Barry Fox over at the NewScientist Blogs writes,
The way to make firearms really safe, says Hebert Meyerle of Germany, is to password-protect the ammunition itself.
Meyerle is patenting a design for a modified cartridge that would be fired by a burst of high-frequency radio energy. But the energy would only ignite the charge if a solid-state switch within the cartridge had been activated. This would only happen if a password entered into the gun using a tiny keypad matched one stored in the cartridge.
When they are sold, cartridges could be programmed with a password that matches the purchaser’s gun. An owner could set the gun to request the password when it is reloaded, or to perform a biometric check before firing. The gun could also automatically lock itself after a pre-set period of time has passed since the password was entered.
The system would undoubtedly cost more than a conventional gun, but many firearm enthusiasts would surely pay a premium for such added security.
Plenty of good comments posted,
This is a terrible idea. It will hinder those who may need the weapon for self defense long enough to become dead, and will do absolutely NOTHING to stop an accidental death or misuse by a thieving criminal.
Want safer guns? Kill the criminals.
Thomas C. Greene writing for ©The Register exposes the implausibility of bringing liquid explosive onto airplanes.
“So the fabled binary liquid explosive – that is, the sudden mixing of hydrogen peroxide and acetone with sulfuric acid to create a plane-killing explosion, is out of the question. Meanwhile, making TATP ahead of time carries a risk that the mission will fail due to premature detonation, although it is the only plausible approach.
Certainly, if we can imagine a group of jihadists smuggling the necessary chemicals and equipment on board, and cooking up TATP in the lavatory, then we’ve passed from the realm of action blockbusters to that of situation comedy.
It should be small comfort that the security establishments of the UK and the USA – and the “terrorism experts” who inform them and wheedle billions of dollars out of them for bomb puffers and face recognition gizmos and remote gait analyzers and similar hi-tech phrenology gear – have bought the Hollywood binary liquid explosive myth, and have even acted upon it.
We’ve given extraordinary credit to a collection of jihadist wannabes with an exceptionally poor grasp of the mechanics of attacking a plane, whose only hope of success would have been a pure accident. They would have had to succeed in spite of their own ignorance and incompetence, and in spite of being under police surveillance for a year.
But the Hollywood myth of binary liquid explosives now moves governments and drives public policy. We have reacted to a movie plot. Liquids are now banned in aircraft cabins (while crystalline white powders would be banned instead, if anyone in charge were serious about security). Nearly everything must now go into the hold, where adequate amounts of explosives can easily be detonated from the cabin with cell phones, which are generally not banned.”
Read More Here.
are bloggers and messages boards trying to destroy capitalism. The snowball effect caused by one incident being posted on the internet is quite remarkable.
Dell get pwned
00:33 – July 12, 2006
This isn’t the first time the blogosphere has been used as a means of attack, from Wal-Mart to George Bush, blogs have become a vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns. All it takes is pissing off one halfway creative person with an internet connection and you are in trouble.
The lesson here is that savvy companies and individuals have to come up with a plan for mitigating the impact. Hire PR firms, blog monitors, and invest in your own bloggers. The best that you can hope for is to try to obfuscate the negative by adding to the noise. Ahh, the internet, isn’t it lovely.
From the Daily Show, Fall of 2005. Seems relevant.
The Roast of William Shatner is coming up this weekend on Comedy Central. 10p/9c…check your local listings!
From Comedy Central:
It’s William Shatner’s turn to step in to the celebrity hot seat for the latest installment of The Comedy Central Roast. A parade of Shatner’s friends have gotten together to boldly go where no one has gone before: on William Shatner’s sh*tlist. Tune in as some of Shatner’s closest friends hang out, have a few drinks, listen to a live performance by one of the hottest bands around, and then spend ninety minutes ridiculing and insulting the man behind Captain Kirk. So sit back and enjoy the night of insults as Shatner’s tries not to lose his cool – or his toupee!