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Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

bbc.co.uk

441–450 of 515 posts

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#441
> "It is illegal to install structures or art without authorisation on federally managed public lands, no matter what planet you're from," the department said.

Is that really true though? Does earth rules apply to life from other planets? And what if the extraterrestrial life are magnitudes of order stronger and technologically advanced than us? I mean we could demand it but in effect it would be nothing but words. The only reason that laws work is because of the threat of what happens if you don’t obey. If we are not in a position to threaten the extra terrestrials then we are also not in a position to dictate rules for them to follow.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the phrase "weaponized autism" as well, speaking as someone on the spectrum. A previous manager of mine once told me I am great with coming up with unique solutions to problems. Like you said too, some of these people lack good interpersonal abilities. I know a friend who is also on the spectrum and is one of the smartest people I know, and excellent when it comes to math. However his lack of interpersonal and…

As someone with ADHD, I'm kind of a kissing cousin to autism (they share some genetic indicators [ https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/risk-genes-autism-overlap-... ] and some but not all symptoms; I certainly don't claim to understand the unique struggles of being a person with autism of course) and can relate to the benefits of different types of intelligence. I can be smart as a whip when it comes to finding solutio…

I've started to just own my ADHD as a way to destigmatize it. I'm your go-to for breadth-first search, latest tools and frameworks, creative solutions, and wielding everything from soldering irons to cloud deployments. But you might need to ride my ass a bit to stay on task.

It also has pushed me to a very CI/CD-centric and statically typed workflow (in a python-heavy AI/CV department), because I need to be able to reason about stuff I wrote on a bad brain-fog day. My philosophy is if it's easy for undermedicated me to reason about it, it's easier still for my coworkers.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once an entire government worth of people led the US into war that cost millions of lives over fake reports of nukes. It would be interesting to compare the damage caused by open, crowd-sourced investigative efforts against the damage caused of closed "authoritative" investigative efforts.

I thought there was some convincing evidence of nuclear centrifuges being buried in the head scientists back garden by his genocidal sons? https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig... I mean I quite like this summation by Christopher Hitchens about the Iraq war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABqrEiuP0I

Read “The Bomb in my Garden” by Obeidi. As I recollect, he buried the plans for a centrifuge and some key parts.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once an entire government worth of people led the US into war that cost millions of lives over fake reports of nukes. It would be interesting to compare the damage caused by open, crowd-sourced investigative efforts against the damage caused of closed "authoritative" investigative efforts.

> It would be interesting to compare the damage caused by open, crowd-sourced investigative efforts against the damage caused of closed "authoritative" investigative efforts. I hate that word “interesting” when used for things that are downright fucking despicable. Human history is rife with witch hunts. Perpetrated by communities against people living on the fringe of society or anyone they just didn’t like. Someone…

And you wouldn't like being the target of a governmental agency either. The question is which is worse and in what ways.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#445
post #104

First impression to me was that it is some sort of modern kinetic projectile[0] from aircraft weapons' testing. I've read US army used something of that shape in recent conflicts, but probably of smaller size. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_Dog_(bomb)

This is a really good point. I wonder if it could be some sort of new-fangled rail-gun projectile.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#446

> "It is illegal to install structures or art without authorisation on federally managed public lands, no matter what planet you're from," the department said. Is that really true though? Does earth rules apply to life from other planets? And what if the extraterrestrial life are magnitudes of order stronger and technologically advanced than us? I mean we could demand it but in effect it would be nothing but words. T…

just because you threaten something more powerful than you doesn't make it not a threat.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#448
post #39
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what type of metal. Tungsten? Very expensive. Steel? Somwhere between $1000-5000

It's also going to be extremely heavy. Assuming the "monolith" is around 10ft tall with a 1.5ft square base, it would weigh 5 tonnes if it were made of solid steel. Whoever installed it would have needed serious machinery to haul it over there and stick it in the rock. Thin sheets of metal, either welded or riveted together, would have been much easier to build and install. It could even have been filled with some ot…

> Thin sheets of metal, either welded or riveted together, would have been much easier to build and install. It could even have been filled with some other material (e.g. sand) before the top was put on.

Yes, it was a prism shaped object with 3 pieces of stainless steel panels riveted together, the bottom has concret and silicone:)

https://www.instagram.com/p/CH_212pAKpr/

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#450
post #75

Wow this is getting a lot of PR. I've seen this article on the on so many news sites now. It's funny, but front page news? Seems of all the random things that go on, this was picked as special for some reason. Just interesting how some things you wouldn't expect rise to the top.

It's a fun mystery that gives the mind something to chew on apart from pandemic, elections, murder hornets, etc.
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