I doubt I have any American Readers, but my Canadian audience will know that tomorrow is Remembrance Day. Last Friday I woke up to the news of an army major who went on a shooting rampage after hearing that he was about to be deployed to Afghanistan. I wondered about the irony of training a man to kill people only to have him turn against his peers. I have heard some suggestions regarding his state of mind, but none of us will ever truly understand what drove him to do what he did. I am thankful that my own brother who served in the military never had to see “action” and think of my grandfather who died when I was eight, but to me will be remembered as a retired Sergeant from WW2. Both of them served in very different militaries than what we have today.
This is a technology blog, so why am I talking about war and honouring those who served? War making has become one of the biggest drivers of innovation in technology. Today’s Internet was created to connect educational institutions and driven part from a need to connect military minds across the US in the form of ARPANET. The satellite imaging that many of us use from Google’s Satellite View has been collected from military images that were only recently released to the public sector. And many of the security technologies that are used by businesses are based on, if not actual, military and government encryption schemes. Aerospace, medicine and other industries have also been enhanced my military technologies. I am not an advocate of war in any way, but wars have happened without asking my permission, so I try to look at any good that comes out of it. We all know that there are people in the world who will take advantage of others so it’s good to see that there are other people developing technologies that help protect us. Data encryption schemes protect our personal information and assets such as bank accounts from those who would try to steal. Imaging technologies like Google’s mapping technologies help emergency personnel locate those in need of medical care more quickly. I’m sure at this point there are a number of other technologies still being developed by the military, and hope that they will one day become part of the vast pool of resources available to the public domain that help improve our lives and health. I think that the best way to honour someone who served to protect our country is to look at the lasting improvements that they have given us.
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