Building Tomorrow's Soldier Today

FleaPlus writes "Wired reports on a glove developed by Stanford researchers Dennis Grahn and Craig Heller which combines a cooling system with a vacuum in order to chill blood vessels and drastically reduce fatigue. Besides the obvious military and athletics applications, the technology is also potentially useful for firefighters, stroke victims, and people with multiple sclerosis. The Wired article also describes a number of other human enhancement projects intended to advance battlefield technology. Examples include military exoskeletons, projects designed to increase cognition or decrease the need for sleep, and studies that may one day allow single soldiers to operate multiple aerial drones. Many of these were opposed by the President's Council on Bioethics."

Comments

Solider?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Building Tomorrow's Solider Today

Yes, let's build it, so I can see what it looks like.

Re:Solider?

[bommai]

May be tomorrow solider can be soldered if broken.

Re:Solider?

[Red Flayer]

No, solider implies that it cannot be soldered. It is solider than solid.

On a state-of-matter scale of 1 to 10 (1 being gaseous, 10 being completely solid) this one goes up to 11.

Re:Solider?

[Larus]

Science and technology aside, this will sooner or later find commercial markets.

And why not? Human beings have made themselves to be more unhuman in every passing year. We have professional athletes whose exercise programs would be considered abnormal and pointless, (not including shaving eyebrows to achieve an iota of improvement in swim speed.) We have anti-aging pharmaceutical food and beverage offerings that cater to the Baby Boomers who felt entitled to look like 40-yos instead of 60. We have daily caffeine to boost our brains in the morning, no-dose to boost productivity in the evenings, Prozac to lift us when we're low, and even psychadelic drugs to boost creativity when we're dull. We design ergonomic chairs and keyboards while we sit in front of computers and in our cars for longer hours. We alter hormones and apply suntan lotions. We use AC's and heaters so that our habitats can include the most uncomfortable places on Earth. We give our children Baby Einstein so that they will be superkids and outcompete others when they grow up.

I'm not saying it's pointless for soldiers on the frontline to receive these booster-packs. They have a job to accomplish, and so do we. Maybe we're all trying to become Homo sapiens cyberneticus too. Maybe our environment self-selects.

Re:Solider?

[Seumas]

Shouldn't it be more solid?

Re:Solider?

[Anonymous Coward]

Today's solider can't get any more solid. At least not until tomorrow.

Re:Solider?

[Seumas]

Is this all just a gimmick for the new video game Solider Snake and Solider, With A Vengeance?

Re:Solider?

[painQuin]

For those who come after me, there was originally a typo in the headline.
It was fixed between when my RSS feed updated and when I loaded the page.

Re:Solider?

[Kelbear]

I for one welcome our new(?)... fellow men.

Re:Solider?

[MalleusEBHC]

We have professional athletes whose exercise programs would be considered abnormal and pointless, (not including shaving eyebrows to achieve an iota of improvement in swim speed.)

First off, I don't know of anyone that shaves their eyebrows for swimming. Moreso, shaving isn't necessarily for cutting drag, but to feel faster. Trust me, you feel much sleeker and faster in the water when you shave for a big meet. It's like how baseball players will put a donut on their bat while they're on deck. Confidence and mental readiness are very important, and any advantages that can be gained there are worth their weight in gold.

Re:Solider?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we used to use solder, which was lead and zinc. The lead is toxic, so we changed it to Bismuth. The new stuff is much solider than the old stuff.

Re:Solider?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Thanks for the clue, (unsuccessful) Karma whore. I thought he took the headline, changed the word to be misspelled, and then commented on that. Seriously, a retarded 9 year old could have figured it out. If it was really so important to get that info out there, you could have posted Anon. Crawl back in your hole and wait for another Karma whoring opportunity, maybe it will work next time.

Re:Solider?

[FleaPlus]

For those who come after me, there was originally a typo in the headline.

The funny thing is, my original submission had a completely different headline, so the typo was added by the editors. Here's my original:

Cooling Vacuum Glove Fights Fatigue

Wired reports on a glove developed by Stanford researchers Dennis Grahn and Craig Heller which combines a cooling system with a vacuum in order to chill blood vessels and drastically reduce fatigue. Besides the obvious military and athletics applications, the technology is also potentially useful for firefighters, stroke victims, and people with multiple sclerosis. The Wired article also describes a number of other human enhancement projects, many of which were opposed by the President's Council on Bioethics.

Re:Solider?

[beef curtains]

If it was really so important to get that info out there, you could have posted Anon.

I see your point, in the context of the comment you're responding to. So what was your excuse for posting anonymously? Didn't want to get modded Flaimbait or Troll? Doesn't that make you a karma whore also, in that you're afraid to speak your mind in cases where you fear it might affect your karma?

I wish I could mod your comment -1, Hypocrite.

Re:Solider?

[sgt_doom]

I wouldn't take this all so seriously, Good Citizen Larus, after all, the EXACT same items were being hyped back in the mid-20th century during the Vietnam "War" - and nothing ever really came of it - with the exception of the thermal ray scanner (reads heat signatures several days after an event, with a computer adding depth and dimension to the readings [allowed the Israeli military to figure out what invasion routes were used by the Egyptian army at the outset of the Yom Kippur War - 10/1973]).

Those exoskeletons have actually existed in working models since the late '60s, but nothing ever came of them in combat use, etc. Just something to sell magazines to the technologically historically ignorant......(no offense intended to those of you who fall into that category).

21st Century Reading List:

The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression by James Mann, Blood Money by T. Christian Miller, Hostile Takeover by David Sirota
The Bush Agenda by Antonia Juhasz, Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast, Jacked and also Other People's Money by Nomi Prins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, No Place To Hide by Robert O'Harrow, What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World by Melissa L. Rossi, War is a Racket by General Smedley Butler, Licensed to Kill by Robert Young Pelton, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace by Gore Vidal, American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips

Re:Solider?

[Dun Malg]

For those who come after me, there was originally a typo in the headline.

The funny thing is, my original submission had a completely different headline, so the typo was added by the editors. You misspelled "janitors".

Of course, that's an insult to the hardworking intelligent people who swing a mop all day. They're more like "chimps". Good thing they aren't being paid for the work they do, right?

Re:Solider?

[lessthan]

Please. What is human? Is it how I look? Are amputees not human? Is it how I think? Is a guy smoking some marijuana more or less human than the coffee addict? Is someone who goes insane still a person? Your rant is senseless because "human" is undefined. You aren't comfortable with some of the branchings humanity is taking. Nothing wrong with that. Would you legislate it? That would be a problem.

Re:Solider?

[Digital Dharma]

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

Re:Solider?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember this one... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_(Half-Life_2)
We are gonna become them.

Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[Marxist Hacker 42]

But what will we do with the overtrained soldiers after the war is over?

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[mikecardii]

They will be invested into the Civilian Re-education Program.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[GundamFan]

This is an excellent example of why we as a society need fiction (especially science fiction).

We have to explore or ethics as a culture very carefully before making leaps such as these, and fiction lets us do that.

Now to get more people to read worthwhile books...

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[crashfrog]

We have to explore or ethics as a culture very carefully before making leaps such as these, and fiction lets us do that.

Oh, bullshit. Most of the ethical exploration you're referring to, particularly in Star Trek, consists of nothing more than reinforcing 19th-century moral structures applied to 20th-century situations (though allegory of 24th-century technologies.)

Homosexuals are pushing for equality in society, including rights of marriage? The message of Star trek is "cram those assholes back in the closet, where they belong. No gay people in our version of the future." People of different races want equal treatment before the law, and to be seen as individuals, not weirdos? The message of Star Trek is "You're your race. You're just a Klingon; we expect you to be violent. You're just a Ferengi, you'll never be anything but avaricious. You're just a Jew or a nigger. Only white people are normal and non-ethnic." Even the Prime Directive presents a viewpoint on developing cultures right out of 19th-century colonialism - "savages will be savages, and there's nothing we can do to help them."

Honestly it's always astounded me when people put things like Star Trek out there as some kind of ideal future of equality. What, just because every single series had one token black person on the bridge? When you really pay attention to the series you find that the attitudes are remarkably parochial and conservative. Nearly everyone in the five different series is a racist, and good luck trying to find a single gay character.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[TubeSteak]

This is an excellent example of why we as a society need fiction (especially science fiction).

We have to explore or ethics as a culture very carefully before making leaps such as these, and fiction lets us do that.

I don't see what fiction has anything to do with the matter.

It was a forseeable consequence that soldiers dealing with combat violence would eventually become conditioned to using an armed response as their only response. The problem is nobody in the military was willing to study it and throw money at the problem to solve it.

Hell, the army didn't do anything serious about reintegrating soldiers until after the first Gulf War. They finally setup a program when the reports of soldiers suiciding and beating/killing their wives began to spike.

10+ years later, they extended that program overseas when soldiers in Iraq started suiciding in unusually large numbers during Gulf War 2. Then they had to overhaul it from top to bottom when the GW2 soldiers started coming home and beating their wives, abusing drugs/alcohol and killing themselves.

Historicaly, the military has done shit for soldiers.
The Walter Reed scandal has a chance of changing that.
Mostly because what's happened at Walter Reed isn't fiction.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[Rolgar]

I think the Timothy Zahn Cobra series that did a great job of explaining it. One of the areas he explored was how the original organics of the body won't take well to the modification and stress they go under when performing extraordinary feats of athleticism, and you'll end up with a bunch of broken down 40 year olds that hobble around because of tissue damage, pretty similar to the situation the NFL is trying to deal with in a lot of their middle aged retirees. His characters also had to deal with being weapons for the rest of their life even after they were discharged. Good set of books.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[benzapp]

Someone is obviously a very anger filled college student. Hell, you might even be a lesbian.

What does your rant have to do with the value of fiction?

And, by the way, there are several billion people on this earth who don't agree with you on a lot of this - what you consider 19th century is in fact very much 21st century. Good luck trying to convince them that egalitarianism is true and anal penetration is normal behavior.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[BCGlorfindel]

This is an excellent example of why we as a society need fiction (especially science fiction).

This is an excellent example of why we need HISTORY!

I mean, common people, +5 informative?

Surely someone realizes that fiction authors are no more magically ethical than any other human being. What precisely qualifies their vision of the future as a valuable morale compass? Let's take our lessons from the way things have actually happened in the past, rather than just taking our favorite authors version of the future!

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[crashfrog]

Hell, you might even be a lesbian.

What the fuck?

What does your rant have to do with the value of fiction?

I'm sorry that it was, apparently, too subtle for you to see it. The point is that our fiction is very, very rarely about anything but validating the same traditional moral power structures that privilege some and disadvantage others. Science fiction, in general, isn't about developing "the morality of the future", it's generally about promoting the morality of the past.

Good luck trying to convince them that egalitarianism is true and anal penetration is normal behavior.

I don't remember saying anything about "anal penetration." Obsess much?

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[benzapp]

I'm sorry that it was, apparently, too subtle for you to see it. The point is that our fiction is very, very rarely about anything but validating the same traditional moral power structures that privilege some and disadvantage others. Science fiction, in general, isn't about developing "the morality of the future", it's generally about promoting the morality of the past.

We aren't debating the quality of what has been written, we are debating the value of fiction in the exploration of ethical conundrums - particularly science fiction in regards to the ethical conundrums of new scientific discoveries.

It sounds to me like you've just started reading some post-structuralism drivel. If you haven't been happy with the quality of fiction writing that meets your particular political agenda (I loathe to call anything you've written here something as high and mighty as "moral"), sit your lazy ass down and get to writing something that portrays your grand vision of the future.

In the meantime, you're just another whining college student who is pissed the rest of the world refused to recognize your desire to penetrate other men's anuses as a legitimate social institution.

All morality is subjective - morality is what wins the hearts and minds of men and compels them to act in a way that lays a foundation for the future. You talk about wanting a morality for the future, but the truth of the matter is you will never get anyone to follow you and those who do certainly will not be very interested in passing on your views to their children.

Your on a fanatical fringe, whose vision for the future is repugnant to the vast majority of the world's people. Good luck with your writing pursuits.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[couchslug]

"Mostly because what's happened at Walter Reed isn't fiction."

Neither was the poor treatment of Nam vets (like that chronicled in Ron Kovic's autobiography).

Those lessons are conveniently forgotten every few years by an Army establishment that considers grunts expendable, and lacks the balls to confront their incompetent civilian leadership when funding is inadequate. Deity forbid they'd actually do an old-fashioned walk-through inspection!

Google "David Hackworth" for the last senior officer we had with a backbone. The rest daren't jeopardize their lucrative futures as corporate sock puppets.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[crashfrog]

If you haven't been happy with the quality of fiction writing that meets your particular political agenda (I loathe to call anything you've written here something as high and mighty as "moral"), sit your lazy ass down and get to writing something that portrays your grand vision of the future.

I don't have a grand vision of the future; I suspect it's bullshit in the first place to assume we can perfectly anticipate moral situations in advance of the conditions that allow them. The fact that this has never been successfully done, in my opinion, bolsters my view. And the fact that you can't seem to raise anything in you defense but laughable attempts to guess at my biography - combined with some good, old-fashioned, Coulter-style gay-baiting - further confirms what I've suspected.

In the meantime, you're just another whining college student who is pissed the rest of the world refused to recognize your desire to penetrate other men's anuses as a legitimate social institution.

Project much? I mean, why else would you be so obsessed with anal intercourse, to the point of injecting it into debates that have nothing to do with it?

You talk about wanting a morality for the future

Do I? Where?

Your on a fanatical fringe, whose vision for the future is repugnant to the vast majority of the world's people.

Whose vision, exactly? I think you have me confused with someone else.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[KDR_11k]

You just start another war. Has the USA ever been without an enemy to unite the nation?

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[GundamFan]

What fiction lets us do is take these lessons out of the controversial context of history. Sometimes allegory is a useful tool to explore the ramifications of certain hypothetical or historical events or to ask ourselves "what if".

While it is true that fiction is simply someone else's perspective on history (in a way all human thought is just a perspective on history) being able to understand another persons perspective (or that there are other perspectives) is a very important skill that many people lack. Fiction is a way to see the world through someone else's eyes.

I admit there is a massive amount of crap out there in the category of fiction but to throw the good out with the bad is just foolish.

I don't have the presumption to think that I have an unbiased or complete view of human history but no one does. The best I can do is to try to share the experiences of others who have bee3n kind enough to write it all down

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[Gentlewhisper]

But what will we do with the overtrained soldiers [wikipedia.org] after the war is over?

Beef patties for McDonald's

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[Dun Malg]

It was a forseeable consequence that soldiers dealing with combat violence would eventually become conditioned to using an armed response as their only response. Hmmmm....I'd have to disagree with the assessment that violent behavior in veterans is related to combat conditioning. The very purpose of combat training it to separate the application of "military grade violence" from whatever emotional reactions the soldier may be having at the time. Being a trained soldier does not make your first reaction to being angry be to grab a machine gun and start firing wildly.

Domestic violence in veterans stems from the fact that combat training circumvents emotion so well that the military has largely ignored the emotional damage caused by combat stress.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[Marxist Hacker 42]

When I was working in my first job, we had a very glamourous secretary working for us in Las Vegas. Her boyfriend was a Navy Seal, a vetran of Gulf War I. We spent a lot of late nights in that company- it was your standard dot bomb. One day, a very jealous boyfriend came in and accused her of having an affair with one of our salesmen- the salesman was lucky that he was out at the time. The secretary was not- shot and killed- and then the boyfriend committed suicide himeself.

When you have a hammer- every problem looks like a nail.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Read the linked wikipedia article- it clearly states that the treatment of Vietnam Vets was the primary motivation for the STTNG episode. In other words, you're completely right- we should look to the past for some of our information. But when you have a set of military technology that enhances human potential- that's science fiction becoming fact. Thus my reason for linking to the episode description in question in the first place.

Googleism

[codered82]

Did you mean: Soldier?

High fiber?

[wraithinfinite]

Making soldiers more solid daily, thanks science!

let's build those soliders

[roman_mir]

Soliders are what we all need, not the emptiers or the hollowers, but the soliders, they shall be hard and dimensional, dependible and reliable, continuous and complete rather than divided, broken, incomplete, hollow, interrupted, intermittent, tenuous, untrustworthy, vulnerable, fluid, gaseous, unsubstantial, liquid, soft or vaporous.

While we are at it, let's build a better responsible useful /. editor and an intelligent moderator.

Re:let's build those soliders

[Anonymous Coward]

"Offtopic" - Offtopic? The above post is as on topic as they get! It's on the topic's name. It's time to get down to building that intelligent moderator.

Building Tommorow's Solider Today

[Recovering Hater]

Solid Snake? BROOOOOTHEERRR!

What the hell is a Solider?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another reeson why a spellchek featur is neeeded for dlashdot.

Okay, this is a cheap shot

[smellsofbikes]

but hey, this is /.
>Many of these were opposed by the President's Council on Bioethics.

Imagine the cognitive dissonance and heads exploding if someone managed to create mindless zombies that followed directions, didn't protest wiretapping or secret laws and secret courts, and voted Republican, but the creation used FETAL STEM CELLS?

owait that's already been done: the red states. Blast.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot

[PowerEdge]

The only mindless zombies I see on a regular basis are the ones that assume everything Bush does is somehow inherently evil, destroying the constitution, causing global warming, etc. Those are the people I find who lack logic and reason and possess an inability to think beyond some handed down meme they read somewhere or heard somewhere and get patted on the backend by their circle of yes men. Conformity through anti-conformity or what have you. Leftists (I can't call them Liberals because that would mean free thinking people) are some of the most close minded, anti-freespeech people I have ever had an occasion to converse with.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot

[kalirion]

I agree. Quite a few things Bush does are merely moronic.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot

[fredrated]

Want to see a mindless zombie? That's easy, go look in the mirror.

And don't forget the mindless zombies that regurgitate things they have never personally verified, like those that believe the earth is round, orbits that sun...

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot

[flyingsquid]

The only mindless zombies I see on a regular basis are the ones that assume everything Bush does is somehow inherently evil, destroying the constitution, causing global warming, etc. Those are the people I find who lack logic and reason and possess an inability to think beyond some handed down meme they read somewhere or heard somewhere and get patted on the backend by their circle of yes men.

The reason so many people criticize Bush is simple: most people think he's a bad president. By "most people" I mean the 57-61% who disapprove of him according to the most recent polls. Personally, I don't believe Bush is evil; I suspect he actually wants to make the world better. But he's a damn fool and incompetent. Bush is a spoiled rich kid who never had to learn how to do honest work, to pay for his own mistakes, to grow up. Now he's finally out from under Daddy's wing and Daddy Bush can't fix his mistakes. It's one thing to bail you out when you screw up a small oil company. But unfortunately, there's nobody that can bail you out when you invade a large Middle Eastern country on false pretenses and let it descend into civil war. He might be well-intentioned, but good intentions do not equal good domestic and international policy. Let's look at a few of the cock-ups which have occurred on Bush's watch:

*Not doing jack shit to stop Osama bin Laden before 9/11.

*Letting Osama get away in Afghanistan.

*Invading Iraq on false pretenses and blowing our credibility.

*Letting looting go unchecked in Baghdad, blowing our credibility with the Iraqis.

*Letting an insurgency develop in Iraq, turning it into a giant terrorist training ground.

*Firing the entire Iraqi Army and locking the Baathists out of power, which fueled the insurgency.

*Letting U.S. soldiers engage in torture in Abu Ghraib and Afghanistan, blowing our credibility on human rights

*Neglecting the rebuilding of Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to come back.

*Letting North Korea go from a company which may or may not have had a nuclear program, to one that has the bomb.

*Failing to mobilize Federal resources to respond to Hurricane Katrina

*Implementing domestic surveillance on a previously unheard of scale

*Decreasing funds for basic scientific research at the NSF, NIH, and NASA even while engaging in massive deficit spending.

Did Bush do anything right? The invasion of Afghanistan was the right move, and was well done. And arguably we're doing something right with Al Qaeda since we haven't been attacked. Appointing David Petraeus as head of the army in Iraq was the right move, but it came far too late, and his counterinsurgent tactics may be too little, too late. Firing Rumsfeld and replacing him with Gates was a good move, but again it should have been done a long time ago. Currently, Bush is in the running for the honor of Worst President of All Time. They had a whole series of op-eds on this very topic in the Washington Post. Face it, the radical conservatives have had their opportunity to put their theories into practice, and they've blown it.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot

[Anonymous Coward]

"They had a whole series of op-eds on this very topic in the Washington Post. Face it, the radical conservatives have had their opportunity to put their theories into practice, and they've blown it."

Oh well Op-Eds in the Washington Post, that seals it then.
And if by "radical conservatives" you mean Liberal Republicans, I agree.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot

[c6gunner]

Conformity through anti-conformity or what have you. Leftists (I can't call them Liberals because that would mean free thinking people) are some of the most close minded, anti-freespeech people I have ever had an occasion to converse with.

And in a burst of irony, 2 out of 3 responders, and several mods, decide to prove you right. Ah well. I'm still with you. There's plenty of intolerance on the right, too, but it doesn't hold a candle to the sheer mindless hatred on the left.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot

[c6gunner]

I'm just amazed by how many of your complaints are totally invalid. I don't think you've made a single solid point so far. And since I'm bored, I'll take the time to Fisk you.

*Not doing jack shit to stop Osama bin Laden before 9/11.

This is such a ridiculous attack that it shouldn't even NEED answering. Unfortunately people like you don't seem to realize that. Take a minute to think about how long Bush was in office before 9/11. Also consider the fact that he got elected based on his domestic reform platform, and not foreign relations or internal security. Finally, consider Clinton's (lack of) response to previous Al Qaeda attacks, and think about how long HE was in office before these attacks.

*Letting Osama get away in Afghanistan.

Yes, I'm sure Bush was personally on the ground, had Osama cornered, and then said, "aw, what the hell, you can go".

*Invading Iraq on false pretenses and blowing our credibility.

More nonsense. There were no "false pretences". This is historical revisionism of the highest order.

*Letting looting go unchecked in Baghdad, blowing our credibility with the Iraqis.

This sentence is a non-sequitor. Even if it weren't a logical fallacy, it'd still be an invalid criticism, since you're assuming that using the military to stop looting would have worked out better. More than likely it would just have ended with lots of dead Iraqi looters, and accusations that the Americans were just trying to steal the property for themselves.

*Letting an insurgency develop in Iraq, turning it into a giant terrorist training ground.

Invalid, since you assume this could have somehow been prevented. Unfortunately, when Clinton left office, he forgot to hand over his magic wand to Bush.

*Firing the entire Iraqi Army and locking the Baathists out of power, which fueled the insurgency.

This *might* be a valid criticism, if you had any way to show that NOT firing the army would have worked out better. It's really a judgement call. Most Int analysts agree that the Saddam era army was too corrupt to ever be reformed. Second guessing the presidents decisions without any evidence is pointless.

*Letting U.S. soldiers engage in torture in Abu Ghraib and Afghanistan, blowing our credibility on human rights

Stupidest thing I've heard from you yet, and I won't even bother with a civilized response. If you're willing to believe this, you're pretty much a lost cause anyway.

*Neglecting the rebuilding of Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to come back.

Afghanistan's being rebuilt, and the Taliban was going to return no matter what. You naively assume that once a tyrannical regime in the middle east is "properly" defeated, they'll simply disappear. All our experiences show us otherwise - from Israel in Palestine and Lebanon, to NATO in Afghanistan and Iraq. We know for a fact that any time we defeat a middle eastern muslim nation's tyrants, they, and others like them, are going to return in the form of an insurgency. It's intellectually dishonest to suggest that Bush should have somehow stopped this.

*Letting North Korea go from a company which may or may not have had a nuclear program, to one that has the bomb.

North Korea's not a company, it's a country. We also don't know if they have a workable nuke yet. And North Korea's continued aggression is a result of several decades of international policies. Why the hell are we giving them aid and funding, when they just turn around and put that money and food towards feeding and equipping their military? If NK had been placed under sanctions a few decades back, their threat today would be non-existent. Instead people like you insist that we pander to them, and "negotiate" with

Captain Spelling says it's spelled 'soldier'

[Anonymous Coward]

fix that, do 100 push-ups and then run around the block 100x in full gear private editor...

I'm sure I won't be the first to ask

[tsstahl]

What is a solider? Sure, I could decipher from context by following the link, but why is it up to me to figure out your stupidity.

Re:I'm sure I won't be the first to ask

[sconeu]

It's obviously less liquider or gasser.

Insert witty comment here

[deviant1]

I really wish I could remember even a SINGLE quote from Universal Soldier... I guess the movie was just that bad. However, apparently some scientist really liked the principle. I want Dolf on my team.

Re:Insert witty comment here

[ScoLgo]

No way, dude. You want Sylvester Stallone. I saw him beat the crap out of Dolph once - on his home turf too. Heart of a lion, or eye of a tiger, or something...

Even that pansy, Jean Claude Van Dumbe, did the splits a bunch of times and beat Dolph's ass.

Harken to my words, young one. You will rue the day that you pick him for your happy fun ball team!

Re:Insert witty comment here

[moeinvt]

"We found that by hyper-accelerating the bodies, we could turn dead flesh into living tissue."

Re:Insert witty comment here

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish I could remember even a SINGLE quote from Universal Soldier... I guess the movie was just that bad.

The Internet Movie Data Base knows all.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0105698/quotes

Re:Insert witty comment here

[rgravina]

But did you know he holds a masters degree in chemical engineering? And speaks five languages? He would make one badass explosive-making, deal-negoating dude!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolph_Lundgren

This brings to mind several questions:

[physicsboy500]

If one of these soldiers is severely injured...

Could we rebuild him?

Do we have the technology?

Do we now have the capability of building the world's first bionic man?

Will Steve Austin be that man

and Will he be better than he was before? Better, stronger and faster?

*end obligatory pseudo-quotation*

Re:This brings to mind several questions:

[Notquitecajun]

Here's a better one. Are we going to do it to STONE COLD Steve Austin?

Will the Solider of the future

[stratjakt]

be like a 60/40 tin and lead mix, or do they have some new alloys that might work better?

Will the cancer causing (only in california) agents be removed from flux?

Re:Will the Solider of the future

[hey!]

Nope. 62.5% tin, 36.1% lead and 1.4% silver.

It's Eutectic Man.

Re:Will the Solider of the future

[drinkypoo]

to be followed by soldiers made of steel with over 4% carbon... Hypereutectic man.

Re:Will the Solider of the future

[ajlitt]

As a time-saving method, the soliders of the future will be no-clean.

Re:Will the Solider of the future

[ultranova]

Nope. 62.5% tin, 36.1% lead and 1.4% silver.

Getting ready for the War on Werewolves, I see.

sign me up

[mastershake_phd]

which combines a cooling system with a vacuum in order to chill blood vessels and drastically reduce fatigue
 
Oh that sounds real pleasant.

Re:sign me up

[peragrin]

think about it this way. They have invented the water cooler adaptor for humans. This little device pulls heat out of the blood. That colder blood circulates through out your body cooling you off.

My concern would be celluar damage at the point in which the cold blood enters the body. Cold being relative here. as you only want to lower the body temperature by a couple of degrees.

Re:sign me up

[froschmann]

The human body can be drained of blood within 8.6 seconds with adequate vacuuming systems.

Re:sign me up

[sgt_doom]

I believe those have been advertised for some time on the open market - they are called penis pumps.....According to the Bushies (Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and their moron cheerleader, George Weasel) Kahlid Sheik Mohammed is responsible for 9/11/01, and the Crucifixion, and the Trojan War, and George's hemmorrhoids and [Note: Seattle "newspapers" report that the aforementioned KSM did plan on blowing up a building in Seattle, citing it be specific name in 2003 or 2004, when that building wasn't named until the year 2006 - Wow, psychic "terrorists" - can you spell al Qaeda and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood gofer who now claims to be a super terrorist?????].

I believe there's a name for them

[Billosaur]

Terminators.

i want steel bones

[FudRucker]

like the Terminator... _astala vista baby

Re:i want steel bones

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess astala vista is only fitting for an article about soliders.

If it had been about soldiers you might have written hasta la vista.

Re:What the hell is a Solider?

[stratjakt]

Spellcheck won't help. Solider is a word, a bad one (more solid), but a word.

No, you need editors with some sort of cognitive functions, an ability to proofread, and some semblance of pride in their work.

Here's one...

[sycodon]

"Yes Sir!"

Well, it's a quote, isn't it?

Bad grammar!

[brian0918]

That headline should read, "Building Tomorrow's More Solid Today"

Re:Bad grammar!

[forrestt]

Unfortunately, it will take a couple of days to build tomorrow's more solid today, making it yesterday's more solid day-before-yesterday.

From what I see on TV

[cliffski]

That money would be better spent on teaching soldiers some arabic. Seriously.
Modern war isnt about tanks and pitch battles between rival fleets of helicopter gunships. Modern warfare is fought in a city, in amongst a civilian population, who may or may not be hostile to US troops.
teaching some basic arabic for beginners to soldiers so they can understand what the locals are saying is going to save more lives, and lead to a better outcome, than any l33t new nano-engineered hi tech gubbins that will most likely fail the moment it gets exposed to heat and sand.

Re:From what I see on TV

[Anonymous Coward]

> That money would be better spent on teaching soldiers some arabic.

Or just training more soldiers.

Re:From what I see on TV

[drooling-dog]

Someone mod this up, please.

The problem, if there is one, is not that soldiers aren't physically up to the demands that will be made of them. The problem is with the politicians who send them unprepared on ill-advised and ill-defined (but profitable, for them) missions, often for dubious reasons that are unrelated to our national security.

If that could actually happen, I mean.

Re:From what I see on TV

[Hoi Polloi]

Judging from /. stories money sure isn't being spent on English skills either.

BTW, can I have some techno gear to protect me from all the uber soldiers?

Re:From what I see on TV

[ArcherB]

That money would be better spent on teaching soldiers some arabic. Seriously.
Modern war isnt about tanks and pitch battles between rival fleets of helicopter gunships. Modern warfare is fought in a city, in amongst a civilian population, who may or may not be hostile to US troops.
teaching some basic arabic for beginners to soldiers so they can understand what the locals are saying is going to save more lives, and lead to a better outcome, than any l33t new nano-engineered hi tech gubbins that will most likely fail the moment it gets exposed to heat and sand.

The biggest pitfall for any military is training to fight the last war. Poland in the 1930s is a prime example. They were ready to fight a WWI army when Hitler invaded. Unfortunately for the Poles, the German war machine spent its time getting ready for the NEXT war and wiped the Poles out!

Urban warfare is always a messy business. However, regardless of what you hear on the news, our soldiers are doing a hell of a job in the Iraqi cities. The problem is that when compared to the bang-up job they did in the deserts, their performance in the cities looks atrocious. We have lost a minuscule amount of troops in the cities, but those numbers overshadow the casualty rate in getting to the cities in the first place. We lost more training for D-Day than we have lost in both gulf wars combined. If we had taken huge numbers of casualties overthrowing Iraq, the press would be marveled at how well we are doing in the urban areas. But as it stands, the public didn't expect casualty rates to rise after heavy combat operations ceased. The press has only fueled this perception by following the "if it bleeds, it leads" philosophy and completely ignoring any successes in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Re:From what I see on TV

[kamapuaa]

Actually, the US military under president Bush actively discourages soldiers from learning Arabic, because of a concern that soldiers would empathize with Arabian contacts and start sympathizing with the enemy. It sounds a little ludicrous, and I can't say I approve, but there's been a number of agents in the Interzone who have actually merged with their cover stories. Just the daily cost of doing war against Islam Inc.

Re:From what I see on TV

[rhakka]

Maybe because they find that the arabs have some very real and compelling reasons for resisting american-sponsored activities in the area once they can talk to the people there. Like, how we tend support powers that will do business with us, who are in turn plundering their own country's resources while the people of those countries see very little of the benefits.

Just a guess.

Re:From what I see on TV

[SirWhoopass]

"Interesting"? That's the most idiotic thing I've heard. That it is completely false. In no way does the US military discourage personnel from learning Arabic. In fact, the US Army is offering $20,000 bonuses for Arabic speakers who enlist.

Re:From what I see on TV

[fredrated]

"But as it stands, the public didn't expect casualty rates to rise after heavy combat operations ceased."

Did "Mission Accomplished" have anything to do with that?

Re:From what I see on TV

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean, MAY be hostile to US troops? Of course they are going to be hostile! You guys keeping shooting yourselves and allies, who the heck wants your troops around? If the US doesn't get a handle on the friendly fire situation soon, nobody is going to want to have anything to do with you. If the friendlies can't trust you, how the heck are the non-combatants you are supposedly there to help going to trust you?

Re:From what I see on TV

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this a troll?

Re:From what I see on TV

[kamapuaa]

Huh, I guess random untrue anti-Bush statements don't get auto-modded +5 after all...

Re:From what I see on TV

[mike2R]

Modern war isnt about tanks and pitch battles between rival fleets of helicopter gunships. Modern warfare is fought in a city, in amongst a civilian population, who may or may not be hostile to US troops.

Maybe not, but these are long-range plans. Are you really certain that the next few decades won't see the US needing to fight a high-intensity war?

The US military does seem to be paying the price in Iraq for focusing almost exclusively on fighting large-scale battles for the last fifty years (non-US and non-military opinion, that's just how it seems to me). I don't think making the opposite mistake is a good idea. Worse if anything - we haven't suddenly become a species that disdains to kill each other in large quantities on the battlefield, it's just that the current political and military reality makes challenging the US in that way a bad idea. Peace is most likely to be preserved by keeping it that way.

Re:From what I see on TV

[amper]

As an aside, I've come across your posts many times now, and I've been wondering why you chose your sig. I'm willing to concede that Kerry may have actually said such a thing. I'm also willing to bet that as a highly decorated veteran officer who actually served in Vietnam, that John Kerry knows quite a bit more about warfighting than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, or you and I.

Is your sig an attempt to mock John Kerry, or President Bush?

I happen to agree with Kerry's quote. We *do* need more troops in Iraq, if we have any intention of actually accomplishing anything positive there. Unfortunately, not only is this a rather unpopular stance, it's also true that a "surge" of only 21,000 or so more troops isn't going to do the job. What we need is to go back to the original recommendations of people like Gen. Eric Shinseki, and send an additional 500,000 or more troops. Not that this will ensure success, but it's the only chance we have to make this all work out, unless we're going to take the standpoint that the situation is unsalvageable, and try to work it out by paying reparations.

We may have had no moral authority to invade Iraq, but we sure as Hell have a moral responsibility now to clean up after our mistake, no matter the cost to the United States of America. The only real question is, do we even have the ability to do it anymore?

Re:From what I see on TV

[Guuge]

What our soldiers really need are special goggles that tint everything to look a bit rosier than they really are.

Re:From what I see on TV

[IDtheTarget]

I'm a Captain in the Army National Guard. The United States Army has purchased an enterprise license of Rosetta Stone for all soldiers, both active duty and reserve. In fact, I'm slated to go to Iraq next year and I've already started on Rosetta Stone, purchase a couple of off-line CD-based study aids, and have started Arabic lessons with a native speaker.

I do this for several reasons:

1. Because I can't very well help the Iraqi people if I can't communicate with them
2. Because I wish to be a respectful guest, as I would when going anywhere, or to anybody's home
3. Because I refuse to spend a year in another country without knowing at least the basics of the language
4. Because I refuse to spend a year in the birthplace of human civilization without at least trying to see some of the great sites of mankind, and knowing the language will help

We soldiers aren't the brutish thugs that CNN loves to depict on the evening news.

Re:From what I see on TV

[c6gunner]

simple solution: stop watching TV and start talking to the soldiers.

Re:From what I see on TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Go read vivin's post above and hope that enlisted soldiers like him are working in your company so that you might make it home, dumbass.

Re:From what I see on TV

[timeOday]

Let's not go over-generalizing from Iraq and re-build our military around occupation and nation building. It's a pointless and unjustified mission. The solution is not to do that in the first place.

The idea of a smaller, hi-tech military is a very good one - for national defense, e.g. repelling an armed invasion of us or an ally. "But that kind of military is irrelevant for combatting terrorism!!" That's right, basically. The idea of stemming terrorism through massive invasions is fundamentally invalid. A "war" on terror is a false premise. Anti-terrorism is really about intelligence and police work, executed in conjunction with other nations around the world. Ocassionally we'll need a few highly trained and equipped special forces to eliminate terrorist cells when we find them. This whole approach of killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer has proven so destructive and costly, not to mention ineffective.

Re:From what I see on TV

[Speare]

Unless they're gay and someone notices. In which case they're out on their arabic_for('ass') while any investment in their skills is squandered.

Personally, I think it would just be cheaper to not fly metric tons of paper cash into the country and then misplace it.

Re:From what I see on TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yea, it was the stupid media that didn't "get it" when Bush stood in front of the huge banner diplaying "Mission Accomplished!" while delivering his speech suggesting that the war was over and anything following would just be little skirmishes with remnants of the old regime. They should have rather not payed attention to to this photo-op at all. But then again the viewers would have missed how GW was flown in wearing that cute little pilot suit..

Re:From what I see on TV

[ArcherB]

As an aside, I've come across your posts many times now, and I've been wondering why you chose your sig.

I'm glad someone finally asked! The point of the sig was to show that Democrats oppose whatever the President does, even if it something they have been screaming about for years. At the time I created that Sig, Kerry and everyone else on the left side of the aisle were screaming about Bush's plan for a troop surge in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling it a bad idea and coming up with plans to prevent it. Until Bush presented his plan for the troop surge, Democrats were critical of the President for not sending enough troops. I made the sig to show that Kerry and other Democrats take whatever side opposite of the President on every issue, regardless of what that issue is.

School vouchers, where the government gives money to poor children who want a better education so they can go to the private schools that only the rich white kids could have gone to before was opposed by Democrats. Ted Kennedy, who helped write the education bill even opposed it.

A similar example of hypocrisy would be William Jefferson vs Tom Delay. Ronnie Earle went through three grand juries before he found one that would indict Tom Delay. Even though Delay has not been found guilty of anything, he was forced to resign his leadership and was all but thrown out of Congress. William Jefferson (D-LA) was video taped taking $100,000 worth of bribes, $90,000 of which was recovered. Jefferson was placed on the Homeland Security Committee by Pelosi, who was elected by saying she would "Clean up the culture of corruption in Washington."

I'm not just blaming Democrats. It's just that they are the opposition party right now and they are doing their job of opposing anything the other side tries to accomplish. The Republicans are only mildly better. They opposed nearly everything Clinton proposed when Clinton was probably the most conservative Democrat in office this century! Although they did at least support the mission in Bosnia.

I guess I'm just tired of seeing the Prez get a bad wrap about everything. On his inauguration day, his limo was pelted with snowballs as it drove by blocks and blocks of protesters. What could Bush have possibly done 1 hr before even taking office to cause such rage among the left? I understand the election of 2000 was kind of rough, but I don't think Gore would have had to drive through snow-ball armed protesters had he gotten an inauguration. I'm just tired of the whole sore loser mentality and wish people would grow up.

We may have had no moral authority to invade Iraq
I only agree in that the whole world should have invaded Iraq, just as the whole would should have invaded Rwanda and now Darfur. We had no business going in without wider world-wide support. Unfortunately, the much of the world just doesn't give a damn. The US can not be world's policeman. If the UN won't prevent millions of men, women and children die due to political and tyrannical bullshit, we shouldn't have do it for them. ...but we sure as Hell have a moral responsibility now to clean up after our mistake, no matter the cost to the United States of America.
I whole heartedly agree. The debate to go into Iraq is over. We have to finish the job.

The only real question is, do we even have the ability to do it anymore?
We do if people like Rosie Odonnell shut the hell up and stop trying to take down the Prez even if it takes down the entire country with him. We do if the left can put down their snowballs long enough to offer something other than blind opposition. We do if the right can try to be more open to the members of congress when it comes to things that can not be released to the public.

Re:From what I see on TV

[Darlantan]

Yes. You're completely right. Because, you know, having friendly locals who can communicate with you, who know that you _personally_ are not a bad person, and who might just attempt to warn you is no help at all.

Or, hey, if you can't swing that...there's always the ability to be able to understand that the people talking over there are planning the best way to hit your troops fourty-five seconds from now. That's got no tactical value at all, right?

We need both good tech that does the job AND soldiers who can talk effectively with the locals. Let's face it.

Wait...AC...oh, snap! I just got trolled.

Re:From what I see on TV

[timeOday]

If you believe that interpretation of the "Mission Accomplished" episode, you'll believe anything. Everything the administration did up to and even after that time, from the budget and timetable, to the utter lack of planning for what to do after the invasion, proves that no such thing as a protracted conflict ever entered their minds. The mission was supposed to be a replica of Gulf War I: step 1, America leads the charge and the rest of the western world rallies around us; step 2, the international coalition wipes the floor with whatever semblance of an army Iraq can pull together; step 3, Mission Accomplished. Go home and have a parade.

In response to your previous comment that people wouldn't worry so much about a few thousand casualties now if there had been more during the ground war: if there were ever any chance of thousands of casualties during the ground war, the invasion would never have taken place, simply because nothing in Iraq is worth that much to us. That's why we haven't invaded North Korea and a dozen other places around the world where evildoers live.

Re:From what I see on TV

[robi2106]

I hadn't noticed that kerry quote before. thanks for bringing that up.

Re:From what I see on TV

[TamMan2000]

Good luck over there.

Re:From what I see on TV

[Reziac]

I just noticed your sig for the first time earlier today, when you said something or other that I felt an urge to mod up. :) Anyway, good explanation, and you're right -- political parties are more about opposing what the other party wants than about doing their jobs. :/

As to the nominal topic, people forget that many advances in medicine that later become available to the public, START as advances in battlefield medicine. Most especially wrt trauma survival.

And TFA is right -- I noticed decades ago that the single most fatiguing factor is overheating, not "running out of gas". If I stay just a tish on the chilled side, I can dig a hole or ride a bike a lot longer than if I'm too warm.

Re:From what I see on TV

[JhohannaVH]

I just want to say a loud, lusty and busty OOOOHRAH!

Re:From what I see on TV

[tsalaroth]

So I've decided to friend you because of this post/explanation - but there's one thing I have to comment on:

On his inauguration day, his limo was pelted with snowballs as it drove by blocks and blocks of protesters. What could Bush have possibly done 1 hr before even taking office to cause such rage among the left? I understand the election of 2000 was kind of rough, but I don't think Gore would have had to drive through snow-ball armed protesters had he gotten an inauguration.
A lot of people felt the election was stolen from them. No, that's not exactly his fault, by any means, but he was the result of said theft. I feel that something fishy has been going on with elections since the late 80's, for me it's not a "the neocons are fixing elections!" it's much more tin-foil hat than that.

Re:From what I see on TV

[FrostedChaos]

Maybe not, but these are long-range plans. Are you really certain that the next few decades won't see the US needing to fight a high-intensity war?

1945 called, they want their military strategy back.

These days, "high-intensity wars" aren't about soldiers. They're about the president pushing a nice shiny button marked "nukes" and turning us all into crispy chicken.

Re:From what I see on TV

[chuckymonkey]

As a former soldier deployed multiple times to the Middle East I can tell you that I actually did recieve a lot of training in the language and culture of Iraq. The problem is that some of the guys on the ground don't pay attention and just don't care. They just want to grunt, beat their chest and show off how superior they are to the Iraqis. Being one of the guys that actually gave a shit I listened and as a result developed great respect for those people. Don't believe everything you see on the TeeVee, reporters are fscking jaded and biased. I would have shot them on site if I could have gotten away with it since all they care about are the explosions, the firefights, and all the other bad shit that a few idiots do. They don't really care to show the guy running through gunfire protecting a kid with his own body because he know his armor at least can take a hit or two before it buckles. Or the guys out there sweating their asses off putting up buildings and doing other publics service works in conditions that would make most of the lard assed citizens of this country keel over and die. So instead of spouting about shit you have seen on the teevee maybe you should enlist and go see what it's really like. I did and I'll never regret it.

Re:From what I see on TV

[mike2R]

No-one is going to invade the US. As you say, nukes would rule that out, even if nothing else did.

But the US has interests beyond its own borders. Europe for example. Imagine a fascist Russia thirty years from now migrating its borders westwards. Maybe the American people wouldn't care, or at least not care enough to want to intervene. But ruling out (or at least deprioritising) their ability to do so will leave the next generation of Americans unable to make that choice at the time.

Nuclear weapons do not give a nation the ability to dictate outside clearly defined limits. Those limits are what that nation is willing to endure without precipitating a holocaust (as perceived by others). Conventional military superiority is far more versatile. IMO the US, as current global superpower, would be well advised to keep up its capability in this area. Just as a precaution.

Re:From what I see on TV

[nanoakron]

Enlisting Arabic speakers != Encouraging troops to learn Arabic

Re:From what I see on TV

[cubicle_cowboy]

Actually, Poland was as ready for modern war as any other country in the 1930's. Politics were their downfall. France and Britain never came to their aid in time. Russia came in on Germany's side. So Poland had to deal with two of the largest armies in the world at that time on two fronts. The numbers were just against them.

Also, everyone makes fun of the Polish calvary, but they were actually fairly effective. They didn't attack tanks like everyone likes to believe, they attacked the infantry who were in the rear. Heck, the Germans used calvary throughout the war and much of their artillery was horse/mule driven to the end.

President's Council on Bioethics

[loafing_oaf]

It's a bit laughable that the president has any ethics councils. If anyone is writing a sequel to Demolition Man, now is the time to gather material.

If we could just get rid of that conscience

[Cracked Pottery]

We would have the ideal soldier/worker/CEO. It's done by selection pretty well with CEO's, but still the soldiers come back with PTSD and guilt. I have read where there are drugs in development that will prevent the recording of memories for operational efficiency and protection of human assets from PTSD and guilt. War is a feature of humanity, unfortunately. Is it a good idea to let the need to win create technology that removes humanity from the equation?

Re:If we could just get rid of that conscience

[Anonymous Coward]

War is a feature of humanity, unfortunately. Is it a good idea to let the need to win create technology that removes humanity from the equation? Depends on whether or not you like losing. "the need to win" is pretty much predicated by the losers almost always getting the short end of the stick.

Not having a conscience and winning versus having a conscience and losing. Having a conscience and losing might work OK for unimportant, insignificant things like competitive sports but totally sucks in regards to more important, significant things like the future of your country and the lives of your citizens.

Playing nice in war is a great way to lose.

probable, not practical

[shirizaki]

This sounds completely awesome, but probably won't be put into anyone outside of special forces/SEALS. It would be awesome if ANY military did this to anyone, but the old saying goes:

"Overspecialize and you breed in weakness."

Whatever decent advancement is made, nothing can compare to raw experience. Some helpful things like the cooling blood would be nice or an enhanced exoskeleton, but outside of the specialized units these wouldn't be practical or cost effective.

Re:probable, not practical

[c6gunner]

Whatever decent advancement is made, nothing can compare to raw experience. Some helpful things like the cooling blood would be nice or an enhanced exoskeleton, but outside of the specialized units these wouldn't be practical or cost effective.

20 years ago, people would have said the same thing about body armour. it's nonsense. these glove-contraptions seem relatively simple, and should be much cheaper than all the kevlar we've been tossing at our soldiers. not to mention the fact that the US mil has been looking into ways of cooling down it's soldiers for quite a while now, and has even developed an extremely complex vehicle mounted system. these gloves, if they work, would be a hundred times cheaper, and infinitely more useful.

Re:probable, not practical

[fireboy1919]

Whatever decent advancement is made, nothing can compare to raw experience.

Nothing? If I was fighting a war, and was given the choice between 100,000 highly trained hand-to-hand combat experts without weapons, or 100 guys with two weeks training in tanks, I'd take the tanks.

Similarly, if I was betting on a cage match between a 30 year old, 200 pound martial arts expert who's been training all his life and a 12 year old girl with a handgun and two hours of training, I'd bet on the girl winning in the first twenty seconds.

Without our technology, humans are nearly helpless. It's our technology that makes us powerful.

"Overspecialize and you breed in weakness."
This doesn't actually have to do with specialization. Technology and specialization aren't the same thing. Getting overheated is a pretty universal problem, and knowing how to use gloves doesn't require a lot of special knowledge.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot as well

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, you first. Please get your wife pregnant and then kill it off before its born so we can use that to further science... OH wait, we've already been doing that and NO PROGRESS has been made using Fetal Stem Cells. Adult Stem cells have seen tons of progress, but why confuse the baby-killer crowd with facts....

Pilot squadron of aerial drones

[David_Shultz]

Why do research on piloting a squadron of aerial drones? Haven't these people ever played an RTS? It's easy to control a squadron of units -you just offload the tactical decisions to the units themselves and deliver only high level, strategic commands. You can even leave the option of controlling individual units open.

Re:Pilot squadron of aerial drones

[drinkypoo]

Why do research on piloting a squadron of aerial drones? Haven't these people ever played an RTS? It's easy to control a squadron of units -you just offload the tactical decisions to the units themselves and deliver only high level, strategic commands.

Have YOU ever played a RTS? Those aircraft are firing every which way, missing all kinds of shots and throwing crap everywhere. They also have a tendency to make unnecessary turns when they could just be turning towards something and delivering the coup de grace. If it's that hard to get AI to make intelligent decisions in a video game where everything is virtual and every unit knows the precise coordinates of everything within sensor range, how much trouble do you think it's going to be to do it in the really real world?

Re:Pilot squadron of aerial drones

[Dan Hayes]

That's why you deploy them in swarms :)

Re:Pilot squadron of aerial drones

[ScentCone]

Haven't these people ever played an RTS? It's easy to control a squadron of units -you just offload the tactical decisions to the units themselves and deliver only high level, strategic commands.

The problem is that, unlike an RTS game, actual drones (the type someone in the field might need to directly operate or rely upon, say for surveilance in a tactical setting) in actual combat-ish or other sensitive roles are working with a range of variables that wildly outnumbers the things that can happen in a game universe. If the drones or similar semi-autonomous units in a game universe were coded to accurately exhibit the types of behaviors, and encounter the range of unexpected hostility/weather/lighting etc that actually happens in real life, those games would cease to be as playable.

The Glove

[daigu]

Even they were astounded at how well it seemed to work. Vinh Cao, their squat, barrel-chested lab technician, used to do almost 100 pull-ups every time he worked out. Then one day he cooled himself off between sets with an early prototype. The next round of pull-ups -- his 11th -- was as strong as his first. Within six weeks, Cao was doing 180 pull-ups a session. Six weeks after that, he went from 180 to more than 600...In trying to figure out why the Glove worked so well, its inventors ended up challenging conventional scientific wisdom on fatigue. Muscles don't wear out because they use up stored sugars, the researchers said. Instead, muscles tire because they get too hot, and sweating is just a backup cooling system for the lattices of blood vessels in the hands and feet. The Glove, in other words, overclocks the heat exchange system. "It's like giving a Honda the radiator of a Mack truck," Heller says. After four months of using it himself, Heller did 1,000 push-ups on his 60th birthday in April 2003.

Any suggestions on how to test this using common household items? Would a simple cooler of ice work?

Re:The Glove

[brendanoconnor]

I don't think what you said would work at all. Putting your hand in a cooler of ice would actually cause your hand to shut down the radiator feature. From the article:

Grahn watched sled dogs through an infrared camera--and saw snouts and ears lit up like headlamps, indicating that the dogs were shedding excess body heat. But the cameras showed no heat loss through the dogs' feet. Snow under their paws prevented those radiators from opening. Heller and Grahn have found in the lab that the temperature under which the radiators shut down in humans is highly individual.

It kind of sounds like they use vacuum to remove the heat from the blood that circulates in the hand, which then goes directly back to the heart, and is then redistributed to the rest of the body, causing the entire body to cool faster.

Brendan

Re:The Glove

[Ardipithecus]

I RTFA last week, had the same idea, and did the experiment after some outside work (we are already in the 80s)

Prepared a plastic bowl with ~1 gal tap water + 2 cups ice cubes; was too cold for me. First alternated hands about 2 minutes each x 2 times, then both at the same time about three minutes. At that time the testing was interrupted.

Results, while not as dramatic as the article, were subjectively noticeable and provided a second wind. Note that there is some resting involved while doing this.

Will try again this weekend during a fence repair, less ice, ck the temp (aim for ambient - 30F), and the foot option.

Surely less effective, but much more cost-effective alternative to the fancy glove.

Re:The Glove

[wraithinfinite]

IANAD, but hey...

I swim 2000 yards 3 times a week, and run 2 miles the other 4 (yay me). If cooling the muscles were trully the secret to endurance I'd be able to continue happily for miles while swimming, seeing as how severe shrinkage occurs during said workout. From my experience it's entirely about the oxygen efficiency, or even capacity of the muscles. This being readily apparent to me from just the beginning of a workout session compared to the end, running or swimming.

Starting any workout, my muscles are cooled down and relaxed all the way, with blood vessels constricted to a resting state, for whatever reason this makes it hard to go very far without taking a break. Eventualy after warming up I'm limber to the point that while I'm breathing the same amount, I'm able to go farther between resting periods.

Maybe it's endorphines, but from what I've observed, the temperature of the individual muscles is almost arbitrary compared to the efficiency of the muscles to convert oxygen, etc. into energy. Of course, I'm running on the idea that training your muscles, i.e. regular workouts, and generaly maintaining your carcass makes the body run at higher efficiencies, and therefore requires less oxygen for peak performance.

Oh and btw, I smoke the occasional stogie, and the workout after a night out is always rougher than normal, which I equate to what I was babbling about above.

Re:The Glove

[fredNonesuch]

The slight vacuum has to do with two things - getting the hand tissue to fill any air gaps between the heat exchanging glove so that you get maximum contact for heat transfer (better conduction). The second purpose is that blood vessels will also expand slightly thus increasing the rate of flow of blood through the tissue (convection). Both are important to heat transfer.

The problem that they found is that the temperature at which maximum effectiveness of heat transfer occurs varies by individual. If the hand gets too cold, blood vessels constrict and greatly reduce the effectiveness - as in the huskies feet.

That means that there needs to be some means of regulating the temperature of the water going into the glove and some means of measuring the temperature (and thus effective heat transfer) of the water coming out of the glove. Calibration means lowering the temperature slowly until you see a significant drop in water temperature change across the glove. A degree or so above that would max out heat transfer.

The description of using ice chips for a portable unit means one of two things - either the most effective water temp for heat transfer is close to freezing or it was the most efficient way to provide a heat sink was that rather than a heat pump or thermocouple. I suspect the latter given that you already have to have a water pump circulating the water.

The simplest arrangement I can think of requires throwing away portability. You'd need to have two buckets - one with mostly ice and some water in it and one with just water in it. The ice bucket sits at a somewhat higher level than the water bucket with a siphon tube leading down into the second bucket.

The second bucket is full of water and has a fully submersible aquarium heater in it that's pretty precise and fairly high powered - say 150 watts. It also has a submersible pump (power head) that has two outlets. The first just circulates water rapidly inside the bucket to maintain temperature uniformity. The other has a second tube attached that feeds back into the ice filled bucket.

Ideally, you want a second thermostat opening and closing a valve in this second tube. In reality, it's probably cheaper to use an adjustable clamp. This means the aquarium heater works harder when they are sitting there in the rest state and a lot slower when you're swishing your hands around in it.

Calibration in this case is a matter of lowering the thermostat on the aquarium heater bit by bit between sets until the recovery effect drops dramatically. Given that the environment is typically around 70 degrees, I'd say start at 65 degrees and go down from there.

Possible civilian use

[Lurker2288]

So, this is a glove that reduces hand fatigue, huh? Yeah, so, uh, have they tested it to see the effects of getting baby oil or hand lotion on it? And are the palms abrasive at all? I mean, just out of curiosity. Because I like science, and stuff.

Re:Possible civilian use

[Stormcrow309]

Actually, it reduces muscle fatigue by 'supercharging' the body's coolant system, also know as blood. You can do the same effect with much less efficiency by running cold water over the hands. We have been playing with the concept at work. I went from 15 pushups in 10 pushup sets to 55 pushups in 10 pushup sets with 2 minutes of hand cooling between sets. Yes, I am out of shape.

Re:Possible civilian use

[Reziac]

Same thing as dumping cold water over your head, or wearing a wet T-shirt while doing hard work in a hot climate. Gives the body a bigger radiator system, cools you down, keeps you from wearing out so fast.

Re:Possible civilian use

[Stormcrow309]

Well, DARPA discovered that the hands and feet are the primary system for dumping heat from the body, sweating is the secondary. So, chilling the hands (or feet) can be more effecient then dunking the whole body and can prevent system shock, at least in theory.

Re:Possible civilian use

[Reziac]

Kinda like how most folk who live in a cold climate discover that if you're really chilled, the fastest way to get unchilled is to soak your hands in a bowl of hot water. Radiators work both ways. :)

Re:Possible civilian use

[Stormcrow309]

Having spent time at, but not in, Ft. Levenworth, I understand. They also discuss it in the FA.

Is this a regular crappy Wired article or a user..

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Is this a regular crappy Wired article or a user-generated crappy Wired article? I'm just dying to know...

too much sleep?

[rasputin465]

projects designed to increase cognition or decrease the need for sleep

Yeah, it's called 'meth', and Nazi soldiers used it while conducting Blitzkrieg. Not a new development.

Re:too much sleep?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Scientists develop odd new supersoldier technologies.
2. Bioethics councils complain about new technologies.
3. Someone submits article to /.
4. ???
5. Godwin!

Re:too much sleep?

[DrVomact]

Yeah, it's called 'meth', and Nazi soldiers used it while conducting Blitzkrieg. Not a new development.

My, that is a novel suggestion as to how the techniques of "Blitzkrieg" came into being. I suppose it should have been obvious me--it's well known that their soldiers are "fanatic" or "drug-crazed", while ours are "higly motivated".

Seriously, there's nothing new here. For example, benzedrine and other stimulants were routinely issued to U.S. Air Force pilots to keep them awake during WW II. In fact, the U.S. Air Force still issues amphetamines to its pilots and pressure them to take these "go pills". (For example, take a look at http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id= 1425252002 or http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/a pj/apj97/spr97/cornum.html or http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,57434,00. htmlhere.

It might be interesting to ask whether the pilots who were involved in the disturbingly frequent "friendly fire" incidents during our recent ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq were flying high in more than one sense. But nobody will.

Re:too much sleep?

[hustlebird]

Actually I seem to remember reading about one such instance in Desert Storm, I believe it was some Canadian Forces manning an anti-aircraft gun, and they shot down a friendly helicopter.

Upon investigation I believe it was found they had been on post for like 36 hours before the incident, they had been staying awake using amphetamines.

Simple solution...

[PFI_Optix]

Draft lawyers.

This is not what we need.

[amper]

Why is it that it never seems to occur to the people in a position to actually do anything about that what we need is not more high technology for our soldiers, but more good, old-fashioned, well-trained human brain power and muscle power on the ground? Don't get me wrong, there is a place for technology on the battlefield, but it's the people that make it all work.

Re:This is not what we need.

[Seumas]

Because, human brain power and muscle power isn't going to save you from the zergling rush! :P

Re:This is not what we need.

[drinkypoo]

Why is it that it never seems to occur to the people in a position to actually do anything about that what we need is not more high technology for our soldiers, but more good, old-fashioned, well-trained human brain power and muscle power on the ground?

Why is it that it doesn't occur to you that if we make successful use of higher technology, an individual soldier can accomplish more, and thus we can hire less stupid people into the military because we have less of a need for warm bodies?

The military has been forced to pick up tons of minorities who have been deliberately kept separate from education by the government because they need warm bodies.

Re:This is not what we need.

[bhsurfer]

How do you say "Do you want a piece of me, boy?" in Arabic? Is that in the phrasebook?

Re:This is not what we need.

[amper]

Why doesn't it occur to *you* that the military has been forced to bottom feed because those of us who are better educated have no desire to get our asses shot off fighting an unjustified and pointless war of aggerssion that is, in any case, poorly supported by the leadership in Washington?

Re:This is not what we need.

[drinkypoo]

Why doesn't it occur to *you* that the military has been forced to bottom feed because those of us who are better educated have no desire to get our asses shot off fighting an unjustified and pointless war of aggerssion that is, in any case, poorly supported by the leadership in Washington?

It's not news. But at the same time, there are plenty of intelligent hawks. Intelligence != Wisdom, and no, I didn't learn that from dungeons and dragons :P

The military has to bottom feed because their current strategy involves a lot of warm bodies holding guns. If it didn't, they'd be able to select more carefully.

Re:This is not what we need.

[c6gunner]

Why doesn't it occur to you that intelligence and education may be two separate things?

Oh yeah, I know why: because while being educated, you lack intelligence.

Re:This is not what we need.

[corbettw]

the military has been forced to bottom feed...those of us who are better educated have no desire to [fight our nation's wars]

You vote Democrat, don't you?

Re:This is not what we need.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isnt it obvious hes a democrat. Basically democrats stance on everything has the same effect as somone saying "Fairies don't exist" in the peter pan world of neverland. Because of them in Nam and Iraq we are now fighting the same loosing battle. And by the way I'm Independant not republican.

Re:This is not what we need.

[destuxor]

I am an Airborne PFC at Fort Bragg. I haven't been deployed yet.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read the article summary was how useful this technology will be in Iraq to help soldiers cool down in the heat. One friend told me it got over to 150 degrees Fahrenheit in Tikrit when he was there last summer. Soldiers and Marines are constantly being pulled out for a few hours at a time to get quarts of saline water solution pumped into their veins through a catheter. If anything, this technology would dramatically reduce the heat casualties the Army and Marine Corps. face in the field and in training. At Fort Benning, GA, an average of three privates die of heat stroke every year in Basic Training.

Having read the article I am even more excited about the potential of this technology to enhance athletic performance of any human body. That stuff we carry is heavy, and my life will be even more miserable than most being the RTO (radiotelephone operator, which really means infantryman plus radio, similar to a medic, who is an infantryman plus field medicine kit).

If they can develop a technology for hibernating casualties before they bleed out in hopes of reviving them a few hours later may prove well worth the risks of such a practice. Too many soldiers die while they're on the bird trying to get to the hospital.

Now shooting you up with estrogen...well I guess coming home with man-tits is better than coming home in a box, but not by much. ;)

Just remember

[Anonymous Coward]

If you build it, they will come.

Presidential Support?

[Roger W Moore]

This bears all the hallmarks of strong backing by the US president. Dubious ethics and even more dubious english!

Re:What the hell is a Solider?

[MrTester]

Oh please.
Next thing you know you will be asking for people to check to make certain their facts are correct. Get with the times!!!!
Witht he 24 hour news cycle we dont have time to worry about getting it right. We have to get it out now!

Its like Charles Karault said in his 1876 State of the Union address: "Incorrect news now is better than good news tomorrow".

But he Does have a council...

[DelawareBoy]

There is a council.... However, it's staffed by people who are sympathetic to Christian Fundamentalism, as opposed to having a wide range of opinions. So since the council has very very similar beliefs to the President, it is no wonder that people don't believe it exists... They don't challenge him at all..

They don't ask what is the right thing.. They ask, "What Would James Dobson Do?" (WWJDD).

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot as well

[jojoba_oil]

OH WAIT! You're wrong. Fetal stem cells are not taken from would-be-birthed babies. They're taken from babies that are already to-be-aborted. So let's think here, "kill the baby and get nothing out of it" OR "kill the baby and get research material". I don't care if you're against abortion, the baby is going to die legally anyways.

Also, if you're going to contest fetal stem cell research, you can't say that it's seen no progress because it's people like you that have been blocking it with claims that it's killing would-be babies.

Universal Soldier

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else remember that movie? With the exception of, y'know, the whole raising the dead schtick this technology seems remarkably familiar.

May be solving the wrong problem

[Animats]

True. That may be solving the wrong problem.

The problem they're working on with this isn't one the US has. The "superhuman abilities" thing is useful when assaulting hard, heavily defended, hard to access targets. But the US military is very good at assaulting hard targets.

What the US military is lousy at is fighting guerrilla and insurgent movements. Those are about intelligence, not firepower. The opposition tries to avoid offering any hard targets. They don't fight pitched battles. It's classic Maoist doctrine: "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue." The US couldn't deal with that in Vietnam, and it can't deal with it in Iraq.

Re:May be solving the wrong problem

[amper]

No, it's not the US military that's lousy at that kind of warfare. It's the civilian US politicians and bureaucrats that are lousy at it. The US military has known how to fight that kind of war all the way back to the Revolution and before.

Re:May be solving the wrong problem

[c6gunner]

Can you point to any country that's better at it? Except maybe Israel?

Re:May be solving the wrong problem

[Anonymous Coward]

England

Re:May be solving the wrong problem

[fireylord]

England. comes from having centuries of practice whilst trying to maintain an empire through force of arms

Re:May be solving the wrong problem

[cliffski]

yup, the UK does it well. Partly because of Northern ireland. NI is no picnic, but its not a sea of rubble and beheadings either. All things considered, the british army has handled that situation fairly well, which may explain why basra isn't as bad as baghdad.

Re:May be solving the wrong problem

[c6gunner]

That's just ignorant. Northern Ireland doesn't exactly have a lot of support from other nations. You don't see the French funding the IRA, or the Belgians sending terrorists to fight alongside them.

Dr. Furter works for the military now?

[nanosquid]

Dr. Furter: I've built tomorrow's soldier. Well Brad and Janet, what do you think of him?

Janet: Well, I don't like men with too many muscles.

Dr. Furter: I didn't make him for you! ... He carries the Charles Atlas seal of approval.

Re:Dr. Furter works for the military now?

[drinkypoo]

Janet: Well, I don't like men with too many muscles.

(Just one big one)

Dr. Furter: I didn't make him for you! ... He carries the Charles Atlas seal of approval.

ARP ARP ARP ARP ARP

Re:Dr. Furter works for the military now?

[zippthorne]

Didn't get the reference, eh? Well don't worry, we've all been there. You're probably better off not having seen it anyway.

Re:Dr. Furter works for the military now?

[drinkypoo]

Didn't get the reference, eh? Well don't worry, we've all been there. You're probably better off not having seen it anyway.

Those lines that I wrote are responses from the Berkeley script.

I've only been to Rocky twice (both times in Berkeley) but I have numerous friends who were on cast for years.

Nice try though. Next time you think someone doesn't get it, consider the possibility that you might not get it - because you are absolutely lost in this case.

Tomorrow's...Today? WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

The Stanford article is from 2005. Thanks for the 'news'.

Train them to work

[HomelessInLaJolla]

at McDonald's or join a monastery.

Re:Train them to work

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Both those places require less agression and concentration, not more...but I suppose you didn't even RTFA OR my link before you posted this.

Re:Train them to work

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Q: What part about the Subject didn't you read?

A: Training.

I suppose you didn't even Stop being an ass blister. Your vocabulary is like to a schoolgirl bully. The character is common in classic American movies about adolescence: tall, red hair, pigtails, freckled, tomboyish, loudmouthed, aggressive, usually with a drunk for a father, and always chasing down the main character (often a boy just a year or so younger) with snotty remarks.

Re:Train them to work

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Mere training, after dosing wth drugs to highten agression and intelligence, as well as experimental implants, will allow a soldier to work in a McDonald's without killing customers? :-)

As for the rest- just more assumption of facts not in evidence.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot as well

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

Let's be rational for a little bit.
World Population: 6,525,170,264
I, personally, could give a rats hairy ass about abortion one way or the other. However, overpopulation is as big an issue as bioethics.

And before you say, "Well, what if your mother had aborted you?"
Well, then I wouldn't be here to care, now would I?

Damn kneejerk activists...

Er...

[vivin]

I say this as a soldier. I also say this as one who went there and came back.

Not everyone is cut out to learn Arabic (which is why "Assalam alaikum", essentially "How are you doing?" in Arabic, turns into "Licka-me-salami". Admittedly, juvenile soldier humour) That's why we have translators and language specialists in the Army. The Army does have people who are skilled in Arabic, though not enough.

They do teach us basic Arabic phrases before we head out there. In fact, we carry a "language card" with us that has some common phrases.

To be brutally honest, it's not Arabic that will save us when we are there. It's Tactics and Procedures and it's technology. This is what we spent the bulk of our time on before we headed out there. In addition to some basic language and culture classes, to better understand the Iraqis. Who's going to survive longer in a firefight? A soldier who is well-trained on his weapon and whatever gadget he carries? Or a Soldier yelling out "Assalam Alaikum!" while bullets fly around him? Who's going to survive an IED? A soldier who has been trained how to react to such an event, or one who knows really good Arabic?

I honestly hate hearing these armchairs strategists who have absolutely no idea of the ground reality over there.

Do you honestly think that the Army doesn't field test any of these good gadgets? Do you think soldiers just blindly take their gadgets out to the field? If we have a gadget that's a piece of shit, we don't use it. We also have this thing called PMCS (Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services) where we check every piece of equipment before we head out and after we come back to base, for malfunctions and potential malfunctions. Your average Army Gadget is not like your pretty little iPod or Motorola Razr. It's pretty hardy and can take a pounding. Our GPS units are called PLGRS (Pluggers) and you beat the shit out of those and they still work. We have night-vision scopes and goggles that work extremely well in the heat and the sand.

The chilled glove sounds like a really cool idea, and even better if they can extend it to a body suit. Temperatures are insane over there. It's easily 100 to 110+ outside and when you have your body armour and other gear on, your temperature is probably 5-10 degrees more than that.

Modern warfare relies on better equipped soldiers in addition to language skills or cultural knowledge or whatever. So please, before you knock on these new ideas, consider what soldiers actually think.

Re:Er...

[ultranova]

I honestly hate hearing these armchairs strategists who have absolutely no idea of the ground reality over there.

Yeah, I guess it would suck. So tell us: is fatigue a significant problem in Iraq ?

Do you think soldiers just blindly take their gadgets out to the field? If we have a gadget that's a piece of shit, we don't use it.

In my experience "piece of shit" is pretty much the definition of army equipment. Of course that was Finnish army, so YMMV.

Modern warfare relies on better equipped soldiers in addition to language skills or cultural knowledge or whatever. So please, before you knock on these new ideas, consider what soldiers actually think.

The question is what happens after the opposing army has been defeated. An occupational force has exactly two options: the iron-fisted rule-by-fear way - the one the Nazi army used when occupying Europe - and the "you don't have to like us but you can live with us" somewhat civilized way. The latter absolutely requires the occupational force to know local language and customs to avoid making any more mortal enemies than they have to.

Of course you can also have solve the problem with translators, but I'm not sure that is any more const-effective, and it gives any resistance a weak spot to hit in order to make dealing with locals more difficult.

Finally, this gadget costs money. Even if it helps soldiers, the question - hard as it may sound - is: is it worth the price, or could the money be better used elsewhere ?

Re:Tomorrow's...Today? WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

And, AVACore Tech website's In The News, links to a Slate article from March 2004, titled Tomorrow's Soldiers Today.

They should just ask Stephen Hawking

[XxtraLarGe]

In addition to explaining how to make something from nothing, Stephen Hawking is also quite the expert on future military technologies.

From what I see on gay TV

[Anonymous Coward]

"That money would be better spent on teaching soldiers some arabic. Seriously."

Or quit firing them because they're gay.

Not so sure

[HangingChad]

Besides the obvious military and athletics applications, the technology is also potentially useful for firefighters, stroke victims, and people with multiple sclerosis.

As a volunteer firefighter I have my doubts. Generally the ability to sense heat is a good thing fighting a fire. I remember the days before nomex hoods were common. Our ears functioned as heat detectors. People would think we were listening at the door but we were actually checking to see if it was hot. Now with nomex hoods you have to take your glove off or pull your jacket sleeve up to figure out if the room is hot or feel a door. I can tell you firefighters hate checking for hot doors with their hands. We have thermal cameras but not enough for every entry team. Besides, that's just one more piece of crap we have to carry. Not to mention we also have to carry it back out, sometimes also toting some fat ass (it's always the fat, ugly ones passing out, never thin, attractive people). We carry enough crap now.

Now wildland firefighters or approach teams, who spend longer amounts of time in hot areas, might find it useful...if they feel like packing it around, but not us truckies. Put the wet stuff on the hot stuff and go home.

Re:Not so sure

[drinkypoo]

As a volunteer firefighter I have my doubts. Generally the ability to sense heat is a good thing fighting a fire.

The device doesn't prevent you from sensing heat. It cools your insides before it cools your outsides, because it works by cooling the blood that flows through your hand.

With that said, it's probably not going to be much use in a fire. It's going to be something that, for the forseeable future, has to be carried around by a vehicle (or the military's exoskeleton) because heat pumps require significant surface area for heat exchange with the atmosphere, and quite a bit of energy to run.

Re:Not so sure

[WormholeFiend]

If you're short on thermal cameras, cant you just stick a cheap digital thermometer against the door instead of touching it with your hand?

Re:Not so sure

[HangingChad]

You're not far off. I'm getting one of those infrared thermometers with the laser sight for each of the entry teams. They're not that accurate over about +500 F, but if it's hotter than that you don't want to touch it anyway.

Besides, lasers in a smoky building are cool looking. :)

Re:Not so sure

[CXI]

Also as a volunteer firefighter, I beg to differ. This is a perfect rehab device for any long duration incident. You aren't supposed to wear this coffee pot sized thing into the fire!

i RTFA

[circletimessquare]

in the paper magazine, actually, and i was really impressed that the glove application works in opposite too. at the end of the article, it describes how they put the reporter in a pool of ice cubes, and waited until his thoughts were sluggish and he started seeing things as if through a tunnel (hypothermia setting in) and then they put a WARMING version of the glove on his hands and his mental faculties perked right back up

pretty amazing: the human body and modern processors have the same problem and same solution: they can be overclocked with radically improved heat dissipation (or heat injection, in the example above)

Re:i RTFA

[Dr. Manhattan]

waited until his thoughts were sluggish and he started seeing things as if through a tunnel (hypothermia setting in)

Man, they must be confident in their stuff. When I worked with industrial robots we never let non-engineers within the safety fence during demos. One mistake could kill you with those things. Letting a reporter get to the edge of hypothermia... well, what if the Glove breaks just then?

X-Files

[garnetlion]

Where oh where are the references to super soldiers? Are there no other X-Files fans?

Your pigtails are shaking

[HomelessInLaJolla]

will allow a soldier to work in a McDonald's without killing Those that are too good to work at McDonald's will be sent to a monastery for passivity training.

Re:Your pigtails are shaking

[Marxist Hacker 42]

See GentleWhisper's comment further down the thread for the real McDonald's suggestion- All American Beef Patties.....much more likely than actually having them work there.

And moasteries do not historically offer "passivity training"- you apparently know very little about the system.

You need both.

[Svartalf]

If you'd read the article, you'd have found out that they've figured out where most of what
we call muscle fatigue comes from. It's because the muscles overheat more than anything else.
I'd buy this.

Better training won't do you a lick of good if you're fatigued.
Better training won't do you a lick of good if your body is overheated.

You need both things, really. Now, it remains to be seen if they're doing the training
as good as they ought to (I'm of mixed opinions- some things they could be doing better,
other things they're just doing fine on.) but to say that is all they need is as bad as
the thing you're claiming them of doing.

...opposed by the President's Council...

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberal propaganda.

The Glove as a solution to the war...

[Manchot]

Given the alleged effectiveness of the Glove, it seems like it could be more of a solution to the war on obesity than the war in Iraq. Strap it on and you could be able to run for long times without getting tired.

i just love the text of that link

[jordyhoyt]

"technology is also potentially useful" oh man, understatement of the century?!

gloves, and??

[purpleraison]

I spent a lot of time in the military when I was younger, and had the opportunity to understand what it was like to put the body under unnatural stresses. These gloves are a great 'start', but as far as some type of an exoskeleton -- that would be more welcome.

Also products, that heat the body in colder temperatures, so you can continue to operate at full capacity.

Examples: When parachuting, the landing is quite stressful. A structured and felxible support for the legs and spine would be nice. It sucks suffering the damages after multiple jumps.

Cold weather ops - ie. working in cold weather, is pretty uncomfortable, even with the best equipment the military has available.

So... as I said. Gloves are 'a good start'.

Power Glove

[Anonymous Coward]

Initial reports on the effectiveness of this glove are positive. "I love the power glove," remarked one scientist. "It's so bad."

Boring!

[LoganTeamX]

Wake me up when they invent Quad Damage. Those boys in Afghanistan and Iraq sure could use it.

Re:The Glove - Based on an old technique

[SixFactor]

About 20 years ago, during one of my summer stints at Washington Park Zoo in Portland, OR, we were told by our supervisors to wash our wrists in cold water to stave off the effects of heat exhaustion (yes, it did get hot and dry in Oregon). I can attest to its effectiveness, having been relegated to trash pick-up and trash liner replacement duty (it was a rotational assignment) several times during the summer. It definitely has an envigorating effect...try it between workout sets.

TV-shows are right after all

[guruevi]

a number of other human enhancement projects intended to advance battlefield technology

You mean like Jake 2.0?

Started with fire.

[iceperson]

been going downhill ever since...

SOLDIER

[StellarFury]

Pffft. I'm still holding out for Mako infusions.

Multiple Sclerosis

[Del Vach]

As somebody who follows developments in personal cooling technology pretty closely, this is exciting stuff. Some people with MS suffer from Uhthoff's phenomenon. Until they can start integrating thermoelectric into clothing, come up with a few more water-cooled outfits, stuff like this offers heat gimps around the world another useful tool.

Come on mods

[TamMan2000]

That was funny...

Effect Duration

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't clear from TFA, but do the effects of training with the glove persist even when you're not wearing it? What I mean is did the guy do all of the pull-ups without the glove after training, or did he use the glove while doing the pull-ups? I would think that training with the glove could actually decrease non-gloved performance since your body would eventually get used to the additional cooling and come to require it (just like astronauts loose muscle and bone mass in low gravity environments). Any thoughts?

(and by the way, what sort of scientists are these that can do 100 pull-ups and 1000 push-ups? Someone from the guild should really pull them aside and tell them to spend a little more time sitting on their ass in front of a computer)

Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man.

Spartans?

[Firefly1]

Since someone invoked Universal Soldier, I'll drop in a couple of others:

• Halo (go read 'The Fall of Reach');
• Gunslinger Girl;
• the various Syndicate games;
• Crackdown

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot as well

[Anonymous Coward]

A.C. for obvious flamebait content: Great argument. It's the same one Mengele used to promote Nazi medical experiments on Jews, Polish, and Gypsies. Heck, those tissues also have all the nutrients a human body needs. If they're dying anyway, collect the stem cells and give the rest to the local homeless soup kitchen.

The problems are there...

[TamMan2000]

If we had taken huge numbers of casualties overthrowing Iraq, the press would be marveled at how well we are doing in the urban areas. But as it stands, the public didn't expect casualty rates to rise after heavy combat operations ceased. The press has only fueled this perception by following the "if it bleeds, it leads" philosophy and completely ignoring any successes in Iraq or Afghanistan.

All of your facts are right, but I disagree with you analysis.

The trendlines alone in urban areas are news worthy, the fact that casualty rates accelerated for a long time would have been covered (and rightly so) regardless of how well the initial invasion went.

Additionally, I have a hard time blaming the media for the public outrage, it was the administration that said we would be greated with flowers and out in 6 months. The public was not prepared for the levels of loss and commitment we have been exposed to, and this is the fault of the politicians who lied, or at least gave unrealisticly optimistic estimates as worst case senarios, not the fault of the media.

And as for preparing for the next war... I have 2 comments.
1. We need to prepare to finish this one, so spending on arabic training would be benificial.
2. The ability to interact with the population of the area you are fighting in has always been and will always be valuable.

More efficient friendy fire

[subl33t]

"and studies that may one day allow single soldiers to operate multiple aerial drones"

Great, now US pilots hopped up on stims can kill their own allies in multiple locations simultaneously.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot as well

[Darlantan]

It's about time somebody stepped up and said it. Good on you.

This anti-fetal-stem-cell junk is a bunch of BS. Firstly, no fetuses are destroyed simply to gather stem cells. The stem cells that _would_ be used come from fetuses that are going to be destroyed anyway. We're not looking at evil doctors running around downtown NYC in the middle of the night kidnapping pregnant women for harvesting here, folks.

Secondly, the whole "Fetal stem cell research hasn't produced anything worthwhile!" argument is also BS. Of course there isn't much that has been produced. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's a little hard to DO THE WORK. It's like taking a gold medal swimmer and pouring concrete around their feet, then dumping them in the ocean and criticizing their swimming.

Lastly, there's the overpopulation issue. We are facing overpopulation, so what's wrong with early abortions? That might turn into one more human to tax things, and if the parent wants to have it aborted, there's a good chance that the baby-that-might-have-been is going to have a pretty crappy future anyway.

So yeah, to the parent of this comment: You're pretty much spot on. I'd just like to add that not only would I not be around to care about it, had my mother had an abortion, but the world would probably be better off in a very minor way. I haven't made any great contributions to society. The same is true for the vast majority of people, and more often than not includes those asking the question. I have no problems admitting it, they often do. :)

The big picture

[TamMan2000]

To be brutally honest, it's not Arabic that will save us when we are there. It's Tactics and Procedures and it's technology. This is what we spent the bulk of our time on before we headed out there. In addition to some basic language and culture classes, to better understand the Iraqis. Who's going to survive longer in a firefight? A soldier who is well-trained on his weapon and whatever gadget he carries? Or a Soldier yelling out "Assalam Alaikum!" while bullets fly around him? Who's going to survive an IED? A soldier who has been trained how to react to such an event, or one who knows really good Arabic?

The one with the arabic skill may not be as prepared to win a firefight, but are firefights going to win this war?

Firefights don't win hearts and minds, interaction with the population does.

Re:The big picture

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats horseshit and is what is pissing him off in the first place. The "armchair" tacticians/soldiers who have never servered but would be pretty upset if this same soldier told them how to apply their occupation correctly.

Your not on the ground. Your not the one with training. Opinions without experiance are shit and you should keep it to yourself.

Re:The big picture

[TamMan2000]

Your not on the ground. Your not the one with training.

Consider how well all the ones with the training who have been on the ground have been doing at getting the Iraqi's to lay down arms and embrace the democratic process. Perhaps we shouldn't turn to them for advice...

Opinions without experiance are shit and you should keep it to yourself.

Experience not learned from is shit too. When are we going to stop trying subtle variations on a failed strategy, and try something else?

Possible *profitable* civilian use

[Atario]

All seriousness aside...

I heard of this some time ago, in the context of increasing stamina of athletes (and it wasn't a glove then, but a mini-chamber). But it occurred to me -- as someone who has trouble losing fat -- that this energy-remover might be worn for extended periods to remove a lot of calories from one's core, thus prompting the body to produce more heat, thus using more energy reserves, which is to say, fat.

Sell this on the open market as "the fat-burning pod" or something at $125 a pop and watch the cash roll in...

Ethical issues

[core_dump_0]

When you "improve" the human body like that, there are ethical issues raised. Unlike modern medicine, which heals existing problems, "improving" the human body to "perfection" is just morally wrong. Plastic surgery for cosmetic purposes, sex change operations, tattoos, and all this sci-fi-gone-sci-fact stuff all falls under this category.

When you tamper with the structure of the human body itself, you become less human and more "superhuman." It is similar to having an abortion. If you have an abortion, or otherwise kill a human being for any reason other than self-defense, you become more decivilized, since you just killed a member of your own species.

I recently heard from someone about how it is now possible to "pick and choose" eye color, hair color, etc. in babies. (Planned Parenthood founder and eugenics supporter Margaret Sanger's dream come true.) This is also an attempt to create "superhumans."

Some ethical issues raised:

-Will this lead to massive prejudice (a new "master race")?
-Will the poor, or those who oppose this technology, be treated badly by the "haves?"
-Will this lead to abuses of power (using this technology to force ideology or religion on people and/or take away the human ability to reason and think independently)?

We need to take a serious look at our culture and the direction that it is going. This is just getting seriously out of hand.

Re:Ethical issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Did you even RTFA, or did your prejudices just spring like a trap? Nothing permanent was being suggested, but technological aids that would improve ones ability to perform in stressful circumstances. Things not too dissimilar to, oh, clothes, glasses, aspirin, tools etc. Let's face it, without these easily forgotten technological aids that were developed long before speech, we'd be just another primate. Oh, wait, you probably don't believe that either.

But, you want to climb up on your moral high horse and drag in all the buzz words and divisive issues of the day. I didn't know that you felt that Margaret Sanger was a supporter of eugenics - and given the rest of you spew, I'm not sure what to think that really means about Margaret Sanger, but you have revealed yourself pretty well. And the interesting part? This bit of absolutely pointless trivia has absolutely dick to say about the discussion of better ways for people to moderate their body temperature. But somehow, the discussion at hand gave you a chance to throw that little bit of trivia out.

Does a puritanical ethic like yours create massive prejudice? Do you wish to poorly treat those who disagree with your ethic? Would you abuse any power you could gain to take away other people's ability to think or reason independently?

It seems to me the answer is pretty clear.

Re:Ethical issues

[core_dump_0]

Huh? Did you even RTFA, or did your prejudices just spring like a trap? Nothing permanent was being suggested, but technological aids that would improve ones ability to perform in stressful circumstances. Things not too dissimilar to, oh, clothes, glasses, aspirin, tools etc. Let's face it, without these easily forgotten technological aids that were developed long before speech, we'd be just another primate. Oh, wait, you probably don't believe that either. These are external inanimate objects, they have nothing to do with the modification of the human body.

Does a puritanical ethic like yours create massive prejudice? No, not at all. I have no problem with people of other races. I have, and have had, many friends of various races.

Do you wish to poorly treat those who disagree with your ethic? Would you abuse any power you could gain to take away other people's ability to think or reason independently? Not at all.

Started with clothing.

[Cryptnotic]

been going downhill ever since....

Casualties

[bobbuck]

Few people expected to overthrow Saddam with few casualties. I remember the Wall Street Journal opinion page painting a pretty grim picture of what urban combat might look like for US military. They spoke of house to house warfare with casualty rates in the 40 percent range. Fortunately for us and them that didn't happen.

This is all BS.

[Culture]

If this stuff was a good idea, the Flying Spaghetti Monster would have installed it to begin with. Do not mess with nature with such abominations as lasers on the heads of sharks or spikes implanted onto into the hands. Have we learned nothing from the movies?

Do you live in the US?

[TamMan2000]

Few people expected to overthrow Saddam with few casualties

Perhaps few qualified experts believed it, but the administration shouted from the rooftops that it would be short and clean, and most of the sheep that I share this country with bought it.

Yes there were a few article portraying what it could have been like, and then there were hours of cnn/fox/msnbc showing a clip of dick cheney/george bush/general kissing ass talking about how the authors of the article were iresponsible fear mongers with no connection to reality.

Where do you live? Can you honestly tell me that the people in your town were prepared for the loss of 40K US troops?

Re:Do you live in the US?

[bobbuck]

Yes, I live in the middle of the US, both geographically and politically. I lean Republican/Libertarian and my neighbors are split. I really don't know many people who follow politics from either side that thought Iraq or Afghanistan would be a cake walk. I'm not talking about Pentagon war planners; I'm talking about farmers, salesmen, teachers, etc. Each country has roughly 25-30 million population. Afghanistan is land locked. Turkey and Saudi Arabia limited access for the invasion. I don't remember anyone in the administration arguing that we should invade either one because it would be easy. The argument as I remember it was that Afghanistan had been complicit with the 9/11 attacks designed to kill 100,000 civilians and would likely try again. Iraq was attacking us on a a nearly daily basis and might try to develop and use WMD's against us as they had against their own. The President's speeches did not lead me to believe that the Iraq invasion would be 'short and clean.' People who get their news exclusively from the Daily Show would probably disagree, tho.

Re:Do you live in the US?

[TamMan2000]

I really don't know many people who follow politics from either side that thought Iraq or Afghanistan would be a cake walk.

Who said anything about people who follow politics? I am talking about average americans. I was surrounded by people who believed the "we will be greated with flowers" BS and I find it difficult to believe that you are being honest when you tell me that people where you live were expecting a long hard fight in Iraq (I don't think many people thought Afghanistan would be easy, but we are talking about Iraq).

Re:Do you live in the US?

[ArcherB]

I find it difficult to believe that you are being honest when you tell me that people where you live were expecting a long hard fight in Iraq

Actually, I remember seeing reporters on TV in full MOP gear with cameras rolling just waiting for the NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) alarms to go off. Everyone expected to be driving through a fog of human pesticides as they got close to Baghdad. There were even reports of artillery commanders who were ordered to fire chemical shells, but who's men abandoned their post well before it got to that point.

So, I don't know if you would call 5-10 thousand US and British soldiers lying on their backs with their legs in the air like roaches who just got doused with Raid would be a "blood-bath", but had NBC weaponry been used, it would have at least ended up with a much higher casualty rate.

So when you say "You didn't think it was gonna be that hard, did you? "
I have to reply with, "You know, for a second there, yeah, I kinda did."

Re:Do you live in the US?

[TamMan2000]

Ah yes... there were reports of the NBC nature. But nobody said we would be fighting 4 years after the invasion (I should have emphasised the long in long hard fight).

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot as well

[KDR_11k]

Yeah and promising people jobs is what got Hitler elected, therefore we should distrust all politicians that promise to do something about unemployment.

...killer

[Anonymous Coward]

Building Tomorrow's Soldier Today

at least they didnt title it, "U.S. army releases Soldier killer"

Sports applications?

[iaculus]

I read tfa (or a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile) a few days ago. iirc they mentioned a sports team (looking into?) using The Glove. All sorts of steroids and otherwise innocuous chemicals are already banned in professional sports. Would the organising bodies allow the use of The Glove? More importantly, would they allow it because it The Right Thing (tm) or just because there's no way to test for it?

School Vouchers

[Morosoph]

I don't think that opposition to vouchers is about opposing the Republicans; I get the impression that it is primarily ideological; they have that stance prior to knowledge the the Republican position.

This is similar to opposition to higher pay for maths and science teachers. All opinion is equal, all knowledge equally valuable; there is no nature*.

*When it comes to ID, the roles are reversed, of course.

What is a humility?

[HomelessInLaJolla]

moasteries do not historically offer "passivity training"- you apparently know very little about the system Apparently I know more than you do.