Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

Hey, check this out. I saw it at The Drudge Report. Apparently, the US Air Force is developing laser weapons for fighter jets! Pretty neat, says I. Reminds me a little bit of Real Genius actually. Wonder if these are good for popcorn too?

Anyway, the best part of this article (I thought) was this:

The one unrealistic thing about the laser is the sound it makes. When fired, the simulator makes a noise that sounds a lot like a "Star Trek" phaser blast. In real life, the laser makes no noise at all.

"The problem is, pilots don't know when the weapon has fired if it doesn't make a noise," said Suzanne Baker, a software engineer who helped develop the system. "We got the noise for this one from Tactical Air Systems. I think they got it from 'Star Trek' or something, but I'm not sure. You'd think a bunch of nerds like us would know that."