Futurists

While watching the video in class, I noticed that several of the guest speakers were given the title "Futurist". I had remembered reading something about Futurism in another class, but my memory was a little bit fuzzy, so I did a little bit of digging on the internet. Seems that Futurism was an artistic movement that originated in Italy, and was a denunciation of Romanticism. The movement also had very strong Facist overtones. Some of the ideas proposed in the stuff I remember reading does seem very bold and creative, but very... unsettling at the same time. Take these two quotes as examples of the more disturbing thoughts. Points 9 and 10 from the original futurist manifesto...

"We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman."

"We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice."

Personally, I'm not sure where to begin to respond to something like this... As a history student, I feel more than mildly insulted. As someone who believes in the idea of a moral way of doing things, I feel further insulted. It only goes on from there.

And the authors very well knew what sort of impact that this manifesto would have on readers...

"You have objections?—Enough! Enough! We know them... We’ve understood!... Our fine deceitful intelligence tells us that we are the revival and extension of our ancestors—Perhaps!... If only it were so!—But who cares? We don’t want to understand!... Woe to anyone who says those infamous words to us again!"


I've included some links for your reading enjoyment. There seem to be a few popups associated with the last two, but nothing really malicious.
Futurism Manifestos
FLUXEUROPA: FUTURISM
Mark Harden's Artchive: "Futurism"

Something to fan the flames...

I was doing a bit of research, when I happened upon this...
I took a screen cap because I thought it was interesting to note that there are others who draw a distinction between science and technology... I'm not going to make an argument either way at this point, I'm just putting that tidbit out there for others to discuss.

Yet Another Weapon Post

Another new weapon system that I stumbled on while writing the last post.
In the course of reading, I saw a weapon called the Multiple Projectile Delivery System mentioned as being a possible armament for the Talon robots discussed in the previous post. The article contained a link which detailed the weapon system. The weapon system has also been dubbed DREAD (I couldn't find any mention of whether or not this is another acronym, or not). If you take the time to read the article and consider it a bit, chances are you'll probably agree that the name fits. From a military standpoint, this has the potential to be a dream wepaon. Extremely low maintanence, huge ammo capacity, no danger of ammo explosion, capable of extremly accurate and devestating fire, and no sound or muzzle flash to expose the operator or vehicle to counterfire. From the perspective of a soldier, this is probably another Pandora's Box. If I were a soldier, I would most certainly not like to be on the recieving end of something like this at all. The prospect of recieving fire that cannot be pinpointed by sound or sight that in all likelihood will be rather lethal is quite frightening to certain. This system, properly utilized could be even more devestating to moral than something like a sniper.

Hopefully, I won't keep stumbling on to stuff like this, so that there will be a bit more variety in future posts...

A Continuation of the Previous Post

In my previous post, I talked briefly about a new type of gun. If you happened to take a peek at the official website, you probably noticed this little fellow. Well, the robot itself is known as Talon. The actual system is being called SWORDS, which is an annoying military acronym for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System. The Talon robot has been around for a while as a remote operated vehicle for hazardous duties like bomb disposal. Now it is being adapted for use as a support weapons platform for use in environments such as the current engagement in Iraq.

A few articles to provide more specific details:
Wired.Com
DefenseTech
News.Com

Always a Bigger Gun

This isn't American originated technology per se, but if what one of the articles suggests is true, then it's likely to end up being used by the American military in the near future.
One of my friends came to visit me during the weekend, and during the course of supper one evening, he happened to mention a new type of gun that he had read about at some point.
After doing a little bit of digging around, I was able to find a few articles concerning this new style of weapon as well as the company's website. It seems that this gun, dubbed Metal Storm, is operated entirely through electronic rather than mechanical means. The gun itself basically consists of a barrel (or barrels) filled with rounds very similar to caseless rounds and a firing mechanism. The rounds are stacked inside the barrel with propellant sandwiched behind each round. Electricity is used to ignite the propellant for each round almost simultaneously. The effect is that a staggeringly high effective rate of fire can be achieved. Another selling point of the system is that it is easily locked down, so that unauthorized personnel cannot make use of the weapon. It will be interesting to see (and possibly terrifying, if the test-firing videos are any measure) of what becomes of this technology in the future.

CNN Article
Another Article
Metal Storm website
I mentioned caseless ammunition earlier... This provides an explanation of what caseless ammunition is, and it tells the tale of the ill-fated H&K G11, which is an interesting enough story in and of itself