From Wiki:
STM Kargu is a small portable rotary wing loitering munition produced in Turkey by STM (Savunma Teknolojileri Mühendislik ve Ticaret A.Ş.) that has been designed for asymmetric warfare or counter-insurgency. It can be carried by a single personnel in both autonomous and manual modes. KARGU can be effectively used against static or moving targets through its real-time image processing capabilities and machine learning algorithms embedded on the platform. The system consists of the rotary wing attack drone and ground control unit.
In 2020 a Kargu 2 Drone hunted down and attacked a human target in Libya, according to a report from the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Libya, published in March 2021. This may have been the first time an autonomous killer robot armed with lethal weaponry attacked human beings. The capability of Kargu 2 to attack targets autonomously has however never been demonstrated by the company. Commercials demonstrating Kargu 2's capabilities have shown a human operator selecting the targets and engaging the attack mode, while the drone is only responsible to perform the attack dive on the pre-selected target.
Even if Turkey and STM deny what happened in 2020, what is clear is the potential capability of such systems which of course, Ai industry will try and improve upon.
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A mermaid motif railing in the village of Portmeirion (see 3/17 post) came from a Sailor's Home in Liverpool, England. Curious, this connection between human and myth, that for such men, away from land for extended periods of time, a proxy female was created. In some cultures, the mermaid signifies life and fertility within the ocean. In others, she embodies the destructive nature of the water, luring sailors to their deaths — serving as an omen for storms, unruly seas and disaster.
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The other day, I was watching a creature feature "It Came From Under The Sea" from 1955. Ray Harryhausen created the creature special effects using his stop motion model animation which became quite famous in movies such at Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981).
Now, this was produced by Sam Katzman who specialized in super low budget films with a wide range of content including serials, monster flicks, westerns and teen-orientated featuring crime and rock n' roll. What I found curious were some of the messaging in this film.
The female lead is a whip-smart Harvard Professor who is acknowledged to be one of the major authorities in Marine Biology. Clearly an ambitious, career-minder woman, she hits a giant wall of male chauvinism with the military liaison officer. Modern audiences would be aghast at his egregious sexual harassment yet the professor doesn't always roll over. Throughout the film, she makes rather subversive (for the times) statements: she is anti-draft (the Korean War is still quite fresh in American minds); anti-nukes specifically H-bomb tests in the Pacific (these tests created the monster) as well as environmental concerns; her older mentor lectures the officer on how smart women are and how he has mistreated the professor-she then steps up and lists his crimes against her. At least the officer takes it with some grace. Sadly, the progressive thrust is almost nearly cancelled, for within a minute of her scolding, the creature makes an appearance and she is screaming her head off and clinging to the menfolk.
Considering the teen target audience, all this makes for a subversive, leftist, anti-patriarchal thrust that is mind-blowing for the times and it is amazing it got past the censors. After all, while this is just after the McCarthy era, Hollywood blacklists were building strength. In the end, the producers covered their ass-the prof ends up marrying the officer.
One of my takeaways is to reflect on how slow cultural change can take. This film was made nearly 70 years ago-a long time for the living-but a blink in the expanse of history. What our heroine experiences both personally and professionally is still prevalent today.
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Modern life: finding one of those "do not eat" packets inserted with something I intend to eat.
A provider's patient portal doesn't work very well and staff is too busy to monitor thus frustrating the ability for a patient to communicate with provider.
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Quintessential Red Green opening-Red resolves a laziness issue concerning picking up fallen apples in his orchard by duct taping a jai lai scoop to his car tire. Drive over apples which are flung at high speed outta sight, outta mind.
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We are all related: the genetic difference between human to human, no matter race or ethnicity, is only 0.1%.
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Depicted is the start of the final push for the summit that began 11 pm-Midnight. The goal was to summit around 1pm and return. A traffic jam due to the exhaustive effects of high altitude on the human body set back the timetable by at least 2 hours. A violent, rapidly forming storm with 80 mph winds and snow caught them in the open on the return trek resulting death for some and severe frostbite for others.
While some were able to hunker down in a group, one man made it to the final base camp tents by himself. Exhausted by climbing for 12 hours but managing to find the tents in very low visibility, the man then was confronted by the sheer loneliness of his plight. Alone, with his senses obliterated by the roar of howling wind, he felt his body being pushed around within the confines of the tent. He recounts that this was the most terrifying moment of his life. It is no wonder that the sherpas have folktales about mountain gods who seem capricious and deadly.
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3/22-early Spring snow-we got around 3" of v wet snow. Temps hovering around freezing. It has snowed all day.
Old Man Winter showing that he still has strength. He did a similar thing last year around 3/18.
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