asciilifeform: can 'energy harvest' (see, e.g., esp8266 threads) etc.
asciilifeform: submarine has the virtue of not falling down and exploding if it runs out of juice
asciilifeform: (can eject payload on quadchopper once reach enemy shore, yes)
asciilifeform: consider autonomous submarines (torpedo-sized) alternatively. far easier to hide in the ocean, esp. if you're small, electric, and in no hurry whatsoever - than in the air.
asciilifeform: because no way in hell does that thing actually -need- 200+M
asciilifeform: mod6: the obvious steps are 1) determine if still leaks (tentatively, i will say that it does not) and 2) determine wtf is eating the ram☟︎
asciilifeform: ben_vulpes: as in original thread, i will point out that dirigibles (aside from being blown off-course more often than not, and being stuck doing idiotic things like venting lift gas) have gigantic radar cross-sections
asciilifeform: ben_vulpes missed the thread where we 'did' this one ?
asciilifeform: i fully expect that being so much as found with a model propeller will be grounds for '25 to life' after the first quadcopter explodes somewhere interesting
asciilifeform: 'do strictly prescribed things except if you're rich and willing to fill out paperwork for every hour you want to do whatever'
asciilifeform: so aviation looks quite like what personal computing will look like in a decade or two.
asciilifeform: except the buggers (for various reasons, not all 'evil') - won.
asciilifeform: at one point, airplanes were supposed to 'happen' sorta like personal computer was going to
asciilifeform: http://log.bitcoin-assets.com/?date=11-05-2015#1128547 << to complete the painting, you build a telescope - out of sight of the demented old bastard - and see thermonuked wasteland around, no tomato in sight. then you build a spark gap radio and discover that on other side of planet, there are a few quasi-functioning tomato gardens. perhaps one or two per continent.☝︎
asciilifeform: put it this way, falling on ice onto one's arse delivers more kinetic energy than any bullet
asciilifeform: 2) not only flesh but infrastructure - are fragile. 'tsar bomba' knocked out power lines for many km despite being tested far from civilization (emp by zipping charged particles through van allen belt, a well-understood effect.) picture just one of these over, e.g., new york
asciilifeform: the interesting thing is, as i pointed out in link, 1) kinetics (how quickly energy is delivered) matter far more than thermodynamics (how much is delivered)
asciilifeform: re: nuke thread: decimation has it. nobody (save possibly pakistan) fields pure fission warheads today. not even for the tiny 'dial-a-yield' things fashionable in usa & ru. too 'dirty' and not considerably cheaper than 2-stage affair
asciilifeform: (solar panels, in contrast, at least do not suffer from the problem of becoming proportionately more useless with each one made)
asciilifeform: esp. if they were to become at all common and shoot the difficulty into outer space
asciilifeform: one can debate the solar panels - but this seems like a hands-down defeat.
asciilifeform: aka the '9 women in parallel to make baby in 1 month' theorem.
asciilifeform: take, or leave - that is the explanation behind all of the retardation we know as 'computing'
asciilifeform: this is 100% of my 'unified theory' of computing.
asciilifeform: the ultimate failure is that adding people is guaranteed not to work for 'fits in head'.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i will take your word for this. now unsheath your magic wand and summon a couple of devils to unfrag bitcoind
asciilifeform: adding people works for some things, but, apparently, not everything.
asciilifeform: can't speak for other hardware folks here - e.g., ben_vulpes - but suspect they might answer same.
asciilifeform: i can, barely, afford, e.g., electron microscope. or the parts to build an ion beam machine. but what i cannot even remotely afford is the -time-.
asciilifeform: so far, i've reached a possibly surprising conclusion - it is -time-
asciilifeform: it is interesting to contemplate what is the most expensive piece of technology involved in this circus
