San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
Northrop Grumman's Fire Scout drone went rogue last fall
Remember last fall when one of the Navy's MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopters, created by Northrop Grumman, lost its data connection with its human puppet-masters and wandered on its own above Washington, DC totally unsupervised? No? C'mon! The headlines were awesome:
"MQ-8 Fire Scout UAV resists its human oppressors, joyrides over Washington DC"
"ROBOT KILL-CHOPPER GOES ROGUE above Washington DC!"
Last Thursday, I attended Congressman Duncan D. Hunter's job fair at Cuyamaca College and picked up this little stress-relieving pen-toy from Northrop Grumman's table:
Imagine this little rainbow-haired, bobbly bastard breaking free of your control and wandering aimlessly around the office. That's some never-sleep-again shit right there. The thing will suction cup you to death.
I can say this: The device failed CityBeat's trial. I've been playing it in our music editor Peter Holslin's ear all morning with the hope that it would help him feel great and have a stress-free day as he attempts to make deadline on our annual local-music special issue.
"It's grating and I want it to stop," Holslin says.
