Category: technology

Russian PAK-FA Flies

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Here is a decent quality picture

The aircraft made its first flight at Komsomolsk-on-Amur, duration about 45 minutes, the Sukhoi’s air field near Russia’s Pacific coast.

Note that this is more of a demonstrator than anything else, and by way of comparison, the BAE EAP, the demonstator for the Eurofighter Typhoon, first flew in August 1986, but entered service in August 2003, a 17 year lag.

To the degree that I can get a look at the cockpit arrangement, and it’s a couple of times that I have paused the videos (below), it appears that the canopy has not gotten any sort of stealth treatment yet.

There also appears to be a fair amount of edge alignment.

This, along with the visible smoke trails from engines, implies to me that this is more a demonstrator than a prototype

The the 2nd video makes that fairly clear that they are staying with the straight inlets and widely spaced inlets of the Flanker and Fulcrum, , so I’m not sure how they keep RCS down. There might be radar blockers in the inlets.

Interesting, they retain the widely spaced straight through inlets of the Flanker and Forger. I wonder how they reduce the RCS, perhaps radar blockers in the inlets.

Also, it appears that agility is a larger priority, as it has a cranked delta wing, which tends to improve nose authority at higher angles of attack.

I wonder if they are operating under the assumption that sensor fusion and increased processing power will mitigate stealth going forward, or they may have decided that lowering RCS to improve jamming efficiency was a more economical path forward than going with extreme stealth.

H/t ELP Defens(c)e

Here’s a Surprise

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Remember those GMO herbicide resistant crops?

You know, the ones that would allow for more productivity because you could spray them with weed killer, and only the weeds would die?

Well, not so much:

The authors of the report, entitled “Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use,” used US Department of Agriculture data to look at America’s three largest genetically engineered crops – soybeans, corn, and cotton. They found that the amount of herbicides used on them has increased from 1996 to 2008 by approximately 7 or 8 percent, with a particularly sharp increase from 2005 on.

In particular, the amount of Roundup that is used on genetically engineered crops has multiplied several times during the time period, says the report’s main author, Charles Benbrook, who’s the chief scientist at the Organic Center.

“This big increase in herbicide is driven largely by the emergence of Roundup-resistant weeds,” Dr. Benbrook says. But “industry is still saying to the public that genetic engineering [has] reduced herbicide use.

So, you have a new technology, one that rewards the over-use of herbicides in the short term, and in the long term, you end up creating resistant weeds.

<snark>Hoocoodanode? After all, when hospitals massively overused antibiotics, and farmers started putting in their feed, there was no similar incident of antibiotic resistant pathogens. </snark>

Deep Thought

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Reminds Me of a Certain Super Bowl Ad

Hillary Clinton has just announced that it’s now official US policy for countries to allow their internet access to be free and uncensored:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled on Thursday a new U.S. policy that encourages the world’s governments to ensure their citizens have open access to the Internet.

The speech comes a little more than a week after Google’s blunt declaration about Chinese censorship and illegal electronic intrusions, and the company’s assertion that it will pull out of China if it can’t reach a reasonable understanding with the Beijing government.

9:54 a.m. EST Clinton took the stage here at the Newseum, a museum dedicated to the news industry, and appealed to the audience to think of the communications networks that have been destroyed in last week’s massive earthquake in Haiti. She also noted how a mother and daughter in Haiti enabled their rescue by sending a text message. Clinton called communication networks a “new nervous system” for the world.

“In many respects, information has never been so free,” Clinton said. She referred to the way that virtually anyone can broadcast information to the Internet at any time. But governments can also use Internet and communications technologies to repress their people, she said, “just as steel can be used to build hospitals or machine guns.”

My first thought was, “Good for her,” and by extension, Barack Obama.

My one, and the the one that falls into the “Deep Thought” category, is that picture really looks like that “1984” ad that an Obamanite put out during the primaries.

Buh Bye New York Times

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One of the dirty secret of the newspaper business is that people do not pay for the news.

People pay a portion of the cost of setting ink to paper, but the remainder of the cost of producing a physical copy, as well as the cost of producing the content is covered by advertising.

The problem is that the most lucrative part of advertising is the classified. at about $55 for 3 lines, it generates a lot of revenue.

Unfortunately, Craigslist is better and cheaper, so newspapers find their classified revenue shrinking.

Additionally, after years of playing the Wall Street game of cutting costs, meaning reporters and in depth stories, and quality in general, their product is less attractive.

In the case of the New York Times, this has been further complicated by the fact that they plunked down a huge amount of cash for their brand new narcissistic monument to the New York Times office building, so they find themselves with a cash flow problem.

It appears that they are looking at setting up a pay wall around the newspaper to generate the desired revenue.

They have forgotten the disaster that was Times Select, which shut down after 2 years, when they generated very little revenue, and their opinion pieces largely dropped of the map on the Internet.

People pay for the Wall Street Journal because it provides breaking financial news, which is something that people have traditionally been willing to pay for.

General news, probably not, and so I’ll probably find other sources to link to.

Missile Defense Agency Looks to Liquid Fuel for Land Based Standard Interceptor

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Because the MDA is looking at ground basing, where the interceptor does not face the naval prohibition against hypergolic (liquid propellants that ignite spontaneously in each others presence) propellants, they are looking to integrate liquid propellant into the next generation kill vehicle. (paid subscription required)

Because the motor is completely throttlable, it allows for extended range, since the vehicle can coast and reignite the motor for terminal maneuvers, and it can perform more effectively at shorter ranges, because it can have a higher thrust for a shorter flight.

The downside is cost, complexity, and issues with storing the fueled missiles and propellants.

Youtube Pr0n Day: The Dog that Didn’t Bark

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The folks at 4Chan declared last Friday to be Pr0n Friday at Youtube, because they objected to the termination of the account of a user.

Only, Friday rolled around, and nothing happened, not even a falsified death notice involving gay prostitution and meth.

So, what happened? Well, nothing happened. Friday was just like any other day.

So, what did geniuses at Google, Youtube’s parent, do to address this?

Did they come up with a technical method to kill all of this? Was there some sort of highly sophisticated algorithm developed to spot nipples, penises, vaginas, and pubic hair?

Well, no, they didn’t, what they did was far more basic and more effective: They had some of their employees log into 4chan, and when people bragged about the pr0n posts, they took them down.

No link yet, just online chatter.

Technology Finally Gives Us Something Worthwhile

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The toilet dunk proof cell phone:

Most people would shudder at the thought of putting their mobile phones in the dishwasher. This is precisely what Seal Shield invites you to do with its new SEAL CELL handset. Or put it in the sink for a regular clean up.

The phone is water resistant (and not waterproof as we wrote carelessly earlier) and coated with an antimicrobial glaze to reduce mould, mildew and odour build-up. It looks destined mostly for hospital use: Seal Shield specialises in washable IT equipment for the healthcare sector. The company says (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/seal-shield-announces-worlds-first-dishwasher-safe-cell-phone-80697162.html) it devised the phone to help reduce the risk of worldwide cross contaminations, including H1N1, Norovirus and MRSA.

Win.

I have Pepsi-Syndromed phones, and I look forward to an expansion of this technology.

Why Yes, It Appears that Barack Obama Has Sold Us Out Again…………

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Silly peasant, it’s only the bankers, insurance companies, and other big players who get their promises kept. If it’s a promise to the little people, it doesn’t count.

This time, it’s net neutrality:

The Obama administration and its allies at the Federal Communications Commission are retreating from a militant version of Net neutrality regulations first outlined by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in September.

That’s my reading of a number of recent developments, underscored by comments made by government speakers on a panel on the first day of a Tech Policy Summit at CES in Las Vegas.

…………

Signs of more modest Net neutrality regulations include resignation in late October of Susan Crawford, who took part in Thursday’s panel discussion and who was previously a key adviser to the president on technology and communications. According to the conservative-leaning American Spectator, [according to the paid to lie by Richard Mellon Scaife American Spectator] Crawford’s version of Net neutrality was too radical for White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, contributing to her early departure.

…………

Part of the reason is some unexpected political pressure, including a letter signed by 72 congressional Democrats opposing the FCC’s proposed rules soon after they were announced.

But the bigger explanation is the growing priority within the administration for nationwide, affordable broadband service. In the course of preparing the national broadband plan, mandated by the 2009 stimulus bill, universal high-speed access has taken on increased significance in the government’s hopes for a rapid economic recovery. Beyond the current financial woes, Congress, the FCC and the White House all recognize the importance of improving the communications infrastructure to maintain U.S. competitiveness in technology innovation.

You see, the Telcos won’t build out high speed fiber/cable unless we allow them to bend us over the table and do us without any lube at all.

This is why the US has the highest costs and the slowest speeds for internet access in the developed world (here, here, and here), because allowing the Baby Bells and the Cable companies to squash competition and extort money.

Spotted: China flies air-launched cruise missile – The DEW Line

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Shown here on an H-6M Badger

The Chinese Military Aviation blog (bottom of page) has reported that the PLAAF has fielded a cruise missile, the CJ-10K, which is based on the ground launched CJ-10, which in turn derived some of its technology from the Russian KH-55.

It appears to be very similar in size to the Tomawhawk and the KH-55, which is no surprise, and its range is in the 1,500-2,500 km range, which makes it roughly equivalent to the Tomahawk.

It should be noted that the H-6M Badger is significantly improved, significant avionics upgrades as well as modern turbofans replacing its thirsty turbojets, which give it a range in the 3,000-3,500 km range, which would allow the aircraft/missile combination to strike Alaska without refueling, and air to air refueling, which the Chinese are now doing routinely might allow a strike against Hawaii as well.

At about 9,000 km, a strike on the mainland US well out of range,though much of Europe would be in range.

H/t The DEW Line

Visby Corvettes Delivered to the Swedish Navy

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The first two of the series, specifically the HMS Helsingborg and HMS Härnösand have been delivered to the Swedish Navy.

It’s not big news, but I think that the Visby’s are the coolest looking surface combatants out there.

I would note I am still dubious of the effectiveness of full up stealth on surface ships.

Between the ocean environment, and the fact that even the stealthiest ship leaves a visible wake, I’m not sure that it does much, except perhaps reducing jamming power required by a few watts.

RQ-170 Sentinel Revealed

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RQ-170


What are the fairings on top are for, maybe antennae?

So, I was wrong, when I suggested that there was no reason for the USAF to be flying a stealthy UAV in Afghanistan and that someone was Photoshopping a Burt Rutan project.

I was wrong.

The configuration is interesting, because while it is clearly low observable, the location of the exhaust is fairly conventional, rather than discharging on top of the wing, which implies that, despite it clearly being a LO design, it’s not a “LO is the be all and end all of the design” vehicle like the F-117 and B-2 are.

The USAF has now admitted to fielding the RQ-170 Sentinel UAV in Afghanistan as well as the fact that it was developed at Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks.

It appears to have been developed in response to the diplomatic brouhaha that resulted from the interception and forced landing of an EP-3 at the beginning of the Bush Administration.

It should be noted that the RQ designation means that it is unarmed, (paid subscription required) and the linked article also gives a reason for the USAF to deploy a radar evading UAV to Afghanistan:

“Don’t get enamored with current conditions,” [Air Force deputy chief of staff for ISR, Lt. Gen. Dave] Deptula cautions. “We don’t know what the future will bring.” While operations in Afghanistan will be “more complex than ever,” the future is “not only going to be about irregular warfare.”

Beyond 2011, the Air Force’s first priority and the destination of the next dollar to be spent “if I were king for a day,” Deptula says, “would be for long-range [reconnaissance and] precision strike. That’s the number-one need.
The “black” Sentinel was seen in 2007 at Kandahar, Afghanistan. Two photographs surfaced this year via the Secret Defense Blog.

“We cannot move into a future without a platform that allows [us] to project power long distances and to meet advanced threats in a fashion that gives us an advantage that no other nation has,” he notes. “We can’t walk away from that capability.

It’s all about the Benjamins. The USAF is deploying this to Afghanistan because they think that it will help them in their budget fights against other services.

Russians Adapt Cruise Missile to Conventional Warhead

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AS-18 Kazoo variant


AS-15 Kent Variant

We now have evidence that the Russians are modifying their cruise missiles to accommodate conventional warheads. (paid subscription required)

You can notice on both the Kazoo (top) and the Kent, forward surfaces have been added, probably to accommodate a center of gravity that has moved forward due to a heaver conventional warhead replacing the previous nuclear payload.

Additionally, the Kazoo appears to have some electro-optical sensors, which are likely used to improve terminal accuracy, reported to be 2-5 meters.

Considering their experience in Georgia, where they aircraft to anti-aircraft systems that they had designed, the renewed focus on stand off weaponry is not a surprise.

Raytheon Looks to Adapt AIM-9X for Air to Ground Applications

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They have conducted tests, and have successfully intercepted a high-speed “cigarette boat”, which simulates a drug running boat.

The idea here is that if an aircraft encounters a ground target while only armed for air-to-air, it could use the Sidewinder to take out the target.

Me, I’m wondering why they don’t just use the cannon.

One interesting bit here is that the F-22 crash 9 months ago might have been a part of this test, as it was reported that the smaller side bay doors were open at the time of the incident.

Fighting Terrorism With Lesbian Pr0n

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The Wall Street Journal has a bomb shell of s story.

It appears that insurgents in Afghanistan have hacked into the video feeds of US drones:

Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.

Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes’ systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber — available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

(link to SkyGrapper software mine)

I am surprised by this. Not so much by the idea that anyone in a situation to be surveilled and attacked by the US might attempt to use SIGINT to defend themselves, that it just basic common sense, but by the fact that the US military has been using an unencrypted feed to transmit data.

And, of course, we have the accusation that it was Iran who actually hacked the feeds, or developed the method to hack the feeds, because, much like in the case of the the Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFP) used by insurgents in Iraq, it is claimed that only the Iranians have the technical know-how to use such a system.

Of course, in the case of the EFPs, this accusation relied on a number of lies, in particular the idea that EFP construction was so technically challenging that only the Iranians could do it, despite the fact that the IRA was using EFPs in Ireland over 30 years ago, and that they actually discovered workshops where IEDs were manufactured…………It turns out all you need to make an EFP is a simple lathe and some copper.

The idea that once someone discovered the video feeds were unencrypted, and my guess would be that this has been known since the Kosovo campaign, because the Serbs were typically all over this kind of stuff.

In any case, the military is now claiming that this breach has been fixed, implying that encryption has been added.

I’m wondering what took so long. The satellite TV providers have been encrypting their signals with minimal computational overhead for decades.

Of course, I have an improvement on this idea, and it involves lesbian pr0n. (You were wondering when we would be getting to the pr0n, weren’t you)

In addition to using encryption, the video feed should use steganography to embed the signal inside an unencrypted non-tactical video feed.

The unencrypted video should be lesbian pr0n,* because the then the insurgents would in order to extract the true signal, be forced to watch nekkid women (Oh my God, tits!) deriving sexual satisfaction (Oh my God, female orgasm!) without benefit of a penis (Oh my God…………You get the idea), and it just screws with their heads (both upper and lower).

One of the reasons for the pr0n,† is because any relatively competent state actor would be able to decrypt a video feed in a relatively short period of time by gang tackling the signal with a video game based massively parallel super-computer.

*It was actually Bill Volk who made the suggestion.
†Beside the fact that I am a smart ass.

Pwn36*

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They paid someone to do this?

So, the Republican Party comes up with a URL shortener, the idea being that they would send people to the site, but put banners top and bottom that would advertise themselves and pranksters use it to link to pr0n:

The Republican party took down its innovative link-shortening tool Tuesday for several hours after pranksters had a field day using the tool to associate the GOP with bondage sites.

Having used Tinyurl and bit.ly for almost a decade, this is “innovative” only in the sense that House Minority John Boehner has a “human” complexion.†

As part of its new media strategy, the Republican party launched a new site called GOP.am on Monday. It’s a URL shortener designed to make it easy for conservative web surfers to exchange links to web pages.

This is what happens when people try to be hip and cool when they have not the slightest inkling what it means to be hip and cool.

So quoth the engineer, who has no clue as to what it means to be either hip or cool.

*Owned.
†Truth be told, if I didn’t know that he’s had it for years, I would have tagged it as jaundice.