First technology post - UAVs for casualty evacuation (1)
Posted 13 February, 2008 in Technology, Diary
Unmanned vehicles and networked devices are an area of personal interest, and pretty much what’s putting food on my family’s table at this moment. I’ve always wondered how long it was before some bright spark realised UAVs are perfect for casualty evacuation from the battlefield. It appears the Israelis have done just that, but they tend to be bright sparks in this area:
Israel is searching for the best platform for unmanned medavec missions. The latest contender is the Butterfly unmanned powered parachute made by Israel’s EMIT.
Think of the benefits of casualty evacuation UAVs over existing methods of extraction. Firstly, in terms of getting an aircraft to the casualty you don’t have to worry so much about being shot down. You can send a number of them into a battlefield and if you lose a few on the way it’s not such a big deal. Yes, these would probably need to be designed, built and managed to a certain level of airworthiness as they’re eventually going to carry a wounded human being, but they needn’t be as expensive as something like a helicopter, and expense isn’t such a concern on this mission anyway as we’re talking about a human life. So you can get it into a tight spot under fire. UAVs lend themselves to different methods of landing compared to conventional aircraft, for example, you could pop a parafoil at a very low altitude to drop nicely into a hot landing zone. If you spudded in you could have a follow on vehicle that would try again, and it won’t matter so much as you’re probably not killing anyone. Once you’re on the ground you can load up the casualty. I’m not saying this is the ideal solution and I’m sure he’d rather be on a chopper. But if you can’t bring a chopper in because you’re risking the life of a pilot then I think someone with a sucking chest wound would happily accept a UAV ride as their next best option. So he’s launched on his way to safety. If there’s substantial risk on him being shot down on his way out then have a couple of other identical UAVs flying with him to minimise the chances of his one being hit.
Whatever happens, this technology will revolutionise the way we do a lot of things, from checking power lines to killing terrorists.
My prediction is that applications like casualty extraction will be met with a new form of air vehicle to achieve vertical take-off and landing i.e. one that isn’t rotary-wing. Rotary wing is too complex, difficult to maintain, unstable (unless it’s a gyrocopter) and more expensive. The nature of UAVs lends them to innovative new solutions being employed.
Yes, that’s right, technology! This blog was always meant to be about politics, philosophy especially Objectivism, musings on my own life………….and technology. As it says at the top of the page, I’m a techno-optimist - I see technology as a solution to nearly all human problems. Really, as an Objectivist, I’d say that’s simply applying reason as the means of improving the human condition. Of course, technology doesn’t mean we can ignore the moral side or lose qualities like self-reliance. Just that it’s certainly a great vehicle for human progress, and I like it, so I’ll write on it! However, since it took me seven years from registering the domain name to actually making my first post on politics, I suppose another eight months to my first technology post is to be expected!
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi………….. (0)
Posted 26 January, 2008 in General, Diary
When I consider whether I’m giving my children the best chance in life that I can, the fact they were born in Australia is like winning Lotto. Peace, freedom, opportunity, wealth, health, space - it’s all here. Not to mention it’s full of some of the best people you’ll find anywhere! Is there really any doubt this is the best country in the world?
Happy Australia Day!
“Alone of all the races on earth, they seem to be free from the ‘Grass is Greener on the other side of the fence’ syndrome, and roundly proclaim that Australia is, in fact, the other side of that fence.”
- Douglas Adams
Stop it early, before it gets this far (5)
Posted 20 January, 2008 in Diary, Politics
I was listening to ABC Newsradio this afternoon, to an article on Anne Frank and her diary. I can’t find a transcript on the ABC site, but I’m quoting as best as possible from memory. A fellow was being interviewed and my understanding is he was Jewish and had some experience of the holocaust, whether that was through personal experience or family I didn’t pick up.
He was speaking at 2:55pm EDT when he closed his piece. He said he was happy that the diary of Anne Frank was a school text in many places around the world. He also stated that he understood these events occurred a long time ago and that for many people this would be ‘the first and last book’ they read on the matter. When asked what the most important point he would want people to take away from this book, he replied that if this happens again we must ’stop it early’ before it gets this far.
Most readers would realise I’m raising this in the context of the War on Terror. Are the parallels between the WWII, Islamofascism and the War on Terror strong enough to make this comparison? I agree there’s a lot of room to find differences, but I don’t think the comparison is unreasonable. If we were to value this opinion then I’d be inclined to say that foreign military intervention is inevitable, sometimes, if we are going to ’stop it early’.
Give them guns (0)
Posted 20 January, 2008 in Diary, Politics
I love it when left-wingers turn on each other!
Protesters turn on each other in sea hunt for whalers
TWO anti-whaling groups harassing Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean turned on each other yesterday.
Sea Shepherd chief Paul Watson slammed Greenpeace for refusing to tell him where the Japanese whaling fleet is, even though the Greenpeace ship Esperanza is right on the tail of the whalers’ mothership.
Nearly a decade ago I was deployed on operations with the military in East Timor, which was effectively the first time I’d worked with NGOs, aid agencies and the UN. The distrust and competitive nature between the aid agencies really surprised me, as did the general disdain the aid workers seemed to have for the local population, as did the way the aid workers treated each other. I still don’t understand why they would volunteer for that work if they hated everyone associated with it and I still don’t really understand their motivation. I think for most of them it was a weird mixture of wanting to be the centre of attention while doing something important which would seem cool in left-wing circles and get their face on the news. Strangely, to me at least, the prime motivation didn’t appear to be a desire to help people less fortunate than themselves. That was just an added bonus which gave them a vehicle to fulfill their ambitions.
But that’s left-wingers for you.
Scheme for Sutcliffe world domination progressing nicely (3)
Posted 4 January, 2008 in Diary
The Sutcliffe clan grew to a total of four at 9:13am today with the arrival of Riley Michael Sutcliffe - 4.32kg (9lb 8oz) and 53cm. Mum and baby doing well.
Why I’m an Objectivst: Objectivists and service (2)
Posted 28 December, 2007 in Philosophy, Diary
I’m an Objectivist because I make all my decisions based solely on reason and empirical observation of the world in which I live, and I hold human life as the only yardstick of value.
But I’m also an Objectivist because I want to live a satisfying existence, surrounded by beauty and being delighted at every turn. This is my definition of the good life, and my formula for happiness.
Even if I couldn’t live this type of life I’d still live by reason alone; it would make no sense to do otherwise. But it makes me wonder why anyone, let alone (relatively) free and educated people, would choose to live according to religion, environmental mysticism, collectivism or self-sacrifice to the point of their own detriment. Why would someone choose to hold unhappiness and subservience as their personal values? My only explanation is that they haven’t worked out what is really going on in the world. I guess there is a lot of bullshit out there to confuse the ‘average punter’.
I am often challenged by friends, both religious and non-religious, who suggest that individualism can’t be a way to happiness, that there are values higher than yourself that should be served. Having spent most of my working life in military service I attempt to answer their challenge by going on the offensive: how can I, a person who holds my own happiness as my moral purpose, serve in the military where my life could potentially be put at risk and therefore everything I value be potentially destroyed? I’d say this question was answered quite effectively by John Stuart Mill*:
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that 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.”
Living boldly, efficaciously and pursuing your own happiness without reservation is not a timid exercise. Once you identify the values necessary for human happiness they need to be pursued and upheld, and this requires effort and risk. So yes, there are values that I would defend at risk to myself, that I would ’serve’, you might say. However, the only values that I could ’serve’ without compromising my morals would be ones that could be shown through reason to uphold the value of human life. Or more simply, keep your religious mysticism, collectivist idealism and statist tyranny to yourself, because I’ll fight against it but never for it.
Any other twist on ’service’ is a violation of these values and would compromise my morality. As Ayn Rand herself said:
It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.
* This quote was put on a plaque above the Cadets Bar at the Royal Military College Duntroon in 1996, as a gift from the Commanding Officer (LTCOL S. Ellis) who was resigning. I wonder if it’s still there.
Lefties and the ‘means of production’ (0)
Posted 17 December, 2007 in Philosophy, Diary, Politics
Most right-wing people who have sniffed around the political fringes know that hardcore lefties, and especially anarchists, have some sort of hang up about the ‘means of production’ in that they are obsessed with not having an individual person or entity controlling this sacred cow. They also know this strange obsession generates an undercurrent that drives a lot of left-wing ‘logic’.
As with so much left-wing logic there’s a half-truth that is extrapolated into a lie. The Great Unwashed have correctly identified the power source that allows human quality-of-life to be developed to a point that makes it enjoyable and satisfying; it’s called ‘production’ i.e. employment or enterprise.
But, in true lefty form, they then extrapolate this into a fantasy. They define ownership of ‘production’ to be the ownership of a factory, or a farm, or a business. Therefore, they conclude the ownership of ‘production’ is kept in the public interest by making sure these things are public property i.e. owned by the state for lefties and effectively owned by nobody for anarchists. Kill the bosses, start a commune and all that.
This is a fantasy because the ‘means of production’ has very little to do with the ownership of a building, or a piece of land, or having employees. These things are important, but in themselves they do not constitute ‘production’. The clincher that they overlook is the fact that ‘production’ comes from the genius of the producer. The intellect of the guy/girl who puts it all together and makes it happen is the primary reason that ‘production’ occurs.
Now lefties and anarchists can’t take a line that any individual is owned by the state, or by others, even if they are the ‘means of production’. This would make them look silly and expose the pathetic contradictions in their philosophies. So they pretend that ‘production’ rests with ownership of an inanimate object like the factory, farm or business, and definitely can’t be due to the genius of any particular individual.
But while pretending this is the case they actually do support the ownership of the productive individuals by the state. You only need to look at what lefties want done to the Richard Pratts or the (late) Kerry Packers. They want special restrictions put on these people so they are made to produce, so everyone else who doesn’t produce can consume. They effectively support less freedom for these people because they are productive.
In other words, our left-wing and anarchist friends get comfortable with the contradictions in their beliefs, and basically ignore them, even if this means taking a false view of reality that is essentially destructive to the whole community they claim to be protecting and nurturing.
My dog died today (4)
Posted 18 October, 2007 in Diary
Truly, she did. Well, probably more my wife’s dog, or our family’s dog.
The apathetic apostate (0)
Posted 19 September, 2007 in Philosophy, Diary
My journey to Objectivism from a Christian past is a curious thing. I never renounced God any more than I renounced the tooth fairy. As my perception of reality developed she just took her appropriate place as a mythical being who served a purpose. Some years on He did as well. As time passed the Christian momentum diminished, as it didn’t explain anything or provide a useable moral framework anymore.
Not quite Jim Morrison screaming ‘cancel my subscription to the Resurrection’. I just simply didn’t feel motivated to reinvigorate it.
Gun goodness: Interstate Arms Corporation 87W lever action shotgun (0)
Posted 31 July, 2007 in Diary
In order to add a bit of variety (à la one of my favourite conservative bloggers, the Texas based former South African Kim du Toit) here’s a picture of my latest firearm purchase, an Interstate Arms Corp model 87W lever action shotgun:
I’ve always been a bit of shotgun fan. Not just your lovely 34inch barrelled Italian under-and-over that swings beautifully, points brilliantly and fits like a glove, but also the kind of handy little number that puts plenty of lead down range when there’s an angry boar about to take your legs out. The 87W definitely belongs in the latter category, achieving that task probably better than anything readily available on the Australian market after the 1996 gun bans. With an overall length of just under a metre and six shots at your disposal it’s pretty handy. The muzzle blast is high and it ‘tenderises’ your shoulder quite quickly, but it’s not like your going to break a hundred or so clays in an afternoon with it. For what it’s designed it fills the niche very well.
There is another interesting point relating to this shotgun. Pre-1996 no one would have looked at one of these except your Western Action cowboy shooter. Now with pumps and semi-autos not available to most people these things are in such demand that they’re quite hard to get despite heaps of them being sold. This makes me wonder what was actually achieved by the gun bans, especially when I can get the shots out of this thing faster than my old Winchester pump and it’s got the same magazine capacity, although it takes longer to load.
Even more interesting is the fact that the Australian company ADI began to produce these as well (IAC being an American company who manufactures in China), and reviews of their prototypes appeared in ‘Australian Shooter’ magazine. I have a theory that ADI saw an unusually lucrative opportunity in the market with the other types of repeating shotguns being banned that resulted in them starting to produce firearms for the private market, something they weren’t doing previously. I also have an unsubstantiated suspicion that the reason they didn’t make it to market, despite being ready for production, was some polite persuasion by our government agencies. After all, in their enthusiasm to protect us from ourselves our government has done it in the past with Australian Automatic Arms and over time they’ve had a bit of a history of buying out and closing down gun dealers. If this ever does prove to be true remember you heard it here first.
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