Israel today has trophy [0] which can detect if an rpg is going to hit its tank and shoot it out of the sky.
(from wiki): The system allegedly relies heavily on high-speed computational technologies. Upon detection of an incoming projectile, the system automatically computes various parameters, such as the approach vector, nature of the threat, time to impact, and angle of approach. The defensive projectiles are launched by two rotating projectile launchers positioned on the sides of the vehicle. These launchers deploy a number of small EFPs (Explosively Formed Penetrators), forming a precise and closely spaced matrix, targeting an area in front of the anti-tank projectile.
And that's one country with 10 million people and a mere $46.5 billion in military spending. And BTW allies generally share tech (we the US suck right now (sorry)) but Trophy is being integrated with multiple allies [1].
Developing automated drone shooting destroyers I think we can do.
EDIT: To add, I bet those drones can be shot down by 1 minigun or shotgun shell which aren't relatively expensive.
Edit 2, the dutch already have a badass automated minigun too [2, 3].
Edit 3: multiple countries have similar systems but they are all mainly for boats. I think we can adapt the to army bases [4].
There’s been plenty of anti missile systems deployed to Ukraine and the tank losses have still been absolutely insane.
Fundamentally it’s not about building anti-missile technology, it’s about doing it cheaply and at scale. That is a much, much tougher problem.
These drones cost less than a thousand bucks, and if each interception cost you 100k (the cost of a trophy shot) you’re going to lose a lot of equipment. It only takes one miss.
Now imagine scaling that system to protect an entire airfield. That seems next to impossible when these drones have a range of 10+ miles and are basically unjammable. You need China level surveillance across your entire county as a bare minimum.
Check out my edit 2. The Dutch already have an automated minigun. Bullets aren't that expensive relative to those shitty consumer drones which would get torn apart by them.
Also, ukraine doesn't have Trophy or any minigun/shotun defense system that I know of yet.
Having automated miniguns/shotguns near civilian areas definitely creates a challenge but I think our defense budget can handle that.
These naval CIWSs are massive. ~6 tonnes with a minute of ammunition. They cost tens of millions. All of this is probably acceptable for base defense.
But all high rate fire guns have short operation limits before their barrels melt. About 15 seconds before a 10 minute cool-off, maintenance and reload cycle. It's comically easy to saturate that with waves of decoy drones.
Those CIWS are designed to take out much more hardened targets than shitty drones. I bet you a shotgun shell can easily take out one of those drones.
Upgrade your drone defenses and now your drones cost more...
I don't work in the military so take everything I say with a massive grain of salt but I bet offense and defense scale in cost similarly and NATO + allies have WAY more money than the russians.
And note a big weakness of CIWS in port: what's your backstop? When the wave of drones comes in at low altitude over the city the port is at what happens???
An increasing number of drones being used aren't the shitty consumer ones either. They are still relatively cheap, but their guidance systems and payloads are improving dramatically compared to the start of the war. Saturation attacks are still possible on automated kinetic kill systems, and for a price that is sustainable for the attacker.
That's built to kill an inbound missile. And it's almost certainly possible to bleed it for less than it's own cost.
What we need is cheap systems that can be deployed in large numbers that fire wimpy short ranged stuff so it doesn't do too much damage when it falls back. Shotguns are good at this, the smaller pellets do not fall back with lethal energy.
Trophy is designed for fast moving anti tank missiles. These cheap drones can be shot down with a shotgun. I think we can make anti drone systems a little cheaper.
A century is approximately three billion seconds, the second being variously defined across history as a multiple we find convenient of whatever universal natural constant we can most precisely measure -- most recently 10 billion or so of a specific type of vibration of cesium atoms.
All the other stars and planets would have the same experience, though their local orbital periods might result in different units of expression being more convenient.
Of course, as we leave our galaxy they would also be in significantly different reference frames and perhaps experience the rate differently as a result. We are assuming that, statistically, our relative velocity is not special and they see roughly the same relationship between red shift and distance that we do.
"400k" (he/she says they work for a private company so they haven't told us how much of that is actual cash in hand) and also in an unknown location which could be the bay area which in that case, just go work for Google/Meta/Netflix and make that money in cash/RSUs.
From your other comment, you pay $400-700k for L4-L6.
Since your company is private what percent of that is liquid (cash or RSUs you can immediately sell for cash). Also, what locations are you hiring in?
Cause, if you are asking me to move to the outrageous housing market that is the bay area only to make half my money in shitty stock options that might not evaluate to anything, than I think I found your problem.
That's pretty good. Can you liquidate those RSUs for cash? If so I'd be interested in possibly applying as I'm in Chicago where housing isn't outrageous. If not it could still be tempting depending on the company and what I think of it.
> Not having to deal with parking, stop signs, traffic, etc genuinely does speed things up.
Traffic sure, but you still need a good place to park your bike so it does not get stolen and you should be stopping at stop signs.
I walk basically everywhere and I have to be more vigilant of bicyclists on crosswalks because they always blow through them at full speed regardless of who has the right of way.
In my state, bicyclists can treat stop signs as yields. Yes, that means if there is other traffic it returns to being a stop sign. Yes, there always is right of way for pedestrians.
So no, I definitely shouldn't be stopping at stop signs, but I should be following the rules of the road. Eye contact with peds, sometimes you can quickly negotiate "no, you go ahead". If not, stops for pedestrians.
My work has bike cages, which are right at the entrance and require a badge to access. If not, my bike parks vertically on its own and I could just bring it inside.
Yeah, I (as a biker) also hate dangerous bikers. Especially those weaving onto / off of the sidewalks. The up-side is that the most dangerous bike is 1/100th as damaging as a perfect driver sneezing at the wrong time.
Your standard office worker probably refinanced their mortgage at ~3% and is now laughing their way to the bank as their debt inflates away so they probably are profiting from it. I know I am.
Your standard retiree on the other hand who holds a lot of bonds that got absolutely hammered by inflation and rising interest rates is not doing so well.
For the good ones, I doubt it.
Israel today has trophy [0] which can detect if an rpg is going to hit its tank and shoot it out of the sky.
(from wiki): The system allegedly relies heavily on high-speed computational technologies. Upon detection of an incoming projectile, the system automatically computes various parameters, such as the approach vector, nature of the threat, time to impact, and angle of approach. The defensive projectiles are launched by two rotating projectile launchers positioned on the sides of the vehicle. These launchers deploy a number of small EFPs (Explosively Formed Penetrators), forming a precise and closely spaced matrix, targeting an area in front of the anti-tank projectile.
And that's one country with 10 million people and a mere $46.5 billion in military spending. And BTW allies generally share tech (we the US suck right now (sorry)) but Trophy is being integrated with multiple allies [1].
Developing automated drone shooting destroyers I think we can do.
EDIT: To add, I bet those drones can be shot down by 1 minigun or shotgun shell which aren't relatively expensive.
Edit 2, the dutch already have a badass automated minigun too [2, 3].
Edit 3: multiple countries have similar systems but they are all mainly for boats. I think we can adapt the to army bases [4].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)#Intern...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goalkeeper_CIWS
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AaUNipuygE
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system