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I'm pretty sensitive to these things. That said, if you look at the partial list provided (granted this was potentially cherry picked), we're looking primarily

by cheath 11y ago

I'm pretty sensitive to these things. That said, if you look at the partial list provided (granted this was potentially cherry picked), we're looking primarily at disaster awareness stuff. Flooding, wild fires, and search & rescue. Not spying. Military resources, such as The National Guard, get called up for disaster relief all of the time. I think I'd rather drones helping people in these scenarios than what they're primarily used for.

Vexs 11y ago
I agree. Military tech is the best tech, if it can spot a terrorist in a bush than it can, and should be used to find victims of natural disasters. Also, I don't think UAVs are the best option for mass surveillance. I mean, there's cameras on every corner, phones in every pocket, etc. There's enough cameras to spy on people, you don't need to stick a very expensive drone that will last only a couple hours/days and not be able to peek in houses as well as someone's webcam. I'm not sure how I feel about this bit though. > an unnamed mayor asked the Marine Corps to use a drone to find potholes in the mayor's city I mean. Is it helpful? Yes. Is it a really good way to find potentially dangerous potholes? Probably. It just seems... excessive.
- sonoffett 11y ago
  > I don't think UAVs are the best option for mass surveillance. I agree for these kinds of UAVs, but ARGUS [1] blimps are probably super effective and worrisome. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS
- harryf 11y ago
  > Is it a really good way to find potentially dangerous potholes? Probably. It just seems... excessive. It can even make the potholes first by firing off a few missiles
  - ATsch 11y ago
    "since the last update, we have increased our pothole detection by at least 200%"
- mseebach 11y ago
  > > an unnamed mayor asked the Marine Corps to use a drone to find potholes in the mayor's city Maybe he's trying to figure out if he can use a DHS grant to buy "OMG TERRORISM" drones, that just happens to look for potholes whenever it has a few minutes off between terror attacks? EDIT: On second thought, is finding the holes really the bottleneck in The War on Potholes? And if so, isn't this better fixed with an answering machine, and/or a $5000 Rails app?
  - rtkwe 11y ago
    The app is cheap getting people to use it is expensive.
    - mseebach 11y ago
      Is it really hard to get people to complain about potholes, if complaining is actually going to get them filled in? And if you're not going to fill them in, then why care where they are?
      - Ntrails 11y ago
        It's easy to get people to complain. The drone is probably able to produce far better data assuming the main problem is pothole triage (ie you're only going to fix ~30%, of which around half will be patched quickly and the other half properly re-tarmacked. Which ones and in which order?)

by cheath 11y ago

Vexs 11y ago

I agree. Military tech is the best tech, if it can spot a terrorist in a bush than it can, and should be used to find victims of natural disasters. Also, I don't think UAVs are the best option for mass surveillance. I mean, there's cameras on every corner, phones in every pocket, etc. There's enough cameras to spy on people, you don't need to stick a very expensive drone that will last only a couple hours/days and not be able to peek in houses as well as someone's webcam. I'm not sure how I feel about this bit though. > an unnamed mayor asked the Marine Corps to use a drone to find potholes in the mayor's city I mean. Is it helpful? Yes. Is it a really good way to find potentially dangerous potholes? Probably. It just seems... excessive.

sonoffett 11y ago
> I don't think UAVs are the best option for mass surveillance. I agree for these kinds of UAVs, but ARGUS [1] blimps are probably super effective and worrisome. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS
harryf 11y ago
> Is it a really good way to find potentially dangerous potholes? Probably. It just seems... excessive. It can even make the potholes first by firing off a few missiles
- ATsch 11y ago
  "since the last update, we have increased our pothole detection by at least 200%"
mseebach 11y ago
> > an unnamed mayor asked the Marine Corps to use a drone to find potholes in the mayor's city Maybe he's trying to figure out if he can use a DHS grant to buy "OMG TERRORISM" drones, that just happens to look for potholes whenever it has a few minutes off between terror attacks? EDIT: On second thought, is finding the holes really the bottleneck in The War on Potholes? And if so, isn't this better fixed with an answering machine, and/or a $5000 Rails app?
- rtkwe 11y ago
  The app is cheap getting people to use it is expensive.
  - mseebach 11y ago
    Is it really hard to get people to complain about potholes, if complaining is actually going to get them filled in? And if you're not going to fill them in, then why care where they are?
    - Ntrails 11y ago
      It's easy to get people to complain. The drone is probably able to produce far better data assuming the main problem is pothole triage (ie you're only going to fix ~30%, of which around half will be patched quickly and the other half properly re-tarmacked. Which ones and in which order?)