Month: April 2017

Enlarge (credit: Chris Wilkinson)

Limited to an anachronistic 1200 bits per second, it took several moments for the green-phosphor ASCII art to scroll from the bottom to the top of the screen. A login prompt and a blinking cursor invited me to continue deeper:

Enter GUEST for a quick look around.)
Enter your ID#, HANDLE, NEW or ‘?’:_

What would David Lightman think? I found myself at the guarded gates of an online community that had been disconnected for decades. This was mid-2016, but for all intents and purposes, it might as well have been 1986.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) launches one of a barrage of Tomahawks against a target in Syria while in the Mediterranean Sea, April 7, 2017. (credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ford Williams)

In the early hours of Friday morning, two US Navy guided-missile destroyers in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea launched a barrage of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) toward a Syrian Air Force airstrip at Ash Shayrat, Syria. The launch was President Donald Trump's response to the sarin gas attack on civilians in Syria earlier this week.

Both ships—the USS Porter and the USS Ross—essentially emptied their vertical launch tubes of TLAMs. The Department of Defense said 59 missiles were launched, which would be about half the total missile capacity of the two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers combined. The Porter and Ross are half of the Navy's forward-positioned destroyer force based in Rota, Spain, as part of NATO's European ballistic missile defense, so they were in the best position to undertake the Syrian strike.

The USS Porter empties its TLAM launch tubes in the Syria strike. (video link)

Enlarge / Major in the American film and the Japanese anime.

This analysis contains spoilers for the new Ghost in the Shell movie. Proceed with caution!

Over the weekend, I dragged my best friend–a biracial Japanese dude I’ve known for over a decade–to watch the new Ghost in the Shell movie. Like Ars Technica’s Sam Machkovech, we weren’t impressed. To my surprise, though, I didn’t actually hate Scarlett Johansson's role in the movie.

Her casting as the Major has been controversial, in part due to concerns about "whitewashing" (using white actors to play non-white characters). Yet Mamoru Oshii, director of the original 1995 anime, was unexpectedly supportive of the decision. Maybe that's because Johansson doesn’t pretend to be Motoko Kusanagi, the boisterous lead character from the original. Johansson's new character, Mira Killian, comes across as pure automaton, a blank slate devoid of emotional ties.

Enlarge (credit: Adidas)

German shoemaker Adidas will begin mass-producing a shoe with a 3D-printed sole, the company announced today. The process will allow for more personalized shoes, shaped to an individual's weight and gait.

"This is a milestone, not only for us as a company, but also for the industry," Gerd Manz, Adidas' head of technology, told Reuters. "We've cracked some of the boundaries."

Adidas is partnering with the 3D-printing startup Carbon to make the printed soles. Carbon has been financed by General Electric and Alphabet's Google division, as well as big venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital.