"When powered up, the gun begins tracking targets via its infrared tracker mounted above the barrel. The tracker consists of a 256 x 256 element platinum-silicide focal plane array cooled to 770 degrees K by a tiny cryogenic gas cooler working on the Stirling principle. This system monitors a 30 degree cone in front of the gun and transmits high-resolution thermal images in the 8-10 um range to a miniature video display in the operator's eyepiece."
Maybe I misunderstood your comment but parent was about Aliens, this is about The Fifth Element. Different movies different fictional weapons. TFE's one is more fictional.
I think the idea is to automatically compensate for wind or other factors that would otherwise take the bullet on a path that is not on target. I think the part where they aim away from the target is just for demonstration.
A laser is unaffected by things like gravity, recoil, wind, dust particles, drag, etc... Also, if it's a line of site issue. The sniper could be out of the line of site and as long as the laser operator can put light on target, it still gets hit (theoretically).
A laser is affected by temperature differences in the air (think about the mirage seen over a hot road surface) and even by gravity; a laser beam drops over distance like a bullet or a baseball, only it travels so fast that the effect is unnoticeable over earth-scale distances.
The effect of a temperature inversion, though, can be significant; it's possible that military laser designators use diverse wavelengths to avoid or compensate for it.
After thinking about it more, I realised you're absolutely right. It doesn't matter if the laser designator beam takes a knuckleball path through the intervening air; if the laser dot is on target---classical optics are time-reversible---the shooter will see it on target. The effect of those same air density variations on the bullet is similarly irrelevant [1], because the bullet continually aims for the laser dot.
It works by negative feedback, like a servo; all the error terms in the middle cancel out. Neat!
[1] The refraction of a laser by air density variations is bound to be different from the ballistic effects of those same density variations on a bullet passing through them. But it doesn't matter, because the corrections are applied continually along the trajectory, not at the source.
That's nice. I'm sure you had fun wasting your time posting this. Personally I'm glad it has been added to Show HN. I possibly would not have heard of it otherwise.
Could you elaborate more on the cashing out of stock from public companies point? You sold IndexTank for 1.6 million dollars. I don't really consider that "never work again rich" in this day in age. Were the sales of your stock significant?
I don't want to be fussy and all, but even if it was sold for "just" 1.6 million dollars it would represent a big amount of money, and honestly I cannot read quietly that it could not be considered as a "never work again rich" amount of money.
It's the same as getting between 30 and 40 years of an experimented developer's average salary where I work, so it would mean that I can live exactly as I do now (and I can't complain), but at home without needing to work anymore. Just good money to spend with family, travelling or improving your knowledge. Seems like a good deal to me.
The figure was never publicly disclosed but I'd say somewhere between $20M and 200M... If I were to guess I'd say somewhere around the middle of that range.
I think what you're looking at isn't "never work [for someone else] again rich" but "never work [at all, and maybe just never leave your bed] again rich". There's enough room to read either into that sentence, but the former is just as real as the latter because most people who do it once will probably try to do it again.
If your position before the liquidity event is "making low six figures per year in salary," 1.6 million dollars will at least give you an ~10 year buffer in which to make it to your next liquidity event with relatively little risk.
And that one's probably the one that lets you stay in bed for the rest of your life, if that's what you really want (but it probably isn't).
people pointed out that it was probably sold for much higher amount.
even so, $1.6million is 'never work again rich'-- at modest 10% return, with capital gains taxes, you would be making enough to pay your family's expenses.
I haven't seen any public records on the sale of IndexTank, but I'm pretty sure they didn't sell for $1.6MM. I think you're reading the amount of funding they received before the sale.
My dad lives in Dwygyfylchi. I've been to Llanfair pg (for short) and I remember it being just a quaint little Welsh village. The train station cracked me up. I will ask some of my friends in the area if they would like to attend your workshops.
Exactly. That film was the sole reason I got into this field at a young age. Sadly I never followed through with it and chose another tech path. It's really GREAT to see these things becoming reality and its tempting me to change industries.
