How Can War and Space Help Caving ?

[The Old Ruminator]

We tend to forget that many scientific advances are brought about by developments in war and space travel. Currently we are seeing the rise of the drone, robotics and Artificial Intelligance . A quick play on Chatgpt can get you odd and funny results but the poems are fun. AI will increasingly be useful in the development of more intuitive camera and phones. Phone derived caving photos are getting commoner now and are quite acceptable. Now Israel is using a very sophisticated drone to map Hamas tunnels in Gaza. The American company Brinc has developed a drone for the IDF called " Lemur 2 ". This technology was honed in Ukraine. As usual it uses LIDAR to build a picture of the landscape but also " mesh networking " to allow numerous drones to corralate and feedback information to a single surface operator. This can proved a full map of underground networks and identify people and booby traps. The systems full potential obviously remains a secret but is being continuously refined to " dramatically expand capabilities ". As with most technology ( like GPS ) such systems enter the public commercial field and are adapted for normal use. Remember how early GPS had selective reliability ? That pretty much forgotton now as a technique was found to get around it. Maybe when I get to 80 I can send a drone into a cave whilst sitting at home having a cup of tea. You never can tell. There is another point. Flashguns are almost obsolete now as cameras and LED lighting have taken over. The phone is catching up though. Watch this space as they say.

 

[LadyMud]

Velcro! Although it was invented for the textile industry, it didn't become widely available until it was adopted by the aerospace industry.

 

[Edwardov]

If they are above-surface aerial drones then they cannot map underground spaces using LiDAR alone. LiDAR does not pass through solid objects, its only lasers.

I suspect they are talking about a drone already underground and flying through an underground network, mapping it - this is nothing special and has been done before. In their context the exciting bit is it is an expendable drone in a dangerous environment where you wouldn’t want to put a person.

 

[royfellows]

and so we do physically less and less and as a result become less fit and less able to think fior ourselves.
Maybe when I get to 80, just over 12 months away, I do the demanding favourite trip as a celebration. On another level, I am training for karate second dan.

"All decisions made for us, transistors in a link, but to mankind the greatest loss, the ability to think"
From a rhyme I wrote some years back. basically, where we are going with it.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Its the auto opening doors that annoy me !
Escalators
Mobile 'phones ( correct grammar ).
Self closing car boots.
Self service tills.
Adverts on GB News. OK TV in general.
Auto dip headlights.
QR Codes.
Oh dear I must be a technophobe.

 

[royfellows]

Lightening things up. I am a PC and local network system engineer, MS Access developer, Visual Basic programmer, and electronics engineer. I hate mobile phones and dont own one, yet was an owner of one way back in the days when they were radio telephones as used in boats etc, but mine was in a car.
As Mike Moore says in another thread, only one Roy.
("To thine own self be true" - was it Shakespere)

 

[ZombieCake]

Self service tills are evil incarnate. Just there to do people out of jobs and increase profit margins. One supermarket chain in the North said it has now decided to rip them out, so that's progress.
My phone is just there for the odd text and calls, and not to act as a personal surveillance device.
I wonder if any thermobaric devices could eventually spin-off tech wise in to order to facilitate cave digging?

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Self service tills are evil incarnate. Just there to do people out of jobs and increase profit margins. One supermarket chain in the North said it has now decided to rip them out, so that's progress.
My phone is just there for the odd text and calls, and not to act as a personal surveillance device.
I wonder if any thermobaric devices could eventually spin-off tech wise in to order to facilitate cave digging?

Na. A laser that digs a metre wide hole in solid rock. My local store sometimes turns the self service tills off when busy as so much stuff is not being put through.

 

[Cantclimbtom]

Na. A laser that digs a metre wide hole in solid rock... ... ...

A metre???? If you need to accomodation many 1m diameter cavers there must be good beer and roast dinners a plenty in your neck of the woods 🤣

 

[JasonC]

War ! What is it good for ?

 

[royfellows]

My phone is just there for the odd text and calls, and not to act as a personal surveillance device.

Yes, a lot of things are coming out of the Ukraine war that we never realised.
They can be turned on remotely
They can eavesdrop you coversations
They can pinpoint you exact position to third parties, (Boom)
They can be hacked quite easily. Probably something I missed out. Oh yes, they now account for about 90% of scamming.

Main reason though I dont own one though is they dont fit my lifestyle

 

[ChrisB]

They can be turned on remotely
They can eavesdrop you coversations
They can pinpoint you exact position to third parties, (Boom)
They can be hacked quite easily. Probably something I missed out. Oh yes, they now account for about 90% of scamming.

My bank keeps trying to tell me that I should use their mobile App and that it's more secure than using a browser. I'm not sure if that includes the browser on my PC that doesn't leave my house, but intend to continue using that. I don't trust mobile security (particularly if my phone were stolen) and don't need to access my bank account when I'm away.

 

[pwhole]

I would definitely recommend not watching GB News, in-between the adverts

 

[AR]

Dunno about watching it, but articles pop up on my work microsoft feed and I do occasionally read them, if only to see how bonkers some of their presenters are. Emily Fox left me thinking that I've heard more coherent and believable arguments coming from people in bus stations who were waving a can of Spesh...

 

[andrewmcleod]

My bank keeps trying to tell me that I should use their mobile App and that it's more secure than using a browser. I'm not sure if that includes the browser on my PC that doesn't leave my house, but intend to continue using that. I don't trust mobile security (particularly if my phone were stolen) and don't need to access my bank account when I'm away.

It's easier for them to identify your phone as a unique thing that you own than your computer, I think. So I can understand the bank's argument.

 

[Pony]

Take a look at Bill Stone's self mapping and guided underwater drone/rov. In development for exploration of Io or Europa, can't remember which. Talks in some detail about on The Caver Podcast

 

[ttxela2]

and so we do physically less and less and as a result become less fit and less able to think fior ourselves.
Maybe when I get to 80, just over 12 months away, I do the demanding favourite trip as a celebration. On another level, I am training for karate second dan.

"All decisions made for us, transistors in a link, but to mankind the greatest loss, the ability to think"
From a rhyme I wrote some years back. basically, where we are going with it.

I'm all for technology if it makes life easier, opens up opportunities and increases our capabilities. To a great extent this is happening but very unevenly.

I remember being told as a teenager by the careers lady at school that 'computers & robots' would mean more leisure time and earlier retirement, hence I should seek work in leisure industries .

Somehow though I still seem to be working more hours than my parents did and work tasks and messages continue into home life whilst retirement age recedes into the distance and may even reach the 70's by the time I catch up with it. I still don't have a flying car, I do have a fantastic personal communication device that I can make video calls on and access almost any information - but rather than using it to expand my knowledge and skills I mainly look at pictures of other peoples dinner and videos of cats falling off shelves.

Of course that's a negative view and in many ways life has improved since the 70's and 80's - which just goes to show wherever you think the future is heading it's probably going somewhere entirely different....

 

[Chocolate fireguard]

In the mid 1970s, when pocket calculators became generally available, we were told that they would relieve us of the tedium of calculation and leave us free to ponder the meaning of the result.
Even then, some of us laughed so much that tears ran down legs.
A few years later I heard the expression "remove the need, remove the ability" and since then we have removed the need to spell, punctuate, read maps, go to a bit of trouble to say something to someone not within earshot and lots of other things that once occupied (and expanded) our minds.
Perhaps the next thing we shall be relieved of is the need to develop spatial perception and the ability to concentrate when self-driving cars become widely available.
That will probably be after I am dead, so I shall be deprived of the entertainment of watching people walking around bumping into each other.

 

[royfellows]

..........................., so I shall be deprived of the entertainment of watching people walking around bumping into each other.

Not so, its happening now. Their brains are in their left hand and their thinking in the fingers of the right hand.

 

[andrewmcleod]

In the mid 1970s, when pocket calculators became generally available, we were told that they would relieve us of the tedium of calculation and leave us free to ponder the meaning of the result.
Even then, some of us laughed so much that tears ran down legs.
A few years later I heard the expression "remove the need, remove the ability" and since then we have removed the need to spell, punctuate, read maps, go to a bit of trouble to say something to someone not within earshot and lots of other things that once occupied (and expanded) our minds.
Perhaps the next thing we shall be relieved of is the need to develop spatial perception and the ability to concentrate when self-driving cars become widely available.
That will probably be after I am dead, so I shall be deprived of the entertainment of watching people walking around bumping into each other.

I for one am quite grateful that the need to do farming, foraging, hunting, make my own foodstuffs, sew my own clothes etc. has disappeared, even if that means I lack the ability to do these things. The progress of civilization from basic universal subsistence skills to more specific individual skills is hardly a new one.