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The Army Is 3D Printing Warheads
Jason Koebler writes: In its latest bid to kill more people, more efficiently, and at less cost, the army is planning to print warhead components, according to the latest issue of Army Technology (PDF). "3D printing of warheads will allow us to have better design control and utilize geometries and patterns that previously could not be produced or manufactured," James Zunino, a researcher at the Armament Research, Engineering and Design Center said. "Warheads could be designed to meet specific mission requirements whether it is to improve safety to meet an Insensitive Munitions requirement, or it could have tailorable effects, better control, and be scalable to achieve desired lethality."
This comes from someone who just does not understand that without weapons manufacture most of the world would be speaking German or Russian by now.
I'm all for efficient killing... wouldn't want to break a nail.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Oooh... and once GPLv4 prohibits it, the Army is going to stop using the technology in its super secret programs? Let me laugh even harder...
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
I just don't want to have helped them!
But you have no problem basking in the freedom provided by those who use them.
For a long time it hasn't been about how to "kill more people" but rather how to kill "the right people" more efficiently.
We put a huge amount of effort and money into weapon systems that will minimize collateral damage.
As much as it is popular to vilify the US- none of our opponents seem to care as much who they blow up.
This comes from someone who just does not understand that without weapons manufacture most of the world would be speaking German or Russian by now.
And without whiskey manufacture, most of the world would be speaking Gaelic by now.
Most wars are started when one group of greedy bastards wants to take over from another group of greedy bastards. These greedy bastards (generally politicians and their corporate sponsors) are the "elite" of societies. Since they control the wealth, they have the most to gain (or lose) by war. Everyone else is just cannon fodder and will end up worse off after the war regardless of who wins. There are a few interesting probes of this rule. I just finished reading George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" which is an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. Apparently, the faction Orwell was fighting for (apparently by chance), POUM, did try to establish an egalitarian workers society. However, they were sold out by the Russian Communists and other factions.
I think it's really difficult (?impossible) to establish a truly egalitarian society anywhere which would actually improve the condition of the peons. The usual result in just about every political system is that you end up with a few greedy bastards in charge fighting the greedy bastards next door.
I'm not sure it would make much difference to be speaking German or Russian or Japanese or Chinese or have to profess belief in a different god. If you survived the war, you will still have the same shitty job living hand to mouth... just a different master.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Let's say on Monday you are ordered to bomb a large military base. You want a warhead with the largest lethality radius possible- to kill as many enemy soldiers and destroy as much equipment as possible.
On Tuesday you're ordered to bomb a house occupied by an enemy commander, and you notice that it's a block away from a school. You now want a different warhead that contains its destructive force to a much smaller radius and just destroys the target without killing nearby civilians.
If used properly, the concept is actually the opposite of what a mass murdered/psychopath would want.
One could limit the scope of 'evil' to whatever I decide is evil today.
FTFY.
Free software means free. Exactly how many riders and amendments to FOSS licenses do we want to have? "Cannot be used by anyone in Canada." "Cannot be used to make ugly things." "Cannot be used on the Sabbath."
"We make software because of that warm fuzzy feeling.
"We" make software for any number of reasons, and "we" give up the right to tell people how they have to use it when we make it free. And, if I recall correctly, "we" explicitly tell people that what they make with our software is not covered by the license. I.e., code you compile with gcc doesn't have to be licensed under GPL.
For that reason we ask people to release the changes to the code back to our collection of software which provides more freedom.
While certain companies are concerned about competitors getting to see their code, the disadvantages are much less important than the advantages of being able to stand on the shoulders of the giants in the opensource community.
We limit the freedom of people who want to use our code without giving back, so we can ensure a future in which we can access data without having to depend on one company. Together we are building that future.
Yet we see that our code is being used for mass surveillance.
To snoop upon all our communications.
To invade our privacy.
To datamine our meta-data and to possibly make far-reaching conclusions.
And to build weapons of mass destruction.
I don't want to contribute to such a future.
Cannot be used for weapon manufacturing or mass surveillance... or anything defined as 'evil' by a FSF committee.
Unpredictable and self-righteous. It would utterly destroy GPLv4 as a viable open source license and the ripple effect would be devastating,
How about ones that don't explode?
Oddly enough, training shells were used by desperate gunners during the battle of Jutland. The normal shells weren't penetrating the armour of the German ships, but the concrete filled training shells were punching right through, dealing surprisingly heavy damage.
You consider someone who bombs people on monday and then again on tuesday not a mass murderer?
"I was only following orders" is not a defence. Most soldiers are probably murderers, unless obviously, they haven't killed someone.
Your point is that people following orders aren't murderers, well that's where we disagree. You kill someone, you are a murderer. A moral judgement on the circumstances is the only thing that makes it palatable and justifiable in some peoples minds.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
We make software for a reason.
"We" make software for many reasons.
Not to just give it away for free as in beer. But to provide freedom.
I was using "free" as in "freedom". How is it "freedom" if you start putting restrictions on who can use the software and for what purposes? And who decides what those disallowed purposes are? The programmer or someone else? Suppose I'm a programmer who doesn't like abortions. Can I say "you can use free software unless you are an abortion clinic" because I've got some patches in some free software packages?
Does "free software" truly represent free software if there are so many limits on who can use it that nobody can use any of it?
For that reason we ask people to release the changes to the code back to our collection of software which provides more freedom.
That is not a restriction on who can use the code and for what purposes. The Army is not changing the code, they are using the code to produce other things. I have a router or two that has FOSS code in them, but that doesn't mean that I have to send hand all the data I send through those routers off to the EFF for their use. I have programs I compile with gcc, but that doesn't mean I have to hand over that code to everyone who asks for it. And IIRC, even the GPL doesn't require release of local modifications to GPL code unless you're trying to distribute that code. I could be wrong, I don't care, the point is irrelevant to this discussion. The Army isn't writing code.
We limit the freedom of people who want to use our code without giving back, so we can ensure a future in which we can access data without having to depend on one company.
I'm sorry, what? The GPL doesn't say that any data that you manage or create using GPL code must be released back to the community. Not even close. You speak very fancy words, but I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
Yet we see that our code is being used for mass surveillance.
Yes. So? Freedom means freedom. Freedom doesn't mean "anyone except YOU can use this code".
I don't want to contribute to such a future.
Then don't do any of those things. But when you create a free tool you give up the right to say "you may not use my tool", because that is in itself a lack of freedom.
Why don't you test your ability to keep people you don't like from using your "tools"? I betcha there are a lot of Apache web servers in use by the military. That's a clear violation of "freedom", isn't it? Why are you not in court today? I know there are linux systems in .mil domains. Get your lawyer busy.
Weapons are important to defend oneself from governments, like democracy of Nazist's Germany or in more recent times the democracy that given usa NSA.
Bespides freedom versus big government problems, the guns are giving people chance to defend from common criminals.
Your girlfriends vs rapist - very little chance in unarmer combat.
Your girlfriends vs robber with illegal gun (strangely criminals tend to ignore law) - no chance.
Your girlfriend with gun vs rapist - is the better situation, I say she has right to defend herself, you say she does not?
Gunophobes have a serious lapse of logic in this matter usually.
Exactly. I had to laugh when reading that article:
But the military isn’t just interested in saving lives—more often than not, it takes them.
Really? No shit. The military kills people?
In its latest bid to kill more people, more efficiently, and at less cost
Isn't this what we want all government agencies to strive for? When the military's actual job is to figure out how to kill people and destroy things with maximum effectiveness and efficiency, then we really shouldn't complain when they seem to be doing a good job of it. I'm not exactly sure what this writer thought the military's purpose is, but he seems horrified at the thought of using technology to kill people more efficiently.
So, there we have it. While comparatively small-scale dangers like homebrew plastic guns make headlines, one of the most powerful and deadly organizations in the world is using the same technology to build better weapons of mass destruction on the cheap.
Should the US not develop technologies like this and simply hope no one else does either? People today are so damned sure that we'll never get into another large-scale shooting war. I hope to hell we don't, but if we do, I'd like our side to have the best weapons, and all the better if they're efficient to produce. Even if, in the future, the military is scaled down to paramilitary forces level (small, lean and efficient), wouldn't it be better to outfit them inexpensively rather than spending billions on weapons production? Who the hell would advocate spending more of our budget on rockets and bombs when less expensive devices could be made much cheaper (other than weapons manufacturers, I suppose)? Wouldn't that leave more money to spend on better things?
The author got one thing right. For all it gets wrong (and I'm sure actual military folks could provide plenty of stories), the US military arguably is the most lethal and destructive force the world has ever known. They also don't go off killing random people and blowing things up. Elected civilians are the ones who ultimately decide whether or not to pull the trigger. It's easy enough to demonize the military while conveniently forgetting that they guy you voted for is the one sending them out to kill people, but it's dishonest as hell.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
You *do* know what the purpose of an army is, right?
What other choices would you prefer? The army shouldn't kill people? The army should kill people inefficiently?
If you survived the war, you will still have the same shitty job living hand to mouth... just a different master.
It depends on the "master"; that can make a huge difference. At the end of WW2, Western Europe got the U.S. as it's "master", who paid upwards of $13 billion (a staggering amount of foreign aid at the time) to rebuild, self-rule, and prosperity. Eastern Europe got shit on by the Soviet Union for about the next 50 years.
The Irish are taught Gaelic, but they by-and-large speak English.
Luke, help me take this mask off
And yet strangely the two largest language groups are Mandarin and Spanish, the two least successful millitaries of the 20th century.
However, in 200BC, the Qin (aka Chin) dynasty had quite the army, and in the 16th and early 17th century, Spain had quite the military/navy.
FWIW, much of the geopolitical world as we know it wasn't formed in the 20th century. Much of the current geo-political alignments of the world were formed as a result of the Holy roman empire in the 800's, the exploits of Genghis Khan in the 12th century, and early Spanish explorers (and conquistadors) in the Americas. Of course the weapons they manufactured back then were primitive by modern standards, they managed to shape the world as we know it.
Of course no dynasty lasts forever...
Sure there are reasons that our methods have changed, of course. That's just not really related to the point I was making. TFS claims that the military is trying to find ways to kill more people, and that's simply the opposite of the truth. They've been working on ways to only blow up a specific room rather than blowing up a building or a city block. Secondly, IF they wanted to kill lots of people, they wouldn't need need to work on methods to do so. They've had the B-52 for 60 years or so. A single B-52 could kill thousands of people per day if you wanted it to. We COULD have wiped out Iraq in about a day and half. Building a democracy in Iraq is much, much more difficult than killing them would be.
Hmm, so if your target was someone who has been killing innocent people, and the three choices for you were:
1. Ignore it and hope the target just decides to stop
2. Go in with ground force, with all the casualties on both sides that would result
3. Drop a bomb to wipe out the threat with as little casualties as possible
You're telling me #3 isn't the better choice here? Because it is... and because it is, that's what happens. When it happens, are you trying to say you'd rather we drop fuel-air bombs in crowded neighborhoods instead of precision munitions? Because I have to say the controlled destruction is just a teensy bit better than blowing the whole neighborhood to shit...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
One could limit the scope of 'evil' to weapons of mass destruction.
I guess that's a valid debate.
And it will still be possible to make them without our software...
I just don't want to have helped them!
We make software because of that warm fuzzy feeling. Not to know that it contributes to killing people (from whatever country).
I know how you feel. I was studying engineering in the 1960s.
A lot of us came to the conclusion that when we graduated, our jobs would be in the military-industrial complex, designing weapons to kill people, and not for good ends. My roommate and I both changed our major. He founded the campus chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.
We and the Soviets had missiles with hydrogen bombs targeting each other which were enough to blow up the world. Finally the weapons designers and other scientists and engineers on both sides (including Andre Sakharov) got together and figured out how to use their influence to stop it.