Tanks, you're welcome. Have some medicine!

So it would appear that the United States wishes to buy a few more Abrams tanks. By 'a few' I mean 'a few hundred' and by 'Abrams tanks' I mean the big mean machines they have a few thousand in spare. In spare, as in 'not in active service', 'for backup'. These are the top of the line tanks that are extremely difficult to even slow down, not to mention to halt permanently. Sure, an actor might be able to do it, but even that has to be an inside job.
The point where it gets interesting is that the military does not want the tanks. They find no use for them, they have more than plenty for any possible encounter. It is all the politicians' work. Isn't it natural to spend a few hundred million dollars on tanks that won't be used, but will require regular maintenance? Well, maybe not during an economic boom, but it appears to hit the nail during a slump.

And tanks are not the only machines that are costing lots of money and are more effective at their duties than puny humans.

Researchers in Indiana University put a computer to do a doctor's job. The result: "The computer was nearly 42% better at diagnosing illnesses and prescribing effective treatments than human doctors.", "The researchers also noticed a significant disparity in cost. Doctors charge about $497 per unit of outcome change, whereas the computer cost only $189 for the same measure.". A staggering result that might make one wonder how come those self-diagnosis web services fail so miserably. The reason, while some of it lies in the underlying architecture of the diagnosing algorithm, is mainly the evaluation. In the case of web pages, the person has to check oneself for symptoms, often missing or misnaming them, sometimes even thinking of symptoms they don't actually exhibit. For a proper examination, you need doctors and nurses. Once you have them, you can let the machine do the diagnosing, always under the watchful eye of the humans. The computer may be extremely adept at diagnosing illnesses and proposing cures, but it depends heavily on data collection. Often enough, subjective data collection. And that can only be done by people. So I wouldn't worry about healthcare suddenly becoming a lot more effective. There is time for that yet.


In other news, the Large Hadron Collider will remain nonoperational for the next two years due to upgrading and maintenance.