Certain Uncertainty

Ocean winds could power the entire planet, but harnessing them could also kill us

Capturing wind power from active hurricanes is now an AcMo skill (level 1).  Our experience with Nate has proven we can handle anything up to a Cat 8 without too much trouble.  We should be fine as long as AcMo's solution doesn't kill the Earth, which is always a possibility.  

I place all of the blame for AcMo's latest fiasco upon Werner Heisenberg.  I couldn't resist tweaking what was already a robust system that had been working so well for us.  There is no reward without risk.  I always knew adding Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle to our beta tester’s core code might cause a problem.  I felt this risk was worth the potential downside because it would provide rich testing data that we could not have planned to capture any other way.  Unfortunately our beta tester's uncertainty principle activated while he was piloting our hurricane breaker through Nate's eye.

In case any of you are keeping score, Nate 0, AcMo 1.

It was supposed to be a routine high stakes mission with a low probability of survival.  Somehow our beta tester turned it into the world's fastest joyride.  He had a multi-step checklist he was ordered to follow to neutralize Nate if he went Cat 8 on us.  He reviewed the list and signed off on it before we placed him in the hurricane breaker.

Here it is:

1. Follow the prescribed route through Nate's eye at a GPS verified speed no less than 432 mph.
2. Proceed past the edge of the storm to a distance no less than 250 miles and then shut down all propulsion.
3. Call AAA for a tow home after coming to a safe stop.
4. WAIT with the hurricane breaker until the flatbed arrives.  Hydrate and use your MRE rations if necessary.
5. Call AcMo HQ to confirm AAA has picked up the hurricane breaker and that you survived the drive.
6. Wait for the chopper to arrive at your location.
7. Do NOT talk to anyone about your mission.

There was nothing unreasonable or complex about our procedural demands.  We were providing our beta tester with the opportunity to go faster on the ground through the eye of a storm than anyone had ever done.  We like to break records at AcMo, and this one was going to be fun, but the fun could only happen if the checklist was followed exactly.

It all fell apart at step 1 as a result of our beta tester's uncertainty.  Instead of maintaining a reasonable speed just above 432 mph to counteract Cat 8, he decided to throttle up to Mach 1.8.  That was not only unwise, but also more unsafe than driving through the hurricane at a slower speed.  We lost telemetry and visual contact the moment the hurricane breaker reached the eye.  Satellite imagery indicated he was able to drive to the eye, but he did not cut off propulsion at the designated shut down zone.  We lost visual at that point, so we don't know if he changed heading or continued on his original path.

I would have activated our M5 camera car if I had known our beta tester was a flight risk.  Here is a video of the camera car in action before we acquired it a few years ago:

It would not have been able to keep up with our beta tester, but if we had placed it on the perimeter of the storm we could have kept a visual on the hurricane breaker when it veered off course.

None of us bothered to check how long the hurricane breaker could run on a full tank because we didn't think our beta tester would make a run for the border.  I can't blame him because the allure of extreme ground speed is powerful.  The biggest problem after determining whether or not he is still alive is that we have to postpone all of our testing until we can recover him.  This is unfortunate and will slow development on all of our most exciting projects.  My best guess is that he stopped in Southern California to show off his shiny new speed machine to the WAcMo crew.  I've been monitoring Instagram and Twitter, but no one has posted pics of him yet.  Since WAcMo's COO is upset about his no pay contract, I don't think he would tell me if he had our beta tester.

Darpa's new radar sensor can see through clouds in real time

It will fit on our flying mech suits if it fits on a plane.

We are going to install this new DARPA sensor on our flying mech suits, but it would have been nice to have this for the drone flying overhead when our beta tester went speed crazy so we could see where he was going.  We won't be able to test the sensor until our beta tester returns to base though.  I had also hoped to work out a method to install our beta tester in a particle accelerator to see what would happen.  We're hoping for extreme speed capabilities, but anything is possible after a massive particle bombardment.  Please contact AcMo HQ if anyone sees our beta tester or the hurricane breaker.  We only have a few more days to return it to its owners before we get charged late fees.