The Commandant of the Coast Guard once told (a congressional committee?) that one COULD make a concrete life preserver according to ISO 9000 standards, so long as the paperwork was properly done.
You're correct: adherence to the standard will give predictable output in the product, the documents that accompany it, and record keeping of the process used. It doesn't mean the product will be right for the needs or even objectively good but you'll be able to determine those from the documents. Some hands-on might be good to, remember the Hubble's mirror was made and measured to spec it wasn't until first light that they discovered the measurement technique had a flaw.
Minneapolis/St. Paul: It's becoming more common to see folks using incredibly fat-tired mountain bikes in all weathers, but regular bikes (even road bikes) are now seen every winter, even below 0F. Credit to determined riders and cities that make an effort. Bike trails are plowed by specialized equipment, although at a delay like you mentioned, riders still venture out on the streets. Thanks to all for using bike lights, even during the day.
We have to differentiate between "made for the screen" and books: Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars were made to look pretty. Everyone can cite their fave SciFi books, but I'll just go with Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat, who eloquently asserted that interstellar war was a complete waste of effort, then goes on to write one book where (wait for it) a bunch of folks decide to wage interstellar war.
Ok, Accepting that flyingsquid's remark and mine will be moderated into Negativeland, I will feed his/her troll-ness just this once.
Budgets running "over": I agree that you have, using perfect 20/20 hindsight, identified a worrisome trend: rising NASA project costs over time. I will argue against this as a legitimate complaint on 2 fronts:
A) All government projects rise, at rates at least equal to NASAs. By the time the projects "end" they all appear wildly delayed, and hugely inflated. B1, B2, F22, F35, LCS, Stryker, M2 Bradley, M1 Abrams, F18 (which was the loser in the competition for the F16), NexRad, IRS software upgrades, the list is endless. You've chosen to reframe NASA's behavior as out-of-place, when creeping budgets and timelines are the norm. These "creeps" are in fact reviews, where congress revisits the project's justification and reconsiders continuance or abandonment.
B) Hindsight is unavoidable, but somewhat useless. All government projects are engaged in for the best reasons at the time. (Including pork: politics and perception are both, unhappily, reasons.) All of them are initially put up with gigantic dark-areas of knowledge. The proponents of the project have to name the best number they can with the available knowledge, then run with it. Each successive increase is a far harder battle than the initial start, and the fact that a project eventually flies means that the best congressional minds decided it was worth it at each of those increases.
My conclusion: You are offended by a pattern of behavior that is visible looking back, but invisible looking forward. I welcome your proposal to eliminate this problem, but to tote out the tried-and-true phrases like "accountability for failures" and "leadership is failing them" is to cloth Luddism in conservative gowns. I've attempted to make the case that while the system isn't elegant, it is your perception of it that is your problem. This inelegant system produces investments that it believes are worthy, using the best information available at the time, at each step along the way. That it follows a Drunkard's Walk is meaningless if it gets to the desired goal.
"oil-canning" (that sound) was normal, and the LEMs walls did it. It costs an automaker a fortune to prevent "oil-canning" on hoods and hatches, it wasn't a concern on the LEM.
The walls were so thin that workers damaged them (even holed them) with their safety shoes. After delays due to the repairs, it became a work-order to remove shoes when working inside the nearly finished LEMs. The cover of the ascent engine was really vulnerable. IIRC it was the first production use of chemically-etched sheet metal in the aerospace business. BTW, Grumman made the skin so thin because they were under the greatest pressure to cut weight.
Yes, this extremely thin metal was "stronger" when under tension due to internal pressurization, but it was still ridiculously thin for terrestrial purposes.
Kelly, Thomas J. Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module. Washington [D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2001] Woods, W. David. How Apollo Flew to the Moon. New York: Springer Verlag, 2008. Ebook (Kindle).
Did this for 11 years: you walk decades of miles every day over broken terrain during show-setup. Then, during teardown, you're hustling (almost a jog) over somewhat shorter distances, to gather up gear. Remember, you'll be carrying tools through all this. 2 laptops, in rare occasions, but never less than about 10lbs of "insurance." (Stuff you don't want to have to walk back for.) Add a hotel or two, and a day with only 5 miles walked is a nap.
The above applies when you work "for the house" either on staff or as a permanent contractor to the facility. I think the folks who come "with the show" have a different experience: they probably stress more, and walk a teensy bit less. I could be wrong on that, I've never done the travelling-net-geek thing for trade shows.
Still, it's a new shiny thing every 2 weeks, a lot of exercise, and I got to work with the best telecom people in the world.
I've also paid a fortune for my hearing aids, 100% of my own funds because health insurance in the US doesn't cover any hearing-related expenses beyond the most basic testing.
With that in mind, I do NOT want the "professionals" touching my hearing aids. Having watched them repeatedly, I'm certain that I can do a better job--even with Siemens' cripple-ware. In fact, there are a number of hacks I think would be really impressive: The software packages the 4 settings by default in a manner that requires 3x the button-pushes should they be arrayed in simple "loudness order". Or this one: the feedback defaults to a series of beeps: 1 per setting position, 1 beep=1st setting, 2=2nd, etc. There's an option to set the tone to one of 4 different frequencies, so in my first visit, I figured out we should select ever higher tones for the counts. (1=lowest/least, 4=highest/most) The "professional" was so astonished by the usability improvement of this, he was going to apply it to other customers.
Oh, and see what I did there? I just socially-shared a trick that others may find helpful." I know it's a licensed job, they're not idiots, and they do have skills, but they do not wear hearing aids. I cannot stress that last enough, every "professional" I've seen all have perfect hearing. They may understand the physiology better, but they do not understand the electronics, psychoacoustics, or the limitations better than I do.
Run the tests, start up the app, and head out for lunch, I'll take it from here. And you bet your sweet bippy I'm going to publish MY settings, and compare notes with other users. If you don't want to, fine, don't. But I'll pay to get out of the highest walled-garden in the world.
The shutter speed of the camera is variable, it is usually expressed as an angle: the angle that the blades are spread to admit light, maxing out around 180. The max-exposure (180) is 1/24th sec for 24fps and 1/48th sec for 48 fps, but those are maximums, and are only used rarely (like if the DP wants a really tight aperture for max depth of field, with some filters for effect; or shooting a night scene that simply cannot have more lighting added to it.) The projector flashes each frame twice at 24 fps, so you get two 1/48th sec views of each frame. The camera doesn't double-expose the frames.
The Red camera is digital, so it's shutter-speed can be almost anything, typically in the 10-thousandths of a second for action stuff IIRC. Yes, with digital, we're back to fractions of a second, though there's a handy conversion table.
Now, on to the OTHER thing: the pan-stutter is virtually unaffected by the bump to 48fps. Don't get me wrong, it's way better than 24fps, but it's a long, long way from "fixed." Oh, and pan-stutter is just the most obvious artifact of the low frame rate: any object moving across the frame will "strobe". When it's just a subject/foreground object moving, we usually don't find it as objectionable as when the camera pans.
Lumpy owes me a keyboard. But wait, what's this? Reports and even some command-and-control via semaphore from London to the coast of Spain? Yep, Admiral Lord Nelson's victory at Trafalgar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar) was known back home almost immediately, IIRC. ("The Price of Admiralty" by John Keegan.) Ships stationed at line-of-site the entire way.
I totally agree with you & NoahsMyBro: This is 5 pages of some of the best content I've ever read out of Slashdot. For a run of the mill tech-mag, it's paradigm-shiftingly good; like maybe they're not all brokers/investors selling their con as "tech journalism."
But I'm saddened by the lack of commentary (I'm concluding that implies a lack of RTFAing) and the quality. "Imperial vs. Metric"? Anecdotes that--while interesting--fall straight on the line graphed in the linked story? Oh well, it's worth it for what I got out of the article.
And it reinforces my opinion that NASA's in the complex-systems-management business. That they can organize large groups of people, and accomplish such difficult tasks, is an absolute wonder to contemplate. The power of a mission, percolating down through an organization, to achieve these ends, is a monument so large that people don't even know what they're looking at.
The rockets and the noise and the zoom, are all by-products of the really amazing bit.
"It's potentially a boon for congested spectrum problems, although at the moment I suspect it would only work for directional links."
Wouldn't that mean a huge boon for telcos and state gov'ts that still use terrestrial microwave links? Could a state network take advantage of this, and sell off the unused portion? Speaking for IL and MN, both have microwave line-of-sight to all their toll booths, truck depots and weigh stations.
There are inevitably issues to this, but if this first appears in LoS, wouldn't these networks (telco+local gov't) be able to use it?
While the clockwork versions may still exist in small school planetariums, the digital-mechanical hybrids are all long gone. You can thank Evans and Sutherland for demoing a version back in the early 80's, using a single, b&w tube projector through a Nikon 8mm (fisheye) camera lens. In spite of limitations that you'd all laugh at, it was instantly obvious that this was the future.
MichaelSmith is correct, the digital video projectors have yet to get close to the pinpoint-sharpness of the old electro-mechanical projectors, and those monsters were a delight to watch in motion. But having operated those old beasts (Spitz STS), the limitations far outweigh the benefits.
With the near-perfect rendition of consistent motion across the entire field of view, a modern digital video planetarium can utterly swamp the viewer's visual cortex: "sharpness" just doesn't matter when you can fly through Saturn's rings. I can say that I can't discern the "blurry dots" once the show gets rolling, I'm pretty comfy asserting that the average viewer's just drooling while their brains leak out of their ears. Having endorsed the modern, I'll confess to a desire to sit and watch the last STS (at Eastern Kentucky University) just quietly "roll" the sky, but that's nostalgia talkin'.
As for playing a game on a digital video dome? Innnnnteresting. I'm happy to tell you that as a witness to the history MichaelSmith elevates, get outta my way, I'm goin' to Dr. Tyson's place for game-night.
1st Claim: The US military has a number of autonomous, currently unarmed examples include Global Hawk, X-37, and RQ-3. There are certainly others, and there may be armed examples.
2nd claim: It is easily argued that remote-killing does not fulfill the proportionality argument of just war (bellum iustum). The very fact that the US is so heavily investing in them, indicates that the loss of a UCAV is considered less costly than the loss of the crew, thus, we as a combatant are not subject to the same proportional losses as the other guy in an engagement using them.
While I won't fault anyone investing their treasure in technology to protect their troops, I acknowledge that there's a problem with disconnect when the asymmetry is large.
But back to your statements: 1) there ARE autonomous drones and 2) there is no ethical similarity between killing with a UCAV, gun or bare hands. Yes, they're all killing, but no, they're not at all equal in so doing, and the difference is so large as to nullify your claim.
I don't mean to thread-jack, but the Empire strongly objects to your characterization of our "Truth Facilitation and Subjects' Rights Preservation" droids. They've been deployed to insure fair treatment and accurate recording of consensual testimony, preventing the excesses of law enforcement before the Empire, and ensuring the voice of the accused is heard.
To refer to these sophisticated and sensitive instruments by a catchy epithet is counter-productive, citizen, and against the goals we all share towards the glory of our Empire, and the creator. May George have mercy on your soul.
Am I the only one who thought of William Gibson's "Zero History"? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_History) This post instantly made me think of "the world's ugliest shirt." (I'm trying to avoid spoiling it for anyone, but this is a wonderful plot device.)
A dog is not the best option, the false-positive rate can be high. This rate is very difficult to predict at the time of acquisition, and can involve subtle environmental cues (EG: dappled sunlight) or combined-effects (EG: Mr. Squeaky sliding under the couch). The end result is getting the alarms confused for "Major Alien Invasion" and "Agent With Flat Tire." (Get Smart)
If an electronic alarm had this tendency, it would be thrown out the window. Doing so with the dog is ill-advised.
1) Driven an electric... I have: in the 90's I drove the Dodge electric minivan. It was EERIE. And very cool. Also driven many Cushman carts, and I can't help but think if 1940's tech can operate so well, why are we still having problems? (Yes, no heater at -20, but they do scoot through the outdoors at that temp as long as their spend 90% of their time indoors. So why can't we make a car that'll reverse that 90:10 ratio?)
2) Range Get OVER it people. 100 miles is FINE. This is a daily-driver. Stop thinking that you're gonna load the fambly and belongings on it and make like the Clampetts. You want to go 500 miles to Chicago? You have choices: Bus, Plane, Train (mass transit) or some kind of carpool with like-minded in a fuel-burner. There's a pizza-delivery shop that runs 70's vintage electric cars, and as far as I know, they do so in the winter. (Galactic Pizza) All short-range, out of a garage, and a nightmare for scaling, but it's a START!
We'll make specialized variations for those willing to pay for the range. (Deliveries, patrols, whatever: usually fleets.) You need the range? Turn in your personal car, for a time-share rental of a fleet.
3) But...But...But...
"If I get stuck in the snow in my electric, I could freeze to death..."
Yes, and you might be UNABLE to out run a T-Rex.
STOP with the conspiracy (or movie plot) thinking. We can ALL come up with a hundred reasons, threats, dangers wherein {the novel tech} will horribly fail. This same logic has been applied to resist all kinds of change, and it makes no sense. YES, there are problems, but they're LESS than the problems we're having with {the old tech}.
Don't put your head in the sand, but stop looking for imaginary dangers. These "counter examples" are not even close to whatever the REAL "killer problems" are with {the novel tech}.
CONCLUSION: Hydrocarbons are FEEDSTOCKS, not fuels. They were historically needed as fuels, but now our point-source problem is killing us. How long can a steamship go burning it's wood furnishings and fittings? We should look back on this period with a wry smile and think of how Ethanol should've illustrated this foolishness: Burning food for fuel is a loser's bet.
We may use hydrogen as the storage-medium (we're really good at thermal conversion on a mass-produced scale); maybe batteries (we're pretty good at chemical conversion and distro on a mass-production scale); maybe fuel-cells (we're learning FAST); maybe ultra-caps (first responders deal with dangerous fuels all the time, KERS has been de-fanged); flywheels; hamsters, bitten by radioactive spiders, to have electric muscles. WHATEVER, but we need to start thinking "electric economy."
Mass transit is the wave of the future. Social travel with your fellow man is all there is to it. Who wants to compare the biggest possible SimCity WITH and WITHOUT mass-transit? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?
I'm astounded that the Slashdot community isn't leading the charge on this. Come on, fellow early adopters, let's get this rock rolling up the hill! This time for SURE!
Slashdot Mirror
The Commandant of the Coast Guard once told (a congressional committee?) that one COULD make a concrete life preserver according to ISO 9000 standards, so long as the paperwork was properly done.
You're correct: adherence to the standard will give predictable output in the product, the documents that accompany it, and record keeping of the process used. It doesn't mean the product will be right for the needs or even objectively good but you'll be able to determine those from the documents. Some hands-on might be good to, remember the Hubble's mirror was made and measured to spec it wasn't until first light that they discovered the measurement technique had a flaw.
They'll start fracking now, to get every last drop.
Minneapolis/St. Paul: It's becoming more common to see folks using incredibly fat-tired mountain bikes in all weathers, but regular bikes (even road bikes) are now seen every winter, even below 0F. Credit to determined riders and cities that make an effort. Bike trails are plowed by specialized equipment, although at a delay like you mentioned, riders still venture out on the streets. Thanks to all for using bike lights, even during the day.
We have to differentiate between "made for the screen" and books: Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars were made to look pretty. Everyone can cite their fave SciFi books, but I'll just go with Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat, who eloquently asserted that interstellar war was a complete waste of effort, then goes on to write one book where (wait for it) a bunch of folks decide to wage interstellar war.
Ok, Accepting that flyingsquid's remark and mine will be moderated into Negativeland, I will feed his/her troll-ness just this once.
Budgets running "over": I agree that you have, using perfect 20/20 hindsight, identified a worrisome trend: rising NASA project costs over time. I will argue against this as a legitimate complaint on 2 fronts:
A) All government projects rise, at rates at least equal to NASAs. By the time the projects "end" they all appear wildly delayed, and hugely inflated. B1, B2, F22, F35, LCS, Stryker, M2 Bradley, M1 Abrams, F18 (which was the loser in the competition for the F16), NexRad, IRS software upgrades, the list is endless. You've chosen to reframe NASA's behavior as out-of-place, when creeping budgets and timelines are the norm. These "creeps" are in fact reviews, where congress revisits the project's justification and reconsiders continuance or abandonment.
B) Hindsight is unavoidable, but somewhat useless. All government projects are engaged in for the best reasons at the time. (Including pork: politics and perception are both, unhappily, reasons.) All of them are initially put up with gigantic dark-areas of knowledge. The proponents of the project have to name the best number they can with the available knowledge, then run with it. Each successive increase is a far harder battle than the initial start, and the fact that a project eventually flies means that the best congressional minds decided it was worth it at each of those increases.
My conclusion: You are offended by a pattern of behavior that is visible looking back, but invisible looking forward. I welcome your proposal to eliminate this problem, but to tote out the tried-and-true phrases like "accountability for failures" and "leadership is failing them" is to cloth Luddism in conservative gowns. I've attempted to make the case that while the system isn't elegant, it is your perception of it that is your problem. This inelegant system produces investments that it believes are worthy, using the best information available at the time, at each step along the way. That it follows a Drunkard's Walk is meaningless if it gets to the desired goal.
"oil-canning" (that sound) was normal, and the LEMs walls did it. It costs an automaker a fortune to prevent "oil-canning" on hoods and hatches, it wasn't a concern on the LEM.
The walls were so thin that workers damaged them (even holed them) with their safety shoes. After delays due to the repairs, it became a work-order to remove shoes when working inside the nearly finished LEMs. The cover of the ascent engine was really vulnerable. IIRC it was the first production use of chemically-etched sheet metal in the aerospace business. BTW, Grumman made the skin so thin because they were under the greatest pressure to cut weight.
Yes, this extremely thin metal was "stronger" when under tension due to internal pressurization, but it was still ridiculously thin for terrestrial purposes.
Kelly, Thomas J. Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module. Washington [D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2001]
Woods, W. David. How Apollo Flew to the Moon. New York: Springer Verlag, 2008. Ebook (Kindle).
Did this for 11 years: you walk decades of miles every day over broken terrain during show-setup. Then, during teardown, you're hustling (almost a jog) over somewhat shorter distances, to gather up gear. Remember, you'll be carrying tools through all this. 2 laptops, in rare occasions, but never less than about 10lbs of "insurance." (Stuff you don't want to have to walk back for.) Add a hotel or two, and a day with only 5 miles walked is a nap.
The above applies when you work "for the house" either on staff or as a permanent contractor to the facility. I think the folks who come "with the show" have a different experience: they probably stress more, and walk a teensy bit less. I could be wrong on that, I've never done the travelling-net-geek thing for trade shows.
Still, it's a new shiny thing every 2 weeks, a lot of exercise, and I got to work with the best telecom people in the world.
I've also paid a fortune for my hearing aids, 100% of my own funds because health insurance in the US doesn't cover any hearing-related expenses beyond the most basic testing.
With that in mind, I do NOT want the "professionals" touching my hearing aids. Having watched them repeatedly, I'm certain that I can do a better job--even with Siemens' cripple-ware. In fact, there are a number of hacks I think would be really impressive: The software packages the 4 settings by default in a manner that requires 3x the button-pushes should they be arrayed in simple "loudness order". Or this one: the feedback defaults to a series of beeps: 1 per setting position, 1 beep=1st setting, 2=2nd, etc. There's an option to set the tone to one of 4 different frequencies, so in my first visit, I figured out we should select ever higher tones for the counts. (1=lowest/least, 4=highest/most) The "professional" was so astonished by the usability improvement of this, he was going to apply it to other customers.
Oh, and see what I did there? I just socially-shared a trick that others may find helpful." I know it's a licensed job, they're not idiots, and they do have skills, but they do not wear hearing aids. I cannot stress that last enough, every "professional" I've seen all have perfect hearing. They may understand the physiology better, but they do not understand the electronics, psychoacoustics, or the limitations better than I do.
Run the tests, start up the app, and head out for lunch, I'll take it from here. And you bet your sweet bippy I'm going to publish MY settings, and compare notes with other users. If you don't want to, fine, don't. But I'll pay to get out of the highest walled-garden in the world.
Am I the only one remembering the killer butterflies in "Neuromancer"?
The shutter speed of the camera is variable, it is usually expressed as an angle: the angle that the blades are spread to admit light, maxing out around 180. The max-exposure (180) is 1/24th sec for 24fps and 1/48th sec for 48 fps, but those are maximums, and are only used rarely (like if the DP wants a really tight aperture for max depth of field, with some filters for effect; or shooting a night scene that simply cannot have more lighting added to it.) The projector flashes each frame twice at 24 fps, so you get two 1/48th sec views of each frame. The camera doesn't double-expose the frames.
The Red camera is digital, so it's shutter-speed can be almost anything, typically in the 10-thousandths of a second for action stuff IIRC. Yes, with digital, we're back to fractions of a second, though there's a handy conversion table.
Now, on to the OTHER thing: the pan-stutter is virtually unaffected by the bump to 48fps. Don't get me wrong, it's way better than 24fps, but it's a long, long way from "fixed." Oh, and pan-stutter is just the most obvious artifact of the low frame rate: any object moving across the frame will "strobe". When it's just a subject/foreground object moving, we usually don't find it as objectionable as when the camera pans.
-ex SMPTE member
Lumpy owes me a keyboard. But wait, what's this? Reports and even some command-and-control via semaphore from London to the coast of Spain? Yep, Admiral Lord Nelson's victory at Trafalgar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar) was known back home almost immediately, IIRC. ("The Price of Admiralty" by John Keegan.) Ships stationed at line-of-site the entire way.
It's chunky, but this is clearly the beginning of something. Anyone know anything about how this system ages and/or wears?
I totally agree with you & NoahsMyBro: This is 5 pages of some of the best content I've ever read out of Slashdot. For a run of the mill tech-mag, it's paradigm-shiftingly good; like maybe they're not all brokers/investors selling their con as "tech journalism."
But I'm saddened by the lack of commentary (I'm concluding that implies a lack of RTFAing) and the quality. "Imperial vs. Metric"? Anecdotes that--while interesting--fall straight on the line graphed in the linked story? Oh well, it's worth it for what I got out of the article.
And it reinforces my opinion that NASA's in the complex-systems-management business. That they can organize large groups of people, and accomplish such difficult tasks, is an absolute wonder to contemplate. The power of a mission, percolating down through an organization, to achieve these ends, is a monument so large that people don't even know what they're looking at.
The rockets and the noise and the zoom, are all by-products of the really amazing bit.
"It's potentially a boon for congested spectrum problems, although at the moment I suspect it would only work for directional links."
Wouldn't that mean a huge boon for telcos and state gov'ts that still use terrestrial microwave links? Could a state network take advantage of this, and sell off the unused portion? Speaking for IL and MN, both have microwave line-of-sight to all their toll booths, truck depots and weigh stations.
There are inevitably issues to this, but if this first appears in LoS, wouldn't these networks (telco+local gov't) be able to use it?
While the clockwork versions may still exist in small school planetariums, the digital-mechanical hybrids are all long gone. You can thank Evans and Sutherland for demoing a version back in the early 80's, using a single, b&w tube projector through a Nikon 8mm (fisheye) camera lens. In spite of limitations that you'd all laugh at, it was instantly obvious that this was the future.
MichaelSmith is correct, the digital video projectors have yet to get close to the pinpoint-sharpness of the old electro-mechanical projectors, and those monsters were a delight to watch in motion. But having operated those old beasts (Spitz STS), the limitations far outweigh the benefits.
With the near-perfect rendition of consistent motion across the entire field of view, a modern digital video planetarium can utterly swamp the viewer's visual cortex: "sharpness" just doesn't matter when you can fly through Saturn's rings. I can say that I can't discern the "blurry dots" once the show gets rolling, I'm pretty comfy asserting that the average viewer's just drooling while their brains leak out of their ears. Having endorsed the modern, I'll confess to a desire to sit and watch the last STS (at Eastern Kentucky University) just quietly "roll" the sky, but that's nostalgia talkin'.
As for playing a game on a digital video dome? Innnnnteresting. I'm happy to tell you that as a witness to the history MichaelSmith elevates, get outta my way, I'm goin' to Dr. Tyson's place for game-night.
I agree with you, CohibaVancouver, though the following joking reply comes to mind:
A CIA IT person who goes backpacking in Thailand for 5 weeks is going to enjoy double-secret-probation upon return.
I disagree.
1st Claim: The US military has a number of autonomous, currently unarmed examples include Global Hawk, X-37, and RQ-3. There are certainly others, and there may be armed examples.
2nd claim: It is easily argued that remote-killing does not fulfill the proportionality argument of just war (bellum iustum). The very fact that the US is so heavily investing in them, indicates that the loss of a UCAV is considered less costly than the loss of the crew, thus, we as a combatant are not subject to the same proportional losses as the other guy in an engagement using them.
While I won't fault anyone investing their treasure in technology to protect their troops, I acknowledge that there's a problem with disconnect when the asymmetry is large.
But back to your statements: 1) there ARE autonomous drones and 2) there is no ethical similarity between killing with a UCAV, gun or bare hands. Yes, they're all killing, but no, they're not at all equal in so doing, and the difference is so large as to nullify your claim.
Easy Starter Links: the interested party can go way deeper from here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Hawk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-37
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RQ-3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_Avenger
http://defensetech.org/2011/12/14/usaf-sending-new-drone-to-afghanistan/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war
I agree, there are problems, and you've accidentally hit the principle one:
tl;dr
Sadly, I disagree with you, and will continue to make the effort that I hope offsets your lack thereof.
...50 or 60 cycles? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan
I don't mean to thread-jack, but the Empire strongly objects to your characterization of our "Truth Facilitation and Subjects' Rights Preservation" droids. They've been deployed to insure fair treatment and accurate recording of consensual testimony, preventing the excesses of law enforcement before the Empire, and ensuring the voice of the accused is heard. To refer to these sophisticated and sensitive instruments by a catchy epithet is counter-productive, citizen, and against the goals we all share towards the glory of our Empire, and the creator. May George have mercy on your soul.
Am I the only one who thought of William Gibson's "Zero History"? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_History) This post instantly made me think of "the world's ugliest shirt." (I'm trying to avoid spoiling it for anyone, but this is a wonderful plot device.)
But what if I'm wearing a Red Shirt? (I'll pause to count the number of exploding heads...)
A dog is not the best option, the false-positive rate can be high. This rate is very difficult to predict at the time of acquisition, and can involve subtle environmental cues (EG: dappled sunlight) or combined-effects (EG: Mr. Squeaky sliding under the couch). The end result is getting the alarms confused for "Major Alien Invasion" and "Agent With Flat Tire." (Get Smart)
If an electronic alarm had this tendency, it would be thrown out the window. Doing so with the dog is ill-advised.
I hope it's more of a riff than a rant...
1) Driven an electric...
I have: in the 90's I drove the Dodge electric minivan. It was EERIE. And very cool. Also driven many Cushman carts, and I can't help but think if 1940's tech can operate so well, why are we still having problems? (Yes, no heater at -20, but they do scoot through the outdoors at that temp as long as their spend 90% of their time indoors. So why can't we make a car that'll reverse that 90:10 ratio?)
2) Range
Get OVER it people. 100 miles is FINE. This is a daily-driver. Stop thinking that you're gonna load the fambly and belongings on it and make like the Clampetts. You want to go 500 miles to Chicago? You have choices: Bus, Plane, Train (mass transit) or some kind of carpool with like-minded in a fuel-burner. There's a pizza-delivery shop that runs 70's vintage electric cars, and as far as I know, they do so in the winter. (Galactic Pizza) All short-range, out of a garage, and a nightmare for scaling, but it's a START!
We'll make specialized variations for those willing to pay for the range. (Deliveries, patrols, whatever: usually fleets.) You need the range? Turn in your personal car, for a time-share rental of a fleet.
3) But...But...But...
"If I get stuck in the snow in my electric, I could freeze to death..."
Yes, and you might be UNABLE to out run a T-Rex.
STOP with the conspiracy (or movie plot) thinking. We can ALL come up with a hundred reasons, threats, dangers wherein {the novel tech} will horribly fail. This same logic has been applied to resist all kinds of change, and it makes no sense. YES, there are problems, but they're LESS than the problems we're having with {the old tech}.
Don't put your head in the sand, but stop looking for imaginary dangers. These "counter examples" are not even close to whatever the REAL "killer problems" are with {the novel tech}.
CONCLUSION:
Hydrocarbons are FEEDSTOCKS, not fuels. They were historically needed as fuels, but now our point-source problem is killing us. How long can a steamship go burning it's wood furnishings and fittings? We should look back on this period with a wry smile and think of how Ethanol should've illustrated this foolishness: Burning food for fuel is a loser's bet.
We may use hydrogen as the storage-medium (we're really good at thermal conversion on a mass-produced scale); maybe batteries (we're pretty good at chemical conversion and distro on a mass-production scale); maybe fuel-cells (we're learning FAST); maybe ultra-caps (first responders deal with dangerous fuels all the time, KERS has been de-fanged); flywheels; hamsters, bitten by radioactive spiders, to have electric muscles. WHATEVER, but we need to start thinking "electric economy."
Mass transit is the wave of the future. Social travel with your fellow man is all there is to it. Who wants to compare the biggest possible SimCity WITH and WITHOUT mass-transit? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?
I'm astounded that the Slashdot community isn't leading the charge on this. Come on, fellow early adopters, let's get this rock rolling up the hill! This time for SURE!
Wait a second, does this mean Dear Leader is...anti-Chuck Norris?