The problem with multiple attackers is that their combined strength goes up by the SQUARE of the number of attackers - not linearly. (This is "Lancaster's Law" - named after the guy who analysed WWII battles and showed it wasn't just theoretical )

This means that if you are outnumbered 10:1 you actually need to be A HUNDRED times as good to have an even chance of winning. (The theory is pretty straight forward - every time you attack your 'N' opponents, your attack is diluted 'N'. Every time they attack, they can make 'N' attacks in the same time you can make 1. Hence, N*N.

This has interesting consequences in modern warfare as well ... if you have a choice between 'cheapo' fighter aircraft or 'deluxe' figher aircraft, which is more effective?

If the deluxe ones are 10 times as effective, and only 5 times the price, you have the option of buying 50 cheapo fighers to 10 good ones.

The problem is that in a battle, Lancaster's Law indicates that the 'ten times as good' force of 10 fighers will only have a fighting strength of 1000 (10*10*10) whereas the 50 cheapo ones will have a strength of 2500 (50*50).

ie: It is better to have less effective weapons and forces if you can have more of them.

Mac

It isn't all bad. The database will be limited to authorised users.

Authorised users like the four teachers just arrested on child porn charges.

Mac

Their reaction simply don't make sense.

1. If he wasn't a terrorist, there was no point in tracking him down.

2. If he WAS a terrorist, they just made the mistake of calling a terrorist and detailing what methods they use to link data and the response times in their anti-terrorist detection methods. And they also just made the fatal mistake of tipping off a terrorist that they were under surveillance.

What is the scenario where their actions were an intelligent response ?

Mac

A pedal powered wheelchair ?

It almost sounds like a joke - especially with John Howard as the model.

Some of their other products look pretty interesting, though - if I tell my wheelchair-using girlfriend that http://www.speedybikes.co.uk/elektra.html exists, she'll want one for sure.

However others look simply dangerous. How many ways can you amputate a finger on http://www.speedybikes.co.uk/laser.html ?

Mac

Mugabe forcing the opposition to eat campaign posters is nothing.

The documentary 'A Stranger in my homeland' gave eyewitness accounts of Mugabe's troops forcing a member of the opposition to not only chop off one of their own hands, but also forcing him to eat it. (The killed the poor guy after he endured all of that .. he might as well have simply refused)

Perhaps only forcing people to eat the posters is the new, softer side of Mugabe's regime.

Mac
(IMDB reference to the doco: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0763326/)

Surely this isn't really a true example of the 'Prisoner's Dilemma'. In the classic game theory problem all the prisoners will get the best outcome for themselves personally if they ALL refuse to co-operate.

In this example, though, if you refuse to co-operate then you get killed.

Not exactly the same thing!

The omniscient Wikipedia has an excellent summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

(Or at least it did when I looked - when you look it could read anything ...)

Mac

"These kind of sentry machines probably will be created at some point, but for foreseeable future they'll still be overseen by human operators that will be the one to actually pull the trigger. And I'm fine with that."

Err - you mean that the human operators will be the kind of people the TSA employ - such as the air marshall who pointed his glock semiautomatic pistol at passengers? The one who had twice applied to be a cop but FAILED the psych tests? Who had forcefully arrested a passenger because 'We didn't like the way you looked at us?'

That's the kind of human who will be in charge of the robot.

(To be fair, the TSA spokesman said that the passenger's offense was 'observing too closely'. I'd trust a robot more than a guy who'd had 2 weeks training after failing psych tests)

Ref: http://www.reason.com/news/show/29034.html

Mac