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from the creating-a-virtual-world-from-the-real-world dept.
Two architecture school graduates have taken LIDAR to the next level with a project meant to precisely reproduce London:
Today, they’re at the forefront of large-scale 3-D laser scanning, specializing in striking, ghostly reproductions of castles, museums, ice floes and more, conjured from billions of millimeter-precise dots.
Their latest undertaking is a sprawling scan of Mail Rail, a network of abandoned tunnels once used to transport mail beneath London. Like much of the group’s work, it sits at the intersection of utility and beauty, commerce and art. On one level, it’s an unprecedentedly detailed document of a historically significant site—a laudable bit of high-tech preservation.
15 years ago a buddy of mine in the 101st Airborne told me the military had done this with American cities to facilitate low-level chopper flying to put down civil insurrection, so it would be cool and useful to have archives like this available to civilians. Especially since I've really been looking forward to living in the Matrix.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday April 23 2015, @01:11AM
I left out the other bit my friend told me in that story because I didn't want to skew the summary too much. But when my buddy was talking to that colonel who told him about the LIDAR mapping for helicopter deployment, and why they were mapping it, my buddy was aghast. Now, my buddy is a pretty right-wing guy, and he loved talking to all the bad-ass guys he came into contact with in the 101st. And he was really into this colonel who was in charge of the project, because flying helicopters fast and low through buildings is pretty bad-ass, right? That is, he was into it up until the moment the colonel told him it was for civil unrest. Then he kind of stammered and said, "You mean, if you were given the order to open fire on American citizens, would you obey it?" The colonel said, dead serious, "I would obey my orders."
He told me that story in the late 90's, and at the time I said, nah, that couldn't really happen here. Now in 2015 I feel like I've woken up in another country, one that resembles others we opposed in the Cold War or fought in WWII, and I feel like it absolutely could happen here and fear it could happen soon. I'm not a "molon labe" kind of guy and don't even own a single firearm, but I am very glad that millions of Americans do own a lot of guns. I am also very glad that there are a lot of veterans walking around here who feel the same way I do. I also consider that as strong as the American military is, they have always had the advantage of a secure base of supply and manufacturing and foreign adversaries whom they don't care all that much if they're hostile or innocent civilians when they kill them; none of those advantages apply here, because the people they're going to be shooting at will be the ones torching their fuel depots, raiding their armories, assassinating collaborators, and then melting back into crowds of civilians containing the friends and families of the soldiers meant to fire back. It would make Fallujah look like a Sunday school picnic.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday April 23 2015, @10:05PM
Do you think these people really has the ability to find like minded in situation without telecommunications. And have the ability to fend of advanced technology like heat signature surveillance, drones, gunships etc.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 24 2015, @12:39PM
Those technologies are great and all when you don't mind wiping out 500 innocent people to get the 3 you want. When each of those 500 innocents has (on average) 250 people they're related to, friends with, go to church with, etc, and you still want all those people to keep showing up to their factory jobs to make parts for your fighter jets and grow crops to feed your troops and generally do all the things necessary to maintain your empire, then indiscriminate killing of your countrymen starts to get pretty problematic. Also, ask yourself the question, does the government black out all communication forever in order to keep rebels from talking to each other? Because then the children of your super elite who like to party on daddy's money will start to grouse that they can't message their friends to meet them at the club anymore, and that having to send (ugh) mail to each other to communicate is such. A. Drag. Not to mention, blacking out all communications at this stage in history would bring all of our modern society to a screeching halt.
As for the rest, the US military wasn't able to pacify a stone-age culture (Afghanistan) with trillions of dollars spent, all the drone strikes in the world, and zero compunction about slaughtering thousands to get a few "terrorists." Do you really think Americans, far more educated and well-armed than those people, would fare less well? Even discarding the reality that it's hard to get your soldiers to fire on crowds containing their own loved-ones, Americans are still made of tougher stuff than a lot of people give them credit for. And, thanks to 40 years of impoverishing every single American not in the .01% super-elite, the super-elite are vastly, vastly outnumbered. I also maintain that now that technology is in the hands of the average person, people could get pretty creative about how to kill the super-elite once they set their minds to it.
Washington DC delenda est.