New Jersey Drones

[Moontanman]

7 minutes ago, TheVat said:

And it was said!  

 

I am sorry @TheVat, I missed your remark. 

[TheVat]

4 minutes ago, swansont said:

The “drones” Maryland Governor Hogan filmed recently were stars in the constellation Orion

He being a politician, I would expect them to be below the belt.

2 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

10 minutes ago, TheVat said:

And it was said!  

 

I am sorry @TheVat, I missed your remark. 

I didn't mind.  Always nice to find a fellow mind making the same connection.  I miss plenty of posts meself.

[Moontanman]

It would appear that Trump is getting involved... it's gonna be alright now, only he can solve it and will solve it in a way never before seen!

[swansont]

5 minutes ago, TheVat said:

He being a politician, I would expect them to be below the belt.

There’s that, but more that it’s people who don’t often look up at the night sky and are unfamiliar with what you see. There’s a reason Venus is often mistaken for a UFO.

And it’s even worse these days with all the starlink and other satellites. Now that I have relatively dark skies around me I’ve seen a bunch of them an hour or two after sunset 

[TheVat]

5 hours ago, DeepBlueSouth said:

or better yet, catching them in some sort of net snares, which as an Cajun, I do not know why we have yet to use against drones. 

Hehe. Well the net we are presently using seems to catch only rumors, hearsay and other unreliable narratives.  Not being of the Arcadian persuasion, I can't imagine the skill level needed to deploy physical nets for something high flying but you never know.

[swansont]

Saw an uncorroborated report of someone shining a laser at one, and someone else found that a FedEx flight was flying past at the time, making it a federal crime. Panic and stupidity are a bad combo.

 

[KJW]

5 hours ago, swansont said:

Saw an uncorroborated report of someone shining a laser at one, and someone else found that a FedEx flight was flying past at the time, making it a federal crime. Panic and stupidity are a bad combo.

Trump says the drones should be shot down, not point a laser at them. A bullet probably wouldn't reach a plane.

🤪

 

[DeepBlueSouth]

20 hours ago, Moontanman said:

It would appear that Trump is getting involved... it's gonna be alright now, only he can solve it and will solve it in a way never before seen!

he makes a big people statement threatening to blow something up if it all doesn't stop, then quietly calls up his special friend in the east and suddenly the drones go away. /sarcasm

13 hours ago, KJW said:

Trump says the drones should be shot down, not point a laser at them. A bullet probably wouldn't reach a plane.

🤪

 

no, not the kind of guns most americans like to play 1930's gangster with or whatever the feck it is they do with them... [someone is shooting one of them off outside here in the valley right now, maybe they saw a drone flying in all this foggy rain] perhaps we can use dart guns loaded with some sort of bleach to inject the drones.... that'll definitely do something, right...? he did keep us safe from that one balloon, kinda I guess [kidding that wasn't him]

20 hours ago, TheVat said:

Hehe. Well the net we are presently using seems to catch only rumors, hearsay and other unreliable narratives.  Not being of the Arcadian persuasion, I can't imagine the skill level needed to deploy physical nets for something high flying but you never know.

bolas snares, haha. and best of all, they can be fired from something quite similar.... to a GUN!! [cos that's the whole point of life in this country, ooh shiny long thing that go boom boom YAY]. just be mindful of Venus. all of my life I said, "there's no way an educated person could ever confuse the Evening Star with a craft, it just seems beyond the pale". fast forward to me quitting smoking in October and having nicotine withdrawal psychosis:

"hmm... one of those rich kids must be flying a drone up on the mountain. that thing must be HUGE."
[45 minutes later]
"OMG I have been staring at the planet Venus for almost an hour.... it DOES happen!"

[swansont]

The Geminids meteors peaked a few days ago. I wonder if that had any impact on these sightings.

[Moontanman]

Wright Patterson Air Force base was closed down for 4 hours due to drone activity! 

 

[swansont]

https://www.twz.com/air/drone-incursions-closed-wright-patterson-air-force-bases-airspace-friday-night

“there has been a flood of mostly unconfirmed and erroneous reported sightings throughout New Jersey.

Of more than 5,000 tips called into a national hotline set up to deal with these sightings, fewer than 100 generated leads “deemed worthy of further investigation,” an FBI spokesman told reporters, including from The War Zone, on Saturday.

The overwhelming majority of these sightings, as we have previously reported, are crewed aircraft, the official reiterated on Saturday.”

[zapatos]

I can't for the life of me figure out why everyone is getting so excited. There are drones in the sky. There are things in the sky that people think are drones but may be planes or helicopters. None of them seem to be doing anything harmful. Since most people seem to think they are drones, why get excited? Drones are nothing new.

Next we are going to hear there are birds in the sky, or at least they look like birds, so the military needs to do something about it!

[exchemist]

On 12/17/2024 at 3:53 AM, zapatos said:

I can't for the life of me figure out why everyone is getting so excited. There are drones in the sky. There are things in the sky that people think are drones but may be planes or helicopters. None of them seem to be doing anything harmful. Since most people seem to think they are drones, why get excited? Drones are nothing new.

Next we are going to hear there are birds in the sky, or at least they look like birds, so the military needs to do something about it!

That has been done……https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_Aren't_Real

😆

[CharonY]

Looks like yet another case where the internet amplifies erroneous information and dampens critical evaluation of observations.

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

That has been done……https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_Aren't_Real

😆

At least at that time folks realized it was a joke. Somehow along the way, satire became reality.

[exchemist]

13 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Looks like yet another case where the internet amplifies erroneous information and dampens critical evaluation of observations.

At least at that time folks realized it was a joke. Somehow along the way, satire became reality.

That was before the Trumpy reality-distortion field was at full strength.

I was out to dinner last night in London with a Brazilian family I’ve known for many years and was amazed when the man in the group started talking about this in credulous terms. He claimed the drones were the size of a van, that they had picked up  radioactive materials(?!) and so on. I half expected him to get on to anal probes! People seem to have lost all sense of the plausible and to believe utter shit these days. It’s the baleful effect of social media, I suppose. 

Edited January 3 by exchemist

[CharonY]

1 minute ago, exchemist said:

That was before the Trumpy reality-distortion field was at full strength.

I am sorry to say, but I don't think that this phenomenon is caused by Trump. They are dependent on it and amplify it, for sure but it is symptom, rather than cause. Which in many ways makes it worse.

[exchemist]

4 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I am sorry to say, but I don't think that this phenomenon is caused by Trump. They are dependent on it and amplify it, for sure but it is symptom, rather than cause. Which in many ways makes it worse.

Yes but I think Trump does make it much worse. That man has been gaslighting the US public ever since he started running for president and has never let up. Given that a large chunk of the population wants to take his side, for reasons of tribal political loyalty, that has led a lot of people to learn the habit of distrusting the reputable news media, government authorities, the justice system, etc. This removes the usual yardsticks we use to tell fact from fiction, predisposing them to believe all sorts of rubbish from weird corners of the internet instead. 

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

Yes but I think Trump does make it much worse. That man has been gaslighting the US public ever since he started running for president and has never let up. Given that a large chunk of the population wants to take his side, for reasons of tribal political loyalty, that has led a lot of people to learn the habit of distrusting the reputable news media, government authorities, the justice system, etc. This removes the usual yardsticks we use to tell fact from fiction, predisposing them to believe all sorts of rubbish from weird corners of the internet instead. 

I think it gives one man too much credit. Gaslighting is a concerted effort from many online groups and "alternate" media of which Fox can be considered a moderate version. While he has been an excellent figure head, there are dozens if not hundreds of online personalities (and Trump has met with many of them) that are part of it. The whole Q anon movement started out as a prank, essentially. Also, the same movement is active across borders and is frequently linked to local right-wing movements. I think focusing on Trump is a bit too US-centric and misses some of the world-wide developments we have. It is certainly not just one thing. I.e., it would also be too simplistic to point to Russia and China as instigators, but there is a confluence of multiple technological, societal and educational developments that makes a person such as Trump to be able to wield tremendous powers.

[TheVat]

The net can't help but amplify nonsense, because the sensible people who look up and recognize it's probably a drone then go inside and resume their evening routines.  It's the credulous who freak out then go online to spread their misinformation virus.  Sturgeon's Law was never more applicable than it is to the net.

My daughter is spending some of her holiday break (she teaches music) with a new BF who apparently believes in biochargers.  

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/biochargers-claims-are-too-silly-to-take-seriously/

Though he seems an otherwise ok person (based on secondhand report so far), my impulse on learning that he'd spent 15,000 USD on this quackery was to urge her to flee for her life.  Being a dad means holding one's tongue now and then.  Mainly now.

[CharonY]

Ooof, I hear you. My perspective is certainly skewed as I work in an area where we try to sharpen critical thinking. It is critical tool to actually learn anything related to science, after all. We do see it in this very forum where intuition is often used as an alternative with some, let's say interesting results.

The issue I see is that with the terminal online generation, there are fewer sensible folks walking away from nonsense. Or even able to understand that there is nonsense. It is strange. If confronted, many of the young students clearly state that the internet is full of misinformation. Yet, at the same time, they are so bad at spotting it, and are vehemently defending misinformation. And I cannot even spot a pattern. You can have folks who are very sensible in many areas but suddenly are dead sure that vaccines have microchips, because they heard it from reliable sources.

In the past, it was possible to track certain lines of misinformation and debunk them in class. I.e., there was some kind of underlying hypothesis, such as how e.g. homeopathic formulations are supposed to work and one could use it as a learning exercise and use scientific reasoning to explain why it is nonsense.

Now it is a deluge of just random claims which makes it very difficult and disheartening to disassemble. I think paradoxically, the internet and social media technology has amplified feeling over reasoning (as the former is so much easier to monetize). The exact opposite what we in the past have thought about the impact of technology in our lives.

And apparently you hurt their feelings if you confront folks with actual facts on the regular, too. At this point some think there is some courtesy in accepting clear misinformation. What I am saying is that I am increasingly in the role of a grumpy old man and I am not sure I like that.

[geordief]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

The net can't help but amplify nonsense, because the sensible people who look up and recognize it's probably a drone then go inside and resume their evening routines.  It's the credulous who freak out then go online to spread their misinformation virus.  Sturgeon's Law was never more applicable than it is to the net.

My daughter is spending some of her holiday break (she teaches music) with a new BF who apparently believes in biochargers.  

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/biochargers-claims-are-too-silly-to-take-seriously/

Though he seems an otherwise ok person (based on secondhand report so far), my impulse on learning that he'd spent 15,000 USD on this quackery was to urge her to flee for her life.  Being a dad means holding one's tongue now and then.  Mainly now.

Is there much difference btw  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone 

and that beauty?

(thought I was good at holding my tongue)

[exchemist]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

The net can't help but amplify nonsense, because the sensible people who look up and recognize it's probably a drone then go inside and resume their evening routines.  It's the credulous who freak out then go online to spread their misinformation virus.  Sturgeon's Law was never more applicable than it is to the net.

My daughter is spending some of her holiday break (she teaches music) with a new BF who apparently believes in biochargers.  

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/biochargers-claims-are-too-silly-to-take-seriously/

Though he seems an otherwise ok person (based on secondhand report so far), my impulse on learning that he'd spent 15,000 USD on this quackery was to urge her to flee for her life.  Being a dad means holding one's tongue now and then.  Mainly now.

Christ Almighty! 
 

But you do come across such people. I remember a charming, attractive and well-read young woman, Jenny, who was one of my neighbours in the house I had in my rowing days, who I went out with a few times, thinking it might lead somewhere. But I found, on the second date, she had read a book called “The Hot Zone” about an Ebola epidemic in Africa and was convinced it was going to kill us all by melting our internal organs. There were other things too, which led me to the conclusion she was just one of those people - I have encountered others- who “go in for ballocks”. 
 

But if this chap has blown $15k on a biocharger, either he is rich enough to have money to waste or he has something missing in his sense of reality. You could buy a car, or have a new kitchen, for that sort of money.

[swansont]

2 minutes ago, exchemist said:

But if this chap has blown $15k on a biocharger, either he is rich enough to have money to waste or he has something missing in his sense of reality. You could buy a car, or have a new kitchen, for that sort of money.

More money than brains. If you're an optimistic sort, you might say “at least he didn’t blow it on drugs” but that’s really pushing it.

[exchemist]

8 minutes ago, swansont said:

More money than brains. If you're an optimistic sort, you might say “at least he didn’t blow it on drugs” but that’s really pushing it.

Well, she should get taken to some decent restaurants, at least.😀

[CharonY]

40 minutes ago, swansont said:

More money than brains. If you're an optimistic sort, you might say “at least he didn’t blow it on drugs” but that’s really pushing it.

Wait, are you suggesting he bought it without being high?