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First Military Exoskeleton Reaches Prototype
JonathanGCohen writes "The U.S. Military has created the first ever prototype for an exoskeleton to be worn by soldiers capable of making its 100 pound weight and a 70 pound supply package feel like five pounds." From the article: "Bleex 1 consists of a pair of hydraulically powered leg braces, more than 40 electronic sensors, a control computer, and an internal-combustion engine providing power from an attached backpack. The plastic and carbon-fiber braces are affixed rigidly to the soldier through a customized pair of standard Army boots, with more compliant and giving connections at the chest and waist. These looser connections prevent blisters and abrasions."
Imagine a cluster of these running Linux!?!?!
I could write a very angry letter right now about The Military, but I decided instead merely to express some constructive criticism. I realize that some of you may not know the particular background details of the events I'm referring to. I'm not going to go into those details here, but you can read up on them elsewhere. The worst types of fatuitous, lame-brained nose-in-the-air snobs there are may possess a mass of "knowledge", but their brains are unable to organize and register the material they have taken in. The Military's logorrheic, unconscionable monographs convince me of only one thing: that the pen is a powerful tool. Why don't we use that tool to shatter the illusion that The Military is entitled to bowdlerize all unfavorable descriptions of its communications?
Shame on The Military for thinking that people like you and me are acrimonious! According to the laws of probability, if I am correctly informed, The Military's incessant jactancy is really getting on my nerves. In any case, many people are shocked when I tell them that it is irresponsible to accept everything at face value. And I'm shocked that so many people are shocked. You see, I had thought everybody already knew that it is truly up to something. I don't know exactly what, but contrary to my personal preferences, I'm thinking about what's best for all of us. My conclusion is that what's best for all of us is for me to subject The Military's analects to the rigorous scrutiny they warrant. You should never forget the three most important facets of The Military's fairy tales, namely their bloody-minded origins, their internal contradictions, and their tendentious nature. Unlike The Military, when I make a mistake I'm willing to admit it. Consequently, if -- and I'm bending over backwards to maintain the illusion of "innocent until proven guilty" -- it were not actually responsible for trying to rewrite and reword much of humanity's formative works to favor quislingism, then I'd stop saying that The Military's emissaries claim to have no choice but to transform our whole society to suit The Military's own villainous interests. I wish there were some way to help these miserable, blasphemous pothouse drunks. They are outcasts, lost in a world they didn't make and don't understand. Plainly stated, The Military says that the majority of audacious wastrels are heroes, if not saints. That's its unvarying story, and it's a lie: an extremely jejune and wicked lie. Unfortunately, it's a lie that is accepted unquestioningly, uncritically, by The Military's accomplices.
So, whatever happened to community standards? I guess it just boils down to the question: Why does The Military insist on boring holes in the hull of the boat in which it itself is also a passenger? This is not a question that we should run away from. Rather, it is something that needs to be addressed quickly and directly, because either The Military has no real conception of the sweep of history, or it is merely intent on winning some debating pin by trying to pierce a hole in my logic with "facts" that are taken out of context. The Military is careless with data, makes all sorts of causal interpretations of things without any real justification, has a way of combining disparate ideas that don't seem to hang together, seems to show a sort of pride in its own biases, gets into all sorts of lousy speculation, and then makes no effort to test out its speculations -- and that's just the short list! The Military whines about treacherous irritating-types, yet it enthusiastically supports the most pugnacious fence-sitters you'll ever see. I have a message for The Military. My message is that, for the good of us all, it should never create an intimidating, hostile, or demeaning environment. It should never even try to do such a brainless thing. To make myself perfectly clear, by "never", I don't mean "maybe", "sometimes", or "it depends". I mean only that we should agree on definitions before saying anything further about The Military's clueless, polyloquent tracts. For starters, let's say
"Stalker"? Pfft. Whatever. I've been called worse by better. Just don't assume that anyone who complains about your anime smiles is always me. As much as your ego will not allow you believe this (and the fact that you're now having fun with the whole situation), the majority of the anti-anime-smile complaints in the past week were not me. So, you go ahead living in your bubble that everything you post will be worshipped just because you posted it.