Remote-Control Helicopter Provides Aerial View of Taksim Demonstrations

I'm linking this for two reasons:

1, as a demonstration of how anti-state propaganda is done.

2, Did you know that a video camera attached to a RC miniature helicopter could possibly produce such clear pictures? Or that a little RC chopper could be made, by electronic gyroscopes I assume, into such a stable photography platform? (Update: @comradearthur notes there are twitch-elimination programs people run on video after it's shot, such as VReveal, to produce stable-looking imagery.)

Because I did not. I've got a little bit of tech-shock here: Sure, I knew the government would have access to this level of quality electronics, but I didn't know it was something someone could just buy at the store.

Amusingly, a lot of protesters on the ground keep shooting lasers up at the RC chopper's camera to obliterate the picture. They assume it's a government probe -- they too assume, like me, that Only a Government could afford such a wonder.

Nope. Some citizen owns this eye in the sky. Possibly like this one, which you can have for under a grand. Bye-bye privacy, S. Weasel says.

Meanwhile, one man is staging a Lonely Protest, standing alone in the middle of Tasksim:

That would be interesting, because the military is supposed to defend the secularist vision Turkey.

Turkey's government warned Monday it may deploy the military against protesters who continue to defy officials by taking to the street in what the interior minister called "illegal" demonstrations.

The warning is the first time the Islamist-rooted government has mentioned use of the military to restore public order. The military establishment traditionally has been seen as a bastion of secularism in Turkey and a foe of past Islamist political figures.

"First, if necessary we will deploy the police," Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said on Monday. "If that's not enough we will call on the (national guard). But if events still require further action, and the governor so wishes, we will resort to calling on the military to contain these protests."

...

Five major unions representing public sector workers, doctors, engineers and architects have called their rank-and-file out on a one-day strike and march in city centers across Turkey. One analyst said it would be a "major move" if the Turkish government were to involve the military in its attempts to control the protests.

Below, video from the government crackdown on the demonstrators from June 15. The aftermath of it -- including children choking on tear gas -- is at around 4:20.

posted by Ace at 06:06 PM

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