561–570 of 864 posts
This is a pretty cheap way for foreign adversary to test our detection capabilities.
The full capabilities of satellite and sonar are hidden, but they're easily past the "good enough" line for any relevant military activities.
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> How much does a weather baloon cost? ...compared to a F22 flight, a missle + all the logistics? If this is an actual spy object you also need to factor in the cost of the surveillance. How much money does the military lose due to the sensitive information being lost. Or how much does the military need to spend to regain strategic advantage? That probably costs more than a F22 flight and a missile. Obviously this de…
> How much money does the military lose due to the sensitive information being lost. ...probably around zero dollars. It would be different if it was above say active war zone but in this case it is almost as far from potential warzone as possible so probably absolutely nothing.
I agree that a ballon over Alaska is unlikely to gain much intelligence, but with the right equipment at the right place you can get a lot of useful insights into your enemy's capabilities even at peacetime.
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Because they fly a bit higher?
Yes. Sovereign airspace versus not.
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It probably meant the continental USA.
Yes, probably that because Alaska and Hawaii were not admitted as states until 1959. Otherwise there would be Pearl Harbor counts as well.
F-22 entered service 2005 Air to air kills since entered service: 2005-2022: 0 2023: 2
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Given the possibilities of an alien spacecraft observed on Earth violating the known laws of physics, or some error on the part of the observer, I'm going with the latter every time. First, prove that everything we know about physics is wrong at a fundamental, irreconcilable level. Then explain why our completely wrong models of physics still work as well as they do. Then explain the Fermi Paradox in light of the app…
> Given the possibilities of an alien spacecraft observed on Earth violating the known laws of physics, or some error on the part of the observer, I'm going with the latter every time. You know, it isn't (physically) necessary to choose anything. > First, prove that everything we know about physics is wrong at a fundamental, irreconcilable level. Why does everything have to be wrong, in an irreconcilable manner? > Do…
Sure, but we're here on a discussion forum so not committing to any point of view seems counterproductive.
>Why does everything have to be wrong, in an irreconcilable manner?
Because the laws of physics as we understand them, even quantum mechanics, don't allow for things like antigravity or faster than light travel or propagation of information. Theoretical warp-drive models like the Alcubierre drive, or wormholes, or other solutions either require different spacetimes or exotic matter or negative energy or some kind of fudge factor that makes it not work within our universe. Special relativity says it's impossible. Quantum mechanics says it's impossible.
If it turns out that FTL travel is possible, it means we live in a universe without causality, where the relationship between cause and effect is arbitrary. If it turns out to be not only possible but also trivial, to the point that you can fit a warp drive onto something the size of a plane, Then E=MC^2 turns out to be meaningless. Since everything we observe about the universe, at every scale, suggests causality exists and that E=MC^2 holds, we can't be wrong about those without being wrong about everything.
But hey, maybe we are. Great. Show me some equations then. That's all I'm asking. Prove it's wrong, first. Show me a working anti-gravity drive or a warp drive, built by humans, or something that can be tested independently, peer reviewed and verified. Faster than light teleportation. Something.
But all I'm expected to hang my hat on is rumors, folklore and videos for which mundane explanations exist.
>I dunno man, the opposite seems to be the case - are you not at least suffering from motivated reasoning, to some degree?
Everyone suffers from motivated reasoning, that's how reason works. I'm just saying my personal bar for proof is higher than those willing to accept that we simply don't understand anything about physics as a prior to making the UFO argument semantically trivial.
Rather than believe that we're exactly as ignorant now - even though we can measure gravitational waves and the cosmic microwave background and use quantum tunneling in our microchips and GPS has to take relativistic time dilation into account - as we were thousands of years ago when we believed the stars were inscribed on crystal spheres, I believe our models of the universe have become more accurate over time, and that as a result, fundamental paradigm shifts become less and less likely.
That doesn't mean I don't want to believe, it just means I don't also believe in magical thinking. And I'm far from the only skeptic who wants to believe out there. Eyewitness testimony is interesting, video is interesting, but it isn't enough. At least not for me.
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Absolutely. The value of F-22s actually launching some $400k AIM-9Xs not at training targets with a 100% success rate would be far, far greater than those unit costs. It's a crying shame the F-22 production line was shut down, so it's great to see it performing well. (Speaking as a DCS sim pilot with a long time interest in military aviation).
Oh yes the useful and oh so important lesson that F-22 is indeed capable of disposing of not only maneuverable airborne crafts but also non-maneuverable ones! Clearly a baloon is so hard to dispose target that making sure the aircraft indeed can be up to this task is worth any money!
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You know Nokia and Ericsson are still huge players in telecom technology right?
Nokia was sold to Microsoft, then they sold it to HMD Global Oy /FoxConn and now they make most of their goods in China, almost to the point of being white labelled. Ericsson is a small company compared to what it once was. Sure, technically European (again) but a shell of their former selves.
3 big deals happened at Nokia. They sold the devices business to MS. They acquired the Siemens half of Nokia Siemens Networks. They acquired Alcatel Lucent (French Alcatel and American descendant of Bell Lucent) and merged it with what was NSN. They sell every component of the modern networking stack from 5g antennas to undersea cables.
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Probably didn't help that an Air Force general was openly and loudly proclaiming that war is inevitable. I looked up some speeches of his, and he is off the rails, like the German general in All Quiet Along the Western Front .
I mean, it's nothing compared to the internal speeches that China gives its troops. Heck it's nothing compared to the speeches Xi gives internally to troops. Chinese troops are currently training on their missile corp on models of US aircraft carriers. Edit: Chinese propaganda video of attack on Guam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBOho1AOKYY https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36598/chinese-air-forc... https://…
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I heard rumors that during the bosnian war they were making fake SAM sites using microwave ovens with the door taken off. Get them to fire an air-to-ground missile at a device you got from the junkyard and an extension cord.
This was supposedly done during the US bombing of yugoslavia... open microwaves transmit pulsed radiation, automatic systems think it's a radar and bomb the site.