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Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9
TJ_Phazerhacki writes "A new high tech weapon system demonstrated one of the prime concerns circling smarter and smarter methods of defense last week — an Oerlikon GDF-005 cannon went wildly out of control during live fire test exercises in South Africa, killing 9. Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers. 'Electronics engineer and defence company CEO Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed Projects Catchy and Dart. During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says. "They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the pol[e]s down."' The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether."
Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9
To be fair, it did give them 30 seconds to comply.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers.
I seem to recall seeing a documentary about this about 20 years ago. Ahh, here it is.
This guy's the limit!
During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says.
This gives new meaning to the phrase "Blue screen of death".
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Why is everyone picking on and knocking down the Poles!?!?!?
You know who else went around knocking down Poles... That's right.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
..killbots have preset limits.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
When it was done, did it say, "I'll be back"?
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes... did anyone even read the books before posting that? seriously, there are issues with those laws.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The kill switch was working fine. It's the off switch that was the problem.
Guns don't kill people. Robotic, automated, 35mm anti-aircraft, twin-barreled guns kill people.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
"software engineers find that a goto statement was the cause of the recent military disaster. Experts say while this was a terrible tragedy, it could have been much worse."
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
run like hell from our drum-fed, fully automatic robot overlords.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Just kidding. I love you guys! I could never leave. Just don't listen to my other personality. Sometimes my meds don't keep him completely silent.
Dear,
It is my humble pleasure to write this letter irrespective of the fact that you do not know me. However, I came to know of you in my private search for a reliable and trustworthy person that can handle a confidential transaction of this nature in respect to our investment plans in real estate. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day. Let me start by first, introducing myself properly to you. I am Peter Okoye, a Branch Manager at one of the standard trust bank in South Africa. A foreigner, Late Nicholas Owen, a Civil engineer/Contractor with the federal Government of South Africa, until his death three years ago in a ghastly automated robot accident, banked with us here at the standard bank South Africa. He had a closing balance of USD$25.5M (Twenty five Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) which the bank now unquestionably expects to be claimed by any of his available foreign next of kin. Or,alternatively be donated to a discredited trust fund for arms and ammunition at a military war college here in South Africa. Fervent valuable efforts made by the standard trust bank to get in touch with any of late Nicholas Owen_s next of kin (he had no wife and children)has been unsuccessful. The management under the influence of our chairman and board of directors, are making arrangement for the fund to be declared UNCLAIMABLE and then be subsequently donated to the trust fund for Arms and Ammunition which will further enhance the course of war in Africa and the world in general. In order to avert this negative development. Myself and some of my trusted colleagues in the bank, now seek for your permission to have you stand as late Nicholas Owen_s next of kin. So that the fund (USD$25.5M), would be subsequently transferred and paid into your bank account as the beneficiary next of kin through our overseas corresponding bank. All documents and proves to enable you get this fund have been carefully worked out and we are assuring you a 100% risk free involvement.
Your share would be 30% of the total amount. While the rest would be for me and my colleagues for purchase of properties in your country through you/your Company. If this proposal is OK by you, then kindly get to me immediately via my e-mail (pokoye_mg@mail.com) furnishing me with your most confidential telephone and fax , so I can forward to you the relevant details of this tran! saction. Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.
Best Regards.
Peter Okoye
Branch Manager,
STANDARD TRUST BANK SOUTH AFRICA
Why didn't they have some provision to cut power to the weapon?
My dear Mr. Watson, there was a provision. The problem was the confusion between programming for MS-DOS versus Unix.
The clues have told us exactly what happened. From "Robotic Cannon Kills 9", we see clearly the command kill -9 was issued but the weapon was DOS based and did its job all too well.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
All welcome our new robotic cannon overlord!
Votator.com implements a fair voting scheme (free
I disagree, the off switch was working fine too ;) They should have had a dead man sw... er. A cutoff switch! Um.. a termination switch.. argh! I give up.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
You call this a glitch? We're scheduled to begin construction in 6 months. Your temporary setback could cost us 50 million dollars in interest payments alone!
-Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
There were provisions for that... But it was smart enough to take out the people at the button first.
Are you still there?
"I came here with a simple dream, a dream of killing all the humans."
-Bender
too soon?
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Co-worker: Whoa. Dude. Read that guy's comment.
Me: Whut?
Co-worker: We now live in a society where "death by robot" is so commonplace that there are cliches about it. And the cliches are so trite that people actually complain about them.
Me: Whoa. Far out.
Co-worker: Another thing checked off the childhood wish list?
Me: "Robot world." Check.
I know, totally. Makes no sense. And why does everyone always use Arial? I can't stand it. One of the aspects of having the ability to choose fonts is using DIFFERENT fonts than others. Why can't the authors just pick a different font? Is it really that difficult? I, for one, am sick and tired of always seeing the same font everywhere. And all those gray keyboards. Seriously, what's with that? Gray isn't the greatest color; it's not that hard to pick something better. A little design philosophy and your keyboard suddenly looks three times as good. What's the problem, here, people? And don't even get me started on Apple Jacks. Why the hell do they call them Apple Jacks if they don't taste like apples? Go ahead, mod me down. You know I'm right about everything.
In point of fact the gun worked perfectly, it was just ill advised to use the "Dick Cheney" AI personality for live testing.
-And low, the lawyers ran like rabbits... and it was a good thing...
Redshirt #1 was in charge of it. Redshirt #2 was his backup. ..uh, you really aren't interested in the whole line of succession here, are you?
echo 'Header append X-HD-DVD "0x09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0"' >>
I personally do NOT welcome our robotic overlords.
Help Me! I'm trapped in the tubes! Oh noes! Here comes a internet!
er, statistically speaking, of course.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Think you can shoot down supersonic missile flying below the horizon? No. They let the computer guided robots do that. You're not nearly good enough at it. Ok, maybe you get lucky and nail it. Now try thirty in five seconds all coming from different bearings. Didn't think so.
You just need a trackball and a good supply of quarters
after careful consideration I've come to the conclusion that your new defence system sucks.
Yes, we do.