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U.S. Army To Develop "JEDI" Soldiers
Patrixmyth wrote to us with the CNN story about the U.S. Army's attempt to build Jedi Soldiers. Yes, they're going to dress up Sir Alec Guinness...er, rather Jedi is Joint Expeditionary Digital Information, which, essentially, is the Wired Soldier of Tomorrow. Palmtops, GPS, satellite up-links, oh my!
  Not to mention the fact that given the military's nature to train (read brainwash) grunts to react to any situation in an instinctive manner, what happens when it does fail? Will they know what to do without it?
  Any military man will tell you that this can be an infantryman's worst nightmare, and not because they are afraid that it may happen to them and they won't know what to do. Quite the contrary, grunts (esp. Marines) are well equipped to "adapt and overcome", but as we all know, there's always one knucklehead, and he's the one that gets his fireteam killed.
  Were I still in, the idea of such fragile technology on the battlefield would terrify me, although it would be a great toy for back in the barracks.
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
Please reboot for the changes to take effect.
Ryan
EPLRS, which is the location-finding part of this, uses spread spectrum burst transmission and sends very small packets of data. I am told (though I admit it sounds too good to be true) that it is virtually impossible to use direction-finding equipment to pinpoint the user's location. We don't have the technology to do it and neither does the enemy.
The people who make decisions about purchasing this kind of stuff are smart enough to ask the same questions as you. More importantly, they know what artillery does to signal sites that's give away their positions. So don't sweat it. Personally, I am more worried about my boss being able to track my location. Questions like "Why did you spend all day at that location?" are way too much micro-management for my tastes.
This is intended as just one more way to give situational awareness to soldiers, and in that respect it's a good thing (tm)
oni
think of all the geeks who will rush to enlist only to find out they fall miserably short of the physical requirements.
Grtz, Jeroen
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Considering all the arms that the U.S. exports, either legally or illegally, maybe this is not such a bad idea...
why not /. readers as JEDI soldiers? simple..
an officer's diary
day 1: the new recruits came in, and got handed their hand-helds. So far so good.
day 2: It seems some of the new recruits installed some software on their hand-helds. it's probably games or something. Most of the new recruits just beat me at quake, so they can't be all bad.
day 3: The new recruits are really getting into these hand-held things. We had to let off one of the new recruits. he kept whining about our dinners not including grits, and poured his dinner down his pants.
day 4: wtf did those guys do with their hand-helds? Not a decent window inside, just this silly dos-prompt. when I asked them about it, they started yelling that this was linux, not dos
day 5: I have no idea what the recruits are on. they keep talking about beautiful-wolf or something.
day 6: our encryption has been broken. It's been safe for at least 10 years, but the new recruits used their wolf (I havent seen any canine around) to crack it, and they knew the orders before I did.
.........
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
This is my PocketPC. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My PocketPC is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it, as I must master my life. Without me my PocketPC is useless. Without my PocketPC, I am useless. I must boot my PocketPC true. I must hack faster than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must hack him before he hacks me. I will. Before God I swear this creed. My PocetPC and myself are defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviours of my life. So be it .. . until there is no enemy ... but peace. Amen. Good night ladies!
I'll accept the concept of outfitting troops with high tech interfaces suitable for the modern battlefield. But I'm wondering about some things. The enemy (presuming we're fighting a war against a modern army) will have radio detection capabilities. One of the things you didn't do when I was in the army was use your radio for long transmissions, or it might invite artillary fire on your coordinates (even back then! and the detectors are faster now). I hope they have a way to avoid detection of their electronics transmissions.
Gonzo
Yesterday there was an article about the WinCE base PocketPC and everyone kept pointing out how often these crashed, including C|Net
So today the US military decides that they should use these same WinCE systems for the "wired soldier." Does anyone else smell the impending doom here?
Mmmph. A GPS. A cell phone. WinCE. A JEDI needs not these things.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
"Use the force Luke!"
So Luke switches off the damn thing and blows the Death Star out of existence! Hey! Even a JEDI knows that! Why doesn't the Army?
Lucasfilm, Ltd. vs. US Department of Defense...
See the landmark trademark dilution suit that has Washington on its heels!
See a team of Lucasfilm lawyers impersonate Wookies!
See a President beholden to Hollywood interests utter "Let the Wookie win!"
A long time ago on a West Portico far away... a B-movie actor escaped the evil clutches of Hollywood and became President of the Galactic Republic, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Ever since that time, the Department of Defense has been obsessed with stealing Lucasfilm's trademarks, from "Star Wars" to "Jedi". So, hiding in their outpost off the sixth exit of the Marin system, a team of Lucasfilm lawyers are preparing a counterattack....
This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
The military is a machine. Soldiers are the "commodity components". Giving soldiers expensive, breakage-prone, training-intensive, high-tech gear is going to have on of two effects:
1) Raise the cost of running the military without substantially raising it's effectiveness. Think of the people you knew in high school who were joining the Army because they didn't know what else to do. Now give that person a palmtop, a GPS and a 24 hours to find their ass. Come pick up any pieces that remain tomorrow.
2) Give the military a false sense of unbeatability: "Gentlemen, we are the best-equipped fighting force in the world." Yeah, until 3 guys with AK-47s in Jeeps come knock down your satellite transceivers. When your GPS-dependent droids don't know which way is north, it's unlikely they'll come running to your aid.
It has been proven over and over again (from the Goths to the American Revolution to Vietnam) that distributed, guerilla-style fighting is less fragile (and thus usually more successful) than centralized, top-down fighting. This money could be better spent teaching soldiers how to navigate via astronomy (with a homemade sextant) and some memory-enhancement and "fast math" skills (to replace the palmtop).
--
Linux MAPI Server!
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.... I had, as an infantryman, exactly one job: wait around until told to go somewhere and kill the enemy. I had one tool: Uncle Sam gave me an M16A2, for use the said job (sure, I had others, but that was what my main tool was).
Lets not forget, I believe it was Heinlen, who basically said "The more gadgets you load a grunt down with, the easier it is for someone to walk up and bash his head in with a rock". See above; my life as an infantryman was simple and uncomplicated. I can bet you I was much more effective than anyone trying to locate map points w/ a PDA and calling for help on a cell phone. We relied on maps, and each other. Primitive, huh.
Given, also, that my main tool - my weapon - was fragile and sensitive to even the most minor of abuses that occur in the field, do they really think something like a PDA and a CELL PHONE are going to survive a grunt's life?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
It would be much better if they were running Linux. I think they should make their own distro and call it LiPalm (as in: "I love the smell of LiPalm in the morning")
kwsNI
MIA
KIA
POW
GPF
human://billy.j.mabray/
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