I should have realized there would be such a thing, but I didn't until over the weekend there was a news story about drones replacing fireworks in dry western and southwestern areas. Also, I guess area dogs are rejoicing -- or they would be if they understood conjecturals.

Gunpowder was the cheap and reliable way to get things up in the air, until reusable drones with LEDs. The footage shown treated them a bit as a scoreboard, with the lights spelling out "1776" or a (static?) flag, but also what I imagine uses the drones as Busby Berkley dancers, rotating and translating in lighted formations. They also promise skeuomorphic simulations of traditional fireworks.

The subject of this group being arts.sf, what more imaginative uses can you see for these? Unimaginatively, I'm thinking of particle simulations or flock simulations with the drones, unfortunately probably canned movements, tested to be sure we aren't putting the drones in some catastrophic state. Maybe you could try to talk some company into handing out single-wavelength lights among the crowd and have the drones respond to them in different ways and see how many they lose. There's one trick, having a lit and unlit drone fly past each other, and at closest approach each changes status so it looks like one just did an impossible maneuver.

Any thoughts?
Any sci-fi sky displays from the future that I've forgotten?

--
-Jack

On Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 21:42:36 UTC+1, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> I should have realized there would be such a thing, but I didn't until over the weekend there was a news story about drones replacing fireworks in dry western and southwestern areas. Also, I guess area dogs are rejoicing -- or they would be if they understood conjecturals.
>
> Gunpowder was the cheap and reliable way to get things up in the air, until reusable drones with LEDs. The footage shown treated them a bit as a scoreboard, with the lights spelling out "1776" or a (static?) flag, but also what I imagine uses the drones as Busby Berkley dancers, rotating and translating in lighted formations. They also promise skeuomorphic simulations of traditional fireworks.
>
> The subject of this group being arts.sf, what more imaginative uses can you see for these? Unimaginatively, I'm thinking of particle simulations or flock simulations with the drones, unfortunately probably canned movements, tested to be sure we aren't putting the drones in some catastrophic state. Maybe you could try to talk some company into handing out single-wavelength lights among the crowd and have the drones respond to them in different ways and see how many they lose. There's one trick, having a lit and unlit drone fly past each other, and at closest approach each changes status so it looks like one just did an impossible maneuver.
>
> Any thoughts?
> Any sci-fi sky displays from the future that I've forgotten?

"Drones Replace UFOs?" How many of them would you need
for _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ or other highly
illuminated celestial visitations... or the peculiar "meteor
showers" with which oh so many alien invasions begin.

Or just put them in place hovering in the sky, in the lines of
a geodesic dome. Maybe then a crack, growing...

Or,
<https://www.mostlydystopianbooks.com/pages/books/10520/philip-k-dick/eye-in-the-sky>

Jack Bohn wrote:

>I should have realized there would be such a thing, but I didn't
>until over the weekend there was a news story about drones replacing
>fireworks in dry western and southwestern areas. Also, I guess area
>dogs are rejoicing -- or they would be if they understood
>conjecturals.

I'm not sure professional fireworks shows are the big problems for
dogs, unless people live near or bring them to the shows. It's the
closer, usually illegal, amateur fireworks that go on a large part of
the day and night.

Brian

Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 21:42:36 UTC+1, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> > I should have realized there would be such a thing, but I didn't until over the weekend there was a news story about drones replacing fireworks in dry western and southwestern areas. Also, I guess area dogs are rejoicing -- or they would be if they understood conjecturals.
> >
> > Gunpowder was the cheap and reliable way to get things up in the air, until reusable drones with LEDs. The footage shown treated them a bit as a scoreboard, with the lights spelling out "1776" or a (static?) flag, but also what I imagine uses the drones as Busby Berkley dancers, rotating and translating in lighted formations. They also promise skeuomorphic simulations of traditional fireworks.
> >
> > The subject of this group being arts.sf, what more imaginative uses can you see for these? Unimaginatively, I'm thinking of particle simulations or flock simulations with the drones, unfortunately probably canned movements, tested to be sure we aren't putting the drones in some catastrophic state. Maybe you could try to talk some company into handing out single-wavelength lights among the crowd and have the drones respond to them in different ways and see how many they lose. There's one trick, having a lit and unlit drone fly past each other, and at closest approach each changes status so it looks like one just did an impossible maneuver.
> >
> "Drones Replace UFOs?" How many of them would you need
> for _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ or other highly
> illuminated celestial visitations... or the peculiar "meteor
> showers" with which oh so many alien invasions begin.

Ooo... a few dozen for one doing a near flyby (a "close encounter"), with a helper drone generating mist or smoke to diffuse the lights and also allow them to project a visible cone[*], maybe a thousand if far enough away to be a raster display of footage of one? Then there's the Mothership. I expect flatlanders like me would be equally impressed with the illusion of a life-sized Devil's Tower that it's coming up from behind. Wait, one of our parks has a view of an actual oil refinery... no, even if they were scheduled for a long-term maintenance shutdown, I think they would be loathe to douse their lights to have them replaced by drones that then leap skyward in formation. I would be thinking of Schenectedy from Blish's _A Life for the Stars_.

> Or just put them in place hovering in the sky, in the lines of
> a geodesic dome. Maybe then a crack, growing...
>
> Or,
> <https://www.mostlydystopianbooks.com/pages/books/10520/philip-k-dick/eye-in-the-sky>

"To Jupiter and Beyond Infinity" the 2001 stargate, or, "Hal, what was in that stress pill you gave me?"

[*] I remember a fireworks show in a small town that had scheduled it a bit too early in the evening. The smoke from the pyrotechnics lasted longer than their light show. There was a breeze, so we could watch each one moving off-stage for the next act.

--
-Jack

Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> writes:
>I should have realized there would be such a thing, but I didn't until over=
> the weekend there was a news story about drones replacing fireworks in dry=
> western and southwestern areas. Also, I guess area dogs are rejoicing -- =
>or they would be if they understood conjecturals.

The replacement of civic fireworks displays by drone displays doesn't,
unfortunately, cause dogs to rejoice - every second neighbor was
lighting m-80's until 1am.

....<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SkyFace>,
with many ideas, states that Megamind in the film _Megamind_
actually uses drones to make a big Megamind face. I thought
I'd seen that film...

<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HugeHolographicHead>
is loose enough about "holographic" to include
_The Wizard of Oz_ big head. In the book, there
are multiple Ozes, and Dorothy meets the big head.

I don't think either of them includes a BBC promotion
for then-new digital TV in 2005.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4463108.stm>

On Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 9:42:36 PM UTC+1, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> I should have realized there would be such a thing, but I didn't until over the weekend there was a news story about drones replacing fireworks in dry western and southwestern areas. Also, I guess area dogs are rejoicing -- or they would be if they understood conjecturals.
>
> Gunpowder was the cheap and reliable way to get things up in the air, until reusable drones with LEDs. The footage shown treated them a bit as a scoreboard, with the lights spelling out "1776" or a (static?) flag, but also what I imagine uses the drones as Busby Berkley dancers, rotating and translating in lighted formations. They also promise skeuomorphic simulations of traditional fireworks.
>
> The subject of this group being arts.sf, what more imaginative uses can you see for these? Unimaginatively, I'm thinking of particle simulations or flock simulations with the drones, unfortunately probably canned movements, tested to be sure we aren't putting the drones in some catastrophic state. Maybe you could try to talk some company into handing out single-wavelength lights among the crowd and have the drones respond to them in different ways and see how many they lose. There's one trick, having a lit and unlit drone fly past each other, and at closest approach each changes status so it looks like one just did an impossible maneuver.
>
> Any thoughts?
> Any sci-fi sky displays from the future that I've forgotten?
>
> --
> -Jack
To me, drones attempting to replace fireworks is an airshow - spectacular if well done, but not quite the same. I do like the word skeuomorphic, though - I learnt it, then forgot it, then searched for ages until I found it again.

On Wednesday, July 6, 2022 at 3:15:54 PM UTC-4, mcdow...@sky.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 9:42:36 PM UTC+1, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> > I should have realized there would be such a thing, but I didn't until over the weekend there was a news story about drones replacing fireworks in dry western and southwestern areas. Also, I guess area dogs are rejoicing -- or they would be if they understood conjecturals.
> >
> > Gunpowder was the cheap and reliable way to get things up in the air, until reusable drones with LEDs. The footage shown treated them a bit as a scoreboard, with the lights spelling out "1776" or a (static?) flag, but also what I imagine uses the drones as Busby Berkley dancers, rotating and translating in lighted formations. They also promise skeuomorphic simulations of traditional fireworks.
> >
> To me, drones attempting to replace fireworks is an airshow - spectacular if well done, but not quite the same.

To me, it's CGI. To me, there's something about seeing a two-stage explosion, or a praxis ring, and knowing it was done with chemistry and package design vs. knowing it was done by pointing out where the lights should go. Sport vs. dance?

> I do like the word skeuomorphic, though - I learnt it, then forgot it, then searched for ages until I found it again.

Hey, me too.

--
-Jack

On Thursday, July 7, 2022 at 9:15:24 AM UTC-4, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 6, 2022 at 3:15:54 PM UTC-4, mcdow...@sky.com wrote:
> > On Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 9:42:36 PM UTC+1, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> > > I should have realized there would be such a thing, but I didn't until over the weekend there was a news story about drones replacing fireworks in dry western and southwestern areas. Also, I guess area dogs are rejoicing -- or they would be if they understood conjecturals.
> > >
> > > Gunpowder was the cheap and reliable way to get things up in the air, until reusable drones with LEDs. The footage shown treated them a bit as a scoreboard, with the lights spelling out "1776" or a (static?) flag, but also what I imagine uses the drones as Busby Berkley dancers, rotating and translating in lighted formations. They also promise skeuomorphic simulations of traditional fireworks.
> > >
> > To me, drones attempting to replace fireworks is an airshow - spectacular if well done, but not quite the same.
> To me, it's CGI. To me, there's something about seeing a two-stage explosion, or a praxis ring, and knowing it was done with chemistry and package design vs. knowing it was done by pointing out where the lights should go. Sport vs. dance?

Same. But a fireworks display has other aspects the drones can't replicate; the Earth-Shattering Kabooms!, the concussions felt in the chest, and the smell of black powder smoke.

> > I do like the word skeuomorphic, though - I learnt it, then forgot it, then searched for ages until I found it again.
> Hey, me too.

Me Three.

pt

On Wed, 6 Jul 2022 10:04:21 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.carnegie@excite.com> wrote:

>...<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SkyFace>,
>with many ideas, states that Megamind in the film _Megamind_
>actually uses drones to make a big Megamind face. I thought
>I'd seen that film...

I don't recall that at all, but it's been a while since I've seen it.

For those who haven't, it asks and answers the question: what does the
Bad Guy do when he wins -- after the initial excitement runs out, what
is there for him to do without a Good Guy to battle?

><https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HugeHolographicHead>
>is loose enough about "holographic" to include
>_The Wizard of Oz_ big head. In the book, there
>are multiple Ozes, and Dorothy meets the big head.
>
>I don't think either of them includes a BBC promotion
>for then-new digital TV in 2005.
><http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4463108.stm>
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

Robert Carnegie wrote:
> ...<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SkyFace>,
> with many ideas, states that Megamind in the film _Megamind_
> actually uses drones to make a big Megamind face. I thought
> I'd seen that film...
>
> <https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HugeHolographicHead>
> is loose enough about "holographic" to include
> _The Wizard of Oz_ big head. In the book, there
> are multiple Ozes, and Dorothy meets the big head.

I remember an episode of Ultraman, where some child's drawing was cosmically powered to come to life as a giant monster. Ultraman, finding it mostly harmless, and seeing all the neighborhood children loved it, did not slice it in half with his spacium ray, but flew it into space and turned it into a constellation the children could watch in safety.

The Yale Bright Star Catalogue lists only 9110 objects down to magnitude 6.5, barely visible -- and that's barely visible when drones aren't shining lights at us. "Replace" the star with a drone shining a magnitude brighter, and I suspect at worst some of the audience would see a double Sirius from parallax between the drone and the real one. What to do with it? Other drones to create a fanciful bear, swan, or draco while loudspeakers tell the myth of it? Rotate the sky more quickly? Simulate the Earth careening through the void?

No, I still feel I'm missing some unique use of a drone as a physical object in 4-D spacetime.
But I also feel I'm every second response in this thread, so maybe I'll let it drop.

--
-Jack

On Tuesday, July 12, 2022 at 10:10:32 AM UTC-4, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> Robert Carnegie wrote:
> > ...<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SkyFace>,
> > with many ideas, states that Megamind in the film _Megamind_
> > actually uses drones to make a big Megamind face. I thought
> > I'd seen that film...
> >
> > <https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HugeHolographicHead>
> > is loose enough about "holographic" to include
> > _The Wizard of Oz_ big head. In the book, there
> > are multiple Ozes, and Dorothy meets the big head.
> I remember an episode of Ultraman, where some child's drawing was cosmically powered to come to life as a giant monster. Ultraman, finding it mostly harmless, and seeing all the neighborhood children loved it, did not slice it in half with his spacium ray, but flew it into space and turned it into a constellation the children could watch in safety.
>
> The Yale Bright Star Catalogue lists only 9110 objects down to magnitude 6.5, barely visible -- and that's barely visible when drones aren't shining lights at us. "Replace" the star with a drone shining a magnitude brighter, and I suspect at worst some of the audience would see a double Sirius from parallax between the drone and the real one. What to do with it? Other drones to create a fanciful bear, swan, or draco while loudspeakers tell the myth of it? Rotate the sky more quickly? Simulate the Earth careening through the void?
>
> No, I still feel I'm missing some unique use of a drone as a physical object in 4-D spacetime.
> But I also feel I'm every second response in this thread, so maybe I'll let it drop.

Here's an example from Dubai - so many that at times it starts to look like a raster display.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_PHBYyqTac

pt

On 7/5/2022 3:42 PM, Jack Bohn wrote:
> I should have realized there would be such a thing, but I didn't until over the weekend there was a news story about drones replacing fireworks in dry western and southwestern areas. Also, I guess area dogs are rejoicing -- or they would be if they understood conjecturals.
>
> Gunpowder was the cheap and reliable way to get things up in the air, until reusable drones with LEDs. The footage shown treated them a bit as a scoreboard, with the lights spelling out "1776" or a (static?) flag, but also what I imagine uses the drones as Busby Berkley dancers, rotating and translating in lighted formations. They also promise skeuomorphic simulations of traditional fireworks.
>
> The subject of this group being arts.sf, what more imaginative uses can you see for these? Unimaginatively, I'm thinking of particle simulations or flock simulations with the drones, unfortunately probably canned movements, tested to be sure we aren't putting the drones in some catastrophic state. Maybe you could try to talk some company into handing out single-wavelength lights among the crowd and have the drones respond to them in different ways and see how many they lose. There's one trick, having a lit and unlit drone fly past each other, and at closest approach each changes status so it looks like one just did an impossible maneuver.
>
> Any thoughts?
> Any sci-fi sky displays from the future that I've forgotten?

But then you do not get displays like the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHBBmZ3Svkg

Lynn

On Tue, 12 Jul 2022 11:04:36 -0700 (PDT), "pete...@gmail.com"
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, July 12, 2022 at 10:10:32 AM UTC-4, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
>> Robert Carnegie wrote:
>> > ...<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SkyFace>,
>> > with many ideas, states that Megamind in the film _Megamind_
>> > actually uses drones to make a big Megamind face. I thought
>> > I'd seen that film...
>> >
>> > <https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HugeHolographicHead>
>> > is loose enough about "holographic" to include
>> > _The Wizard of Oz_ big head. In the book, there
>> > are multiple Ozes, and Dorothy meets the big head.
>> I remember an episode of Ultraman, where some child's drawing was cosmically powered to come to life as a giant monster. Ultraman, finding it mostly harmless, and seeing all the neighborhood children loved it, did not slice it in half with his spacium ray, but flew it into space and turned it into a constellation the children could watch in safety.
>>
>> The Yale Bright Star Catalogue lists only 9110 objects down to magnitude 6.5, barely visible -- and that's barely visible when drones aren't shining lights at us. "Replace" the star with a drone shining a magnitude brighter, and I suspect at worst some of the audience would see a double Sirius from parallax between the drone and the real one. What to do with it? Other drones to create a fanciful bear, swan, or draco while loudspeakers tell the myth of it? Rotate the sky more quickly? Simulate the Earth careening through the void?
>>
>> No, I still feel I'm missing some unique use of a drone as a physical object in 4-D spacetime.
>> But I also feel I'm every second response in this thread, so maybe I'll let it drop.
>
>Here's an example from Dubai - so many that at times it starts to look like a raster display.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_PHBYyqTac

Dubai is in some senses turning into what I believe EPCOT was intended
to be.

I think the next stage will be using the drone as a carrier for the
pyrotechnic.

J. Clarke wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Jul 2022 11:04:36 -0700 (PDT), "pete...@gmail.com"
> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Here's an example from Dubai - so many that at times it starts to look like a raster display.
> >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_PHBYyqTac

> Dubai is in some senses turning into what I believe EPCOT was intended
> to be.
>
> I think the next stage will be using the drone as a carrier for the
> pyrotechnic.

Obxkcd:
https://xkcd.com/1858/

I didn't realize the comic had been around long enough to have obsolete predictions.
You can decide if you prefer that future to the one we have.

--
-Jack