thought that was some sort of joke or scam where the app just turns on the phones light but it seems to be real
Still not convinced it isn’t a scam but the yanks will try and sell anything including sunlight.
What are the Funkadelic hinges like?
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Have they done the sums ?
In the 1980’s I met someone who was in a position to know about these things and he said that the US military had looked at this towards the end of the Vietnam war. It turned out the sneaky Viet Cong were taking advantage of moonless nights to attack the Americans when they (Charlie) couldn’t be seen.
So the military commissioned some big contractor (I’m trying to say Bechtel, although in retrospect they seem like a surprising choice) to assemble a mirror in space to deliver at least moonlight-level illumination on the ground.
This was before re-usable launchers and when space-walking was still very much a novelty. It was an unhinged idea and not even the US MIC was up for it.
Problems:
- Calculate the tonnage of material you need to put up there, and the cost of doing that, and the impact of burning all the rocket fuel needed. Then calculate how much electricity you could make just burning the fuel in a fossil fuel power station instead.
- Think about assembling and maintaining it (if you’re considering plastic film think particularly about micrometeorite damage)
- Think about beam divergence
- Think about insurance for when something breaks loose and comes ‘unexpectedly’ back down
- What will anyone pay for this (answer: not much)
- When it’s night where you are it’s day somewhere else. It will be hugely cheaper to let them make solar-powered electricity, run that to you down a wire and use it to power the lights you need. Economics always wins in the end.
- Sometimes it’s cloudy
The cloudy aspect was first to spring to mind. Judging from the film the light appears poor (high lumen torch might be better) should the reflected light be excellent things like plant photoperiods start to become an issue
they are like, a running joke on here
There’s a slightly more technical article embedded on their website. They’re talking about 10m x 10m mirrors. One of those will capture about 100kW of solar radiation (visible light plus a bit of UV and IR). That would be enough to produce full daylight over the same area on the ground (obviously). But I wouldn’t bet anything I cared about on them being able to beam the light down to anything like that small an area. If they’re really lucky they might be able to achieve something like weak moonlight. Our eyes are pretty sensitive, so moonlight isn’t valueless (evolution has worked the other way round - again ‘obviously’ - developing animal eyes which can work in whatever our environment has provided us with i.e. moonlight, if we want to go out at night). But it isn’t daylight. As for power, there are enough of us with solar panels on our roofs to know how much they (don’t) generate in moonlight.
These schemes are promoted by those unable/afraid to sleep. “Just imagine how much we could achieve with 24 hour daylight!” "Aye, lad. That’s exactly what worries me. "
Further proof that 1960s and '70s US military policy was largely inspired by drugs - Starlight night vision scope introduced into service in 1964 -
Even the first gen was surprisingly capable:
But no. Mirrors-in-Space… 
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The same guy told me that during the Iran hostage crisis someone proposed starting a rumour in rural Iran that Allah was displeased with the authorities and that if the hostages weren’t released then the Lord would confirm his displeasure with ‘A Sign’ at such-and-such a time and place. And if that didn’t bring the crazies to their senses then truly biblical punishment would rain down 24 hours later.
When the time for the Sign arrived a small but visually impressive air-burst nuke would be cruised to the designated spot and detonated. The awed people would then ‘speak’ and the hostages would be heading for home on the next plane.
Among others, the issues included: i) clearing this in advance with the Russians (who might otherwise behave unpredictably when their radar spotted the missile heading in their general direction), ii) being sure that the common people would fall for it rather than working out the truth and having, say, half the hostages executed to make a point, iii) cleaning up the downwind mess, iv) being sure the tech wouldn’t fail embarrassingly (see Operation Eagle Claw) …
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Kind of always liked the cuntiness of planning to air drop oversized condoms labeled small and medium over Russia during the Cold War….
Seems like everyone read King Solomon’s Mines by Rider Haggard
Predicting an eclipse is the best way to convince the uneducated that you can do magic
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They’ve already invented and used Death Rays in Thunderbirds and James Bond films. It ought to be a trivial matter to make another one in this day & age. FFS, we’re going backwards.
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One of the first symptoms of Flu is to make you more socially active in the period that it is most transmissible…
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It sounds like one of Baldrick’s cunning plans to infect as many people prior to laying the host low as possible, cunning little virus innit.
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The government’s not interested. And that’s official (for now, at least).
Graeme, Laser Tsar has a catchy feel.
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Wheel\Rail Interface and Fish Plates:
Fascinating!
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Half a million joints in network rail! No wonder the trains are always fucking late.
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They must have stopped testing then
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