You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: The South African Border War - 1976, The end of a chapter and the beginning of a new phase.
This was way before my time so it's interesting to read about what happened up there. My mom's second husband served as a chaplain on the Namibian border and has some interesting stories to tell.
He tells one where they needed helicopter gunships but didn't have anything except a little Allouette scout chopper that they swiftly proceeded to mount 0.50 cal machine guns on.
He says it worked but you could see the little chopper bouncing backwards when they fired the 50's.
Apparently the French rep from Allouette had a minor heart attack when he saw what they'd done!
Still - score one for ingenuity!
That is a really interesting story @rahvin84. Back in those days they had to make do with what they had, but I think it may have been easier to adapt. Like think about cars for example. Good luck trying to DIY your 2017 Hyundai with all its computerized systems. There is this company in SA - I had a friend who worked there. They specialized in technology that ensures helicopters remain stable while firing. Kind of reminds me of the bot, anti-bot conundrum on steemit. What if we could design good bots that immediately cancel out the bad bots as soon as the bad bots do anything! Self learning police bots 😋
Liked your remark (where u mentioned it reminds u of the bot, anti-bot conundrum on #Steemit ) - Ha ! Indeed it does.
I concur.
kinda like this? https://steemit.com/steemit/@pjcswart/because-you-can-succeed-without-bots
Thank you. He says the funniest part was the little Frenchman jumping up and down swearing at everyone in French for messing with his helicopter! The thing with the little Allouette was that it was never designed to be a gunship so it probably never had the stabilization technology that something like the Rooivalk has.
But it's true what you say. Stuff used to be made so that you can take it apart and fix it yourself. I replaced my wife's laptop harddrive the other day and it's almost like they design stuff so it's as hard as possible to do. Same with software. Look at Windows 10 vs 7 even. The settings are getting harder and harder to find if you want to change from the default.
I think bots like cheetoh and sadkitten are the start of something like what you're mentioning. But I also think it's up to us as users to flag and report spam when we come across it. The bots can only do so much.
Thanks that's the word I was looking for, stabilization technology. The Rooivalk is supposed to be really advanced I have heard. Have you seen I Robot?
Supposedly it is. Or was back when it was designed. Not sure what happened since then. Our army isn't so hot anymore. No one even batted an eye when they went on strike and were fighting the police on the lawns of the Union Buildings in 2011. It was more entertaining than frightening.
I saw I Robot a few years ago, read the book it was based on about 20 years ago. What is the connection?
Thanks, often the books are better!
I Robot - we talked about sadkitten and cheetoh - Self learning robots like in I Robot could be dangerous if they are not encountered somehow.
In terms of politics, I often wonder whether it is not best to vote for the most anti-establishment party possible. Which in our case would probably be the EFF. Only problem is I don't agree with their policies regarding private property.
Self learning robots are the future. I'm involved with www.robotswithoutborders.io where we're building AI's that can function as teachers and doctors in places where there aren't any.
In terms of politics I think that people voting dor the most anti-establishment party possible is what got us Brexit and Trump. Just look how great that's going for the Brits and the Yanks...
I'm scared of the EFF. Malema seems to be maturing as a politician but their policies are likely to turn us into another Zimbabwe. We've seen how great things turn out when the government just takes people's farms.
People say, "But ours will be different." Like our government has a stellar record of running SOE's...
Yeah I say privatize everything like in the USA
This story would make an excellent scene in a movie about this war.
Perhaps, a movie financed on the Steem blockchain?
It would provide a funny moment in what would otherwise be a pretty gruesome movie. You read the bit in one of the previous posts where the SWAPO guys get massacred by artillery?
No, I have not. I will try to do so later.
Even Edward Zwick's 2006 Blood Diamond had the funny sad long sleeve or short sleeve scene that works well to remind us of the atrocities of that conflict.