Health & Fitness
High Tech Cop Car, More Drones, and the Meteorite
Today's Episode Features a High Tech Cop Car, More Drones, and the Meteorite
Today's Episode Features a High Tech Cop Car, More Drones, and the Meteorite
Subscribe to We Are Change: http://bit.ly/P05Kqb
Subscribe We Are Change Milwaukee: http://goo.gl/BAI4Z
Subscribe to "The Awakening" List here:
http://bit.ly/TheAwakeningOnFB
(2,000+ Truth LIKE Pages)
On this episode of Wide Open Throttle, Jessi Lang spends a day with the 2013 Ford Interceptor Police car. She gets an overview of the sophisticated technology that allows police officers to do their job safer and more efficiently. Next it’s on to the Emergency Vehicles Operation Center where she rallies the Interceptor and learns crucial law enforcement techniques.
Find out what's happening in Caledoniawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
When I began thinking of this animated Op-Docs video, I had two things in mind. The first was the adoption of drones by the Seattle Police Department. (The program has since been scuttled.) The second was Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1924 novel “We,” which was a forerunner to dystopian novels including George Orwell’s “1984,” Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano.”
Find out what's happening in Caledoniawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
A forum for short, opinionated documentaries, produced with creative latitude by independent filmmakers and artists.
Connect With Us on Twitter
For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.
“We” is set in a futuristic city that is constructed almost entirely out of glass. This total surveillance state is reminiscent of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a prison designed so that inmates could be watched at all times — without their being able to tell whether they were, at any moment, actually being watched. I suspect domestic drone use will eventually have a similar effect: allowing the state to dominate the public through pervasive eyes in the sky.
How will these machines be regulated? Will they be weaponized? Will the National Rifle Association insist on the right of every American to have a drone to protect his or her family and home? None of this has been decided yet, but American lawmakers are pushing for drones to be in the skies over your head very soon. (Members of the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus — also known as the drone caucus — in the House of Representatives have received $8 million in contributions over the last four years from drone manufacturers.) How will flying drones affect the psychology of those living under them?
For clues we can look to Pakistan, where the United States has killed thousands in drone strikes. Some Pakistani children reportedly have trouble studying and have dropped out of school because of the fear of drones buzzing overhead; some adults are afraid to gather publicly or attend weddings and funerals.
We should ban drone use over United States skies outright — or get ready to embrace the city of glass.
18 February 2013 Last updated at 13:51 ET
Share this page
Scientists say the meteor broke apart 30-50km above ground Continue reading the main story
Related Stories
Fragments from a meteorite have been found in Russia’s Urals region where it struck on Friday, injuring some 1,200 people, Russian scientists say.
The fragments were detected around a frozen lake near Chebarkul, a town in the Chelyabinsk region, where the meteorite is believed to have landed.
Viktor Grohovsky, of the Urals Federal University, told Russian media that the material contained about 10% iron.
Russian officials say the strike caused damage costing 1bn roubles ($33m).
Fireballs were seen streaking through the skies above Chelyabinsk, about 1,500km east of Moscow, followed by loud bangs on Friday morning.
An estimated 200,000 sq m of windows were broken; shattered glass causing most of the injuries reported in Chelyabinsk.
‘Stony meteorite’
Fireballs streaked across the skies and loud bangs were heard after the meteor entered earth’s atmosphere
While some 9,000 people have been helping in the clear-up and rescue operation, scientists have been concentrating their search for fragments of the rock around Chebarkul Lake, where a 6m (20ft) wide crater had been found following the strike.
“We have just completed the study, we confirm that the particulate matters, found by our expedition in the area of Lake Chebarkul indeed have meteorite nature,” Mr Grohovsky was quoted by Russia’s Ria Novosti news agency as saying.
“This meteorite is an ordinary chondrite, it is a stony meteorite which contains some 10% of iron. It is most likely to be named Chebarkul meteorite,” he added.
A search of the lake bottom by a group of six divers on Saturday had found nothing; and it was thought the search would be delayed until the snow melts in the spring.
Russian scientists say the meteor weighed about 10 tonnes before it entered the Earth’s atmosphere, travelling at some 30km (19 miles) per second, before breaking apart 30-50km (20-30 miles) above ground.
However, the US space agency Nasa said the meteor was 17m (55ft) wide and weighed 10,000 tonnes before entering the atmosphere, releasing about 500 kilotons of energy. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 was 12-15 kilotons.
Scientists have played down suggestions that there is any link between the event in the Urals and 2012 DA14, an asteroid which raced past the Earth later on Friday at a distance of just 27,700km (17,200 miles) – the closest ever for an object of that size.
Such meteor strikes are rare in Russia but one is thought to have devastated an area of more than 2,000 sq km (770 sq m) in Siberia in 1908.
