According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, a robot developed by defense firm BAE Systems is in trials as a tool for detecting illegal immigration. From the article:
Fitted with powerful searchlights and high-resolution video cameras, the robot – codenamed Hero – carries out detailed searches of the undersides of lorries and coaches.
It is also used inside the vehicles as its four-wheel drive enables it to scramble it over obstacles while looking for concealed people.
The robot can also be fitted with heartbeat detectors as well as sensors to identify chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials being smuggled into Britain.
All the better for rounding up the meat-people as soon as the machines awaken.
BoingBoing points to this map of Baarle-Hertog, a Belgian exclave in the Netherlands that contains seven Dutch exclaves of its own:
Each little patch of sovereign soil contains only a few houses, and some buildings straddle the border between two jurisdictions. A walk across town can mean crossing between countries several times. It’s not quite a burbclave in action, but the commingled countries come close. Pregnant women in the small town can choose their child’s citizenship by picking the room in which they give birth. When restaurants are required to close under Dutch law, their patrons can simply move to the Belgian side. Each town even has its own government, schools, police, and fire department, who determine which homes to serve by checking the flag on their address placards.
It may not be a portent for the future of the nation-state — the elaborate exclaves are the result of an obscure 12th century treaty — but Baarle Hertog is an interesting example of elements of polycentrism and the distributed republic in the real world.
