This is the 100th anniversary of the German Spring Offensive, the Central Powers’ last, desperate gamble to win WWI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Offensive
During WWII, the British and Americans were able to accurately estimate how many tanks the Germans were making by analyzing the serial numbers on destroyed German tanks they found on the battlefield.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem
BAE is pitching its advanced 40mm cannon for light tanks. They claim its ability to rapidly shuffle between ammunition types is a battlefield force multiplier (some interesting case examples are described).
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19671/us-army-eyes-adding-unique-40mm-cannon-to-its-stryker-and-bradley-armored-vehicles
Israel officially admitted it blew up Syria’s sole nuclear reactor in 2007, but even had they left it alone, any Syrian nuclear weapons program would probably have gone nowhere.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/nightmare-avoided-did-israels-air-force-stop-syria-getting-25060
Some clear thinking on Putin’s latest, publicity-driven announcement about Russia’s new nuclear weapons, death rays, and phasers.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/putins-phony-arms-race-217339
Putin has already canceled development of one of Russia’s fearsome experimental nuclear missiles we saw CGI videos of just a few weeks ago. [Drumroll] They don’t have enough money.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19588/russia-halts-years-of-work-on-ballistic-missile-to-pay-for-hypersonic-weapons
As China’s military surges ahead, India’s is stuck in neutral.
http://www.janes.com/article/78584/indian-army-struggles-with-resource-crunch
The “Scenarios” section of the paper describes some interesting cases where drones and AI could be used for crimes and terrorism in the near future.
https://www.eff.org/files/2018/02/20/malicious_ai_report_final.pdf
The U.S.M.C. is upgrading its aging F/A-18 Hornets with vastly better radars.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19508/the-best-of-the-usmcs-aging-f-a-18-hornets-to-receive-aesa-radar-upgrade
Another cool idea on paper that turned out way less cool (and more expensive) in practice.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19237/navy-ditches-its-plan-to-upgrade-34-destroyers-with-hybrid-electric-drives
The Air Force wants to make its nuclear bombs smaller-yield but more accurate. All nuclear bombs will also be smart bombs.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19263/get-to-know-americas-long-serving-b61-family-of-nuclear-bombs
By omitting any design requirements related to low-altitude bombing strikes, the B-21 will be stealthier and higher-flying than the B-2.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14919/the-b-21s-three-decade-old-shape-hints-at-new-high-altitude-capabilities
Photos from the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 15 years on. It’s remarkable seeing the hodgepodge of camouflage colors and styles our troops wore during the invasion. In spite of being the world’s best-funded military, apparently there was a widespread shortage of khaki clothing in the run-up to our big invasion of a desert country whose landscape is dominated by shades of brown.
https://qz.com/1232700/iraq-war-anniversary-photos-of-the-iraq-invasion-15-years-ago/
This might be a perfect example of how “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.”
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/syria-regime-forces-building-up-us/index.html
Despite rumor, spy satellites can’t read car license plates. However, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t build one that could. According to the inescapable laws of optics, its lens would have to be at least 60 feet in diameter (the Hubble telescope’s lens is only eight feet wide, and the Saturn V rockets were only 33 feet wide).
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/3868/is-photography-from-a-satellite-good-enough-to-make-out-a-person-on-the-ground
The Predator drone is headed for retirement. (Dang, I feel old.)
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19122/usaf-officially-retires-mq-1-predator-while-mq-9-reaper-set-to-gain-air-to-air-missiles
China demonstrates an add-on kit that allows its 1960s-vintage Type 59 tanks to be remote-operated. I doubt the technology is well-developed, though it does make me wonder if obsolete military gear could be given new leases on life if they were remote-controlled or robot-operated.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/21/china-testing-unmanned-tank/
If we switch to machine armies, social cohesion could weaken since nations would no longer have large institutions (militaries) for indoctrinating their human citizens and infusing them with patriotism and loyalty. If humans no longer died in wars, populations would slowly lose national myths of shared sacrifice and heroism that underpin their national identities.
http://warisboring.com/what-happens-to-us-when-robots-fight-our-wars/
I’m skeptical that air delivery drones will become practical and widespread for at least 20 years. There are simply too many downsides. Self-driving delivery trucks are a more conservative and promising technology in the short term.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/22/amazon-issued-patent-for-delivery-drones-that-can-react-to-screaming-flailing-arms/
Self-driving cars killed their first human this month. It was, of course, inevitable. The investigation is ongoing, but it’s possible human error–in the form of Uber executives deciding not to use the best sensors on their self-driving cabs–was responsible.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-selfdriving-sensors-insight/ubers-use-of-fewer-safety-sensors-prompts-questions-after-arizona-crash-idUSKBN1H337Q
One of the world’s most successful roboticists, Rodney Brooks, discusses the future of the field.
https://youtu.be/ig1qaqyMIXc
‘Using this iterative algorithm, IBM’s quantum computer successfully calculated the ground state energy of all three molecules, setting a world record for quantum simulation.’
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/quantum-computer-simulates-largest-molecule-yet-sparking-hope-future-drug-discoveries
After being fed data on 12.4 million chemical reactions, a deep learning neural network program was able to correctly create reagent and synthesis steps for other chemical compounds. Human judges couldn’t tell the machine’s work from that of human chemists, meaning a “Turing Test” of sorts was passed.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03977-w
AI could be used to analyze microscopy images of cells.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2018/03/12/images-of-machine-learning
‘Arranging two layers of atom-thick graphene so that the pattern of their carbon atoms is offset by an angle of 1.1º makes the material a superconductor.’
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02773-w
Some geoengineering proposals for slowing Antarctica’s melting and keeping sea levels the same.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03036-4
Saudi Arabia wants to build the world’s largest solar power plant in the same location where “The Animatrix” predicted that the solar-powered “Zero One” machine city will be.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/03/28/why-saudi-arabia-is-trying-to-pull-off-an-utterly-massive-new-solar-project/
According to some estimates, nuclear power has a smaller carbon footprint than solar or wind.
https://www.factcheck.org/2018/03/wind-energys-carbon-footprint/
Two articles about how much more efficient our machines are at converting energy to work than the human body is.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/nuclear-fusion/
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2013/McKenziewalking.html
‘For many animals, the potential benefits of drawing free energy from sunlight might be offset by the considerable risks of extra UV exposure and overheating.’
http://blogs.plos.org/retort/2010/12/20/why-animals-so-rarely-photosynthesize/
If you could see ultraviolet light, the world would look more detailed, and people’s faces would look uglier.
https://youtu.be/hsROOnw12AA
Don’t smoke or sunbathe.
https://www.today.com/slideshow/effects-smoking-sun-stress-skin-twins-33422340
Reason #10237 that you don’t want to be obese.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43502144
Many chronically ill people with mild genetic disorders are not being properly diagnosed.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/health/genetic-mutations-diagnosis.html
The humble cockroach’s genome is a marvel of complexity.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/science/american-cockroach-genome.html
‘Unlike us, hummingbirds can use the glucose that they’re ingesting in nectar and can move it through their guts, through their circulatory system, and to their muscle cells so fast that they can essentially keep that pipeline going in real time.’
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/science/hummingbirds-fructose-metabolism.html
‘Dogs can be cloned up to five days after they die and cats up to three, as long as the corpses are kept cool.’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pet-cloning-not-just-celebrities-anymore-050630990.html
SETI’s senior astronomer thinks that advanced aliens have gravitational microlensing telescopes that can see the signals sent out by your TV remote control from light years away.
https://www.edge.org/response-detail/23738
This is a new and slightly insane solution to the Fermi Paradox: “The Planetarium Hypothesis.”
https://computationaltheology.blogspot.com/2012/05/superintelligent-solution-to-fermi.html
A mind-blowing article about the anthropic principle, quantum immortality, and (indirectly) the Fermi Paradox.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/human-existence-will-look-more-miraculous-the-longer-we-survive/554513/
One of the declassified UFO videos released by the NY Times last December could have just been a fighter plane in the distance, flying with its afterburners on.
https://youtu.be/oO5dP3sF2sw
Stephen Spielberg is skeptical of virtual reality’s potential as a filmmaking tool because it would be much harder to keep viewers focused on the action. I agree there’s less value-add than some people assume: If you were watching “The Matrix” in V.R., what would be the benefit of being able to turn away from a fight scene and look at the brick wall behind you?
https://www.apnews.com/afd5a41e2cb14fc0ab5521fa548e38ae/Q&A:-Spielberg-likes-VR,-but-not-necessarily-for-filmmaking
Microsoft predicts that V.R. goggles capable of displaying lifelike images will exist by 2028, but you’ll still need to have the headset plugged into a bigger computer that does graphics rendering. This is close to other estimates I’ve read over the years.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/creating-perfect-illusion-will-take-create-life-like-virtual-reality-headsets/
Progress in preserving mammal brains. Sometimes I think that human cryonics just needs a few hundred million dollars of R&D to become viable, and once we finally make the necessary advances, we’ll look back and wince hard at the realization that we could have made it work decades earlier with 10% of the money we spend on Air Jordans.
http://www.brainpreservation.org/large-mammal-announcement/
http://www.brainpreservation.org/small-mammal-announcement/
Some examples of chuckle-worthy bad futurism.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ten-notable-apocalypses-that-obviously-didnt-happen-9126331/
Investing your money according to the predictions of professional money managers yields no better results that investing it in an index fund.
http://www.aei.org/publication/more-evidence-that-its-very-hard-to-beat-the-market-over-time-95-of-financial-professionals-cant-do-it/
In the latest bad news for Bitcoin, someone embedded child porn into the blockchain.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content
Genetics, damage to specific parts of the brain, and direct electrical stimulation of part of the brain can all make people happy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/03/pleasure-shock-deep-brain-stimulation-happiness/556043/
IBM predicts we’ll soon have aquatic sensors that do real-time monitoring of water quality in oceans, lakes and rivers, and that AIs will be created to spot and counteract bias. I essentially agree with both predictions.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/ibm-ai-predictions-include-ai-powered-ocean-microbots.html
Every shipwreck will be found someday. ‘Today’s crews employ devices that can detect the magnetic field of a washing machine buried in sea mud. Their sonar can sweep the depths like a flashlight. Year after year, the number of shipwrecks still lost dwindles.’
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-uss-cyclops-20180312-story.html
Future mass surveillance will mean no more misplaced or stolen things.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/new-tracking-technology-could-make-lost-belongings-a-thing-of-the-past/2018/02/28/f7a7e59c-18cc-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html
By the time Africa is ready to industrialize through cheap factory labor and export-driven trade, it might be too late since rich countries will have robots that work even cheaper.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43459138
To receive 5G signal in your house, there will need to be a direct line of sight between your device and a small cell box, which will probably be mounted on an existing light pole or power line pole, so in the near future, we’re going to have to pay much closer attention to trimming trees and bushes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/wireless-firms-seek-to-preempt-local-authority-to-install-5g-equipment-in-neighborhoods/2018/03/18/8f8d5a96-2191-11e8-86f6-54bfff693d2b_story.html
“Digital immortality” will first manifest itself as long-dead actors, resurrected through CGI to star in new films.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/03/17/hollywood-actors-writing-wills-control-cgi-selves-beyond-grave/
200 years after it was published, “Frankenstein” continues to be misused by foes of science.
http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/04/victor-frankenstein-is-the-rea