Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’

Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by sundvor on Monday May 13, 2019 @06:03AM (#19897667)

Culture fans: These are not the knife missiles you were thinking about.

The topic of kinetic drone launched hellfire missiles seems highly problematic. Usage scenarios are when there'd just be too much collateral damage from explosive munitions, but where do you draw the line to something that would do vastly more damage than a sniper rifle hit?

I guess it could help protect local intelligence assets who might be armed with nothing but a cell phone.

(I have no real qualifications on this topic, but I do like to read about military ops. And Iain Banks).

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by 0_gravitas on Monday May 13, 2019 @06:30AM (#19897808)

> Culture fans: These are not the knife missiles you were thinking about.

Bummer

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by semi-extrinsic on Monday May 13, 2019 @07:21AM (#19898092)

If we were on a less civilised messaging board I would leave a comment noting the (non-)coincidence that your username is in fact remarkably appropriate for your comment.

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by tempguy9999 on Monday May 13, 2019 @08:02AM (#19898392)

I think Banks might have been quite pleased with 'semi-extrinsic', actually.

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by hugofirth on Monday May 13, 2019 @08:39AM (#19898646)

I suspect you will thoroughly enjoy this twitter account: https://twitter.com/cultureshipname?lang=en

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by sundvor on Monday May 13, 2019 @10:57PM (#19906415)

Subbed. One of my favourite fictive ship name would be an Adams one: GSV Mostly Harmless.

Was great to see the replies, user names. :) Also the number of votes tells there's a large number of people who must really miss Banks (RIP). It's been a while so I will start re-reading the Culture series soon, chronologically this time. A number were lost paperbacks, but will just add them to my Kindle collection.

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by 0_gravitas on Thursday May 16, 2019 @09:12AM (#19928659)

If you hadn't yet, I recommend picking up his book of poetry that was posthumously released along side his longtime friend Ken MacLeod's poems. A lot of it is Banks to the core, including the humor. My favorite is cynically titled "Love Poem":

Serene,

In a world full of troubles.

i.e. doing nothing about it.

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by 0_gravitas on Monday May 13, 2019 @07:28AM (#19898142)

;)

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by chrisweekly on Monday May 13, 2019 @08:09AM (#19898449)

FTR, "Culture" here refers to a terrific set of sci fi novels by Iain M Banks. They can be read in any order. "Player of Games" is probably my favorite.

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by hugofirth on Monday May 13, 2019 @08:41AM (#19898655)

> Culture fans: These are not the knife missiles you were thinking about.

Though I'm not sure the US having access to those would make me feel any better :)

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Re:Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’ by turk73 on Monday May 13, 2019 @08:25AM (#19898549)

Did they hold a trial or are these extra-judicial killings, as usual?

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