Weapons should be graded on their effectiveness on the battlefield, not some pre set standardized tests. Looking at both the AK-47 and M-16 on a firing range, one could claim the M-16 is better but its far more reliable to cull from several conflicts where both weapons were used, to reach a conclusion, the most significant would be Vietnam.

As a precison, futuristic, tech reliant rifle the M-16 almost failed in Vietnam, early versions shipped with ammunition that fired dirty in the chamber leading to catastrophic dirt jams, initially they were shipped with no cleaning kits as well, its sensitive mecahnism could easily jam in harsh enviroments, early models also weighted so little that firing control and usage as a close combat blunt weapon was lost.

The AK-47 thrived, its firing power, reliablity, simple training methodology meant that troops spent little time training and cleaning with their weapons and more time shooting at an enemy. In close range a butt smack from an AK-47 can down a person. There is an entire handbook on just how to disassemble the M-16, you can teach a 6 year old how to clean, arm and fire the AK-47 in about 30 minutes.

The AK-47 is built for urban combat and close range engagement, while the M-16 is built as a long range high accuracy stand off weapon. You can run a guerilla war on the AK-47, while the M-16 is reliant on highly trained troops with the weapon system and supplies to keep the weapon functioning. There are still reports on newer M-16A2s failing to fire or jamming in the sandy dunes of Iraq.

The US Army Ordance is really skwed in my preception, there is high concentration on high tech bullshit (robots? network centric warfare?) while still using a weapon design from the late 50s, the M-16A2 and M4 are simple modifications on the M-16 frame, both are standard US infantry weapons and haven't really progressed to a more simpler and more reliable weapon platforms even though alternatives are field tested every goddamn year. The AK on the other hand is progressinng as a weapon design, currently I believe its ireation is the AK-74.

Basically if I had to fight tommorrow, I would go for the AK-47 over the M-16.

According to this video apparently there are no Klingons who aren't completely tone deaf or who have rhythm, yet they are highly skilled with the Casio keyboard and apparently the electric dulcimer. Please! Barak-Kadan's empty husk would be spinning in it's futuristic grave.

And can't someone get that old school Klingon a blood wine for Kahless's sake?

aw yeah I luvs me some Warren Ellis!!!

Miller's great too. all stark and dour.... him and Moore are just kinda "given" though.


In reply to this comment by raven:
My favorite ever? Well, that would be Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis, because I do loves the futuristic Hunter S. Thompson-esque Spider Jerusalem, easily one of the best characters ever... and, I mean come on, what's not to love about a comic where the characters are always popping on down to the local Black-ops Deli for some Chilean baby extract, or Caribou eyes? Or chainsmoking Carcinoma Angel cigarettes while plotting the downfall of a President also referred to as "The Beast" via renegade journalism and a bowel disruptor gun?

I've also loved Frank Miller's work, the Sin City series, and 300 which was a fave from WAAAAY the fuck before hollywood made it into a craptastic piece of feature-length propaganda... Miller's take on Batman was also really cool, I think it was called Dark Knight Returns? Something like that.

Current faves are Warren Ellis' Desolation Jones, and Fell, which he is collaborating on with Ben Templesmith, a super talented young artist from Down Under who also writes and illustrates another current addiction of mine, Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse. Totally great series btw, funny, creepy, and perverse in all the right ways... I think the title of the most recent story arc kind of sums it up: "Leprechaun Fight Night"... oh so fucking funny.

And the history nerd inside me is completely in love with Eric Shanower's epic attempt to turn the Illiad into a graphic novel with his Age of Bronze comic... a huge undertaking I must say, really, the depth that he goes into with his literary and historical research is amazing... and the drawing so well done and detailed as well... its no wonder he's on issue number 25 or so and the Greeks haven't even made it to Illium yet!

My favorite ever? Well, that would be Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis, because I do loves the futuristic Hunter S. Thompson-esque Spider Jerusalem, easily one of the best characters ever... and, I mean come on, what's not to love about a comic where the characters are always popping on down to the local Black-ops Deli for some Chilean baby extract, or Caribou eyes? Or chainsmoking Carcinoma Angel cigarettes while plotting the downfall of a President also referred to as "The Beast" via renegade journalism and a bowel disruptor gun?

I've also loved Frank Miller's work, the Sin City series, and 300 which was a fave from WAAAAY the fuck before hollywood made it into a craptastic piece of feature-length propaganda... Miller's take on Batman was also really cool, I think it was called Dark Knight Returns? Something like that.

Current faves are Warren Ellis' Desolation Jones, and Fell, which he is collaborating on with Ben Templesmith, a super talented young artist from Down Under who also writes and illustrates another current addiction of mine, Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse. Totally great series btw, funny, creepy, and perverse in all the right ways... I think the title of the most recent story arc kind of sums it up: "Leprechaun Fight Night"... oh so fucking funny.

And the history nerd inside me is completely in love with Eric Shanower's epic attempt to turn the Illiad into a graphic novel with his Age of Bronze comic... a huge undertaking I must say, really, the depth that he goes into with his literary and historical research is amazing... and the drawing so well done and detailed as well... its no wonder he's on issue number 25 or so and the Greeks haven't even made it to Illium yet!

Robert Heinlein's "Tunnel in the Sky" - kids in a futuristic survival 'outward bound' type school trip get stranded on an alien planet due to a freak supernova and have to fend for themselves... kind of Lord of the Flies, but cooler.

Or Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"- futuristic Lunar Colony secedes from Earth with the help of a sentient super computer... one of my favorite books, basically parts of it read like a blueprint for revolution, and outlines how to set up resistance cells and civil unrest.

Both could make good movies, provided they had a director willing to look past the possibility of turning them into special effects orgies... like they did with his "Starship Troopers"... which, by the way, was a fantastic little book, and nothing like the movie that shares its name.

lol at your first reply. no lol for amberlife, they're just crap. Coldplay only get deux points from me anyway, so if you are going to copy them, i'm not really going to listen.

i would love to find you some great exciting real band, but i can't. however, economy is on the up, there's a lot of kids walking round town with new guitars on their backs, i guess it will come eventually.

the best live bands i have seen are hiphop and reggae. There's a lot of really good musicians and they all play in each others' bands, oldschool style... but nobody really seems to be innovating anything or putting together a credible mainstream act.

the most innovation is in electronic music which i guess is naturally more futuristic and less retro.

well anyway, i am biased, haven't really been into rock since kurt went and oasis released their "difficult second album" which was shit except for wonderwall

oasis fighting coldplay, bareknuckle style, now THAT i would pay to see.

www.hardcore.lt
www.sutemos.net/en

This video worth to be part of a Retro-futurist-Orwellian-Psychedelic artistic room montage (specially the part where he actually make the face).

This is great. I agree with his sentiment- the need for more debate with futurists and singularitatians. Funnily enough, I actually send Hofstadter an email in 2004 and he sent me a copy of the chapter that he had written for a book to be published by the oxford university press. It's great that he is still thinking and speaking about this topic, and basically saying what I expected him to say: "Calm down! You guys need to have more critical minds looking at this"

He asked me not to share his response, as the book was at that time yet to be published, but my question to him was thus:

Greetings Professor Hofstadter,

I'm a fan of yours, and not currently an AI researcher, for some reason that is outside the scope of this email.

I read GEB:EGB compulsively in highschool and have since bought 6 copies and given them to many friends. I've also read Metamagical Themas many times, and your magnificent Le Tombeau De Marot. Several years ago, I discovered a crackpot who claims to be a fan of yours by the name of Eliezer Yudkowsky, spouting off at great length about the forthcoming Singularity. The subject has captivated my imagination, despite its trappings of fanatacism, and I've luckily discovered slightly less crackpot adherents since that time. In particular I find Ray Kurzweil and Hans Morevac convincing.

I am very interested to know what your thoughts are on the singularity, and if you think that predictions of an asymptotic ascension of technology in our near future are realistic.

I suppose I shouldn't assume that you are familiar with all of this 'crazy-talk' so here are a few links:
http://yudkowsky.net/singularity.html
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

If you have any comments, or better, if you have written any articles concerning this subject, I'd very much like to read them.

From what I hear, the F-22 was chosen because it was further along in development and seemed like the safer choice of the two budgetwise. Wikipedia kinda confirms this, but it does note that the details of the testing are unlikely to be released in public. There's also a note about the F-22 having a more efficient bay design for the missiles/bombs. In the end, though, either choice would be a winner.

Personally, I kind of like the Raptor's design better. The Black Widow II does look more futuristic, but I'm a fan of the old-school designs. However, it's very likely the design of the YF-23 will be recycled for use in an upcoming bomber. Judging by the success of the B-2 Spirit (which has a similar, futuristic design) I'd say the YF-23 has a good chance at being converted into a full-time bomber.

My father was working for McDonnell Douglas when McDonnel and Lockhead were going head-to-head for that contract. After the decision was made he made the comment that the two aircraft (the F-22 and the YF-23) were so closely matched that the decision between the two actually came down to which one looked better. Maybe it's my bias towards whatever he was working on at the time, but I still think the YF-23 looks better... I always thought it had a more futuristic, rougher look. The F-22 looks too 'soft' for my liking.

and behold, the web 2.0 dream continues to be exposed as an empty idealistic circular argument between well meaning geeks with too much time on their hands.

I like videosift because there's less rubbish than youtube. I find it much easier to sit on videosift and entertain myself for an hour than I do on any other video site.

But get a hold of yourselves, you're just hotlinking to other people's stuff, you're not curing cancer or something.

These arguments, mostly between men, are the internet equivalent of the intro to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

All the free thinking progressive futuristic mashup projects I have ever seen end up with a Soviet. At the end of the process, we see that basically some people own and run this site, and some people do not. The owners try to be democratic but basically only want their own version of democracy to prevail (the one where people vote for the owners' preference).

This is not a criticism of the intentions of the owners, which are undoubtedly noble. This is Animal Farm. This is what happens when some people have power and some do not. This is showing how the internet does not solve the problem of politics and powergames. This is the failure of collective voting and the hive mind.

I was an original fan of TayTV because I liked Fedquip's bias, and I liked getting to know him and seeing what he had to say. I liked his benevolent dictatorship. I forgave his self promotion because TayTV was HIS and self promotion was HIS prerogative (nay raison d'etre)

But then fedquip swallowed the Web 2.0 pill and opened things up, and he took jobs from big companies, and he joined the sift, and his original goal of self promotion was suddenly a conflict of interests problem which he clearly didn't recognise.

You people need to realise that no "community" will ever be what you want it to be. If you want the web edited properly, edit it yourself.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to upvote or not, but then I saw the futuristic "high five" and remembered how much I loved this movie.

I have this on DVD. Love the whole city look. I'm a big sucker for huge, futuristic, good looking cities.

I disagree. I think it's inexcusable to simply state this was a intelligence failure due to failure to react to world post-cold war. Simply due to the following factual information:

The Cold war was built on the shoulders of relationship with Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
They got miffed due to US military presence and the House of Saud.
The American Embassy in Africa bombings.
The 1994 WTC attack.
The CIA and FBI knew of their presence in the country.
Constant threats by Al Qaeda.
Intelligence failure post 9/11 with regards to Iraq.

Honestly all this back and forth about this tape is enough for me.

All I ask is that you don't consider the day, but what that day meant, and where that day has lead us.

The police state you mention we should avoid? We're already there... from Gitmo, arrest without trail, NSA phone taps, heabus corpus, NSA echelon program and so on and so on.

Do you know what the Terrorists want? No, the whitehouse tells us they hate the Western way of life. Or what is it? Islamofacists. No mention of their demands to end to house of Saud, Palestine and so on, i.e. specific grievances but no it degrades at this level to some clash of cultures and religions. Because the Decider has decided that for you.

Does it make logical plausible sense? No, if the intent of Al Qeada was to destroy the western way of life in American the attack would have been on nuclear power stations (check your maps its all there, its not state secrets or anything) around the East coast causing an event the size of Chernobyl. They knew that such an attack would lead to possible usage of nuclear arms against them, they don't seek a war of mutual annihilation, they are at issue with the foreign policy actions of the USA. So did not pursue that action.

In our world of fear due to terrorism, a massive securities and weapons supply chain is developing, the American goverment is spending nigh on billions on futuristic weapon systems that don't coincide with the needs of the US Army currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same money that could have been used to rebuild New Orleans which more then a year later is still there in tatters.

Are we safer today then we were before 9/11? No. It's worse. But you know, I guess no one read 1984 and am just paranoid.

I feel like this is going to be one of those quirky, retro, "futuristic" things people will laugh about 50 years from now.