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The Soldier is the Network
Roland Piquepaille writes "This article from InfoWorld says that "in the battle of the future, the helmet becomes a data retrieval device." It describes a scenario where soldiers are equipped with sensors and other networking equipment. "Each person is a network with routing capability to everyone else," says Peter Marcotullio, director of development at SRI International. This technology should be available in five years for the military, which probably means that we'll become networks ourselves ten years from now. Check this column for a summary. Please note that this article is part of a special report called "From the battlefield to the enterprise" which looks at why some key technologies -- deployed on a massive scale in Afghanistan and Iraq -- may hold promise for corporate IT."
we are becoming Ender's Hive Queen. Does this mean i'll have a job before the unemployment runs out?
of soilders taking Playboy into battle. Why bother when you can get thehun on your HUD?
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm starting to see scenes from 'Spaceballs'...
The date is 2199. A unit of the Fourth French Resistence, a ragtag bunch, hide in a canyon. The commander listens into his radio for a minute
[commander [in french]] the americans are coming. we should shortly be attacked by a robotic flying drone capable of dropping bombs sucking all air out of a 500 foot radius, followed by a mopup crew of several hundred armored networked hive soldiers. everyone put on your air mask.
the commander begins to get a piece of equipment out of a duffel bag. he hovers intently over a red button on it, watching.
[recruit] What's that?
[commander] EMP blast. It's the only weapon we have against them.
Sounds like these guys are going to want to put a check in the box for "Do not function as a Supernode". =)
Wow! This has so much potential!
The soldiers could install CS or UT2003 on their HUDs, and then play with other soldiers over the net who are githing in different battles, or just training at HQ - ultimate VR!!!!
They could then pretend to kill people on the game, whilst killing people in real life!
(Did I use too many exclamation marks???)
For those instances when we *all* want to just bang our heads into the wall - eg. 'My internet is broken.' or 'The laptop won't turn on!' etc.
Easy. Just use a picture of my history professor's ex-mother-in-law. They'll run screaming and never come back. No need to kill them.
...Dolph Lundegren and Claude Van Damme. If they can sober up the latter one, that is.
Linux:
any other suggrestions?
Nah ... they're just REALLY inaccurate.
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
So American cops reguarly need to shoot 60 people without the inceonvenient delay of a reload? Blimey, it must be like living in a war zone over there.
You misunderstand the special and dramatic needs of Drug law enforcement officers. It isn't a matter of 60 people, it's just a matter of sometimes, they really need to shoot one person 60 times very quickly. After all, think of the horrors that could happen if they only shot them 30 times; some of the people these brave officers are up against are armed with wallets. God knows what the druggies could do if they were only shot 10 or 20 times in quick succession by an unmarked officer busting into their house in the middle of the night with no explanation. They could retaliate. Do you want to put policemen in the line of danger like that?
Blood and guts, cool new machines, women crying, high-brow political debate...
War: It's got something for everyone.The fact that the army recruits nerds amongst others means nothing yet. For example, nerds make superb "live shields" to attract enemy fire, thus protecting more valuable soldiers...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
would you like some help with that!?!?!?!
Mm.... Calvary units... Do they summon the name of Jesus while turning the other cheek? :)
(I think you meant cavalry)
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
I can just see it now. pr0n and spam delivered right to my helmet.
You make a very good point. One thing we know about our law enforment officers is that they tend to fall down when shooting at unarmed people and are prone to uncontrolled exclamations of "he's gut a gun!" when people pull out their wallets.
War is necrophilia.
This gives an entirely new meaning to the legendary "Man-In-The-Middle Attack."