- 253 Posts
- 52 Comments
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzOPtoUnited States | News & Politics@midwest.social•Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on?
1·14 hours agoTrump and his cronies Pumping and Dumping like no one will ever hold them accountable either because they are desperate or they are winning or both.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyztoA Boring Dystopia@mander.xyz•High-tech robotic dogs now on patrol guarding valuable corn crops
31·14 hours agoThis is the most important question. The context of Hawaii cannot be ignored when talking about agriculture, it is inherently charged with politics.
The second most important question is how the hell did we reduce the collective intelligence of our society to think that we could beat dogs at being dogs?
longer point on this
I can see a robot dog being useful for walking into a radioactive waste zone or trying to defuse a bomb, sure… I am fascinated by cool uses of unmanned vehicles I run a fediverse community about them because I enjoy learning about it so much…
…but replacing a farm dog with a robot dog is probably one of the most naive things I can possibly think of trying to do. Why? If you can’t figure out a way to use dogs to do this I think that says more about you than it says about dogs… have you ever watched skilled sheep herding dogs???
https://caherconnell.com/sheepdog-demonstrations/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tUMxcaCym0
It is the height of techbro ignorance to look at a Border Collie and think “yeah I can design a better robot version of that”… like… what??
For the record, so long as you treat the dogs reasonably, dogs love this kind of thing, it is what they live for.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12042896/
Herding dogs exhibit a distinct constellation of behaviors marked by inherent instinct and motor skills that manipulate and guide livestock in response to instructive commands and cues. Comparison of the whole-genome sequences of herding and nonherding breeds reveals signatures of positive selection associated with pathways underlying social interaction and cognitive functions. Of the strong selective sweep signals, haplotypes within ephrin type-B receptor 1 (EPHB1), which is linked to locomotor hyperactivity and spatial memory, show evidence of segregation within breed lineages for the conformation versus working lines of border collies and introgression with a genetically and geographically distant herding breed of Entlebucher mountain dogs. We show that a working line–specific haplotype of EPHB1 is associated with elevated levels of chase-bite motor patterns based on a well-validated behavior survey. These findings indicate that functional selection has shaped the genetic architecture of herding breeds, which may relate to their proficiency in addressing diverse tasks and challenges in maintaining control over the herd.
We literally genetically engineered dogs to enjoy herding and chasing behaviors, why are we just throwing that in the trash? Why not focus on making a robot/smart infrastructure that helps take care of dogs in a humane way with less human crews?
Ughhh this is a perfect example of why techbros are so insufferable. They can only see what they understand as the future.
I mean I guess it is also a product of how much we love dogs, their use in war is extensive but far more limited than it would be if we were more comfortable as an international community with media about violence against dogs (big generalization I know). In other words, we use robot dogs for war not because robot dogs are superior to dogs but because using dogs for war is a mass wave style is similarly repulsive to people as using human soldiers that way (though it still happens). As a result we assume that in civil contexts that robot dogs useful in war are going to be wayyyy more advanced than what civilians have access too… but a civilian can adopt a border collie and have a way more advanced “machine” than any technology company can hope to build.
I think there is far more of a future in UAVs that keep a tally on farm dogs so humans can make sure the dogs are safe than there is for robot dogs straight up replacing dogs… but I think it might take awhile for people to realize that who aren’t people using dogs to get work done every day.
Watch some random videos of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race and watch the behavior of the dogs. These are animals that just finished a 1,510 km race… do they look alive or beaten down?
https://iditarod.com/videos/featured/
Humans aren’t going to be able to make a superior robot dog to an actual dog for a very long time.
TL;DR Don’t try to beat Dogs at being Dogs with Robots, make Dogs more useful with Robot Helpers. Dogs are already extremely advanced and institutional groups of humans can reasonably care for a dog and tell when it is being seriously neglected or mistreated.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzto
Global News@lemmy.zip•US confirms transit fare spike to $150 for World Cup fans in New JerseyEnglish
2·19 hours agoThis is so dumb, why do we all choose to accept this?
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzto
Fediverse vs Disinformation@lemmy.dbzer0.com•NYT’s Investigation of How Trump’s War on Iran Started Leaves Out the Paper’s Own Silence
6·19 hours agoThe NYT is trash, don’t read it and don’t give them your money.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzOPto
Geopolitics@sopuli.xyz•Inside Link 16: How the US and Allies Share Real-Time Battle Data
1·1 day agoDefinitely valid I was trying to emphasize I was I shared the article because of the category of technology, less so the specific “product”. An underappreciated aspect of “Drone Warfare” is a high degree of data sharing between different elements on the battlefield.
It is necessary to emphasize the architecture shaping these conflicts on the back end and what makes them too decisive to ignore.
For example this forward looking article about Link16 speculates pretty accurately what warfare would look like 20 years later.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1204warfare/
With data links still being fielded and Internet protocols wide open to debate, much remains to be done before the future architectures become familiar tactical tools. But the Air Force is on the right path. “I’m really optimistic about where we’re going,” said Hobbins. “I do believe that technology will get us to where we want to go, which I believe is the self-forming, self-healing global information grid in the long term. Quite frankly, you could look out to the 2020 time frame and say hopefully we’ll be there by then, and I believe technology will move us even faster, and we’ll have great elements of this airborne network by the 2014 time frame.”
Never believe armchair observers when they say war has made a clean break with the past.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzOPto
Geopolitics@sopuli.xyz•Inside Link 16: How the US and Allies Share Real-Time Battle Data
1·1 day ago-
There are other similar systems, there will be more other similar systems, Link16 is worth knowing about as a basic concept because of the class of technology it illustrates.
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Many helicopters, aircraft, and unmanned vehicles can mount Link16, this article kind of portrays this like this is just a fighter-bomber thing, it isn’t.
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supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzto
The Onion@midwest.social•JD Vance wondering if he’s proved his loyalty enough to be allowed to have sex with Oval Office couchEnglish
7·2 days agoI thought JD Vance didn’t let himself be allowed alone in the room with any couch but his one at home as a rule… oh wait am I getting my creepy Republicans mixed up again? They are all the same but yet so creepy in their own individual ways.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzOPto
Geopolitics@sopuli.xyz•Russian Spy Submarines Keep Being Spotted in the UK Waters. What Are They After?
1·2 days agorussian navy

UK

supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzto
USA | United states of America@lemmy.ca•Sam Altman’s house targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested
2·2 days agoI mean whether he staged it or not, all cult leaders are dependent upon producing a near militant zeal in their followers and that is bound to create people at the periphery of the cult who believe you are powerful and still buy into the fantasy of your power but no longer believe in you and believe they must stop you.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzto
USA | United states of America@lemmy.ca•Sam Altman’s house targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested
2·2 days agoCharlie Kirk became a far more accepted figure after his death, killing him made the rightwing movement stronger, that really isn’t up for debate the effect is so obvious.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzto
USA | United states of America@lemmy.ca•Sam Altman’s house targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested
1·2 days agoAI is not that powerful, this is all a scam.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzOPto
UK Politics@feddit.uk•UK awards Boeing Apache and Chinook support contract worth $1.1 billion
1·2 days agoThe Chinook is already capable of unmanned maneuvers, there is no need to make an aircraft that large without the possibility of human control directly.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzOPto
UK Politics@feddit.uk•UK awards Boeing Apache and Chinook support contract worth $1.1 billion
1·3 days agoYeah, the issue is Europe hasn’t really invested in heavy helicopter design. Many of the major military powers in Europe seem to have been convinced attack helicopters were obsolete in a near-peer military conflict for decades, and I think it has created a large blindspot that is only now being addressed by the AW249 and acquisitions like the UK and Poland adopting a large numbers of AH64s.
The AW149 can do a lot of things, but I am skeptical somebody can make a better Chinook or Apache. They were both extremely forward looking designs when they appeared ~60 years ago and all of that time up until now has only given these airframes time to be iterated and improved. The leap to making these platforms unmanned capable is already happening with significant milestones achieved with the Chinook recently.
I mean, yeah I get it though the US is out of control right now but the US understood the way helicopters fundamentally changed warfare a long time ago and Europe can’t magically make up for all that lost time in working a design to maturity that was spent denying the decisiveness of rotarywing/VTOL Close Air Support while the US invested in it.
Can Europe even produce a heavy lift helicopter in the class that the Chinook is?
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzto
Green Energy@slrpnk.net•Great Britain households to be urged to use more power this summer as renewables soar
4·3 days agoI think heavy appliances should be designed with a smart “run at the best time in the next 4 hours” function that could have a monitor on the grid supply to trigger the appliance to run at the most optimal time.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyztoUnited States | News & Politics@midwest.social•'You Are Out of Touch': Schumer Faces New Calls to Step Aside After Israel Weapons Vote
24·3 days agoChuck Schumer is controlled opposition.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzto
USA | United states of America@lemmy.ca•Sam Altman’s house targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested
22·3 days agoWere you not paying attention to how Kirk was “martyred” by the mainstream media?
Did you not see how who Charlie Kirk was before he was killed become merely an uncomfortable detail to a rousing story of tragedy after he was killed?
Charlie Kirk’s ideas will NEVER be challenged, lampooned and dismantled fairly because his ideas are overshadowed by the narrative of his murder. If a leftist shot someone like Kirk it would be the beginning of a brutal implosion of civil liberties that would make what has happened so far look relatively limited in comparison.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzto
USA | United states of America@lemmy.ca•Sam Altman’s house targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested
22·3 days agoYes and there are WAY less of us when we resort to violence and intimidation because it fractures our clarity of intention and empowers the narratives of our enemies.























I propose a solution. Invest in unmanned surface vehicles to carry duplicates of mail and require every piece of mail sent to sailors to have a duplicate of which randomly is selected the actual copy of mail to send to the real navy ship. Collect duplicates of the mail and send it on unmanned surface vehicles to sail around and pretend to be navy ships while gathering surveillance data.
Then even if someone thinks they have planted a tracker on a ship successfully they will still be second guessing themselves over whether they are tracking the real ship or not.