We here on Slashdot tend to be too cynical, too willing to accept the fact that bad laws will be passed and there's nothing we can do about it. We need to write to our elected officials and let them know how we feel. We can actually help make a difference on issues if we simply take out a few minutes to let our feelings be known.
Teddy Roosevelt once said: "A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user." So, make your letters well-written, well-reasoned arguments combined with impassioned pleas for your senator or representative to listen to logic, instead of a hate-filled diatribe as to why these bills are the root of all evil and they are just part of the machine dragging us further and further downward. Otherwise, we'll all be bystanders as this entire class of legislation is forced upon us.
Writing code for an autonomous UAV to do nothing more than take off, fly around a bit, and land isn't really that hard. Anyone who's ever worked any flight simulation could do it without much help. If these Cornell kids have the support of a gigantic corporation with much in-house expertise on flight simulation, it's no surprise that they were able to make a plane fly simple, planned flights. Good for them, I guess, but it's really not that big a deal. Somebody must be posting this just to get the obligatory shots at MS started.
Actually, urban warfare has haunted armies since the days [of] Sun Tzu.
Agreed-- the 'couple hundred years' comment I made was tongue-in-cheek. But, the greatest miltary minds ever have struggled with this problem-- Sun Tzu and Napoleon among them.
During WW2, civilians were legitimate military targets. The best way to take an enemy city was to bomb it to heck, and move your troops in to mop up
Ask anyone who lived in Dresden, Germany in 1944-45 and I'm sure you'll find they agree. However, it's clear that US policy has evolved on this point for the better-- but this point is exactly what makes us vulnerable to terrorist insurgency. It is at the heart of the fundamental struggle of freedom-- where do you draw the line between protecting individuals' freedoms and protecting your nation's sovereignty and security? Privacy issues, freedom of speech, and freedom to simply live your own way of life all revolve around this same axis.
These are exactly the types of technologies that will be needed to fight the multifaceted wars the US armed forces will find itself fighting in the next two decades. Urban warfare is a mode of fighting that has haunted armies for a couple hundred years now, and not very many improvments on the weaponry front have come along to *seriously* enhance an army's capability to fight in an urban setting. Modern communications, guns that can shoot around corners, and radar that can see through walls all help, but it still behooves a small, vastly-outnumbered army to hole up in a city they don't mind seeing destroyed and make the big army root them out one building at a time.
If that big army is the US Army, it's going to put a premium on avoiding civilian casualites, and the bad guys can, will, and do exploit that doctrine. We can't just carpet-bomb the whole city, and it's very casualty-intensive to thoroughly search through urban centers looking for a handful of people.
This is a problem that will occupy the best minds in the Pentagon, in other armies, and in defense companies for the next two decades. If we can find some good answers, we can prevent unnecessary casualties all around. If we can't, we'll continue to see bloodletting every time an urban warfare situation is encountered. For now, the best doctrine is simply to avoid urban warfare at all costs, and make do when it is forced upon you.
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Teddy Roosevelt once said: "A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user." So, make your letters well-written, well-reasoned arguments combined with impassioned pleas for your senator or representative to listen to logic, instead of a hate-filled diatribe as to why these bills are the root of all evil and they are just part of the machine dragging us further and further downward. Otherwise, we'll all be bystanders as this entire class of legislation is forced upon us.
Writing code for an autonomous UAV to do nothing more than take off, fly around a bit, and land isn't really that hard. Anyone who's ever worked any flight simulation could do it without much help. If these Cornell kids have the support of a gigantic corporation with much in-house expertise on flight simulation, it's no surprise that they were able to make a plane fly simple, planned flights. Good for them, I guess, but it's really not that big a deal. Somebody must be posting this just to get the obligatory shots at MS started.
Agreed-- the 'couple hundred years' comment I made was tongue-in-cheek. But, the greatest miltary minds ever have struggled with this problem-- Sun Tzu and Napoleon among them.
During WW2, civilians were legitimate military targets. The best way to take an enemy city was to bomb it to heck, and move your troops in to mop up
Ask anyone who lived in Dresden, Germany in 1944-45 and I'm sure you'll find they agree. However, it's clear that US policy has evolved on this point for the better-- but this point is exactly what makes us vulnerable to terrorist insurgency. It is at the heart of the fundamental struggle of freedom-- where do you draw the line between protecting individuals' freedoms and protecting your nation's sovereignty and security? Privacy issues, freedom of speech, and freedom to simply live your own way of life all revolve around this same axis.
If that big army is the US Army, it's going to put a premium on avoiding civilian casualites, and the bad guys can, will, and do exploit that doctrine. We can't just carpet-bomb the whole city, and it's very casualty-intensive to thoroughly search through urban centers looking for a handful of people.
This is a problem that will occupy the best minds in the Pentagon, in other armies, and in defense companies for the next two decades. If we can find some good answers, we can prevent unnecessary casualties all around. If we can't, we'll continue to see bloodletting every time an urban warfare situation is encountered. For now, the best doctrine is simply to avoid urban warfare at all costs, and make do when it is forced upon you.