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Gadget-Heavy Trucks For Fun And Mayhem
"The Bluetooth PAN will be created using BlueDrekar and Bluetooth Ethernet Emulator. You will be able to inter-connect PDA, cellphones, and a laptops to play games, exchange data, and control things like the doors, lights of the car, and stereo. TSpaces will be the backbone communication middleware for accessing and controlling the electrical functions of the car. They are going to use Blue Eyes, a user interface that detects a person's eyeballs and responds to blinking commands to turn on/off the lights and doors of the car. ViaVoice will perform voice recognition email management, voice-activated control of air conditioning in the car, as well as voice-enabled access to MP3 files through the car stereo system. The car will debut at a conference in San Francisco."
*sarcasm on* Yes, this project was started on January 20th at 12:01 in the afternoon and the military, known for their ability to quickly develop functional new prototypes cranked this baby out in a few months! *sarcasm off* This was funding from the Clinton era. Sorry to burst your bubble. All the bad and stupid things in the world didn't start on Bush's first day in office. The government, the military, and the real world doesn't run that way.
What's up with this "black box" idea? I'm sure there are privacy concerns here if they mean like on a plane where it records the pilots' conversations. But maybe they just mean it records my direction, speed, location and other stats about me.
Of course, that would be invaluable information for reconstructing the circumstnces of an accident to determine fault, so I'll bet insurance companies will be pushing for this technology, as will law enforcement. Of course, the cameras mounted at every intersection help, but they're just not invasive enough.
Does anyone have one of those cars where you dial up and ask for directions? Anyone worried about having a microphone planted in your car that can be potentially turned on without you being aware of it?
Has anyone noticed those black helicopters? What's up with that?
Anyway, I'm glad I'm wearing this tinfoil hat.
I'd think that the majority of people who need to be concerned about these (if there are any) would have sources that are more reliable than /. and probably told them all about such vehicles a long time ago.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Another communist nation eh? Gosh, that's a valid reason. Hey, I don't like your right-wing Republican government - I vote for invading America. After all, it's the closest country to us (if you go west) and I don't agree with the way it runs itself.
Sheesh.
http://www.icrc-hq.com/st.htmi d= ns9999822
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?
--
rant
Once again, a knife-weilding maniac has shown us the way.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Yep, that is all we need.
A vehicle that ocupies a greater than needed amount of space, while using a greater than needed amount of fuel, to inflate the egos and fit the lifestyle of what we currently think of success. So we add devices that consume a greater than average amount of the drivers attention, being that the SUV is more survivable in crashes it will all even out. Except for those of us actually driving small fuel efficent cars or (gasp!) ride bikes to work, who get run over by drivers while they are checking their e-mail with their blue tooth enabled, satelite link PDA.
Progress, I guess.
Yeah, well, according to the article at SpaceDaily.com:
"Its primary subsystems have been packaged in several transportable, semi-trailer-sized shipping containers, allowing it to be deployed to other test or operational locations."
I'd really like to see how they manage to fit a laser with enough power to damage or destroy even a small (perhaps man-sized or car-sized) target into the back of a pickup truck and still have room for those cell-phone-and-360-degree-camera-using passengers.
Granted, who knows what the military has under development, but a year isn't much time to engineer a three-semi (or one-747) sized piece of equipment down to a truck-bed.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
This is true. And it's not like Ford's spilling oil out behind them is some kind of new technological invention.
Just goes to show you a bug CAN be a feature if marketed to the right people.
Jeeps (Willys) had this in the late 40's - early 50's. Of course, it wasn't very reliable :)
The SmarTruck, built by the US army [...] able to spill oil [...] behind itself
Hell, that's nothing new. My Civic has been doing that for years! Of course, I can't turn it off. Oh well.
This isn't meant for use as a weapon. It's meant to ensure Bush stays rich even after we have orbiting solar power sats sending us terawatts of free power via microwave beams.
You've never played sim-city, have you? Terawatts of power cutting through downtown nowhereville is a bad side effect
Lowmag.net
The second thing (rear wheels turning the same way as the front) *is* strafing (to a certain extent), that's exactly what I was talking about... If all the wheels could be turned 90 degrees you could imagine that being pretty useful at low speeds for parking.
As for the "snowplow", I'm not sute sure why anyone took that seriously.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Have you ever seen the movie "Stripes"? That RV ruled. The whole movie was pretty damn good though.
There's another article on this at the BBC
Comes with an interior shot, too...
one does not play Illuminati, it plays with you...
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Since this thing is based on the Ford Explorer, you can probably expect oil usage to increase only slightly when deploying oil slicks.
Yeah, think so far outside of the box by copying other people's ideas.
Or thats what my first impression was. Still really very cool. I was thinking to myself, great they are giving away all the secrets of the thing, then I realized that possibly the majority of people who would run into these things probably wont be reading something like this.
Anyone else familiar with the paper and dice game from Steve Jackson? There was even a computer version for Apple II once.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
It's not that hard - blindness (as in do not stare into laser with remaining eye).
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
I can't wait until gas prices in the US reach $5/gallon, then all these huge SUV driving motherf*ckers will be crying. Me, I drive the Insight, I get about 55 mpg, so that's 605 miles to the 11 gallon tank.
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microsoft, it's what's for dinner
bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
it's a sig, wtf?
We got ourselves one heavily armed recreational vehicle!
It's just like the Urban Assault Vehicle from the movie Stripes with Bill Murray. The main difference being that that was an RV and this is a truck.
Well, you'd need one hell of a lot of steel plate to stop a land mine, remote-controlled explosive, limpet mine or similar device, wouldn't you? Given that mines can be dangerous to main battle tanks, ISTR... so probably they figured that it wasn't worth it.
The ballistic protection should help against small-arms fire. They're not trying to design something that can absorb an antitank missile -- just light protection. Which makes sense for civillians, such as those worried about being kidnapping targets.
A kidnapper probably wouldn't use a rocket or a mine since he needs the victim alive (or, at least, present the impression that the victim is still alive)... but he might well use somebody to shoot the driver, or so forth.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
...but is it remote-controllable via an intuitive touch-pad?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
...enormous do everything trucks are a far cry from the BMW 750iL, not to mention the smaller cars like Z3 or Z8.
I got stuck on the part:
We've got to think out of the box
In other words, original thinking requires copying Sci-fi...
Ozwald
If this is truely a bond car, it will have a fold-down bed in the back...with a martini bar. I don't want to know what the government plans to do with that.
FoonDog
My car has been spilling oil behind it for years. What the heck took them so long?
Its interesting to note how the technology the army uses has evolved since WWII, as a result of a shift in our motivation for combat. In that war, we were ostensibly trying to free people from the tyranny of Fascism, and as such had popular support from the local population . Since then we've entered into any number of battle zones where we are there out of our own selfish interests, and naturally we don't have popular support in the areas where our troops are. Development of Less Lethal weapons such as this vehicle are nothing more than an attempt to avoid the fact that we're not there to help the local population, we're there to help ourselves (See: Somalia - Oil, Grenada - Get eyes off of Reagan's illicit activities, bombing Kosovo - Get eyes of Clinton's illicit activities.)
-Spazimodo
Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
Millennium Crisis Line: 0890 900 2000 [calls cost 50p/min]
This is the follow up to the Excursion. Its called the Excretion and it will be targetted at the Soccer Mom who needs to haul around her kids, 500 lbs of cappucino AND wreck the environment more than the last model
More
Shouldn't that be VAN? :)
(vehicle area network)
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Do you have any better hostages?
I want to know more about this "laser" weapon.
And the
"Alan Parsons Project"....
and
"Death star"
But seriously, do we have laser destructive enough to warrant being on a super vehicle? If so, why is this the first I have heard of them?
I can just see it now: It dark out, you get something in your eye and blink like crazy. The vehicle starts flashing the lights, causing you to blink even more from the blinding flashes of light!
The Platinum sponsors of this project are WebSphere, XML, and Linux.
Glad to see that XML and Linux are finally starting to understand marketing...
Partially right. But guess who owns Aston Martin? Yup, the Ford Motor Company. And believe me, it's disgusting to see that a $150,000 car has the same huge, black plastic doorlocks as a normal Ford Transit van. Utterly tasteless.
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
Maybe this vehicle is for his kids, so they can drink and drive without being arrested?
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
Don't know who came up with the idea of modding your post to Flamebait... But this demonstrates the truth in this post.
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
(Guys, if you moderate this, please take the time to understand what I mean here before slapping Offtopic, Flamebait or whatever on it.)
And who do you think wrote that book? Try to read the real communist books, for example Das Kapital by Marx. That's a book that talks about communism the way it's meant to be, not what Stalin and his accomplices made of it. Ever read The Animal Farm and understood what it was talking about? Guess not, or you wouldn't have posted the article this way.
And no, I'm not a communist. I'm just a European guy that's open-minded enough to recognise that communism indeed is based on some great ideas. Guys like Stalin had as much to do with communism as Hitler had with fascism: they all used (or better: abused) a philosophy to suppress and murder. Mind you, I'm not defending these guys here, just mention them to illustrate things.
I know there are a lot of people that will disapprove of this post simply because I used the name of Hitler, but let's go even further... Have you ever read the Bible? As a good WASP I'm sure you have. Did it ever occur to you that what Jesus preached was more communism than the American dream or did you fail to notice that? His ideas where for the larger part the same as those of Engels and Marx. Still, most people in Western countries believe in this ideals but a lot frown on communism. Isn't that ironic? No, I'm not religious either...
Just my 2 Eurocents opinion...
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
Correct, that's exactly why every modern car has ABS.
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
I like the fact that the Ford vehicle from AlphaWorks is driving on the bad firestone tires. Priceless.
--And sektor spoke and said unto the people. Hey, buttwipe hand me the cheezeos.
Using this "Laser"..........
this is awesome, this makes my want to join the army specail forces, just for the chance to be in one of theese vehicles.
$40 Logitech joystick? Not in a military project, surely.
$4 Million Logitech joystick is more like it!
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
Great. We'll soon see "You killed me while I was typing!!!!" replaced with "WTF d00d I HAD 2 DRIVE!!!!"
This sig is xenon coated, and will glow red when in the presence of aliens
New for SUV, see the story at the onion. See the first picture in the side bar.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
I bet he was thinking Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
grenade launcher and voice acticated mp3 player?
these guys know how to party!
Silly slashdot, sigs are for kids!
My brother's selling it because he has two Mazda 323 GTX's (Turbo, AWD) and just bought a new Subaru WRX (Turbo, AWD -- seeing a trend with my brother??)
Agreed. I'm currently driving my brother's 1991 Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 (number 478 of 2000), and it has 4 wheel steering, in addition to a turbo 2.0l and all-wheel drive. It's for sale, if you're interested...
So, all it takes to be considered a "geek" these days is a fondness for James Bond movies? ;p~
If only I had known it was that easy.
lol, close enough. =)
Electric door handles? Meh, I'll wear rubber gloves. ;p~
Tacks that flatten tires? Sorry, bub. I use those new tires that don't deflate when punctured.
I'd hate to see their idea of a Bond Girl! "Gentlemen, we have to think outside of the box!" [Three Weeks Later] "We present our new Bond Girl, Janet Reno!"
No, I leave that to the professionals who get paid to do that. My point is that developing advanced physical population control tools is not why I pay taxes. I pay taxes to support institutions that work for the public good.
seeing as any direct-laser weapon would need a HUGE set of batteries, probably more than the truck. Whereas laser-guided rockets are spec, maybe it's a typo.
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I am currently not obliged to divulge that information as it might compromise the agents in the field
Don't get me wrong, it seems cool in concept. But these people are spending our money on this. The only reason for this vehicle mentioned in the article was escape an embassy being overthrown. I don't doubt there aren't uses for this, but I'd like to know what they are.
puck
"When we go to Bosnia, we bring in a Humvee with a 50-caliber machine gun"
The article states that they like to "blend into the environment"
well I dunno bout you - but last time I was running down a 3rd world street - the hummers with 50-cal guns sure got my attention.
and now they think that a nice "chineey" new SUV with a laser gun is gunna blend in?
well I may be just a "normal" 'merican citizen - but when you state that it resembles the "presidential wheels" that are occasionally used - and I am a bosnian terrorist, I sure as hell will take note.
It would be funny if someone hacked one to say "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that."
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Actually Stalin is only one chapter in the failure of socialism/communism/fascism (take your pick they're all branches on the same rotten tree). China, Cambodia, Germany and Russia are all great examples of the absolute failure of the Communist ideals. Differences in implementation, but the one thing they all had in common was they agreed with Marx that genocide was an integral part of implementing a communist system.
Try to think more along the lines of Linus Torvalds and his GNU/Linux system. That is what Communism get you.
So you're saying that Microsoft is right, and the GPL is Communist? Seriously, Linux is basically a copy of an OS that was invented in the US over 25 years ago. The BSD OSes have the same roots and are at least equal to if not superior to Linux. Besides, someone volunteering their time to contribute to a project like Linux is nothing like trying to run a nation-state. Because contributing to a GPL project is voluntary. And no GPL project has ever resulted in genocide. Communism gets you stagnation, starvation, gulags and genocide.
artists, musicians, novelists, scientists
And many people from all those categories and many more have fled to the US over the past 200 or so years for the chance at even greater opportunity and freedom than what they had in Europe.
You speak of history? Read the Black Book of Communism sometime and then tell me if you still think Communism is such a hot idea.
(By which I mean, I saw it on slashdot)
~
Kris Felscher
Kris Felscher
We've got enough youth, how about a fountain of "smart"?
Although I can see the point of a company looking into this sort of stuff (even though the idea that "TSpaces will be the backbone communication middleware for accessing and controlling the electrical functions of the car" seem quite worrying), it's a shame the public have to pay to taxes for this sort of crap - have a guess at how much it would have cost (Blockbuster rentals included). It seems that the idea was probably borne more out of lasviscious gadget wants than practicality.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
My dad once worked for the Las Alamos national labs, and they woudl send out trucks full of nuclear waste. The semis had solid rubber tires (make for a bumpy ride) bullet proof windows, etc, and they were escorted by two black suburbans, full of people armed to teh teeth.
One day a cop pulled the semi over. in under a minute, he was surrounded by men in black holding sub machine guns pointed at his head.
talk about a bad day at work.
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
And they recently inked a deal with Firestone for military-spec exploding tires. Good price too!
Anybody want a peanut?
I really hope this isn't gonna be one of those things they do without thinking about it beforehand. Sure, it's nice to imagine lazing back in the reclined driver's seat, issuing commands "Turn left! Right! Brake!"
On the plus side, it would put a stop to cellphones in cars, after a few freak accidents "That's 'right' Fred, that's a great idea! Shhhhi..."
Then again, mapping "Shhiii..." to the brakes could be fun too.
And you Americans could bring the legal driving age right down from that crazy 13 years old (in some states, isn't it?) to about 2-3, junior's first words.
weak! - that was the best feature of the Goldfinger Aston-Martin. Oh, the license plates that flipped over was also the best feature. Um, and the "Ben-Hur chariot race wheel spikes" were also the best feature.
This seems like some sort of elaborate hoax to me. This seems to be a vehicle of merciless destruction. Thats not what the army is about.. its about protecting.
:-)
In addition, to my knowledge, there is no such thing as a laser gun (that could fit on this type of truck)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Aside from the honda's, there was also the mitsu 3000 GT VR4/Dodge Stealth RT that had 4 wheel steering...
Also, and this is my opinion, a GM suburban would be better to use b/c it is a much lighter vehicle to begin with, and the engines available still allow the tahoe/suburban to tow as much, and more in some case than the ford suck-'scursion....
Oh well, my .02, take it or leave it ;oP
Caino
Don't touch my .sig there!
Without claiming to be an auto geek I have to wonder whether this would be a useful technique. When your wheels lock, you lose the ability to steer. You skid, correct? This is why you are told to "steer into the skid" in order to regain steering control.
So, you turn all the wheels inward. What happens? Either all the wheels skid, and you lose control of where you are going. Or the wheels on one side of the vehicle skid, while the wheels on the other side try to roll in the direction they are pointing. Your car spins, and you lose control.
Truck manufacturers will soon let this feature become standard on ALL trucks, starting with dualies. They argued back and forth, not quite sure if women would be able to drive them(no joke). While I don't know what women have to do with steering, lots of construction vehicles have four wheel steering. It takes about two minutes to figure out how to get good. Remembering to align all wheels helps the transport go straight.
You know the Microsoft destroys the night, Linux devides the day...
I played Car Wars once, many years ago. My current motor mayhem game of choice is Carmageddon. The primary weapon is the car body itself. Other capabilities include:
Yeah, that's why I always put the power plant near the edge of the map. Less area for the fire to spread when it blows.
Also seemed like Godzilla stomped on it less if it was at the edge too.
There's a place in Canada doing Chevy 350 V8 conversions that says they'd do a Dodge/Cummins Turbodiesel for a little extra.
That's the poop, right there...300hp & 700ft/lbs torque from a tweaked Cummins in a 'mog.. Just the thing for the ranch. I'll have to get me one of those..
Albeit passive, and set for high speed action, not maneuvering the Porker in the parking lot.
Nothing is new...
Buy an Explorer, get pda and cell phone for free.
and as more Explorers blow up over time...
Buy our pda and cell phone, get an Explorer for free
And in 2005..
Buy the Palm XIV B, and get two Ford Explorers for free. Buy Now!
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Well, hope they take it easy on the road, ot they'll have more mayhem than they bargained for...
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Cool ... we now have a high tech truck that will likely be never used, we truly are evolving to higher levels of intelligence, guess we have to wait for the oil companies to produce some practical technology .... I mean wait for the oil supply to be sold off for maximum profit before we have some chance of not drowning under rising oceans. Maybe it should have been a boat?
2 wrongs dont make a right - but 3 lefts do
This is kind of like that supertruck in Tango & Cash... remember that movie? Its about time someone built one of those :-) But I think in that movie it was a Dodge Ram... and no lasers, but there was a gatling gun... why didn't they put one of those on this truck?
If its broke, duct tape it until it works
sudo eat my shorts
And you thought all those people driving around and talking on their cell phones were bad (not that I would ever do such a thing... ). My favorite part of the article (or maybe it's another I read about the same thing) is where it talks about the "kevlar-like" substance that covers all interior surfaces, except the floorboard. So all they need is a landmine or a frag grenade underneath, and they're all toast. Reminds me of the Bradley....
D'oh -- the stuff that buys me beer! Ray -- the guy who sells me beer!
Great! Now the army is stealing ideas from bad 80's TV shows. I just saw an episode of Scarecrow and Ms. King that featured an idea very similar to what's stated in the article. It was an RV instead of an SUV but the concepts the same. Shame it does not have wood-paneling...
My '91 Corsica has been spilling oil behind for a long time...
Sig this.
Quote from CNN:
Warren, Michigan-based NAC, which is part of the Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, designed the SmarTruck with urban warfare in mind -- against enemies such as terrorists, mobsters or urban warlords.
"The reason we were thinking about urban warfare is because the Army increasingly is being pulled into policing duties," Fuller said.
The SmarTruck might be used to ferry important dignitaries or explore enemy territory. It won't however, be used as an offensive weapon.
"We're not trying to kill anybody," she said. "What we want to do is immobilize."
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I'd rather have one with a Duramax 6600.
300 HP and 520 ft/lbs stock with a turbocharger.
Now the Dodges are going to loose thier Cummins Turbodiesels in favor of a DC diesel, not too sure about that, Cummins makes a really good engine.
I don't think the Unimog I used ever made it above 45 though. It was sweet off the road though.
Used one to haul around beehives in Northern Israel in '94.
I see it used in the place of "War Wagons", Suburbans and Excursions with armor plate and armored glass used for VIP operations, prisoner transport.
It could also be used in a patrol mode similar to what the Hummers do in urban areas.
These vehicles would be used in low intensity areas or the rear. Places like Kosovo now, or Somolia in the early 90s.
>them is some kind of new technological
>invention.
Yeah, but they must be feeling foolish about buying out Jaguar now that the government has paid them to develop a simlar technology . . .
Acdtually, a friend of mine solved that oil leak problem on an XJ12. Amazing what you can do with a Chevy 400 . . .
hawk, still missing his Impala 400
Due to "unspecified" distractions, the results of the first test drive left a bit to be desired.
Guess it'll only be deployed in areas that have gas stations every 30 miles.
--
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
...the SmarTruck (wtf kinda name is that, anyway?)...
Maybe that's where they bought it: "Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart."
--
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Will the civilian models come with Gold Cross?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They mention they have all-wheel steering, which I'm pretty sure means all four wheels are capable or turning independantly.
That instantly brought to mind the coolest steering feature you could ever have - strafing! You just glide back and forth while pointed straight ahead the whole time.
Second most useful feature - the emergency "snowplow" ski stop as all wheels turn inward at once.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The vehicle also comes equipped with a black box, like the ones that record mechanical functions and pilot conversations on airplanes.
"The auto companies are very interested in this feature," Wend said. "They are looking at adapting those black boxes for consumer use any day now. They could reduce warranty costs and speed up service by diagnosing and even fixing problems remotely."
I wonder if the reason they're interested is "reduce warranty costs" == "deny warranty claims"
I've heard that there may be tracking/monitoring equipment in rental cars nowadays. Anybody heard anything?
...as if those oversized SUV drivers weren't getting annoying enough... now they're gonna slick me if I try and pass and plug my ass if I push my grocery cart in their path!?
No, I think the idea of sicking military contractors on creating a bond car counts, though... ;-)
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
If you've seen anything about Project Land Warrior, you'd know that in addition to the generals watching Bond flicks, the read Robert Anson Heinlein and watch Aliens...
www.eFax.com are spammers
Yeah, as if Linux would solve anything here: "Major Emciessi! It's Colonel Panic on the phone! He demands ..."
And I'm not talking about the CD-ROM. You can't fight wars or put down riots without your caffeine.
How come this thing reminds me of the EM-50 from Stripes?? I keep hearing Bill Murray saying razzle dazzle or seeing him doing the Aunt Jemima thing with that hot MP. It's still cool though.
Gorkman
When we lived in S.C. We would see sometimes Semi-trucks going down I95 at 90 miles per hour. Just happened to have a full sized subruban with very dark windows, in the front and rear.
One bright afternoon, one of these caravans went zooming past us, and you could see a guy setting at a machine gun in the back. So I am willing to say these are escort truck's for munitions, or nuclear fuel transport.
http://www.ford-trucks.com/news/news88.html
Apparently there were going to run it off of propane.
But an even larger one is the Chrysler Unimog, snippet here:
http://www.climateark.org/articles/2001/1st/dachve hi.htm
which is somewhat imprssive:
DaimlerChrysler's decision to market its nine-foot-tall Unimog truck as a luxurious off-road vehicle has environmentalists fuming about the necessity for this oversized "dinosaur" on US roads. The 12,500-pound behemoth--bigger than General Motors' Hummer and Ford's Excursion--gets about 10 miles to the gallon. SUVs, driven by many urban and suburban residents who never go off-road, have come under fire for a number of reasons, including poor gas mileage and safety issues when involved in two-car collisions.
I have this picture of this being driven by a short little old lady who only visists the grandkids, and plays doom on the weekends.
(I really did know a silver haired lady who used to go into one store to get the latest doom expansion packs. It was funny as heck to hear her talk!)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
After reading the article I am not sure what use this would be in a military to military confrontation. It does seem like it would be usefull to attack the public when they do things like excercise thier right to protest.
Personally, I could do with a localized EMP device, which kills the ignition in a road-rager vehicle. Nothing like cooling his heels at the roadside for a while to reflect on his need to be "there" 0.1 second sooner than having to wait behind one more vehicle.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's interesting that the US military has decided to take cues from Ian Flemming. You'd think it would be more useful to seek guidance from someone like Peter Wright who was one of the real life developers of the spy gadgets attributed to Q in the Bond movies. You'd think they would have sought out the real thing rather than intentionally imitating art. Somehow, I'd expect the systems to work better if the source material wasn't hollywood fantesy. Oh, well. These are your tax $$$ at work...
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I have an 88' Lincoln Continental.
I get 12 miles to the gallon,
It has all kinds of gadgets, like a do-hicky that turns on my lights when it gets dark for me.
And it drives like a tank, and leaks oil behind it!
And I'm sure the doors are thick enough to stop small arms fire!
And, I am putting a mp3 system in the trunk, and possibly a cross over cable attached in the back seat so that friends can sync laptops.
I am actually thinking of running Viavoice, so that I could have voice control, but right now I am only running dos on the computer, and its only 120mhz, so Windows would kinda kill it.
How long until the local police officers decide they need a similar vehicle to keep us in check?
seeing a trend with my brother? Yes, he has good taste :)
I had a 1991 Eagle Talon Tsi AWD (built by Mitsu), and now I drive a rally blue WRX. People ask about it every time I stop to re-fuel.
"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
I saw a picture of this truck (the Army's version) in Popular Mechanics. There was a $40 Logitech joystick sitting on the back seat - incidentally, the same joystick a friend of mine owns. I'd like to know exactly what the hell a Logitech joystick is doing in there? Is it so the vehicle's occupants can play Quake Tournament on the seat mounted displays over a satellite link to the Internet? If you tell me it's actually part of the truck's command & control systems, I'm going to be ROTFLMAO.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Yes. Say our government buys a bunch of these "SmarTrucks". Since we are being hypothetical here, say a situation develops in which we depend on one of these SUV-on-steroids to rescue a diplomat. We get the diplomat inside the vehicle, and in the interest of our hypothesis, a wild-eyed terrorist grabs the door handle and is immobilized by the shock. Another terrorist, wild-eyed as the first, opens fire with his submachine gun, only to see his bullets richochet. A small cadre of wild-eyed terrorists sitting behind a barricade are blown away by the grenade launcher. As the SmarTruck speeds away, the wild-eyed terrorists in pursuit are foiled by an oil slick.
Meanwhile, another wild-eyed terrorist taps away on a keyboard...
Inside the SmarTruck, the driver's eyes light up in horror as these dreaded words scroll across his heads-up display: How are you gentlemen !!
Sure, this "SmarTruck" is gonna impress the hell out of a lot of people (just read all the previous posts). But what good will that be when someone remotely overflows a buffer and disables the vehicle's systems? I'm a U.S. citizen--may I have my money back?
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
DaimlerChrysler isn't building and marketing the Unimog in the US for an SUV, it's a medium duty truck to compete with the Isuzu/General Motors medium duty truck.
a ul t.htm
I used an Unimog in Israel, one with a flat bed and a crane, nice work truck...but it's not SUV. They've been built since the early 50s and are really stout trucks. But the MB diesel in the Unimog, which will be the diesel in the new Dodge Ram trucks isn't near as nice as the Isuzu diesel that GM is putting in the new HD series Chevy and GM 2500/3500 trucks.
http://www.mercedes-benz.com/e/ecars/unimog/def
In the US it's going to be sold through Freightliner...not the usual stop for the Soccer Mom looking for a truck.
"We've got to think out of the box"
In other words, original thinking requires copying Sci-fi...
You're not the first person to say this, and I'm still confused by it. Since when did "think outside of the box" mean "think only original thoughts"?
Whatever your local value of "the box" is, thinking outside of the box is getting a different perspective and thinking in ways that those who still have the provincial perspective cannot.
Granted, one of the benefits of this process is often original ideas, but another is the fusion of external ideas with your own. Clearly, this car is not an exact replica of a bond car, but something that seeks to apply modern military technology to the idea (ala Bond) of an offensive and defensive-capable super-car.
Vanity, vanity... all the world is vanity, and there is nothing new under the sun. But that doesn't mean that you can't blend the old in interesting ways!
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
"Canyonero! Canyonero!"
props to all dead homiez
It seems more likely they watched "Stripes", with Bill Murray. This is more like the Urban Assault Vehicle from that movie than anything that Bond or his villians have had.
They just needed to go to South Africa and take a look at the "theft deterrent devices" many clever motorists have installed, like the flamethrowers along the bottom of both sides of the car activated with a foot pedal.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
will be shut down.
It's called the 'Excursion.' It's really the ultimate battle vehicle:
- It is HUGE. This strikes fear into the hearts of your bravest enemies
- Because of the size, it can ram anything off the road, even Suburbans
- It has bars that pop down from underneath it when you try to run something over, just in case your enemy saw Speed and wants to go under you
- The ultimate Gas Embargo: rather than helping you cut off a nation's supply of gas, it simply uses it up before they can
- Built for modern war, this is a real suburban assault vehicle
- Large enough to smuggle small european nations in the back
Thes things are going fast! Buy now!
And for the ultimate in biological warfare, check out the Aztek: Ugly enough to cause enemies to vomit upon seeing it.
Quality of my life has defenetely risen since I was able to buy one of the new Tracks equiped with the best army stuff they stole from Bond movies. Now, when I take the track to the shop, they don't just check oil levels and wipe the windshield. They also check the levels of plutonium for my laser turret with 360degree of freedom. I load cannons with enough ammo for a two way grocery trip. Every time I take highway on my way home from work, I push the button to dump enough nails and sharp edged pieces of coil behind me, so that no one would try to cut me of, I even added an extra powered air pump to the sprayer. This way the nails cover all four lanes. My night vision cameras and heat seaking missiles are very convenient for an evening tour of the city. Did I mention that the track can also float in the water? That's a super. Once I tried using the laser to blast a car barrier in the shopping mall when someone double parked me, I got a ticket that time. Damn. In any case, I sure am glad that the army decided to start selling these babies to general public, they are to die for!
You can't handle the truth.
Here is another article about the new US army's truck
I sure hope this works better than the Navy's "Smart Ship"...
("Major Emciessi! It's General Protectionfault on the phone! He demands to know why our SmarTrucks' laser keep spontaneously activating themselves and burning '1 0wn J00!' into nearby objects!...)
---
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
In case you haven't read the article, this very first paragraph stopped me in my tracks:
;-)
It was a direct order from the high command: Before designers at the Army's National Automotive Center in Warren began creating their first-ever concept truck, they had to watch four James Bond movies.
Wow. Generals *can* be geeks!
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
Only the Bush administration would be able to approve this and pull it off. The next SmarTruck after this will feature high-pressure hoses blasting oil for hundreds of feet to knock down walls, launching "hot-oil ballons" over hills to burst on enemy's heads, and creating an even bigger demand for more oil drilling.
This isn't meant for use as a weapon. It's meant to ensure Bush stays rich even after we have orbiting solar power sats sending us terawatts of free power via microwave beams.
:-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
One of SmarTruck's advanced features, all-wheel steering, is due out on some 2002 GM vehicles.
All wheel steering really isn't that new. Honda Preludes had this feature in the late 80's to early 90's IIRC. Looks like GM uses Microsoft's definition of innovation. Still, the SmarTruck (wtf kinda name is that, anyway?) looks like the ultimate road-rage vehicle. Just the thing for those crowded L.A. freeways.
I take drugs seriously.
I could have just given them my 1986 Oldsmobile Delta 88, and saved them a few million dollars.
----
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
We are ABOVE a third-world city street. Directly below us, the SmarTruck is zooming along at 75mph. Most of the traffic (animals, bikes, cars) is pulled over, but the SmarTruck is being pursued by four cop cars, and a helicopter. All are firing at the SmarTruck.
We SWITCH views to INSIDE the SmarTruck, our perspective is that of the proverbial bug on the windshield looking into the car. We see the Driver, a US Army enlisted man. In the passenger seat, but edging almost into the driver's seat is a Scantily-Clad Bond-Type Woman. Blonde, sexy, etc.
Woman: They're firing at us! We're going to die!
Army guy: (laughes) That'll be the day...
We see the Army Guy manipulating controls on the dash. After each button is pressed, we switch views to SEE: An oil slick and tacks spilling out of the rear bumper, and the cop cars skidding out of control. The laser turret pops out, and shoots down the helicopter. An approaching squad of evil-looking soldiers is exposed to tear gas and grenade volleys. We SWITCH back to the car.
Woman: Oh John, you saved out lives!
Army Guy: I never go out without protection.
The Woman starts to remove her shirt as we fade out to a montage of scenes of the SmarTruck in action.
Narrator: Be an army of one. Join today.
(end of ad)
Please note, it was not my intention to give offense. This is a simple spoof of US Army ads and James Bond movies. If I have given offense, I sincerely apologize.
I'm the stranger...posting to