Number 5. Interesting Engineering dot com. Solar storm wreaks havoc on GPS-reliant farmers.
Modern farming is heavily reliant on Global Positioning System (GPS) data to do things like steer tractors to plant and harvest in straight rows. If the rows of corn are not straight, as my grandfather proved in about 1909, the crop yield and ensuing profits are limited.
During a solar flare-up last spring, a particularly severe CME (coronal mass ejection) from the sun sent a shower of very hot, charged particles toward Earth. This resulted in both a spectacular display of Northern Lights, and also significant disruptions to the GPS system.
Tractors ran off course, at first wandering slightly from their prescribed path, and then taking off aimlessly across the field.
Because the GPS system is normally reliable and incredibly accurate, farmers can operate tractors 24x7 during planting in the springtime and harvesting in the fall. Because they can, they do. Which all works well as long as the tractor knows where it’s going in the dark.
When it doesn’t, the economic fallout for the farmer is substantial come harvest-time.
More recently, there was another solar flare-up in October. Solar activity tends to go in 11-year cycles (according to something I studied many years ago working on a ham radio license), and this one is predicted to last for a few more years. I suppose that means we are currently at a period of high activity.
Too bad that tractor manufacturers deployed the current generation of computer chips during the low ebb of that cycle. According to the article, “Engineers are already looking for ways to make tractors less reliant on GPS.”
Well. That’s a step forward.
Part of their solution will be further development of machine learning under the supervision of AI systems.
Oh, goody.
Grandpa found the solution to planting straight corn rows in about 1910. He got married, and had his wife lead the team of horses pulling the drill as they made rounds in the field. With her in front, and him following, the rows got straighter and closer together, resulting in an immediate 25% increase in crop yield.
Hooray for traditional, family-friendly solutions!
Earlier this year, MagicLab, a Chinese robot manufacturer, unveiled its third-generation creation, MagicBot. Each MagicBot works in concert with other MagicBots to collaborate in certain factory tasks.
They produced a video showing MagicBots inspecting products, moving materials, picking parts and scanning barcodes. They can pick up boxes and hand them to each other. They can also dance, do card tricks and play catch, which is not unlike some of the activities I have observed among humans in conventional factories and warehouses.
MagicBot incorporates a multitude of sensors. The data from the sensors is funneled into an algorithm — do you have the impression everything in your life now fuels an algorithm? — to create self-awareness and allow planned movement. This is augmented with certain sensors that have 360-degree environmental scanning.
They have eyes in the backs of their heads.
Artificial intelligence — there it is again — is being used to improve the speed of their training and cooperation.
I can hardly wait for the hackers to access a platoon of MagicBots. Maybe we could have them chase the tractors across the field to bring them back on course?
Keeping up with our technology theme, the CEO of a US military contractor suspects he knows what the New Jersey drones are up to: They are looking for a lost shipment of nuclear material.
Well. That’s comforting.
Saxon Aerospace LLC builds unmanned aerial systems (UAS) used for, among other things, finding items on the ground by use of advanced sensors. In other words, if they fly low and slow, they can sniff out specific objects. This sounds like the police dog who sniffs the lost ballcap and then leads handlers to find the kidnapped child.
A related story has floated around the web that there was a small shipment of nuclear waste material lost recently. The package was sent — I actually thought they used special carriers for this stuff — and when received, the box was damaged and the contents missing. The sudden New Jersey drone activity might be related to the search.
On the other hand, Saxon’s CEO speculates on TikTok that the drones might be seeking a missing nuclear warhead that disappeared in Ukraine years ago after the Soviet Union collapsed. There is a particular nuke from that collection that has been widely assumed to have been headed to the US.
“There were over 80 nuclear warheads that were in Ukraine that came up missing,” says the CEO. “We don’t know where they are. Maybe somebody does, but nobody really knows where these are.”
He went on: “The only reason why you would ever fly an unmanned aircraft at night is if you’re looking for something.” He further explained that sensors in the drones can sniff things like methane or natural gas leaks. They can also be fitted with the capability to detect nuclear emissions.
This story just keeps getting better and better.
But not to worry, say the Three Letter Agencies. DHS, FBI, FAA and DoD all agree: “We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast.”
Besides wondering what “anomalous” means, most of us feel better already.
Nothing to see here! Just move along! And ignore that Toyota-sized object hovering over your tomato garden in the dark!
(Disclaimer: This is the best I know at publication time. By the time you read this, the drone mystery may be all over. Or maybe New Jersey will have disappeared by then.)
Number 2. WLT Report dot com. Recycling is worthless: It’s a Green Religion
This is a report from John Stossel about the negative impacts of recycling. You may not agree with Stossel, but it’s an argument worth having. His point is that the cost of our national recycling program exceeds the savings.
It is not just a monetary argument. He points out, for example, that when Los Angeles began to require residents to recycle, the city added 400 garbage trucks to the fleet. These all run on diesel and add more pollution to the city than is saved by recycling.
Besides that, 95% of plastics that are put in the recycle bin cannot be recycled, despite the little arrows-chasing-each-other logo embossed on the bottom of every container. Either it’s not the right kind of plastic, or there are too many additives for color, or some other criteria makes it too expensive or unproductive to recycle.
Those lightweight plastic shopping bags are the worst. They drift around, clogging recycling machinery, and require a maintenance worker to climb into the machine and manually clear them out.
This all means that much of what we recycle is never recycled. It cannot simply be routed to the City Dump, because it’s recycle. So most of it is shipped somewhere, loaded onto a barge and sent overseas.
When it gets to where it’s going — usually someplace in southeast Asia — it is piled on the beach, where it stays, or it is dumped in the ocean.
In my neighborhood, the trash truck comes once a week. Except that he actually comes twice a week. Both trips are on the same day; one trip to collect trash and the second to collect recycle. I am sure he takes the contents to different locations. This means handling my trash is twice the cost of merely throwing it all away.
If there were a benefit to the plan, I would not object. But I don’t really think there is a benefit. As Stossel points out, recycling is more religion than economics. Watch his video. See what you think.
Number 1. Washington Free Beacon. Biden orders agency to expand use of Indigenous Knowledge.
Continuing this week’s migration of headlines from science to religion, we can report that the White House has provided a new direction for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA’s stated mission is to “provide daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration, and support marine commerce.” Traditionally, the agency has fulfilled those goals through careful observations, detailed reporting, scientific analysis and educated forecasting.
Not good enough, says the outgoing administration. Such “methodological dogma” is a hidebound system completely ignoring the necessity to acknowledge “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” as “integral components of the entire scientific process.”
This new focus is expressed in a formal Memorandum of Understanding signed last week between NOAA and AIHEC (American Indian Higher Education Consortium). The MOU seeks to advance “Indigenous Knowledge” alongside science, technology, engineering and math in tribal communities.
In practice, this means that the Biden administration requires NOAA to apply Indigenous Knowledge to their decisions, research, and policy statements.
Indigenous Knowledge is the belief that native-born peoples “possess an innate understanding of how the universe works.” I can certainly understand that a lifetime spent outdoors gives one an edge in knowing whether rain will come, or whether it might freeze tonight. My grandfather had such intuition; he spent most of his life outdoors with crops and cattle. But then, he was an American Native, rather than a Native American, so maybe he was disqualified.
I’m not sure how that intrinsic “innate understanding” would be passed along in the DNA. I certainly didn’t get any of it.
But never mind the science. We seem to have moved past all that to the arena of religion. According to the NOAA administrator, “These [indigenous] knowledge systems are needed more than ever to inform NOAA and our nation’s approach to environmental stewardship.”
I will sleep better now, knowing that the tornado forecasts here in Kansas will be based on millenia of “innate understanding” as much as on weather patterns and atmospheric pressure readings.
And thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, December 20, 2024. Given the calendar, you might want to go ahead and start your Christmas shopping any day now. If I were you, I’d get one of those new drones with flashing lights, and fly it over the neighbor’s house. It would add some interest to your neighborhood discussions.
For binge-worthy entertainment, see previous issues of the ANR at our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@alligatorpublishing. Gotta use the “@” sign or it doesn’t work.
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