Showing posts with label Danger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danger. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Beavisovich and Buttheadinsky build a death ray


There is a geopolitical moral to this story where two Russian kids build a death ray out of a microwave oven by attaching the magnetron tube to a long cable and focusing the radiation with a "cantenna."

This allows them to do neat -- and deadly dangerous -- tricks like lighting up unwired light bulbs and blowing up a boomboxky by aiming the tin-can antenna at it.

(Music.) Bbbrrrrrrraaaaaaaappppppp . . . BOOMSKY! (Ding!)


As Gizmodo said in its post on Beavisovich and Buttheadinsky Meet the Geek Squad:

So don't take a microwave apart. Don't. Take. A microwave. Apart. Don't do it. Don't! But if you were curious about what would happen if you did, these idiots have you covered. It's as awesome as it is stupid! It is very awesome and very stupid.
NOW, to the geopolitical moral of this story. Don't think the Russian armed forces haven't thought of the same thing as a couple of kids in Bumf**kinsky, Russia. Only bigger. Much, much bigger.

This is why you trad carefully around the Russian bear. This is why you don't poke the Russian bear with a sharp stick just because you think you can. You know, like pushing NATO right up to its borders -- or like fomenting revolution in Ukraine.

That's the foreign-policy version of screwing around with a microwave oven for kicks and giggles. What could go wrong?

NO, the moral here isn't overly complicated or obtuse. Don't screw with the Russians. Don't. Screw. With. The Russians. 

Them people's crazy.


UPDATE: I knew there had to be some weaponized version of this out there. And there is. But imagine what the Russkies probably have done with the technology. Bet their anti-personnel version does more than cause "excruciating pain."

Thursday, April 05, 2012

The world through Google-powered glasses


If you think distracted driving is a problem now, just wait.

Above we see a promotional video for Google's new "augmented-reality" glasses. What that means in this case is your Android-based smartphone is now in a pair of glasses.

Oh, joy.

I enjoy technology. I appreciate, and daily take advantage of, its practical applications -- the ability, for one thing, to accomplish in minutes or seconds what would have taken me hours or days in 1979. And we all now take for granted the ease with which we keep up with one another, whether we be across an ocean or across the street . . . instantly and cheaply.

Remember waiting days and weeks for a letter? Or astronomical long-distance bills?



WHAT I do not appreciate, though, is a world in which everyone's brain is overloaded by non-stop information and ceaseless connectivity. I don't appreciate numbskulls barreling down the road texting on their iPhones -- or even talking on them, for that matter. I want their eyes, and their minds, focused on the road before them.

I don't appreciate an overstimulated world filled with people who no longer have the luxury of being alone with their thoughts, or of being unconnected long enough to actually form coherent thoughts.

I don't appreciate this present era of unceasing stimuli, instant overreaction and no contemplation. I likewise don't appreciate the ability technology gives us to instantly raise a lynch mob, instead of taking the time to put one together the old-fashioned way which, at least theoretically, gives the designated victim a head start.

I don't appreciate talking to someone as he thumbs through his E-mail or sends text messages to someone obviously more important than I am at that particular moment.

AND I would say that I don't appreciate not being left the hell alone from time to time . . . but that's a problem I have solved.
How? By not having a personal cell phone.

We own exactly one of the things, and the missus can have it. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be looking at the world through Google glasses, either.