Very similar to the Catholic Church and the same child abuse issues. In almost all cases, the church worries about itself more than the victims. It acts to minimize bad publicity by moving offenders on, bribing victims to remain quite and generally hiding the facts. Only when they are "outed" in the press do they issue a sham "mea culpa" and hand over some money. In the majority of cases, the concerns are about their image and not at all about the actual children being abused.
You're probably right that clouds will interfere with the direct light beam. Also, I understand the power issues but feel they might be soluble using a ground-based light source and a space-based mirror. But if we can get enough light in pointing the right direction, wouldn't it illuminate the clouds which would act as a diffuser - a bit like a whole cloud lighting up when lighting occurs internally. I'm not saying we need the power of a lightning bolt - just that the light illuminating the cloud might still be sufficiently noticeable.
I don't remember mentioning earthquakes at all. You detect earthquakes by noticing the room moving. Now if you really meant Tsunami (i.e. a catastrophic event that can be detected early enough for action to be taken) then you're right, the "final mile" will still need some one person who sees the warning running around and warning the sleepers.
No, because the amount of energy, in the form of light, would be immense. You're talking at least 10 watts per square meter, much more during the daytime. Tsunamis can affect hundreds of miles of coastline.
By my impromptu math, you'd need at least a gigawatt of power to light up that kind of area. So a medium-size nuclear reactor in the sky.
How about, instead, we just use these devices that transmit sound and vision via lower-frequency light, aka radio and television? Cheap transistor radios are much, MUCH cheaper than launching a reactor into the sky.
Hi people - didn't think there would be so many responses to my original posting - I especially like the Shark idea as there are probably many unemployed examples of the Wall St variety that could be pressed into service. I understand the power issues about illuminating a large area - but my idea was to scan only the 100m or so of coastal shoreline that would be directly affected by the tsunami. Also the scanning means you are only illuminating a very small area at once - the perception would be of a bright (but not blinding!) colored flash - say 200mS repeating every 15sec or so. So power would be reduced considerably. Now if the power is STILL a problem, then all we need is a ground-based light source and a steerable parabolic mirror in space - very little power-requirements up there. Also, I'm really targeting this idea at places that don't have cell-phone coverage - or any technical infrastructure to speak of. The idea is that people can be communicated to without ANY requirement (except having to see the sky) on their part.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback
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Very similar to the Catholic Church and the same child abuse issues. In almost all cases, the church worries about itself more than the victims. It acts to minimize bad publicity by moving offenders on, bribing victims to remain quite and generally hiding the facts. Only when they are "outed" in the press do they issue a sham "mea culpa" and hand over some money. In the majority of cases, the concerns are about their image and not at all about the actual children being abused.
You're probably right that clouds will interfere with the direct light beam. Also, I understand the power issues but feel they might be soluble using a ground-based light source and a space-based mirror. But if we can get enough light in pointing the right direction, wouldn't it illuminate the clouds which would act as a diffuser - a bit like a whole cloud lighting up when lighting occurs internally. I'm not saying we need the power of a lightning bolt - just that the light illuminating the cloud might still be sufficiently noticeable.
I don't remember mentioning earthquakes at all. You detect earthquakes by noticing the room moving. Now if you really meant Tsunami (i.e. a catastrophic event that can be detected early enough for action to be taken) then you're right, the "final mile" will still need some one person who sees the warning running around and warning the sleepers.
No, because the amount of energy, in the form of light, would be immense. You're talking at least 10 watts per square meter, much more during the daytime. Tsunamis can affect hundreds of miles of coastline.
By my impromptu math, you'd need at least a gigawatt of power to light up that kind of area. So a medium-size nuclear reactor in the sky.
How about, instead, we just use these devices that transmit sound and vision via lower-frequency light, aka radio and television? Cheap transistor radios are much, MUCH cheaper than launching a reactor into the sky.
Hi people - didn't think there would be so many responses to my original posting - I especially like the Shark idea as there are probably many unemployed examples of the Wall St variety that could be pressed into service. I understand the power issues about illuminating a large area - but my idea was to scan only the 100m or so of coastal shoreline that would be directly affected by the tsunami. Also the scanning means you are only illuminating a very small area at once - the perception would be of a bright (but not blinding!) colored flash - say 200mS repeating every 15sec or so. So power would be reduced considerably. Now if the power is STILL a problem, then all we need is a ground-based light source and a steerable parabolic mirror in space - very little power-requirements up there. Also, I'm really targeting this idea at places that don't have cell-phone coverage - or any technical infrastructure to speak of. The idea is that people can be communicated to without ANY requirement (except having to see the sky) on their part. Anyway, thanks for the feedback