SCIENCE STORIES THAT GIVE THEM ERECTIONS: From the famous glossy comic book, Wired
When not doing groupie-like hagiography of the alleged geniuses of the tech world, Wired comic book also has had a long fascination with stories of exotic weapons, usually the kind that are always coming, just a year away, just a minute, then -- pfoof!
Premature ejaculation.
Reset the clock: This awesome weapon/computer/gadget, from American scientists is going to revolutionize warfare, and it's a half decade away, a couple years away, it's in your backyard, and it's starting to get hard . . .
The following flew into the DD mailbox, from Science Projects That Scare the [blank] Out of Us.
Lo:
All of them, around for years.
Nanobomb is a jargon take on the hafnium bomb and its ilk. And Sharon Weinberger's excellent "Imaginary Weapons" gives it the examination it deserves.
As for "atmospheric heater," just Google "HAARP" and be astonished at all the conspiracy talk going back a decade or more.
The "pain gun"is another long-in-the-tooth wonder weapon.
Known as the V-MADS, or the Sheriff, it has shown up in stories for years in which journalists get invited out to Albuquerque to be burned by an inside-out microwave in the equivalent of a strapped-down chicken test. Ouch, they say. (The alert reader may note DD had no interest in being burned by a military microwave oven. I cook food with it. It makes things hot! Remarkable!)
Idealized pictures of it show a huge broadcast antenna mounted on a shed, or a Hummer. As GlobalSecurity.Org senior fellow, I have a "science paper" authored by the military that purports to show it was effectively tested on US soldiers to see if it could make them howl and squirm out of the way. (Think of it as many strapped-down chicken tests.)
The Defense Department, a few years in the past, once ludicrously called the thing "the biggest breakthrough in weapons technology since the atomic bomb."
And it will be shipped to Iraq for crowd control! Only it never quite happens, the Sheriff never quite comes to town. Perhaps because Iraq is a little beyond "crowd control" and it would last about thirty seconds against a machine gun and rifle-propelled grenade armed rabble.
The theory driving the Sheriff is that it is "non-lethal," an alternative to gunning down an assembly. Although not entirely reflected in news on the subject, the "non-lethal" crowd of inventors in the military isn't highly regarded, many perceiving their projects as simply abuse of science in the development of machines that either don't work or which are for torturing people.
On the 12th, Reuters published a story in which an Air Force man described the dilemma in unusually frank language:
The article, which essentially addressed the Sheriff system, also mentioned the Air Force was still reviewing its health effects. Since the USAF has been reviewing the Sheriff's "health effects" for a number of years, one might interpret this as codespeak for "we're trying to figure out a way to rid ourselves of it."
DD blog applauds Wynne's statements. The world press would be ready to villify the use of it --and was.
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the producers and crew of a German TV program came to interview DD, as GlobalSecurity Senior Fellow, over unusual weapons that might be used in the war. One of their questions was: Are you going to use a death ray?
Although it's not a death ray, the military's microwaver was, even then, perceived as one. I believe the military would agree it would be tough to spin the employment of a death ray.
So, I think the army should be compelled to proceed at once with deployment and use in the United States, perhaps at peace demonstrations. Lease the Sheriff to the police or a special detachment of non-lethal Truppen from the Dept. of Homeland Security. Enough with the years of dithering.
This would serve a number of purposes.
It would reveal whether the Sheriff works at all in the real world. And it would immediately set a platoon of lawyers loose on the military, with suits from people who'd been injured by it -- whether in a way the military argues is intended or not -- burned in an unusual way and/or crushed in the stampede of a crowd. It would also mean the quick and deserving end of the careers of those who designed and deployed it.
Nasty? Not really. None of this is going to happen. The military has enough smart people to argue the same points. Litigation, career destruction, horrendous publicity. The lands-of-foreign-dictators market, where people can only throw rocks, might be an option though.
When not doing groupie-like hagiography of the alleged geniuses of the tech world, Wired comic book also has had a long fascination with stories of exotic weapons, usually the kind that are always coming, just a year away, just a minute, then -- pfoof!
Premature ejaculation.
Reset the clock: This awesome weapon/computer/gadget, from American scientists is going to revolutionize warfare, and it's a half decade away, a couple years away, it's in your backyard, and it's starting to get hard . . .
The following flew into the DD mailbox, from Science Projects That Scare the [blank] Out of Us.
Lo:
Nanobomb
By manipulating the properties of metals on the nanoscale, Defense and Energy Department scientists are figuring out how to make faster and more energetic explosions. The goal? Compact weapons that pack several times the detonative force of even the MOAB (mother of all bombs). Next up: a briefcase nanonuke.
Ionosphere Heater
Here's an idea: Build an array of 180 antennas in Alaska to beam radio waves at the ionosphere – the upper layer of Earth's atmosphere – creating an electric field that interacts with charged particles. Operated by the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, this disruption can raise the temperature of the ionosphere by as much as 30 percent over a 9- to 40-kilometer radius. It's targeted global warming.
Pain Gun
Scientists with the US military are working on an electromagnetic pulse weapon that induces the sensation of pain from a distance. Ultimately, they hope to fine-tune the pulses to control muscles as well. Fantastic: a gun that turns people into puppets writhing in a theater of misery.
All of them, around for years.
Nanobomb is a jargon take on the hafnium bomb and its ilk. And Sharon Weinberger's excellent "Imaginary Weapons" gives it the examination it deserves.
As for "atmospheric heater," just Google "HAARP" and be astonished at all the conspiracy talk going back a decade or more.
The "pain gun"is another long-in-the-tooth wonder weapon.
Known as the V-MADS, or the Sheriff, it has shown up in stories for years in which journalists get invited out to Albuquerque to be burned by an inside-out microwave in the equivalent of a strapped-down chicken test. Ouch, they say. (The alert reader may note DD had no interest in being burned by a military microwave oven. I cook food with it. It makes things hot! Remarkable!)
Idealized pictures of it show a huge broadcast antenna mounted on a shed, or a Hummer. As GlobalSecurity.Org senior fellow, I have a "science paper" authored by the military that purports to show it was effectively tested on US soldiers to see if it could make them howl and squirm out of the way. (Think of it as many strapped-down chicken tests.)
The Defense Department, a few years in the past, once ludicrously called the thing "the biggest breakthrough in weapons technology since the atomic bomb."
And it will be shipped to Iraq for crowd control! Only it never quite happens, the Sheriff never quite comes to town. Perhaps because Iraq is a little beyond "crowd control" and it would last about thirty seconds against a machine gun and rifle-propelled grenade armed rabble.
The theory driving the Sheriff is that it is "non-lethal," an alternative to gunning down an assembly. Although not entirely reflected in news on the subject, the "non-lethal" crowd of inventors in the military isn't highly regarded, many perceiving their projects as simply abuse of science in the development of machines that either don't work or which are for torturing people.
On the 12th, Reuters published a story in which an Air Force man described the dilemma in unusually frank language:
The United States should test nonlethal weapons it has developed for crowd control or police actions at home before using them for military purposes overseas, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said said on Sept. 1 2.
"We need to start using that here in the United States on Americans," Wynne told reporters. "If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation."
He said use of nonlethal weapons such as high-powered microwaves in wartime situations could lead to loud protests by those targeted about injuries or health effects.
"If I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claimed that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think I would be vilified in the world press," Wynne said.
The article, which essentially addressed the Sheriff system, also mentioned the Air Force was still reviewing its health effects. Since the USAF has been reviewing the Sheriff's "health effects" for a number of years, one might interpret this as codespeak for "we're trying to figure out a way to rid ourselves of it."
DD blog applauds Wynne's statements. The world press would be ready to villify the use of it --and was.
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the producers and crew of a German TV program came to interview DD, as GlobalSecurity Senior Fellow, over unusual weapons that might be used in the war. One of their questions was: Are you going to use a death ray?
Although it's not a death ray, the military's microwaver was, even then, perceived as one. I believe the military would agree it would be tough to spin the employment of a death ray.
So, I think the army should be compelled to proceed at once with deployment and use in the United States, perhaps at peace demonstrations. Lease the Sheriff to the police or a special detachment of non-lethal Truppen from the Dept. of Homeland Security. Enough with the years of dithering.
This would serve a number of purposes.
It would reveal whether the Sheriff works at all in the real world. And it would immediately set a platoon of lawyers loose on the military, with suits from people who'd been injured by it -- whether in a way the military argues is intended or not -- burned in an unusual way and/or crushed in the stampede of a crowd. It would also mean the quick and deserving end of the careers of those who designed and deployed it.
Nasty? Not really. None of this is going to happen. The military has enough smart people to argue the same points. Litigation, career destruction, horrendous publicity. The lands-of-foreign-dictators market, where people can only throw rocks, might be an option though.
posted by George Smith at 3:27 PM
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