Fact or fiction

Ooops, Did We Just Close An Airport Over A Ufo Sighting?

Picture this: it’s late in the evening on a freezing cold, dark, and windy December night in southern England, and an airport worker at Gatwick — London’s second international airport — sees something fly past in the gloom above the floodlights. The weather and darkness makes it difficult to see what the object was, but the report is phoned in to security. What was it? A flock of birds? A piece of plastic litter caught by the wind and blown through the night? In this case, the call is recorded as a drone. Because the magic D-word has been uttered, a security plan swings into action, the airport is put on a high state of readiness, and flights are suspended.

Gatwick by night, on an evening far less inclement than last week. News Oresund [CC BY 2.0].

Thousands of people across the site are put on alert, watching for the drone. And of course, the drone reports roll in, and the story takes on a life of its own. People who have no idea what a drone looks like in the air are now expecting to see one, so of course when a flock of birds or a plastic bag caught by the wind crosses their peripheral vision they too are convinced that it is the drone. Night turns into day, there is a lull in the reports so the airport re-opens, only to be closed again following a fresh spate of sightings. Flights are diverted all across the country, and tens of thousands of passengers are stranded in the terminals.

No, it’s not a speck of dirt on your screen, it’s a drone! BBC (Fair use)

There follows three days of airport closure drama. No photos emerge despite almost every one of the many thousands of people on the site having a camera phone from which they are Tweeting about the queues in the terminal. There is a grainy video, but it is indistinct, and crucially it doesn’t have anything in it that is identifiable as Gatwick. Meanwhile the police are frustrated in their search for the drone operators, who like their drone, prove difficult to pinpoint

During the third night a pair of arrests are announced, a local couple. The police have saved the day, the culprits are under lock and key. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, the airport re-opens, and that’s the end of that. Except of course it isn’t, because inconveniently the pair are found to be blameless and released. When pressed during an interview, a police spokesman then makes the embarrassing admission that there is a possibility that there may never have been a drone at all.

YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP

You might imagine that this was the fictional plot of a thriller novel, but sadly not. All of the above is a tale of the last few days of events in the British news, save for most of the first paragraph which is our guess at how the first drone sightings may have happened. At the time of writing there remains the possibility that there could have been a drone over Gatwick, but given the current dearth of evidence it is one that seems tenuous. There are reports of drone wreckage, but since readers with long memories will recall UK police once identified RepRap parts as a 3D printed gun we’ll wait until we see it before we call it that.

If there was indeed a drone then of course we would like to see its operators brought to justice forthwith. But what concerns us at Hackaday are the implications the episode could still have for those of our community with an interest in multirotors. The usual clamour was made for Government to do something about it, and we know that would have meant a fresh set of onerous regulations for responsible multirotor owners while doing nothing about the criminals, because of course criminals have little regard for laws.

So if we are to glean anything from this sorry mess, we must examine it from several angles. Why is there a lack of drone detection technology in place? How should drone reports initially be treated and investigated on the ground? How should they be dealt with in official inquiries, and how then should lawmakers see them? This will inevitably have a British flavour to it because of the incident in question, but the points are just as valid worldwide.

WHEN A DRONE REPORT COMES IN, WE NEED A RELIABLE WAY TO EVALUATE IT

When we are told something new, it passes a process of evaluation in our minds. We look at the source, and weigh up the story itself. If a guy with crazy hair in the street tells us that the aliens have landed and are controlling the Prime Minister with a ray gun, it will probably be discounted. But if Hackaday tells us that someone has hacked a VGA chipset to work as a software-defined radio we’re guessing most of you would be very interested indeed.

When a fresh drone incident is reported it appears that this evaluation process has historically been defective. We have previously discussed official incident reports that come with no physical evidence of a drone, but contain descriptions of drones with capabilities unmatched even by jet fighter aircraft. It seems like any eyewitness report in which the culprit is named as a drone is automatically taken at face value no matter how unlikely it may be. The fact that a report may have come from a pilot is sometimes mentioned as a boost to its credibility, but that is a false assumption. A pilot who is not familiar with either how drones appear from a distance or what the capabilities of a drone are in the air can only be considered an unreliable witness, because while they may know a lot about aircraft they lack the required expertise for this judgement. So what can be done to help boost the quality of reporting and to immediately highlight credible reports while requiring more for dubious ones?

In the case of a near miss in open airspace there may be little effect on ground-based facilities, but at an airport such as Gatwick there can be no chances taken by the authorities. A drone collision on an aircraft on final approach could cause hundreds of fatalities, so upon receipt of a report they must have had little choice but to close the runways. There appears to have been a lack of drone detection technologies in place at Gatwick which means that the only source available to the airport would have been the eyewitnesses themselves, and since we have amply demonstrated the potential for eyewitness reports being unreliable then the current confusion becomes an inevitability. It is imperative that more reliable detection technologies be fitted or developed if necessary. This is especially true when precautionary shut-downs stretch past minutes or hours into world-news-making delays as happened in this instance.

COMPETENT POLICE INVESTIGATIONS AND RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM ON DRONE REPORTS

The mass media tech story cycle. Our apologies to Gartner. Curve image: Jeremykemp [ CC BY-SA 3.0 ]

Once an incident has started and news of it emerges there is a consequent effect upon members of our community. Legitimate drone fliers away from the airport will find themselves under more scrutiny, and since it is already a common tale to hear of police being called when flying is under way that means they could face harassment and wrongful arrest. Indeed though we do not know all the details of the pair arrested near Gatwick it smacks of their being arrested in a round-up of convenient local drone enthusiasts rather than as a result of meaningful investigation. That the names of the pair were leaked and they became the subject of a media frenzy further shows the danger in which they were placed, as well as the irresponsibility of the reporters who covered their plight.

PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANTLY: WE NEED ACCURATE OFFICIAL INCIDENT REPORTS

Whatever happens in a drone report, whether it be an arrest or an embarrassing debacle, there will inevitably be an official incident report from the Civil Aviation Authority, the regulator of British civilian airspace. This will form the official record of the event, and thus should strive to be as accurate as possible, but here the process falls short for the final time. There appears to be no evaluation step performed on the available evidence and no requirement for physical proof. So if an eyewitness reports behaviors about the drone that no drone ever built could possibly be capable of, it is solemnly recorded as fact. Our previous article on this subject highlights multiple such accounts, and this is an important point because as the official record these reports are what informs legislators. When they make laws pertaining to drones it is imperative that their decisions are based upon accurate evidence, and it is clear that this is not the case. Given that they will no doubt be reviewing drone legislation in the wake of this fiasco it is particularly important that the investigators consult people with specialist knowledge in the field, demand physical proof rather than heresay, and most importantly question accounts that stretch credibility.

It seems obvious that the multirotor hobbyist is caught in a perfect storm of incompetent authorities, deeply flawed investigations, shoddy journalism, and clueless legislators. This incident has laid bare some of the shortcomings, and it is to be hoped that a few lessons might be learned to produce less of a debacle surrounding future drone incidents. It is still a developing story so there may be a breakthrough and the whole narrative will change, and if that turns out to be the case then we hope they find the correct perpetrator this time and send them away at Her Majesty’s pleasure for a very long time. We’re guessing though that every effort will be made to push it as far under the carpet as possible to save red faces among officialdom. As multirotor enthusiasts we must keep the issue of poor investigation alive though, for if we let it be buried once more it will come back to trouble us again.

Source hackaday.com

Fact or fiction

3 Legendary Heroes Who May Or May Not Have Existed

From Britain’s most beloved outlaw to the founder of all Turkic peoples, find out more about three historical figures whose existence remains up for debate.

1 – King Arthur. Knight Of Camelot

We’ve all heard stories about King Arthur of Camelot, who according to medieval legend led British forces (including his trusted Knights of the Round Table) in battle against Saxon invaders in the early sixth century. But was King Arthur actually a real person, or simply a hero of Celtic mythology? Though debate has gone on for centuries, historians have been unable to confirm that Arthur really existed. He doesn’t appear in the only surviving contemporary source about the Saxon invasion, in which the Celtic monk Gildas wrote of a real-life battle at Mons Badonicus (Badon Hills) around 500 A.D. Several hundred years later, Arthur appears for the first time in the writings of a Welsh historian named Nennius, who gave a list of 12 battles the warrior king supposedly fought. All drawn from Welsh poetry, the battles took place in so many different times and places that it would have been impossible for one man to have participated in all of them.

The Death of King Arthur. James Archer (artist) (1823 – 1904)

Welsh origin

Later Welsh writers drew on Nennius’ work, and Arthur’s fame spread beyond Wales and the Celtic world, particularly after the Norman conquest of 1066 connected England to northern France. In the popular 12th-century book “History of the Kings of Britain,” Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the first life story of Arthur, describing his magic sword Caliburn (later known as Excalibur), his trusted knight Lancelot, Queen Guinevere and the wizard Merlin. An irresistible blend of myth and fact, the book was supposedly based on a lost Celtic manuscript that only Geoffrey was able to examine.

Evidence from the ground

The second key source of information about Arthur is archaeology. Archaeological evidence for contact between Wales, Cornwall and the Saxon World takes many forms – from metalwork manufactured in an Anglo-Saxon style discovered in south-east Wales, to the distribution of early medieval pottery imported from the Continent and the shores of the Mediterranean.

Excavations at Dinas Powys, a princely hillfort near Cardiff occupied between the 5th and 7th-centuries, has informed us about the nature of a high status site in south Wales at this time. This site is contemporary with others like South Cadbury in Somerset and Tintagel in Cornwall (both with their own Arthurian traditions).

Arthur’s court at Caerleon

A large number of sites in Wales have Arthurian associations, though few have proven medieval origin. In the 12th century, Caerleon was thought by Geoffrey of Monmouth to be the location of Arthur’s court, while the hillfort of Dinas Emrys in north Wales is associated with Ambrosius, Vortigern and Merlin.

3 Legendary Heroes Who May Or May Not Have Existed

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Fact or fiction

Renowned programmer ensures that we are living in a computer simulation and wants to hack it to save us

Many works of science fiction, as well as some forecasts of renowned technologists and futurologists, predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future. Suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations could do with their super powerful computers would be to run detailed simulations of their ancestors or similar people. Because their computers would be really powerful, they could run many simulations of this type.

Suppose that these simulated people are aware, then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race, but to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race. Then it is possible to argue that, if this were the case, it would be rational to think that we are probably among the simulated minds and not among the original biological ones. In short, our life and everything in it is a computer simulation.

Or at least that’s what Nick Bostrum, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, suggested in 2003, when he said that members of an advanced civilization with enormous computing power would have the ability to perform simulations of their ancestors. Although the most surprising of all is that there are many investigations that show that it is very likely that we are interacting with simulated minds. But now, George Hotz, the most famous hacker and programmer, is the latest technological celebrity to ensure that our universe is a simulation built by a society more advanced than ours. What’s more, he wants to hack it.

“We are living in a computer simulation”

The American computer and hacker expert George Hotz has ensured during an exhibition at the SXSW 2019 conference, held in Austin, USA, that he is convinced that all of us live in a computer simulation created by beings much more advanced than us. either extraterrestrial or artificial intelligence, which is far beyond the scope of human conception and understanding.

“There is no proof that this is not true ,” Hotz said on March 8 at the exhibition called “Jailbreaking the Simulation . ” “It’s easy to imagine things that are much smarter than you and could build a cage that you would not even recognize.”

It seems that the American hacker is one of the believers in the simulation hypothesis, proposed by Nick Bostrom in 2003. Hotz, 29, became famous for being the first hacker to unlock the first generation iPhone. But he went further when he managed to release the Sony PlayStation 3. Since then he has worked for Facebook, Google, and Vicarious, an artificial intelligence company based in the Bay Area of San Francisco, California. In 2015, he founded the Comma.ai company, whose objective is to democratize access to auto driving software.

During the conference, Hotz assured that all the negative elements of the universe could be eliminated if we are able to ‘hack’ the operating system that creates this imperfect simulation.

“Are you a player or non-player character?” Hotz added. “The player characters know they are at stake. Hack the computer that operates the simulation and rewrite the operating system of nature. “

In addition, the computer expert even said he is thinking of founding a religion dedicated to “breaking up” with the simulated universe.

“I’m thinking about founding a church, ” Hotz said, referring to the end result of any capitalist enterprise being to maximize profits, sell the company or destroy it, all that is considered failures.“There are many structural problems with companies: there is no real way to win. With companies, you only really lose. I believe that the churches could be much more aligned with these objectives, and the goal of the church would be to realign the efforts of society to get out of the simulation. I do not know how close you think of the singularity, but I think it’s very close. Once we reach the singularity, if we have the same motivations that we have now, mainly the power over people, things are going to be horrible. Gather the right people and start saying: ‘What does it mean to go out?’ No charlatans, it’s not garbage. Everything you say better will be rationally justifiable. “

George Hotz joins the long list of influential people in our society who also think that we live in a simulation. PayPal co-founder and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly revealed that we are all+9+9* stuck in a virtual Matrix-style simulation . In 2016, the best analysts of the Bank of America Corporation affirmed that there is a 50% probability that our world is a computer simulation and that we are all connected in a virtual reality.

Even researchers from the University of Southampton, in collaboration with scientists from Canada and Italy, suggested that the universe could be a “vast and complex hologram” and our perception of life in 3D would only be a mere illusion.

Now, do the most privileged minds of the world suffer delusions of greatness? Or can they be right in their beliefs? Maybe the theory of simulation could explain the most absurd things in our lives, like politicians or wars. As it did with the iPhone or PlayStation 3, we will have to wait to know if “our reality” can be hacked, saving us all from this simulation in which we live.

Do you think we live in a computer simulation? Are we simple gamers of a video game?

Fact or fiction

Octopuses Are Believed To Be From Another World

Known as panspermia, life is thought to have been distributed by different methods. This includes space partials, spacecrafts, comets, asteroids and meteoroids. Essentially, a contamination thrived through the form of living microorganisms. Throughout the Universe, life exists in different variations and forms.

A collaboration between 33 different scientists, included a theory that octopuses are in fact from another place not native to Earth, they are alien to our planet. Of these scientists, molecular immunologist Edward Steele and astrobiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe – suggested this new yet wild theory.

Octopuses Are Believed To Be From Another World

This interesting theory, was published in a March issue of Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, a journal that is considered highly controversial. Many scientists have disagreed with this theory, regarding alien octopuses. Everyone it seems has their opinion about it, yet nobody knows for sure just yet.

Traditionally, octopuses are thought to have evolved from the nautiloid, a large and diversified group of marine type cephalopods. The relationship between these odd cephalopods, doesn’t explain their further characteristics like why octopuses are so very different in general from their supposive nautiloid ancestors.

The paper written had this to say, “The genetic divergence of Octopus from its ancestral coleoid sub-class is very great … Its large brain and sophisticated nervous system, camera-like eyes, flexible bodies, instantaneous camouflage via the ability to switch color and shape are just a few of the striking features that appear suddenly on the evolutionary scene.”

There are other species in the water, including the common cuttlefish and the squid, among other yet to be discovered species. All of these species simply cannot be found in any other kind of pre-existing life form according to the authors of the paper.

This same paper stated that, “An already coherent group of functioning genes within (say) cryopreserved and matrix protected fertilized octopus eggs. These eggs might have arrived in icy bolides several hundred million years ago.” These scientists go on by writing “such an extraterrestrial origin…of course, runs counter to the prevailing dominant paradigm.”

Through the panspermia theory, there are seeds everywhere. The seeds of life, are everywhere within the universe, including both space and life here on Earth as we know it. If any of this is truthful, then these specimens would to have survived long journeys across the Universe. These traveling space octopuses, would have to be both “space-resistant and space-hardy”. These octopus cosmonauts, would have to endure many kinds of viruses and bacteria that would arise.

Octopuses are quite incredible creatures, they are able to contort themselves and are very flexible. Octopuses have three hearts and blue blood. They are widely considered to be the most intelligent of all invertebrates. Each tentacle is actually considered an arm. These arms have a mind of their own, able to think independently. Octopuses are quite the escape artists, they can squeeze themselves through some tough situations since they have no bones. To fool their prey, they can camouflage themselves as well. Equally as impressive, they can “see” with their skin.

Their skin is made up from the same light-sensitive proteins present in octopus eyes. This means that an octopus’s skin, can sense and respond to light without information from either the eyes or brain. For traveling around within the ocean, an octopus can “walk” faster by using its arms as feet. This is far more efficient for them comparably. When they swim, their heart stops pumping blood to their organs.

With all of these abilities, they have become one of the oceans biggest wonders. Who knows whether or not they are from another world, but we shouldn’t rule it out either.

(Source: Quartz and Huffington Post)