The Titan Robot Show
The first part scared the crap out of me. More here on their cool website: http://www.cyberstein.co.uk/
Oh, and remember the last monster created with a named that ended in stein? Not an auspicious beginning…
Yes, a weapon in development. Add this to the fart bomb, the scream, and The Rods from God and you’ll see where the future of the military is going to be very interesting. Here’s a list of interesting weapons.
Take a guy who does humorous journalism, but not in the sneering sort of way, and send him out to find out more about extremists (KKK, Islamicists, etc.) and conspiracy theories (he didn’t really believe in the Bildeburgers…until he was followed), and what do you get?
Well, you get British journalist Jon Ronson.
I just listened to a wonderful interview with him on Radio West.
Don’t miss it.
My second-to-youngest daughter came in the house telling me that there was a huge line of ants out in the garage.
“Because there’s poop,” her younger sister says.
I groan inside. Cats. There’s the whole wide world and a litter box to boot. They have to do it on the garage floor?
I go out to clean it up before I go on my walk, and there is indeed a thick line of tiny ants. But they aren’t carrying away bits of poop for their fugus farm. It’s some hairball the cat has yakked up. Disgusting. So I get out the square-nosed shovel and scoop it up. But as I do its contents tumble and reveal themselves. There’s a spinal column of something significant with the last bit of ribs clinging to it. There’s hair, and I don’t think it’s the cat’s.
I fling the stuff into the brush and sweep the garage clean.
And then I start thinking.
What if a kid came out and found this long trail of ants. She follows it. To this lump up in the brush. There are two magpies about. One perched on a piece of scrub. The other pecking at the lump. And in the lump is not some animal bones. No, it’s a long segment of human spine. And there’s half-digested Levis or some nylon windbreaker. And the whole mess is dark, compacted, and damp.
There’s something out there that regurgitated this. Not a bear. Not a tiger. Those are too small. This thing has to be large. A dragon. No. Some ogre or troll. Something else. Something from the depths of the darkening woods. Something the villagers had forgotten. Maybe something that’s come through from some other place. But it’s here now. It’s close. And somebody died.
Iron Man was wonderful, every bit of what the trailers promised–adventure, humor, and a huge dose of gosh-wow. Of course, the idea of military exoskeletons are not new. It’s been in science fiction for a long time. More recently, Dan Brown used the idea in his thriller Act of War. In fact, if you think about it, it becomes clear that airplanes, ships, and tanks are all exoskeletons. So this is all old hat. But when did we ever need a brand-spanking new idea to have a wonderful and new story? What’s important is what the do with the idea–the characters, problem, plot, and setting. And Iron Man does a wonderful job of imagining new twists on all these parts of story.
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In other news, it appears the future is not so far away. The military is going to be using robot bugs for recon.
British defence giant BAE Systems is creating a series of tiny electronic spiders, insects and snakes that could become the eyes and ears of soldiers on the battlefield, helping to save thousands of lives.
Prototypes could be on the front line by the end of the year, scuttling into potential danger areas such as booby-trapped buildings or enemy hideouts to relay images back to troops safely positioned nearby.
Soldiers will carry the robots into combat and use a small tracked vehicle to transport them closer to their targets.
Then they would swarm into the building and relay images back to the soldiers’ hand-held or wrist-mounted computers, warning them of any threats inside.
I’m all for saving lives and projecting power while we’re doing it. And robo spies are just cool. Except, of course, when they’re used against you…
Humm, zing!
