FlamingText

These are the sorts of things that I find written on post-its and napkins when I clean out my pockets later:

Books I have read, in their entirety, today:
I am a Bunny, by Richard Scarry.

I find something new every time I read this one.

British sitcoms that exist only in my mind:

Bob’s Your Uncle
Oh, Pants!
Give us a bell, mum
Dodgy bangers
What’s all this, then?

I found this written on the back of a menu for a Chinese restaurant. Its origin remains a mystery to me:

Come on down to Phil’s Apocalypse Furniture Clearinghouse and Resurrection Ministry! We’re making deals like there’s no tomorrow!

  Specials now on our entire line of Divine Loveseats, Endtimes End tables, Rapture Recliners and Apostle Sectionals. All items priced to move! Friendly financing allows you to take it home today and make no payments for up to a year! That means if the Rapture comes in the next year (as many are predicting) you pay NOTHING!!

  So come down to Phil’s and go home with the furniture of your dreams! Remember, only Jesus saves more than you will when you shop at Phil’s!

Phil’s: Our prices are a Revelation!

The Pond of Death

  At first I didn’t really believe it when I read about this place in Hamburg Germany called the Pond of Death where all these toads have been spontaneously exploding, but it became a lot more plausible to me once I realized that the pond got that name after the toads there were noticed swelling up to three times their normal size and then bursting, flinging their entrails up to one meter in the process. Before that started occurring, it was probably called “the Pond of Greenish Water,” or “Peaceful Pond” or “ the Pond of Intact Toads” or something. So I guess they have to print up new signs now.

From the wire service story:
"It looks like a scene from a science-fiction movie," Werner Schmolnik, the head of a local environment group, told the Hamburger Abendblatt daily.

  Well, no Werner, not really. Unless either Tom Cruise or Will Smith could be cast as an agent working for a special environmental enforcement branch of Interpol -- a lone wolf agent with a checkered past and a broken marriage who lives by his own code and sometimes has to break the rules in order to protect the public. Alternately stoic and wise-cracking, his cocky self-assurance and disdain for bureaucratic red tape land him in hot water with department brass, who ignore his repeated warnings about the impending Toad Apocalypse until the Day of Reckoning finally comes. The movie could be called “Day of Reckoning.”

There, now it sounds like a science-fiction film.

  I really only included the above quote from Werner Schmolnik because I liked the name of the local paper that first printed it, the Hamburger Abendblatt. I’m pretty sure I ordered one of those last time I stopped at the Burger Haus in Leavenworth, Washington. As I recall, it was delicious.

New Feature!

Beauty and Fashion Tips:

  I don’t know how to break this to you, honey, but “tanning” is strictly passé. The upscale salons have all closed, and nobody, but nobody’s getting those high-pressure spray-on “ultra-bronze” tans anymore. Please, girlfriend! Tanning is so early-nineties! It’s all about the burning these days.

   The beautiful people from Hollywood to the French Riviera have long known that there’s nothing like the healthy Campbell’s Tomato Soup glow of a freshly-sunburned epidermis to advertise your active, on-the-go lifestyle. Now, finally there’s a way to achieve this look without an heiress’ budget. Remember, the sun shines just as bright on Coney Island as it does in the Hamptons!

  In the rainy season those who can’t afford weekend Cancun getaways can retouch their color with a visit to the Burning Salon. After putting on a pair of protective goggles (or not), you lie down on one of an ultraviolet Burn Beds and relax. Read a book, listen to music or take a little nap. After an hour and a half to two hours you can walk out with a world-class sunburn that will last for a week or more.

  What, you say you’d love to sport that hot red look when you hit the nightclubs, but you don’t have two hours every week to spend at the salon? For active type-A’s like you, there’s always the spray-on option. A simple pigment-shade adjustment and that drab old “bronze blah” becomes “spicy jalapeno”, “wild cherry” or “fire-engine red”! Or switch it up with an application of an understated “embarrassment crimson.” Just remember to reflexively wince anytime somebody touches you, and nobody will be the wiser.

Shhhh... --it’ll be our little secret!

The Future of Warfare Pt II

  This is a picture of the Army's new Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System, or SWORDS for short (I'm reasonably certain that this is an instance where they started with a cool-sounding acronym and worked their way backwards from there.) It is shown here rolling across the carpeted lobby of the Orlando Marriott, demonstrating its advanced hotel-warfare capabilities for admiring onlookers at the 24th Army Science Conference:

Start from the beginning.

SWORDS: the Prototype Dalek.

"Today we're going to demonstrate some of the advanced urban warfare capabilities of the SWORDS unit, or robo-soldier. The venue we've selected for this demo is the lobby of the Marriott here in Orlando, and we've chosen it for two reasons: First, location. That is to say, we're already here. I'd like to take this opportunity to again thank the staff at the Marriott for hosting the 24th Army Science Conference and for helping to make it an outstanding event all around. In the interest of insuring a positive experience for all the hotel's guests during this conference, the management has asked me to remind participants to please limit smoking and small arms fire to designated areas. There have been some complaints from other hotel guests. Also, heavier ordnance is only authorized for use in the Demo Room during convention hours, as clearly stated in the information packet you received on check-in, under the heading "hotel rules." Please re-consult these if there is any confusion. Remember, you are here representing the U.S. Army. Private contractors and vendors, this goes for you too!"

  Eighteen SWORDS units are to be deployed to Iraq this month, making them the first generation of ground-based semi-autonomous combat robots to find their way onto an actual battlefield. They are arriving there well in advance of the more complex systems under development through the Future Combat Systems initiative, due to their being entirely constructed from pre-existing elements. Consisting of a TALON robot modified with a TRAP (telepresent rapid aiming platform) weapons system, SWORDS has developed as a series of modifications to a highly effective basic design.

"Reason number two for the selection of this location is to highlight the versatility of the SWORDS unit in handling many different types of operations, particularly in challenging urban and residential settings. For the purposes of this demonstration we have selected a combat scenario that closely resembles a situation that actual peacekeeping troops may find themselves facing to illustrate how a robotic combat element might be utilized in the real world."

  The TALON system has been in service since 2000 for use in dangerous or inaccessible locations. Their earliest use on a battlefield was in Bosnia, where they were employed in live grenade disposal, but it was at the former site of the World Trade Center, where they performed the dangerous task of searching through the rubble, that they first gained widespread public attention. They have since been employed with great success in Afghanistan to scout out caves and suspected weapons caches before human soldiers go in, as well as in Iraq where they are regularly employed to check out roadside bombs and to enter areas that might be booby-trapped. All in all they have performed over 20,000 Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) missions, according to their manufacturer the Foster-Miller company.

  Given the undeniable usefulness of such a device in the field it was only a matter of time before somebody mounted a weapon on one. Various schemes were initially tried mounting a rifle on the TALON’s grasping arm, which it uses to perform its explosives-disposal chores. Designers abandoned this approach in favor of a system affixing the gyroscopically-stabilized swiveling weapons platform known as TRAPS to the top of the TALON chassis. The TRAPS platform can support a variety of weapons: M240 or M249 automatic weapons capable of firing upwards of 700 rounds a minute, M16 assault rifles, M2 .50 caliber machine guns, six round 40mm grenade launchers or the M202 four-round rocket launcher. Accuracy with these weapons is far beyond human norms.

"In this scenario, members of a subversive group known as the "Aladdin Shrine Temple" (subsequently referred to as "Shriners",) have seized control of an urban hotel environment and are engaged in disruptive and/or terrorist activities in that environment. They are equipped with small vehicles, which give them heightened mobility (slide #1.) The nature of the structure precludes use of traditional manned armored assault vehicles, which would be likely to incur unacceptable levels of collateral damage . Civilian presence in the combat area necessitates a scaled-back use of force. Application of air support or heavy artillery fire is therefore also contraindicated. The Shriner force is believed to be monitoring all points of entry into the main lobby area (slide #2). The Shriners are unwilling to negotiate with authorities and at least some of their members are believed to be intoxicated (slide #3.)"

  The Operator of the system controls the SWORDS from a distance of up to 1,800 m (up to 10 k with an optical-fiber connection) using a joystick attached to a laptop computer. Onboard sensors relay real-time video and audio to the operator, and sensor arrays can accommodate standard color video as well as night vision. Future versions may employ thermal sensors. Transmission ranges are typically shorter in urban settings.

"Members of the renegade sect can be distinguished from civilians by their use of the aforementioned single-occupancy vehicles as well as their traditional Muslim headwear (slide #4.) Because of the possibility that the "fez" may be dislodged with the commencement of combat operations, it is imperative that target acquisition be accomplished in the initial sweep. "

  Urban setting? Yes, that’s right. One of the most promising applications for the SWORDS is in the field of urban counter-insurgency operations like those undertaken in cities like Fallujah, Mosul and other hot-spots. The Army hopes that SWORDS can be used to enter areas where insurgents may be preparing an ambush before troops are sent in. The units are not impervious to small arms fire, but they are a good bit tougher than flesh-and-blood soldiers, and are ultimately considered expendable (unlike, presumably, human soldiers.) Also, repairable. The unarmed version has already seen some use in this regard, particularly, as noted above, for EOD and IOD (Improvised Explosive Device) disposal. Roadside bombs are one of the favored tactics of Iraqi insurgents, and several TALONS have already been destroyed or severely damaged by explosive devices that in previous years would have been handled by human bomb squads.

  The relatively small, maneuverable SWORDS holds great promise for this kind of brutal, block-by-block urban warfare. It can negotiate a variety of difficult terrains and even climb stairs. On-board sensors can locate the source of enemy fire based on triangulation of shot reports and muzzle flash. Designers are currently working on a safety feature that would lock the weaponry on a selected target while the unit is moving to prevent friendly fire accidents. The targeting is currently much less accurate when the unit is in motion.

“Assuming a position of partial cover at the top of the ramp, SWORDS then lays down suppressing fire from its swivel-mounted M240...”

In its present configuration, the M202 supports Flame- (incendiary) and HEAT- (High Explosive Anti-Tank) LAW (Light Anti-tank Weapon) which can be ripple-fired in rapid succession or fired individually in combination. Future versions may use Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as sporting a wider array of sensors and electronic countermeasures.

“The ruggedized treads(slide #7) of the SWORDS are designed for a variety of terrains. They are equally at home on sand, rock, potholed country roads or blood-soaked hotel carpeting.”

With the updated controller, one operator is able to control fire on up to five platforms simultaneously.

"The Shriners are disoriented, their ranks broken and their visibility severely impaired by the smoke grenades...”

Battery life is from 10 to 12 hours of continuous operation depending on terrain.

“...the remaining Shriners not neutralized in the initial assault break ranks, fleeing for various exits, both on foot and in their single-occupancy vehicles. "

256-bit signal encryption prevents enemies from hacking into the operating system and using it against friendly troops.

“The SWORDS unit is sent ahead to search in the areas around the rear exits and the hotel's lounge to insure that any stragglers are accounted for. At this time, the commandos receive the go-ahead to pry open the elevator doors and commence damage assessment operations and a search for survivors. The entire engagement has taken less than 1 minute 30 seconds, and at no time were any human resources placed in the line-of-fire. This concludes our demonstration."

Say hello to SWORDS, the new face of American Military Power!

NOTE:
This blog has adopted the convention of using alternate typefaces to signify other "voices," which in this instance means fictional voices. To my knowledge the 24th Army Science Conference never featured any demonstrations of how robot soldiers might be used against Shriners, hypothetical or otherwise. Nor is any disrespect intended to members of the Aladdin Shrine. It is a fine organization involved in much laudable charity work. Plus, they have a circus!

Next:The Logic of War

"Because monkeys who steal sometimes become monkeys who smoke."

Okay, I promise I'll get back to the killer robots soon, but I just had to say: People, quit throwing cigarettes to the chimps.

I never thought I'd have to say that. (And yes, I know that chimps aren't monkeys.)

And I better not see any of this sort of thing happening at Sea World, either! Dolphins and sea lions should not smoke. I know it looks cute, but stop it!

Only people should smoke, and only because there's too damn many of them.

The Future of Warfare, Pt. 1

This is my take on the latest developments in the fast-growing field of killer robots. Yes that's right I said killer robots. There are two kinds of people: Those who find killer robots fascinating and everybody else. I trust you to know which category you fall into...

the Shape of Things to Come

  In spite of a century of warnings from science fiction authors, the age of armed robots is upon us. Like most other technological advances with terrifying implications, the long-foretold day has arrived with little fanfare and almost no public debate. The project at the heart of this is called Future Combat Systems, and with its $127 billion price tag it is the largest military contract in history. It is an across-the-board plan to modernize all branches of the military and create a largely automated fighting force within the next decade. It is proceeding in part thanks to a Congressional resolution passed in 2000 which called for one-third of ground vehicles and a third of the deep-strike aircraft to become robotic by 2015. The cost of meeting this goal is expected to drive Defense Department's budget up by nearly 20 percent, from the $419.3 billion in next year's budget request to a projected $502.3 billion in 2010. This is not including the costs incurred by any ongoing wars.

  This increase is largely accounted for by a projected 52 percent rise in the annual cost of new weapons purchases, from the current $78 billion to $118.6 billion. It is interesting to note, then, that a large part of the justification for this proposed modernized force is economic savings. A recent Pentagon study showed that the lifetime cost of one soldier from enlistment through burial is about $4 million, and this figure is growing. Currently the Pentagon owes its soldiers $653 billion in retirement benefits which it cannot pay. The hope is that a robotic soldier will cost one tenth as much.

  "Well before the end of the century, there will be no people on the battlefield," says Robert Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Management and Technology. Finkelstein, a leading proponent of the automation of combat represented by the FCS program, is echoing an often-repeated promise of the modernized military, the promise of combat with no casualties. Recognizing that the loss of soldier’s lives is the single greatest factor making the American public reluctant to wage war, many military strategists see automating the most dangerous battlefield tasks as holding tremendous promise in the ongoing PR battle to justify overseas engagements, along with the more obvious benefits to life and limb.

  Unfortunately, the scenario painted by Finkelstein and others leaves out a crucial point: When he says there will be no people on the battlefield, what he actually means is no American people on the battlefield. Although the idea of a future where wars are waged entirely between robotic soldiers while humans sit safely on the sidelines may sound like a decided improvement over the current state of affairs, at present there are no plans to make robots that are designed to fight anything other than human opponents. Thus the promise of casualty-free war is something of a misnomer. Consequence-free war is probably a more accurate description of the goal here, with the automated component of warfare occupying an increasingly large role in securing the goal laid out in the National Security Strategy : Global military dominance.

  In the arenas of aerial and naval combat this goal has long since been achieved, with American air and sea power virtually unchallenged since the fall of the Soviet Union. Even so, the Pentagon is exploring various programs to increase American dominance of the skies and seas even further. Unmanned aircraft are a central component of this strategy, and enthusiasm for unmanned fighters and bombers has been greatly heightened by the success of the Predator.

  Prior to the Afghanistan conflict, the Predator was an unarmed, lightweight surveillance plane that flew its missions high above the battlefields of Bosnia. Shortly after 9/11 they were first outfitted with 100-lb Hellfire missiles. Since then Predators have logged over 80,000 hours flying missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently the Air Force has a fleet of at least 80 of the planes in operation. They are the first generation of remote-controlled weaponry, capable of applying lethal force at a great distance with no risk to the operators, who might be stationed anywhere on the globe. For instance, the remote “pilots” of the Air Force's 15th and 17th Expeditionary Reconnaissance squadrons are flying missions in Iraq every day, even though they are stationed literally around the world in the Nevada desert. Here, sitting in front of video screens displaying real-time video and audio from the field of battle, the decisions to fire or not to fire are made. While the missiles may be landing in Iraq, the button that fires them in many cases is under the finger of a nineteen-year-old operator in Nevada who has never even been overseas.

  Such remote-control strikes are not without controversy: There have been known instances of mistaken identity and unintended casualties from such attacks. In 2001 the CIA, using a Predator attack drone, killed an Afghan shepherd who was said to resemble Osama bin Laden in height and weight. There was also the more widely-publicized strike the following year against a car that was said to be carrying Abu Ali al-Harithi, a leading Al Queda target. With al-Harithi in the car were five other suspected Al Queda operatives, including American citizen Ahmed Hijazi, leading many critics to point out that the U.S. was carrying out extra-judicial killings through its intelligence-gathering apparatus. While this incident has generated considerable debate over the legality of conducting assassinations of overseas American citizens who have not actually been convicted of any crime (other than the crime of finding themselves in close proximity to a CIA target), lost in the debate are some other thorny issues: First, the fact that this new technology for the first time places the CIA, an agency charged with intelligence-gathering, into the role of being a de facto branch of the military, operating outside of the normal chain of command. Second, the fact that the public statement offered by the CIA after the fact left it conspicuously unclear whether they knew the identity of the other passengers in the car when they authorized the strike.

  These incidents highlight one of the potential problems of this new generation of weaponry: Even though the current weapons are controlled by human operators, the decision-making process is heavily dependent on the intervening technology. As the technology increases both in complexity and ubiquity, the role computers will play in the decision-making process governing life and death is certain to grow, and each step along the path towards the eventual goal of fully autonomous killing machines will open up new dilemmas. We have already seen the first deaths due to poor image-resolution. In the future, we are likely to see deaths due to limitations in the operating systems themselves. As the role of machines shifts from one of seeing the battlefield to one of perceiving the battlefield, it seems inevitable that those perceptions will at times prove to be unreliable or inaccurate.

   Gordon Johnson, head of robotics programs at the Joint Forces Research Center, addressed this concern in a recent interview:
"I have been asked what happens if the robot destroys a school bus rather than a tank parked nearby. We will not entrust a robot with that decision until we are confident they can make it."

  When questioned about the legality of using robotic soldiers, Johnson replied "The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life-or-death decisions."

"The American military will have these kinds of robots. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when."

Next: SWORDS, the first automated infantryman.

Captive Audience

  So I went and saw a movie last night, which I'm not going to talk about because I don't particularly want to write a review of Sin City other than to say that if you liked the comic you'll probably like the movie because it's pretty much an exact frame-by-frame re-creation, and if you're like "What City?" then the chances of you liking it are pretty slim. Okay, I guess that sort of was a review but that's all I'm going to say about it because that's not my point here.

  My point is that it cost me nine dollars to rent a seat in the theatre, and no sooner had I sat my nine-dollars-poorer ass down then I was forced to listen to a series of selections by the newest singing sensations that the media conglomerate which owns the theatre chain is cross-promoting this week, before being treated to fifteen minutes of commercials which preceded the trailers (i.e. commercials for movies.) Remember when they first started putting commercials before movies? How advertisers initially made a real effort to make them entertaining and "cinematic" so that people wouldn't get upset about being forced to watch them? Well, the honeymoon's over.

  Watching the current generation of ads is just like watching ads on your TV at home, except the TV is twenty feet tall, there's no remote control and no volume knob, and you have to squeeze past a row of people in the dark to get off the couch to go to the bathroom. That's not to say that being able to hear ads for "movie nachos" in full 360-degree Dolby surround doesn't enhance the experience:
"Wow! It's like we're inside the nachos!"
By the way, did you know they're made with real cheese?
But I digress.

  After maybe ten ads I leaned over to sgnp and said something like "Jesus! There is actually gonna be a movie after all of these, right?" and he replied:
"Ad revenues are how come we are able to see movies for free. Otherwise they'd have to charge admission or something."

  Anyway, the ad that really leaped out at me was the one for online poker, because evidently while I wasn't paying attention online gambling has become a legitimate business able to afford expensive, professionally-made ads to run before movies. This is is a step up from their initial marketing strategy, which consisted of flooding every inbox and comments section in existence with misspelled, exclamation-point-laden messages in the hopes of finding the one person in a thousand with a severe gambling addiction who hasn't yet hocked their computer.

  And here I must confess that my real problem with the online gambling industry, other than the hours of my life I've already lost deleting their spam from my comments section, is the fact that I didn't come up with the idea first. Because it really is the ultimate business model. You don't even have to build a casino. You just set up a website and sucke -- er, that is, customers -- customers log on and give you their credit card numbers. The money is siphoned straight out of their private accounts -- excuse me -- personal accounts -- and straight into your own offshore account. It's brilliant!

Gambling really is a way to get something for nothing!

John Paul's Silver Hammer

  As I'm writing this, unconfirmed reports of the Pope's demise have begun to circulate. The church has still not issued an official statement. Be that as it may, as I was reading the latest news, I couldn't help but notice this little ritual:

  "Under church protocol, Cardinal Somalo stands over the Pope's body and calls out his birth name, "Karol", three times to ensure he is dead. He then strikes the Pope's forehead three times with a small silver hammer... The hammer is next used to smash the Pope's official ring of office, a tradition based on the ancient practice of using the ring to fix wax seals on papal documents. "

  Now granted, it is a silver hammer (I wonder whose job it is to polish the pope-hammer in preparation for the Holy Forehead-Bonking?), but still it seems kind of undignified. Especially if it turns out he's not really dead. That would be embarassing, having an angry, startled pope yell "ow!" after you hit him on the head with a hammer. Plus, it's probably a cardinal sin to strike a living pope with a hammer.

I almost suspect that the Vatican is playing a little April Fool's joke on all of us:
"Just kidding about the hammer, people. We don't really do that."
If so, I think it's in very poor taste.

I'm probably going to some special hell for mocking the hammer, but honestly there's no disrespect intended here. I just think it's weird, is all.