A disturbing trend

http://www.angryzenmaster.com/2009/02/25/pentagon-wants-to-deploy-autonomous-death-bots/ and http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/127484/?page=entire

I posted a response on the first page, but decided to do so here as well. Yes, I'm "B.D" - a name lifted from "Megazone 23" 1 and 2. This is just one angle...


There are two things I’m worried about here - appearance, and jamming (interference as well, but that’s a completely separate post). I’m worried more about jamming. Let’s say that, to prevent hijacking, the signal is heavily encoded. Let’s say that each unit answers to a slightly different frequency - or, assuming they covered their bases, a completely different code. What happens when the signal is jammed? Do they explode, to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands (or competitors)? Or do they simply stop working, so as to avoid unintended deaths/collateral damage? More that likely the second. (A third, really stupid idea, would be to go into ‘Dalek-mode’, shooting anything that moves.)

As with drones, these machines are intended to penetrate, ideally with the operator within a certain distance. And if the operator dies/gets killed? Shouldn’t happen; that would defeat the point of the Unmanned Unit. So the operator would be some distance away, requiring some form of wireless/radio to communicate with the UU. And if there’s a distance without wired communication, there’s the possibility of jamming.

So let’s say the signal has been jammed. There is now an UU where it cannot be easily recovered (since the whole point is to not run the risk of combat losses, it’s alone), with at least $100,000 worth of parts that would be _very_ useful to the enemy for whatever reason. The enemy now has a usable frame, electronics (and code?), possibly armor, and (pick one) an M249/40mm GL/M202 that can be electronically fired - which this increasingly faceless entity can either convert for their own use or sell to their sponsors, should they have them.

And how to stop the UU itself? There’s probably two main ways to sell a box o’ fun like this - open (parts are replaceable) or closed (the robot is completely sealed from outside disturbances). Closed would be more profitable for the company, and would render the above situation less likely, but it would be freakin’ expensive. Open would be cheaper for the military, depending on the on-the-ground situation, but would make the UU accessible (easier to repair, easier to salvage). Stopping the UU might be as simple as ripping off the power source or cutting some wires, easily replaced.

So now we’re looking at a machine that can be stopped in at least one way. How about appearance? The one in the picture is a black tread-motivated death machine with at least two points of articulation above the body (the camera, and the main swivel), probably more. What happens if it is a) flipped over a la Robot Wars or b) surrounded by suddenly-appearing walls of metal? Or smoke/chaff?

I took one look at the article and came up with this; better countermeasures will crop up during actual use. UUs are a bad idea, in the many ways ED-209 (RoboCop) was a bad idea.

What? _TWO_ posts in a month??? un-HEARd of!!

Welp, I'm bored. So I think I'll just write about The It Crowd, a full year and then some after the premiere of the first series. But I won't even talk about the first series. Go find it for yourself – it's good, and very available on the major torrenting circuit.

First, my favorite episode of the first series has always been “Yesterday's Jam” - the second episode. It had a sense of complete, utter surrealism about it the other five in the season couldn't match. So I'm very happy to see that the second series is an extension of that, not allowing such petty things as Continuity and Good Sense to get in the way.

I've never seen so many sacred cows trotted out, and then ritualistically slaughtered in a way that would never pass on American TV – not even on the new cable drama, “American Abattoirs”. The three are brought out to a musical, simply titled “Gay: The Musical”, and things go downhill from there, taking Disabilities along for the ride.

Then the boss dies, the son (resembling, to my eyes, the Fifth Doctor in outfit) takes over, and the concept of a “pimped out” cell phone powerful enough to give a man an orgasm is, for the first time I am aware of, introduced to the viewing audience.

The third episode opens with the best anti-piracy ad yet made by man (only God could do one better, against geneticists), involves a surprisingly polite German cannibal with a cello, and a bootleg Korean DVD – one of which leads to a mobilization of the police.

And the most recent episode, which I have just finished watching, is a dinner party with the people from work. And it just takes off from there. I felt a sense of shark-jumping right around the time the woman Richmond gets paired with makes her first appearance.

So far, the theme of this series appears to be, “The (blank) From Hell” - “Work Outing”, “Boss(es)”, “Cooking Class/Police Priorities”, and “Dinner Party/Name”. The IT office has been revamped (likely a result of Jen's addition to the TEAM!!!!) and there is a feeling that more screen time has been given to the main characters than before – it's probably about the same, but their presence in the stories feels more concrete. Feels like Moss and Roy are actively (that is, accidentally in-story) causing the events to come about and suffering the not-always-obvious consequences, rather than get swept along by them as they would do in the first series, and as Jen seems to do this year.

So do I like it? Yes. It's the geekiest comedy ever made. There's going to be an American version of it, but I can think of a couple of good prior examples for it working out or not: The Office and Red Dwarf. You may recall that they passed and failed on how well the localization process went – this kills the best-known joke of Yesterday's Jam (the new number for Triple-9). I am optimistic, as the writers of IT Crowd are clearly aware of the international nature of the show, and even the surrealism of the Triple-9 joke works out without an understanding of the events that lead into it (there actually was a number change, but more along the lines of the addition of a 411 line).

Find this show online or from a local video shop, and watch it. If you haven't downloaded it already – aaah! FBI dude with a silenced pistol! *spills jam on keyboard*