Definitely a lot of value in a drone/balloon/etc. fleet to 1) restore communications using satellite + mesh 2) overhead imagery for direct support of rescue/recovery/rebuilding 3) supporting rescue (and later recovery) operations by finding phones and sending messages in broadcast, etc. Augments what can be done from satellites or manned aircraft already.
If the recommissioning requires 20% of the work of new-build (in time and money), I'd rather have the "normal" 50-100% overrun in costs and time happen on recommissioning vs new-build.
The delay is usually heavily on the permitting/legal challenges/etc. stage, not actual concrete-pouring and equipment installation, so an already-once-permitted site will probably do better relatively, too.
Extra reactors at exising operating sites would make even more sense, though. Putting 2-4 extra AP-1000 at ~1GW/ea at each of the 54 facilities operating today would be huge and minimal incremental risk, and if there were a shortcut one time permitting process for it...
Wow. AI has already accomplished more positive in a few years of big commercial stuff (admittedly as a side effect) than cryptocurrency has since, say 2009. :(
Crypto created a trillion dollars out of thin air (well, slightly thicker air from more CO2). AI is poised to do the same, but also has already polluted the entire internet with worthless slop.
If using a ton of energy has to happen then I'd prefer it be generated from nuclear, but I don't see the need to supply LLM data centers with a ton of energy as a positive.
Solving the political problems behind nuclear power (getting TMI restarted being one of the more difficult politically but easier technically), and generally bringing the "build more nuclear" to forefront.
(Although to be fair there's been a fair bit of wind and solar subsidized heavily by crypto, as well as flare gas power generation, and a bit of PV solar)
Would be fun to do "smart clays" -- I wonder if you could make a clay which just shifted weights to affect flight path, something cheaper thna a full drone. Or you could fly a $300-500 non-expendable but not-end-of-the-world-if-hit drone trailing a target on a long tether, with no-shoot above a certain angle to keep the drones themselves mostly safe?
(and yeah, I have an M4 and 3 Turkish knockoff M4s (1 great out of the box, one I fixed up, one which doesn't love to eject but I can probably fix), and the 2 x 1301s I own are better.)
For me it’s large I’m not a small guy and the grip on the m4 is just big in my hands, then manipulating the safety is tough. At least the Turkish clones are cheap!
> Or you could fly a $300-500 non-expendable but not-end-of-the-world-if-hit drone trailing a target on a long tether, with no-shoot above a certain angle to keep the drones themselves mostly safe?
I had considered that. I’ll try hanging something off an avata2 but my concern will definitely be that I’ll need some rigid structure to land and take off. If the line is too close I think I could suck it up into the props
Assuming you aren't joking: Pagers are receive-only, which is why they'd use them in preference to cellphones, which transmit even when just idling to register on cells.
This has not been true for some time. Pagers attach to a network in the same way a cell phone does. It is true they are more reliable in the receive only sense, as they can receive the broadcast message in the area they last attached to and the acknowledgment is not required to see the message but they do indeed transmit.
Seems more likely their explosive implant used a separate RF trigger -- makes the whole thing much simpler for them, less detectable. They could run a plane or drone overhead to send the radio initiate message.
Looked like 5-10g (maybe up to 20g?) of explosive, NOT battery. I think you could fit the whole package inside an AA battery, along with an AAAA battery, so you could do something crazy there, or just replace a rechargeable battery pack with something of smaller battery capacity containing the explosive, some electronics, etc. Or just use spare volume inside the case and hope no one does gross physical inspection.
It's trivial to sniff a data line to the LCD and look for a specific message(I regrettably had to do this in the late 90's to fix a bug using an additional Z8 microcontroller). That said, it would be more work than inserting a separate module with its own message reception logic.
Their visible cameras are $7k, I'd be surprised if this is less than $15k.
Assuming the Berlin patents have expired, a visible light or "night vision" near IR camera made from commodity sensors and on-device stitching is about $100-200 BOM which could be a $500 premium cat toy (and thus actually affordable as a tactical tool for users other than funded US/EU police). I've been finding gear for community safety guys in South Africa and it is amazing how much can get done with cheap consumer gear now.
I went a few months ago -- was amazing how much better the Museum of Computing was, given it obviously had a tiny budget compared to Bletchley. Bletchley was mostly a bunch of school groups being bored and filling the space, empty buildings, etc.
Museum of Computing was extra amazing because some of the volunteers had worked on the hardware on display (and I'd worked on stuff 20 years after that), so we were able to talk about the actual hardware/OSes.
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