Comments on: Mt. Erebus from space

Mt. Erebus from space

homunculus — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 16:50:11 -0800

Mt. Erebus from space. NASA's Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment software, which controls the Earth Observing-1 spacecraft, took some amazing images of the lava lake of Antarctica's Mount Erebus volcano without any human interaction. [Via Fark.]

By: Keyser Soze

Keyser Soze — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 17:48:38 -0800

[Via Fark.]

By: PigAlien

PigAlien — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 19:22:31 -0800

I have a camera that does the same thing in my bedroom. What's the big deal?

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 19:29:31 -0800

Maybe I'm just easily impressed, but I think taking pictures of Antarctic volcanoes from space is very cool.

By: DaShiv

DaShiv — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 19:51:25 -0800

Skynet is now online.

By: freebird

freebird — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 19:55:12 -0800

I have a camera that does the same thing in my bedroom. What's the big deal? Do you really have a camera in your bedroom that autonomously decides what to take interesting pictures of? Or a volcano? ...Never mind, don't answer either of those two questions, thanks. OP DaShiv - yep. I thought this was totally cool, but there's something ... creepy about the whole thing.

By: dakotadusk

dakotadusk — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 20:04:37 -0800

After reading how the blasted thing works, I'm a skosh bit concerned that I might trigger it off during my next BBQ party.

By: carter

carter — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 20:06:13 -0800

Well I liked it.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 20:41:42 -0800

Man was not meant to know the secrets of the Plateau of Leng. For there are the Mountains of Madness.

By: spazzm

spazzm — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 21:50:02 -0800

This is cool.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 22:05:25 -0800

I know a guy who works on the imaging software they use for these spacecraft. This is just the beginning. For there are the Mountains of Madness. Vizzini: "THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!"

By: dhartung

dhartung — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 00:21:52 -0800

Cliffs of Insanity?

By: PigAlien

PigAlien — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 08:44:14 -0800

It seems to me that we have had computerized sensors for quite a while now. For instance, we have video-cameras that can turn on when they sense movement and tape recorders which turn on when they detect conversation. Dashboard-mounted radars can automatically apply the brakes when your car comes too close to the car in front of it. This is simply another program to tell a camera when it should take photographs of certain phenomenon. It didn't spontaneously decide to photograph this volcano all on it's own. Someone wrote a program that said, "if you detect this activity, photograph it." So, I'm not being a killjoy, I just don't honestly understand how this is different.

By: badstone

badstone — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 10:37:34 -0800

maybe you should try reading all the links PigAlien, for instance, this one. there's just a tad more AI involved here than motion sensors. (but for fuck's sake, AI does not equal killer robots that want to eat humanity for breakfast.)

By: homunculus

homunculus — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 13:42:12 -0800

AI does not equal killer robots that want to eat humanity for breakfast. They seem to be more interested in volcanology anyway.