```In the novel The Diamond Age, author Neal Stephenson posits a future in which the world is divided into competing nation-tribes, or phyles. The most powerful of these phyles have extensive nanotechnology capabilities, and use nanotech in various ways to gain an edge over their competitors and neighbors. Most notably, they create various sorts of airborne nanotech robots -- known as mites -- to infiltrate one another's territory and perform espionage or sabotage. Naturally, the other phyles retaliate with antibody mites, which hunt out and disable the invading mites, turning them into inert black dust, or toner. And so it goes.<p>The phyles' populaces themselves rarely see this conflict in their own airspace. Rather, it plays itself out in the Leased Territories and no-man's-lands between phyle enclaves. The thetes (classless members of no phyle, who live in these no-man's-lands), on the other hand, intermittently find their air full of clashing mites, flashing lidar, and the resulting microscopic debris. ```
For those who like drone dystopia nightmare fuel, this video made me think of this disturbing modern weapon:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STM_Kargu" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STM_Kargu</a><p>:/
Not sure why it happened, the company claims that it was sabotaged by a competitor.<p>If you want to read some more about how they work and how they're priced, I wrote about it here - <a href="https://propwash.nihalmohan.com/issues/are-drone-light-shows-the-future-of-fireworks-propwash-8-698614" rel="nofollow">https://propwash.nihalmohan.com/issues/are-drone-light-shows...</a>
For context, this was captured during a holiday drone light show. Apparently some people are letting their imaginations run wild from the confusing clip.
These drones are used for light shows.<p>I'm guessing they tried to run the show too long. It looks like they all start attempting to land before their batteries run out, around the same time...
According to this article <a href="https://m.mydrivers.com/newsview/787157.html" rel="nofollow">https://m.mydrivers.com/newsview/787157.html</a> , 8 drones crashed shortly after the show started (initial investigation pointing to mechanical failure) and the operators initiated emergency descent for the remaining drones afterwards.
These massed drone formations, what frequencies are they using? Are these just consumer drones or are they set to a regulated part of the spectrum? These massed formations are very noisy. If they are using consumer frequencies I imagine anyone in a nearby penthouse might want to jam them.
I'd be very interested to know how many of these drones the company got back...<p>It really says something about the culture of a group of people if they return someone else's property that ends up in their hands or not.
Yeah, as if everything come out of China is wanting to kill you. From robotic space arms to toy drones. It's kind weird to have that kind of thoughts here, really.<p>That been said, the actual reason for cities to use these drones is surprisingly simple: China banned firework show few years ago for environmental reasons, so cities use drones as alternative to celebrate October 1 which is China's national day and the longest holidays (the Golden Holidays).<p>See? Just that simple.<p>Also, using drones is a smarter choice: Not only it's eco-friendlier, but also cheap, fixable and safer compare to fireworks. You can even put ads in the sky to cover part of the cost after the show is over, it just make more sense.<p>In this very case, I think the drones are doing fail-safe landing maneuvers, probably due to lost of control signal. Reportedly the drone company has already called the police on the suspicion of sabotage.