Saturday, May 15, 2010

"Big Dog"

Joe tipped me off on this video about military robots, especially the one called Big Dog, which is a four-legged critter designed to carry heavy gear over uneven terrain. Like Joe said, it's very reminiscent of the Desert Walkers in Star Wars, but it's real, and quite cool.

War-mongering is an insane waste of brains, money, work, and lives, but at least some technological progress trickles from it into more productive areas later.

9 comments:

Timo Lehtinen said...

War-mongering is an insane waste of brains, money, work, and lives, but at least some technological progress trickles from it into more productive areas later.

Yes, the Internet, for example. And it is not merely something that "tricked from it", but is in fact military technology in it's original form.

Technology can be cool for it's own sake. What you then do with it is a different matter altogether.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"is in fact military technology in it's original form"

Isn't that a bit exaggerated? The WWW wasn't developed for the military.

Anonymous said...

Oh, yeah, anything military is war-mongering. Idiots. It's a good thing we didn't rely on morons like you guys in WW2 or we'd all be speaking German now.

Timo Lehtinen said...

WWW is an Internet application. I am talking about the Internet itself.

Apart from everything being faster, technologically the net hasn't changed hardly at all. A router from the 1980s could still talk to today's routers and join the network.

It's an amazingly well though out system. And the success of it has much to do with how they got it right the first time.

The father of the Internet is a guy called Vint Cerf. Quite a contribution to the world from one guy!

Anonymous said...

Isn't that a bit exaggerated? The WWW wasn't developed for the military.

Try checking facts once in a while. Being Danish you are by nature lazy, so I will help you out. 1969. ARPANET. Star there.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Anon,
Of course, by "war-mongering", I was not talking about the USA, that's the good guys of course. I was talking about The Enemy, they are the war-mongerers.

Joe said...

When the best minds are given the resources. There is no limit to what can be accomplished.

Just look at how far the aircraft of WWII advanced in such a short time. From primitive fabric covered propeller driven machines to jet power in the span of only a few years.

The military complex is the one who gets the funding to explore new technology. The fear factor prevents cutting their budget.

"I was not talking about the USA, that's the good guys of course."

That answer depends on where you live. Seems a lot of the world thinks USA is the *Great Satan*
Joe

dave nielsen said...

Aren't they overstating it a bit? I mean, the Great Satan? Surely, at best, one of his minor devils. ;-)

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