Shit. James Cameron was right.

[lafindumonde]

US draws up plans for nuclear drones

American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.

The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.

"It's pretty terrifying prospect," said Chris Coles of Drone Wars UK, which campaigns against the increasing use of drones for both military and civilian purposes. "Drones are much less safe than other aircraft and tend to crash a lot. There is a major push by this industry to increase the use of drones and both the public and government are struggling to keep up with the implications."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/02/us-plans-nuclear-drones

[crow]

Hehe.
They should make a deal with crows to do this work for them.
Crows are either hated, or ignored. Rarely appreciated. They are everywhere, and nobody really notices.
They almost never crash, don't blow stuff up when they do, and run on carrion.
The USA is always going about things in entirely the wrong way.

[lafindumonde]

Some research was done into using animals, but the drones are much more effective for military purposes.

[crow]

That's because no self-respecting creature would align itself with humans who desire unhealthy outcomes.
Now if the USA was actually interested in all those freedom-loving, humanitarian goals it advertises on the TV...
Oh well; we'll never know.

[lafindumonde]

I think it was more an issue that the science wasn't sophisticated enough (directly brain manipulation via electronics) and animals are slow, have to eat, sleep, poop and can't carry very large loads of sophisticated equipment. Lucky for the birds, eh?

[crow]

You are right.
The most my crow can carry is a chainsaw bar. When it isn't encumbered with the rest of my topping-saw!

[Conservationist]

I wouldn't write this off yet.

A flock of crows of good size (200 animals) could provide a perfect platform.

Given increased minaturization, each could have a small brain implant which contains:

(1) Neural manipulator
(2) Visual sensation decoder
(3) Two-way transmitter

The animals would be induced to move their "range" (area where they normally live) closer to target facilities.

Then, in the course of their wandering, each time an animal came near the target a remote computer would activate its transmitter, receive images, and compile them.

[crow]

Hmmm. Scary.
You do realize, I suppose, that now I am compelled to forward news of this chilling plan to my twenty trillion brothers?

[Conservationist]

crows > CIA

[Queequeg]

What does the design, development, production time look like on making crow mounted sidewinder missiles?

More importantly, how far is our war technology going to improve before we have our next major super weapon breakthrough?

Less importantly, have you ever seen a gauss cannon fire? Super heated steel "bullets" fired at extreme speed. It makes me wish I owned a space craft armed with a gauss cannon or twenty and had been charged with the duty of blowing something up.

http://youtu.be/F6ioLh7boMc

The bullet travels so fast it sets the air around it ablaze, talk about some mythological Thor's mjolnir madness stuff right there.

[Wolfgang]

Nano technology is gonna fuck everything up. Especially now that the constitution is a historical document and not a matter of policy. It won't be long until they put a remote controlled hummingbirds, bugs and rats on hessian revolutionaries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgxtIPIDBnY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFguLwUT5lg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-jTkqHSWlg&feature=related

[analrapist]

If you're reading about it, it's been out for ten years.

[lafindumonde]

I'm morbidly curious to know how far along the human-control-devices have come.

The ability to "activate the brains pleasure center" is really it. Some sort of end. Mindless entertainment, drugs, empty hedonism will be replaced by a government regulated device. Good citizens get a zap more pleasurable than orgasm. Bad citizens get shut down for a while. After a hard day of wirelessly controlled human labor, activate the "return to bed" routine.

Now it makes sense why we're breeding masses of identical, low-IQ, self-centered brownish peoples. We're building a new worker class.

Who needs robots after all?

[Wolfgang]

I'm morbidly curious to know how far along the human-control-devices have come.

The ability to "activate the brains pleasure center" is really it. Some sort of end. Mindless entertainment, drugs, empty hedonism will be replaced by a government regulated device. Good citizens get a zap more pleasurable than orgasm. Bad citizens get shut down for a while. After a hard day of wirelessly controlled human labor, activate the "return to bed" routine.

Now it makes sense why we're breeding masses of identical, low-IQ, self-centered brownish peoples. We're building a new worker class.

Who needs robots after all?

The average IQ among all brownish races sans our unfortunate aborigine pop and purebred humans(Africans) is roughly the same.

[Dinaric Leather]

The ability to "activate the brains pleasure center" is really it.

We've had this for quite some time. It's called opiates.