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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! April 26, 2006 Brain PortBy GreyhawkSounds like science fiction, but it's reality (or very close to it): In their quest to create the super warrior of the future, some military researchers aren't focusing on organs like muscles or hearts. They're looking at tongues.I foresee "information overload" becoming a significant battlefield problem. But the "Brain Port" technology, pioneered over three decades ago by a University of Wisconsin neuroscientist, has already been used for other purposes: In testing, blind people found doorways, noticed people walking in front of them and caught balls. A version of the device, expected to be commercially marketed soon, has restored balance to those whose vestibular systems in the inner ear were destroyed by antibiotics.Military developments often find their way into civilian applications. Although advances in medical science are perhaps most comon (from advancements in treatment of traumatic injury to ultrasounds) other technologies have found their way to civilian use too (GPS is a recent example). Hopefully the "Brain Port" technology will soon be improving quality of life for a significant number of people. They noticed this story over at Ariana Huffington's "Huffington Post" blog too. Here are some representative comments from their readers: And cloning is an unacceptable idea to the Christo-Fascists? I guess as long as you don't mess with the soldiers genes, it's ok to morph them into just about anything. We are spending a fortune in military research and almost nothing in the green sciences that we will desperatley need to save the earth. We will win the war and loose the world. Posted by Greyhawk / April 26, 2006 4:41 PM | Permalink 18 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
Hmm. This reminds me of the information system for fighter pilots in Timothy Zahn's "Conquerors" trilogy. Cool stuff.
Information overload? Pilots are already there. Now they want to add UAV control to the front seat of a Longbow Apache. Yeah right!
Information overload? Scrolling past the Huffington Post comments put me in a brain freeze after about the first five lines. :-)
Maybe if people didn't think that reading genre fiction was below them they'd try some "sci-fi" and stop being so afraid.
Interesting possibilities there, unusual potential. Regarding the comments.....is anyone really surprised, fortunately they do not represent the majority.
Actually, that commenter recieved a couple of mild rebukes. I'm not certain I'd consider it a "representative" comment.
So anyhow... I should go back to figuring out the plot of my "massively gene-enginered martial arts super spy falls in love with the mechanically augmented law enforcement officer" story.
People like Ariana's commenters have to be dealt with some way, non-violently and within the law. They cannot be allowed to spout this BS with impunity. Maybe some day in the near future swarms of counter-commenters can be rapidly mobilized to freep the hell out of crap like this.
Remember when we were little children and we used what we thought of as "naughty" words to gain attention and shock the adults? Same syndrome multiplied many times seems to animate these posters at HuffPo. Infantile, unthinking, hatred spouting and enormously disappointing. THESE are my fellow Americans? And yet, as despicable as their rantings may be, defending their right to speak thus is part of what we're all about.
defending their right to speak thus is part of what we're all about.
Who is "we", Kemosabe?
The First Amendment protects them from the government. It doesn't protect them from me.
In responding to Ariana's commenters, I would have to say how sad to leave future generations with these impressions of ignorance and hatred. What a legacy. What intellectual inspiration. Kill them all, what an absolutely brilliant statement, must have strained if not killed a few brain cells thinking of it.
The perfect irony is that these intellectual giants would probably be first in line demanding to be protected by those that they state to hate.
I say god bless all our men and women who serve their country and thank you. Your sacrifices do not go without notice.
So,
"Paul Revere?" thinks since "YOU LIVE BY THE SWORD, YOU DIE BY THE SWORD". Then what does he live by? And what will kill him in the end? If you refuse to live by the sword, does this mean the sword is more or less likely to kill you (or behead you) in the end? And one final question:
If spouting off with a load of crap for your brains, or running off at the mouth is how you choose to live your life, then is diarrhea of the mouth (or typing fingers) a fatal condition?
Only in our dreams, guys. Only in our dreams.
Subsunk
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself" - John Stuart Mill (1868)
But the ascii art middle finger is rather well-done - and an example of someone with entirely too much time on their hands...
Sounds like the rants of someone that will kill his entire family and himself within six months. Want to save some lives, find this nut and put him in a rubber room and never let him see daylight again. Actually he wouldn't want me to find him. The Dr. might tell me I only have months to live and what would be the difference then? Whack, Whack.
These are the rants of people who know in their hearts they are wrong but their ego won't let them admit it. The viciousness of the person, trapped between his/her beliefs and the truth is wretched.
Insane people always have a Jefferson quote to back them up.
Christ, how unsettling. But hey - it's legal to be an idiot, and it should remain legal to be an idiot. I'm a bit dismayed that HuffPo has allowed these comments to remain though; anything like that ends up at my blog, it gets snuffed immediately if I happen to see it, although it is tempting to go in and simply edit it - i.e., change the word "hate" to "love", and "troops" to "transvestites", etc.
I did see the story about tongue sensors. Sounds a little far-fetched but then again, I'm just an Army wife. I saw the military.com clip of FCS (Future Combat Systems) and was pretty impressed.
As for the vile brainless idiot spouting off about our mission to remove Saddam (which was the overall intent) I guess he doesn't remember it was agents of Saddam's regime that attempted assasination of former Pres. George H.W. Bush while he was in Kuwait.
I find the spelling and grammar of these commenters particularly impressive. Maybe they should have put down the crack pipe and stayed in school?
As for their perspective on my military service, I'll offer a quote they're bound to love:"Bring it on".
Yes, bring it on a-holes. I am a freedom loving American, well armed and willing to take any measure to protect my family and way of life. I have no problem burying you, your followers, and your insane philosophy.