• Xanza@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    We’re too dependent on a technology that we spent tens of billions of dollars researching and perfecting over decades of research!

    Possibly the dumbest statement I’ve heard this week.

    • Zonetrooper@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      It’s not as dumb as you make it out. The issue isn’t that GPS is really, really good at what it does; it’s that it’s also incredibly vulnerable to disruption and spoofing. And due to the particulars of how GPS works, we can’t entirely fix that. We can do some things to ameliorate it, but a lot of those aren’t suitable for smaller things that use GPS today.

      The other thing is that GPS largely replaced a tremendous number of other navigation aides and techniques, including other radio-navigation systems like LORAN-C.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      Nah the idea is sound. As someone else said, GPS is incredibly fragile. Also very terrestrial…it doesn’t work once you leave the atmosphere.

      This will probably be another SpaceX grift, but there are alternative technologies that are more resilient to attack. From military/defense perspective (the original reason for GPS), that’s pretty important.

      • Xanza@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        GPS is incredibly fragile.

        No, not really. The GPS signal isn’t designed to penetrate concrete, no. But that doesn’t make it fragile.

        Also very terrestrial…it doesn’t work once you leave the atmosphere.

        Considering it was never meant to…that’s really not that goddamn weird. It’s a global positioning satellite system. So clearly for it to work you have to be on the fuckin’ globe…

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          3 days ago

          Having functional GPS in a tunnel would be very nice…as someone who drives through Boston and fucking hates tunnels.

          But that’s not what I meant by fragile. I meant it can be disrupted/jammed fairly trivially.

          • Xanza@lemm.ee
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            3 days ago

            Having functional GPS in a tunnel would be very nice

            In a tunnel

            a tunnel

            tunnel

            I fear for the world. You afraid that you’re gonna make a wrong turn? Inside of a tunnel? A fuckin’ tunnel my guy?

            • wjs018@piefed.social
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              3 days ago

              You have clearly never driven on 93 through Boston where the person you replied to said they are from (aka the Big Dig). It is basically an entire highway that is underneath the city. There are many on and off ramps, lanes suddenly become exit only, complex multi-lane exits that branch…it’s intimidating. As somebody that has lived in the Boston area for 15 years now, I still mess things up.