This Week In Miscellanea: “Taking The World By Storm”

FIRST: Homeless Nation

An initiative begun by documentary film maker Daniel Cross, HN seeks to enfranchise homeless Canadians by providing them with access to a virtual community and supporting them with online advocacy. Some of the site’s features are pretty chilling, but they do seem to work. 

SECOND: In The News

al-Qaeda is apparently on the run.

The Japanese like cats.

The BBC has wisely chosen Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett to create their mascots for the Beijing Olympics.

…and is the convergence of gaming and social networking the new definition of web 2.0?

THIRD: Heavy Metal of two different types

Military (SARCOS exo),

and Musical (Kataklysm – “Taking the World by Storm”).

 

They rise…

… we fall.

 

I suppose it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? I’m not sure I would shelve the SWORDS project so completely for what might very well be a stand alone technical fault; the battlefield benefits are pretty obvious. It’s been less than a year since it began, after all, and it seems to have had only limited exposure.

Conclusion: this is better than the meat sword, but not as good as liquid swords, sword poetry, or Heavenly Sword:

Look, Sarge, No Grunt: Robots in Battle

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been around for a while. Some now carry air-to-ground armament in the form of Hellfire missiles. UGV – Unmanned Ground Vehicles – are a little more complicated. Mostly ’cause there’s more things to bump into down here. But they’re coming. Popular Science has an interesting round-up on how far Uncle Sam has gotten with unmanned ground forces.