Yes Stephen, I do remember those air conditioned girls, the ones who drove the old computers, that had to be air conditioned to keep working, [the computers that is, but possibly the girls too]. It was a sore point with a mate who was a divisional manager with Moulded Products, who could not get air con in his office in the early 60s. He also complained that they funded the computer, used mostly by the lab, by charging $4.50 an invoice, to all divisions, when an invoice clerk cost $40 a week.

But you must have forgotten the Jindivik. It was a remote controlled plane, back in the 50s. It was used for target practice, rather than targeting anything, but I think it could have.

In 58 they had an old one hanging in front of the guard house, at the entrance of the Forrest Hills Air Force apprentice school, [near Wagga]. It hung there until we trainee pilots from Uranquinty Air Force pilot training school, [also near Wagga], stole it one night, & set it up in our parade ground for Monday parade.

What a kerfuffle that caused, almost as much as the time we "kidnapped" one of the boy's girlfriends, from a Wagga street corner one Saturday morning, in a hit & run raid in an huge old Buick.

Life was real fun back then, & I can't see much useful advance since then mate.

PS, I was navy, not air force, but they sent us off to the Air Force to learn the basics of flying. Of course they then took us back, & taught us how to do it, [propper like] without without all that mucking around with an airstrip.

Oh yes, I do approve of replacing lawyers with computers, do you think you could arrange to do it with the bottle red head one, in Canberra.

Hasbeen,

I thought you knew!

The one in Canberra is a prototype PMbot. She's a beta version animated by an Android release called pumpernickel sandwich. (Not to be confused with ice cream sandwich).

The next release will have the improved pastrami on rye release.

BTW Hasbeen,

Interesting that the Australian Navy taught you the basics of flying.

In the South African army they taught us how to bale out!

Lucky you Stephen.

Every pilot course before mine had done 3 jumps. However by the time I joined, we were a bit short of aircraft, we weren't supposed to eject, so did not get an actual jump in training.

The last word at every briefing back then was "bring those bl00dy aircraft back alive". If we had survived a crash, I doubt we would have survived the debriefing.

And for a poor bugger like me weighing nearly a hundred kilos didn't those old T10 chutes come in damn hard, especially on summer jumps. Thin air and hard ground. Ouch.

As to robotics this was something that really impressed me.

A Swarm of Nano Quadrotors; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4

I'm just wondering when the first one carrying a hypodermic will fly in Fidel Castro's window.

It seems a bit typical that the Japanese are developing robots to assist the elderly while the Yanks are creating 'Big Dog' for the Army.

Great video csteele, thanks.

To me one of the scariest is Robosnake:

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JnQL7mjspg

The "snake" can also be packed with explosives - a sort of kamikaze snake.

And this one, csteele, will confirm all your worst suspicions :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdDzUP2heC0

BTW robotics is a bit like computer science. It's a general purpose tool. Military developments will have civilian uses and vice versa