1 to play with - sometimes he gets several and, more than once, we've asked him to repair one.
I'm pretty sure this makes me a horrible person. So, I'd like to apologize for shooting up your children. I'd like to say sorry for encouraging your mentally ill to buy firearms. I'm also sorry that I can't be there to defend everyone. You might ask why I do the above, and why I invest in that - and it does cost some money - and the only answer I can give you was that I served in the Marines - pictures available on request.
(I've been away for a bit, so I'm okay with proving myself again. Picture available if you want. Or just trust me, I've got no reason to lie to you - impressing you means nothing to me.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
From your article looks like a loss of power for a few seconds.
Here down under we have possums that use the power lines as highways. Every so often one gets fried, trips the breakers for a few seconds. But no way a possum could shut down the high voltage transmission lines, it would just be vaporized.
And I reckon the story is a beat up, because a possum is much heavier than a plastic drone with maybe a few grams of metal in it.
I did once hit transmission lines with a Glider cable. I was driving the winch, glider blew off course and dropped the cables on the lines. Huge and spectacular bang. But no real damage to the transmission. Might have tripped the breakers for a few seconds but we thought it best not to enquire. A small bit of cable was left dangling from the lines, but nobody would volunteer to clear it.
That cable was about 6mm think, MUCH more conductor than even the largest drone. (Fortunately, one drivers a winch from inside a metal cage.)
A *spell* checker won't check your *grammar*, nippledick.
WOOSH!
A *spelt* checker is probably like an inspector at a grain factory.
Spelt is the British variation of spelled.
Is *woosh* [sic] the sound of intelligence leaving your brain?
That's your sense of humor being expelled from your ass.