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01-11-2018, 01:46 AM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: News Miscellany
Good gawds, reality in Florida is still weirder than Carl Hiaasen.
Although, given the headline, I was under the impression that monkeys gave a murderer herpes. Which would be very Hiaasen.
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01-11-2018, 06:56 PM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: News Miscellany
Pakistan Says US Is No Longer Its Ally - and It's Bigger Than You Think
Quote:
According to the Wall Street Journal, this recent animosity towards Pakistan has not gone over well. Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said in an interview that the U.S. has failed to behave as an ally, and as a result, Pakistan no longer views it as one.
If anything, Washington’s recent behavior has only pushed Pakistan into the open arms of America’s traditional rivals, China and Iran. China has long been providing financial and economic assistance of its own to Pakistan with plans to expand an economic partnership in the years to come.
China has already pledged to invest $57 billion in Pakistani infrastructure as part of the so-called “Belt and Road” initiative. Just last month, Pakistan announced it was considering a proposal to replace the U.S. dollar with the Chinese yuan for bilateral trade between Pakistan and China.
Following the Trump administration’s recent attacks on Pakistan, Pakistan confirmed that dropping the dollar was no arbitrary threat and immediately replaced the dollar with the Chinese yuan.
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01-11-2018, 08:06 PM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: News Miscellany
Quote:
Dick Eussen thought he had the fire beat. It was stuck on one side of a highway deep in the Australian outback. But it didn’t look set to jump. And then, suddenly, without warning or obvious cause, it did.
Eussen, a veteran firefighter in the Northern Territory, set off after the new flames. He found them, put them out, then looked up into the sky.
What he saw sounds now like something out of a fairy tale or dark myth. A whistling kite, wings spread, held a burning twig in its talons. It flew about 20 metres ahead of Eussen and dropped the ember into the brittle grass.
And the fire kicked off once again.
All told that day, Eussen put out seven new flare-ups, according to a research paper published recently in the Journal of Ethnobiology. All of them, he claims, were caused by the birds and their burning sticks.
What’s more, the paper argues, the birds might well have been doing it on purpose.
Raptors, including the whistling kite, are intentionally spreading grass fires in northern Australia, the paper argues. The reason: to flush out prey and feast.
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Australian birds have weaponized fire
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01-11-2018, 08:49 PM
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Captain #EmbraceTheImpossible
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Sandy, Oregon
Gender: Male
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Re: News Miscellany
__________________
The best way to make America great is to lower the standards!
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01-11-2018, 09:09 PM
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ChuckF's sock
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Join Date: Dec 2016
Gender: Female
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Re: News Miscellany
Alfred Hitchcock would love that article. lol
__________________
#jeSuisLimoncello
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01-11-2018, 09:46 PM
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Safety glasses off, motherfuckers
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Sarasota, FL
Gender: Bender
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Re: News Miscellany
I've long contended that everything in Australia is trying to kill you, and this doesn't do anything to dissuade me from my opinion
__________________
Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
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01-11-2018, 11:06 PM
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Shitpost Sommelier
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Re: News Miscellany
__________________
Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
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01-11-2018, 11:31 PM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: News Miscellany
Belgian activists steal statue of Leopold II.
Can't get a picture to come up but there's pics at the link as well as many French words.
linkie in French
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01-12-2018, 12:36 AM
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Shitpost Sommelier
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Re: News Miscellany
Apparently, Dutch journalists don't just let things go, they back each other up asking the same question over and over.
__________________
Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
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01-12-2018, 03:15 AM
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Projecting my phallogos with long, hard diction
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Dee Cee
Gender: Male
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Re: News Miscellany
Wish our White House press conferences would follow that model more.
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01-12-2018, 11:40 AM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: News Miscellany
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
Apparently, Dutch journalists don't just let things go, they back each other up asking the same question over and over.
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Would be good if they'd do that to our own (extreme right) politicians too, but they get a free pass...
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01-12-2018, 03:34 PM
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Shitpost Sommelier
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Re: News Miscellany
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watser?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
Apparently, Dutch journalists don't just let things go, they back each other up asking the same question over and over.
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Would be good if they'd do that to our own (extreme right) politicians too, but they get a free pass...
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The answer seems clear, trade journalists.
__________________
Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
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01-13-2018, 12:03 AM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: News Miscellany
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watser?
In other miscellaneous news: no war on Iran today:
Quote:
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that President Trump will this week extend relief from nuclear-related economic sanctions on Iran. If it seems like a procedural matter, it is, but it also means in practice that it keeps alive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iran deal is known. Reinstating the sanctions would have but the United States in violation of the agreement. The president must decide every 120 days whether to waive the sanctions
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Trump to Reportedly Keep Iran Nuclear Alive for Now - The Atlantic
Trigger Warning: Huge picture of Trump goes with this article.
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This now turns out to be true, although it did look like Trump was gonna torpedo. It is supposedly the last time though unless it's changed. Which it won't be.
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01-13-2018, 01:23 PM
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This is the title that appears beneath your name on your posts.
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Gender: Male
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Re: News Miscellany
These are the drones in question, which the Russians say are very high tech:
I so want to know if the brain is an Arduino or something as advanced as a Raspberry Pi.
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01-13-2018, 02:04 PM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: News Miscellany
It's the software that they say is high tech.
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01-13-2018, 02:39 PM
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puzzler
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
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Re: News Miscellany
Quote:
Originally Posted by But
I so want to know if the brain is an Arduino or something as advanced as a Raspberry Pi.
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There are some 'autopilots' for planes/drones/other vehicles based on the Arduino Mega 2560 (Atmel Atmega2560 chip) that are perfectly capable of piloting a drone and hitting a target with an accuracy of a few metres. The range is whatever distance the plane/drone can fly before running out of power, so with a plane - especially one with an internal combustion engine - that can be hundreds of kilometers if desired. You can buy the autopilots on eBay complete with the necessary GPS and compass modules for about $50. Look for APM 2.8. You also need a few servos and a radio control system so you can manually pilot the drone/plane for take off/launch before switching into autonomous 'mission' mode and then turning off the R/C transmitter. You can buy a suitable radio control system for about a hundred dollars or so nowadays.
I suppose the software is fairly high tech - it was developed by hobbyists over a period of a few years for controlling drones / model planes / model helicopters / model boats / model cars etc. There are better more accurate "autopilots" available if you're prepared to spend a few hundred dollars - but the APM ones are perfectly adequate.
I think the systems based on Raspberry Pis are potentially more advanced but they're still under development mostly and so not generally as reliable yet as the Arduino based systems.
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01-13-2018, 03:13 PM
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This is the title that appears beneath your name on your posts.
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Gender: Male
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Re: News Miscellany
The "high tech" part is stupid propaganda nonsense, unless they want to imply that the rebels are all complete idiots. There is lots of free software that can do the job, and even if you wanted/needed to roll your own, it's almost trivial with some C programming knowledge. I would buy the "high tech" nonsense if it turned out that there was terrain contour matching based on radar or real time structure-from-motion using camera images or something. Just reading out the GPS sensor and steering servos to fly to some programmed coordinates is a piece of cake.
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01-13-2018, 03:46 PM
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puzzler
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
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Re: News Miscellany
You can buy modules for the Arduino and other systems that use low power radar or sonar to measure the height above ground more accurately than GPS or barometric pressure allows. They only work up to a range of a few metres but are useful when trying to get planes to auto-land.
There are also optical flow sensors (similar to the technology used by optical mice) that allow ground proximity and direction of travel to be monitored when getting close to the ground.
The USA spread the propaganda that its original cruise missiles used terrain recognition and other difficult-to-do stuff, but we now know that they were just dumb blind GPS-steered things - and that technology was perfectly good enough to do the job,
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01-13-2018, 04:57 PM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: News Miscellany
Ok, this is what the Russians are saying:
Quote:
What especially disturbs the Russian analysts – and on this point they are still unable to identify the source – is that the drones were accurately programmed not only to reach the bases, but to hit specific targets that could not be attacked using standard GPS-generated maps or rely on GPS for accurate targeting. The single camera-equipped drone was there to help adjust the final target, indicating a fairly sophisticated command and control capability, something that clearly impressed the Russian General Staff. The drones also were programmed with accurate intelligence that was harmonized with GPS maps.
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Russians asking for help after swarming drone attacks | Asia Times
So it's the intelligence rather than the drones themselves they say was sophisticated, I think.
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01-13-2018, 05:16 PM
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puzzler
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
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Re: News Miscellany
Yes - assuming the article, and the information supplied by the Russians are both accurate, it does sound as though the attackers did something more sophisticated than using cheap off-the-shelf model autopilot systems.
I don't know if this is what they're hinting at, but some military installations have GPS-jamming equipment installed that prevents any GPS receivers working properly in the vicinity. It's always a difficult balancing act to set them up as if you make your jamming signals too strong you can disrupt all GPS receivers for miles around. Most military don't want to do that as they use GPS in many of their own systems - and they want those to keep working.
It sounds as though the attackers used some clever software to mitigate the effects of inaccurate maps or jamming equipment - maybe by keeping one or more of the drones at some distance from the target and using that to relay navigation information back to the actual attack drones which might otherwise have been jammed,
The USA can switch in selective inaccuracy to the GPS system we've all used for years. They used to do this as a matter of course which meant that most users of the system only got readings accurate to tens of metres but the special military receivers could get down to single metres or better. The USA switched off the inaccuracy a few years ago and haven't used it since - but of course they could always switch it back on again in time of war - or indeed shut down their GPS system altogether.
China and the EU have already deployed or partly deployed their own independent GPS systems - probably Russia too, I guess. Most commercially available cheap equipment doesn't support these alternative systems yet though.
__________________
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01-13-2018, 08:38 PM
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This is the title that appears beneath your name on your posts.
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Gender: Male
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Re: News Miscellany
Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus
The USA spread the propaganda that its original cruise missiles used terrain recognition and other difficult-to-do stuff, but we now know that they were just dumb blind GPS-steered things - and that technology was perfectly good enough to do the job,
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Cruise missiles go back to at least the 1950s - which ones do you mean?
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01-13-2018, 08:58 PM
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puzzler
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
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Re: News Miscellany
I was thinking of the Tomahawk ones used in the first Gulf War.
The ones from the 1950s - before the Global Positioning System existed - must have either used inertial navigation or some form of ground-based radio beacon steering system. The guidance systems in those old ones was probably more complex than that in the newer ones.
I know that the USA has always claimed that Tomahawk uses terrain contour matching and digital photographic scene matching for navigation. Maybe it does but I've always been dubious about that - GPS, if it's available, seems so much easier. There's not so much terrain to contour map when most of the flight is over an ocean or a featureless desert.
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01-13-2018, 09:48 PM
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This is the title that appears beneath your name on your posts.
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Gender: Male
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Re: News Miscellany
Well, the Tomahawk was already in service before GPS was fully operational, and versions of radar/optical contour matching have been in use since the 50s. I think the key is combining different approaches, like correcting the inertial guidance in intervals using stored images in-flight.
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01-14-2018, 02:15 PM
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Fishy mokey
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Furrin parts
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Re: News Miscellany
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