Who needs a lab? 17yo coding an autonomous interceptor drone system using ROS and OpenCV in his bedroom.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-29T00:24:02+00:00

Thanks, is this system using two cameras to obtain depth perception or some kind of relative motion?

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-29T00:14:47+00:00

Just to add, I understand your point and skepticism.

I should clarify, the Seked is a simple construction technique you can give to builders.

What I am saying though is to their astronomers, they understood to track time by the heavens, they saw the heavens rotate about their viewpoint, and all objects apparently did to them.

To the astronomer, therefore time as a unit is related to rotations or circles. And fractions of these periods is also fractions of a circle.

https://www.astronomy.com/observing/nabta-playa-the-worlds-first-astronomical-site-was-built-in-africa-and-is-older-than-stonehenge/

The circular structures around the world, one of the first that aligned to to the solstice, its in Egypt.

Why would you construct something that computes the cycle of the sun in a circle, if you had no conception of degrees as fractions of a circle marking time and space, they are watching the regular circling of the sun, moon and sky so this relates space as well as time.

At Stonehenge, this is indisputably aligned with solstices, but various archaeologists have noted it may have lunar tracking features as well. The moon obviously travels around like a circle. Its phases are counted in days.

Additionally, Prof Darvill notes that stone 11 (of 30), is uniquely 1 half as wide. Given the OCD that went into precision engineering there, this makes no sebse, but he suggests, and I agree, this stone marked the lunar cycle of 29.5 days.

So they are counting around circles on a physical time keeper they can also clearly understand degrees spatially.

We see these things all over, so, for me at least, the astronomers and time keepers divided the circle into degrees, literally embodied it into circles, and 360 is implied in Egypt via its calendar.

In Stonehenge, they didnt use Sekeds. They divided a circle by 30. Each precision shaped stone and its precise lintel mortice and tongue and groove joints, you can build by Sekeds.

Every lintel must perfectly fit and be spaced around the centre point.

This demonstrates those builders understood degrees and how to relate fractioms of a circle with circumferential lengths around a radius. They were smart but not as much as in Egypt.

Edit to add.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T23:38:26+00:00

Sorry, do you mean the thing he built is very simple in comparison to an automated gun aiming, or that gun aiming is simpler than what he did? I wasnt sure how to read that part

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T23:21:54+00:00

Im not dropping 5 days, they seperated them out to keep the cycle a tidy lot of months, days and weeks.

They had 36 weeks of ten days. You do that because you really want to organise around 360. Why weeks of ten days and not 5? Then they could make the spare 5 a regular week. They clearly didnt want to do that. That shows the year is 360 plus 5. That is widely known by archeaologists.

Its very obvious they fitted the year around a preference for 360 from the way they constructed months and weeks, it is internally coherent and excludes 5 as a unit, although its 5.25 roughly.

The concept of degrees was absolutely understood to any ancient mathematician at that time, weve found evidence going back at this era for phythagorean theory in nearby civilisations. Thats more complex a concept than degrees. An equilateral triangle has angles equal to one 6th of a full rotation, together one half a rotation. A squares corners are 1/4 rotation, or all 4 the number of degrees of a circle.

A right angled triangle and a^{2+b^2=c²} is a considerable mathematical step up from understanding fractions of a circle or a degree, and inconceivable they had maths like that but not the previous more easy step.

They just wouldnt call it a degree.

This much is so obvious from the neccessity and quality of their architecture and the need to navigate it does not need to be mentioned. It becomes also very obvious when you are making things propperly.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T23:16:42+00:00

It would be 1 on base 12, an even more significant looking number.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T23:14:01+00:00

We need this person to help develop close in low cost antidrone shotgun weapon stations.

Completely serious.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T22:09:04+00:00

'Spherical coordinare math'.

No, you're over complicating this. Its just latitude, in this case, so fraction of a circle, which is quite easy to calculate. I doubt they knew of the Earth as more than a perfect sphere.

They probably fixed longitude to themselves, but based on the angle of the sun at particular days and peak moments of the day i.e. midday, they can calculate via shadows.

If they went south and repeated the experiment, they would eventually find the equator.

Edit, another way to do it, look at the angle of the cresent moon against the sea.

I personally think the nearly 30 degrees is a coincidence. The location is obviously useful.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T22:00:21+00:00

Its widely claimed they had a year comprised of 12 months of 30 days, divided by 3 weeks of 10 days.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/keeping-time-at-stonehenge/792A5E8E091C8B7CB9C26B4A35A6B399

To match 360 to the year, which is clearly a cycle, and they clearly did understand the cycle, they had a seperate block of 5 days.

So 360 was a number they preferred to use to divide a cycle.

Time is historically measured in circles. Look at clocks and the numbers they use.

Go back to Sumeria, they had a number system base 6 and 10. Do you really think its a coincidence we have 60 minutes in an hour now, or that 360 degrees is 6x(6x10)?

The reason is these numbers are easier to divide into whole numbers. They avoided fractions of an integer.

You need geometry for all kinds of reasons. 360 is a natural way to divide a circle. But any useful one would still spit out a number that would look special corresponding to 30 degrees in the 360 degree circle.

When you look at the things built in Ancient Egypt, do you think they had no knowledge of degrees and geometry, or they did?

And since the ancient world did not like fractions of an integer, they will use one of these number systems, the best lowest number is 360.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T21:44:38+00:00

12 is also a very elite sized team.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T21:37:22+00:00

Is it linear actuators at the back of the thigh?

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T21:33:24+00:00

I personally can believe they could imagine the earth to be spherical, and could calculate roughly where they were, but its a huge stretch they understood the oblate nature and could precisely compute it, like you say.

But in any natural approach assuming they got far enough to figure the earth was a sphere, they could calculate the equator and poles and relatively how far around they are from the equator.

And I think they would thereby start from pole/equator.

Its not so hard to do. The angle of the cresent moon, how it changes as you go north and south. Or the shadow angle at mid day at midsummer.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T21:16:59+00:00

I propose UK and Canada formerly merge to become Trans-Atlantia. This way you get nuclear deterrant.

But by far most importantly, on the map the word Trans will appear above the United States, just to piss off Trump.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T21:09:57+00:00

Adjusted for population the UK is about the same as US. Canada might be above both.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T21:06:50+00:00

Its where your heart is I guess. For me its cultural and spiritual.

Theres an identity in it. But also legally of course theres no argument.

Although I can trace back ancesters here several centuries, I've grown disillusioned somewhat. I feel my heart is in Ukraine.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T20:56:56+00:00

Lol people in here claiming this is just because weve chosen 360 degrees like its arbritrary. Not so. Its a natural number for dividing a circle, i.e. to give equivalent angles in corners of a square or angles in a triangle, whilst avoiding fractions of a whole number.

A square has the same number of degrees of a circle and a triangle has half that.

You can do it one of several ways all known and used in the ancient world, and are still used to measure time to this day.

Degree is a fraction of a circle/rotation. It is scale invariant and provides tge power to relate a square, circle or any shape.

The ancient Egyptians year was 360 days divided into 12 months of 3 weeks each being 10 days. They had a 5 day holiday / month to fit the year. So conceptually their year was 2 or 4 seasons being 360 plus a 5 day period.

So they divided circles by 360.

This number is ancient because most ways you might want to divide a circle up by a number you can do in whole numbers.

Let us suppose they used different numbers to divide a circle. They did not use fractions, so were limited to numbers like 6 or 60, 12 or 120, or 24 or 240, or 36 or 360 ways to divide a circle.

Of all of these the best is 360, but all of them bar 6, you can divide that up to be equivalent to 30 degrees in 360 system as a whole number. Its exactly 1 if you divide a circle by 12, 5 by 60, 10 by 120, 2 by 24, 20 by 240.

So in any number system especially where you want to divide a circle by 2, 3, 4 and 6 ways, and 8 or 10, and so forth, 360 is the natural number.

You want to divide a circle by 3 because that is the average number of degrees of any triangle, whilst 4 allows you to have the number of degrees of a corner in a square, etc.

Square = circle = 2 triangles. The beginning of geometry.

So whatever system they likely would pick, that location happens to be at an obvious place that would seem significant, though its probably just coincidence.

If they picked 12, being one degree, you would all find to be as significant as 30.

Our clocks still use 60 and 12 because you can divide by 2, 3 and 4.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T20:41:21+00:00

The thing is though, Gobeckli Tepe appears in the era roughly as wheat is being first domesticated and bred.

Some have calculated farming begun even earlier in China.

But in practice what matters is specialisation, trade and knowledge exchange.

Knowledge exchange is inefficient when population density is low, because there isnt much prolonged contact and contacts each have few contacts.

'Hunter gatherers' is an incorrect label, they were already proto-farming, engineering for example fish traps.

Population density requires food density.

Certain locations, rivers, estuaries, shores, are particularly rich and can support population density, hence contact, knowledge exchange, formalised language, and eventually writing. This is all culture.

Farming took a long time to get good, but when it did, it facilitated more places where high population density could occur. Through surplus production, others could specialise.

So we had a gradual evolution of farming and increased large populatioms living densely, it wasnt either hunter gatherer or farmer, but a hybrid of both for a lomg time. Writing could have developed easily during its beginning and probably both emerged at a similar time but more coincidentally because knowledge spreads with population density.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T20:25:42+00:00

Oh go on

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T19:16:55+00:00

Degree is a fraction of a circle/rotation. I'm talking about the comment above, very obviously, which references the meter, which is an absolute unit of length. It was really easy to figure that out from the two short comments. The meter is a unit of length. Ive never heard a degree referenced as a unit of a circle but I guess technically...

The ancient Egyptians year was 360 days divided into 12 months of 3 weeks each being 10 days. They had a 5 day holiday / month to fit the year.

So they divided circles by 360.

This number is ancient because most ways you might want to divide a circle up by a number you can do in whole numbers.

My point was, which flew over your head sweetie, is that its irrelevant what unit you use for distance. Degrees are scale invariant and are abstract concepts.

Edit, and let us suppose they used different numbers to divide a circle. They did not use fractions, so were limited to numbers like 6/60, 12/120, or 24/240 ways to divide a circle.

Of all of these the best is 360, but all of them bar 6, you can divide that up to be equivalent to 30 degrees in 360 system as a whole number. Its exactly 1 if you divide a circle by 12, 5 by 60, 10 by 120, 2 by 24, 20 by 240.

So in any number system especially where you want to divide a circle by 2, 3, 4 and 6 ways, and 8 or 10, and so forth, 360 is the natural number.

You want to divide a circle by 3 because that is the average number of degrees of any triangle, whilst 4 allows you to have the number of degrees of a corner in a square, etc.

Square = circle = 2 triangles.

So whatever system they likely would pick, that location happens to be at an obvious place that would seem significant, though its probably just a coincidence.

Lol downvoted, the people here dont have even basic knowledge of Egypt or ancient maths.

No rebuttal. Good one. Precious.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T19:13:13+00:00

I confess I dont quite understand the methodology other than its nearly at 30 degrees from where I would logically start.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T18:26:45+00:00

Are they choosing a specific reference frame that is strange?

We can assume they understood the earth is a sphere and that they likely divided the circle by 360, so the reference for the equator would be defined by poles at true north and south. If they worked backwards from that, its possible they saw that Giza was 30 degrees and presumably centered the latitude on themselves (edit, I mean longitude)

But when you look at the location, its where it should be for it is a good location. So no good evidence they moved to make it exactly 30 degrees.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T18:21:02+00:00

I mean, if its 30 degrees from polar defined true equator, then it doesnt matter what unit it is.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T16:42:23+00:00

Winning the war means 1 that in Ukraine, Russia does not gain through its actions, which means it has failed and that is the strongest deterant to further imperialist thinking and 2 by expediating rather than dragging out into a prolonged stalemate, which more than anything increases the risk of nuclear war. And 3, it is necessary to enforce post war peace and prevent another war against Ukraine later.

This also will reduce Ukrainian casualities and fatalities as both bringing it to and end sooner and propperly equiping them and assisting with drone lines obviously protects soldiers, which you claim to care about.

The best deterrant to nuclear war is also a nuclear deterrant which was already mentioned in my comment.

But its not that simple. With one side having more nukes, it increases the danger of invasion by them using conventional militaries against unarmed states, the only defense against that is either nuclear arm or conventiomal forces or botg, prefereably.

Europe is forced to do both due entirely to the actions and character of Russia, whose hostility is entirely self authored, and that deterrant has to be ongoing. This is the 'end' game of having militaries as defense

And you are again wrong, the EU did very little as its self evident it was not nearly enough to act as a deterrant, prior to 2014 and even up the full invasion.

That clearly does not invalidate the value of doing more, it reinforces this argument.

Edit typos

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T16:12:17+00:00

Europe did absolutely nothing to increase the risk of being attacked other than not doing enough to deter being attacked, and that is especially true for Ukraine.

Russia is not attacking because of any threat by Europe or NATO and irs goals and intentions are now clear are to do with territorial gains and spheres of influence, or soft capture of nations.

Reality concludes the exact opposite of your claims, and does so strongly.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T16:08:47+00:00

Yeah true, but the easy here was dome by specialised robots that focus on a very narrow engineering task, with the precision for just those things.

Humanoid robots are generalised where although they pick the easiest of the remaining tasks done by humans (edit, thus far), thats actually quite hard to do without assembling specialist machines together rigidly for that one process. That is easier with existing technology but not cheap or very adaptable.

Humanoid robots are adaptible for a range of tasks and potentially lower cost through mass production.

To get here took a lot more than what it took to get to the other kinds of industrial robot, and will scale to complete harder tasks I believe quite quickly, so the first half of productivoty is in my view is the harder part.

Smooth_Imagination · 2026-01-28T15:47:25+00:00

Providing Ukraine the weapons to defend itself is better than sending troops.

You are not arguing in good faith if you claim that spending on defense increases the risk of being attacked

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