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USB Swiss Army Knife
finno writes "The Register has a heads-up on a new Swiss Army knife by Victorinox. As the article says, 'Given that you can buy a Victorinox Swiss Army Knive with just about
every gadget known to man, from horse-hoof awl to Hubble Space
Telescope lens polisher, it's no real surprise that the company - in
association with flash memory outfit Swissbit
- is now offering cutting tools plus USB flash memory stick.' In my
home state of New South Wales, it is illegal
to be carrying a knife without a reasonable excuse such as 'the
lawful pursuit of the
person's occupation'. I got me a reasonable excuse now!"
But I want to know why the SwissFlame isn't allowed for sale in the US.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
This reminds me of the USB Foreman Grill April Fool's Joke. However, this seems equally useful/useless depending on how you look at it. So, I guess my real question is, how do we know this is for real?
My Swiss Army Knife is with me constantly because it's so useful. Had it for years. I've lost the toothpick and the spring in the scissors, but it's still indispensible.
So, with the recent crackdown in the USA on small scale implements of terrorism such as nail clippers, I try to remember to put my knife in the glove compartment before a flight.
I forgot once. And I sure didn't want to give away my knife. The TSA inspectors must have 10 million pocket knives by now. What to do before getting in line for the security scan?
I found an fake potted plant in an isolated corner of the airport and hid the knife under some bark chips.
When I came back 3-4 days later I just picked it up on the way out.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
- Blade -- Every knife needs one. A combination large and small blade is nice but not necessary on this knife
- Scissors -- From cutting down labels to just about anything else, the Scissors are mandatory
- Phillips head screwdriver -- Or replace this with the socket set
- Flathead screwdriver -- Or replace this with the socket set
- Inanimate carbon-steel rod -- In place of the useless tweezers, for ejecting stubborn CDs or rebooting PDAs
- Micro-flashlight -- Built into the case, a small white LED bulb at one end is activated by pressing on a certain spot on the handle. The battery is stored in the case. I don't think any knife has this yet, but I know I've wanted it for ages. The light switch should be a toggle, so you don't have to keep holding it down while you're working.
That's all I'm looking for in a knife. I'd pay $100 for one like that, especially if they called it the Geekman.I read the internet for the articles.
You think that's bad? In the UK, you can't even buy safety razor blades {eg. Gillette sensor type, which can't make a cut more than 1mm. deep without serious modding, the process of which is likely to cut you} if you're under 16, but you can be expelled from school for not shaving!
Clearly the law was meant to stop kids buying cut-throat razor blades, but it's still a bit idiotic. And if they want knives, they will just steal them.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Here in Texas, we can legally carry fixed or folding knives anywhere (with some obvious restricted areas). The blade needs to be under 5 inches in length.
Hell, we carry concealed pistols here too, if you have a permit.
There is no permit needed to carry a rifle or shotgun (even if not hunting) as long as it is carried in a "non-threatening manner." But even though it is legal, it is uncommon.
Not only that, our crime rate is much lower than those places that have tons of dumb-ass restrictions.
AC
I really hate the TSA. The ban on nail scissors is ridiculous. Any of my friends that are serious about martial arts could hurt someone much more badly with their hands (or a nice, heavy, blunt object, which *is* acceptable) than a dinky half-inch blade. I'll bet that if I was intent on smuggling a blade in, I could hide a much larger blade in something metal (come *on*...if there's a metal plate normally in some electronic device and someone slices the thing at a diagonal to produce a *big* blade, then puts the halves together, who is going to notice on an X-ray machine?).
Plus, I forgot about the nail scissors that I carry in my travelling case. It wasn't until the fourth flight that the TSA guy grabbed my scissors. Of all the pointless laws...
I can understand having to not have guns in carry-on. I can even consider large knives reasonable (You don't need your machete in-flight). However, taking pocket knives/keychain knives/nail scissors is just plain annoying. I'm sure the respective industries have done quite well, though...
May we never see th
Never trust a tech without one.
I work at an airport you insensitive clod.
It is a very odd situation for an airline network person that needs tools AND has to fly daily and travel back and forth between the ticket counter and gates.
Tools like that are not so much for your day to day repairs. I carry a full toolkit with me when I am on the job, has everything I need and then some. But for those occasions I do not have my kit, a screwdriver on a knife or a quick way to transfer files can be very handy. Meetings where I do not want to carry everything but need to copy some data, a quick repair to something that screws in, etc.
My favorite part of that law is the recursive definition they give for what constitutes a knife:
Apparently part of the enforcement of the law is to trap anyone trying to understand it into an infinite loop, rendering them incapable of ever using a knife due to their infinite reading of the document...
Sapere aude!
Leatherman? Bah. They try to fit too much into it, and all the tools end up being too flimsy.
I, on the other hand, have been using the same Gerber Multi-plier for about 12 years (yes, I was 12 when I got it). It has blunt nose pliers instead of needle-nose, and all the tools are heavy-duty. For example, the Philips head isn't just a flat sliver, it's the real deal. The pliers actually work well for tighening bolts and nuts, you know, real bolts and nuts like on cars and bikes. And the real feature is the one-handed snap opening. You just fish it out of your pocket, flick your wrist and *snap* you've got pliers. Every Leatherman I've seen requires you to sit down with it and unfold some complicated metal origami, using two hands and paying very close attention because more often than not, the knives will fold out and you'll cut yourself.
Mine is bead-blasted stainless, and has never rusted...I don't know about the more recent versions. I wouldn't buy a cheap version. If I ever replace it, I might have to go with this: Gerber Multi-Plier 600 DET. I mean, it doesn't have blunt pliers, but how cool is it to have a non-reflective black oxide pocket battlefield tool with such items as "C-4 explosives punch" and "blasting cap crimper"?
...
If you're going to carry a knife, carry one that you abso-fucking-lutely KNOW will cut whatever it is you want to cut, in extremis, and not simply break or saw away uselessly....
I've carried Buck 110's for more years than I care to think about now, it is the only knife I'd be prepared to trust my life to, and it has in fact already almost certainly saved my life on two occassions (both times from drowning) when quite simply there was about 5 seconds to cut something or die.
Yes, it is now illegal to carry a knife such as a buck in the UK, doubly so when one's sole method of motorised transport is a motorcycle, but it doesn't stop me, because apart from it's every day uses opening packaging and so on, I know one day I will once again REALLY need to cut something and only uncle buck is good enough for me...
http://www.buckknives.com/
peace
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Take a look at These pics of items apparently confiscated in Sacramento.
...and was considering buying a Leatherman.
Ergonmically the Vic is useless, too wide to be a screw driver, to hard to open the blades. I managed to wreck the wirecutter part, and parts of the pliers are starting to rust.
I'm not saying you are wrong about the Leatherman, just that I was hoping they were better, and if not, I can save some serious $$$
(Slashdot eats Euro symbols. Take $$$ and divide by ~1.2 to get what I was really trying to express)${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
All of us in college used it for this purpose...i worked tech support (think rigging lights and speakers, not ethernet) in college for the university union, and we all carried leathermans or schrades (my personal favorite). At the parties after shows, people would yank out their multitools for all sorts of useful stuff...roach clips, shotgunning beers, etc.
--trb
If knives are outlawed, only outlaws will have knives.
Have to admit, I hadn't heard about this law before. I carry a Gerber multitool-whatever-they-call-it. It has a knife blade, but more importantly it has a #2 Phillips screwdriver tip, perfect for opening just about every PC case made. I already have my excuse.
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
I work for a financial services company and that, in fact, is exactly what we've done. Only we went low-tech and disabled USB. Period. Of course, most people don't get floppies or CD drives either (not sure what the point of not giving CD drives is -- it's not like you can somehow hack an RO CD drive to become a CDRW).
Are you saying there's a way to disable *JUST* USB Mass Storage? Because I'd love to know about that.
I'm not the original poster, but in Texas you just don't point it at anyone. For example, if it is on a shotgun rack in a vehicle or you're carrying it on your back via a sling, or even just carrying it by your side and not waving it around, then it is assumed that you're planning on using it for some legitimate activity (taking it to a shooting range, a gunsmith, etc., or perhaps you need it for your job or just like carrying a rifle).
Only if it was disassembled in a locked case and the case in a locker at the bottom of a river would I consider something that could make my guts into a fine pate "non-threating".
Texas is a different culture. Really different. There are numerous legitimate needs for carrying a long arm there (managing wild boar, coyotes, etc.), but even without those needs the only people that think any kind of gun control is reasonable are those in the "big cities" (Austin, Dallas, Houston, etc. and they are in a minority even there).
Ultimately, it comes down to ignorance, or a lack of it. People who don't know much about firearms (unfortunately, many of these people think they do) like to think of of them in animistic terms, as if the firearm could cause damage by itself (i.e., they forget that they are simply inanimate objects). On the other hand, those who use them on a daily basis (as many Texans do) realize that they are just a tool. Sure, they can be used to kill. But so can the USB Swiss Army Knife.
The hijackers on September 11th supposedly used box cutters, cheap little disposable knives. If you tried to stab anybody the blade would snap, but you can cut somebody's throat pretty effectively. But you can do more damage with a SAK than a box cutter, and apparently they were pretty effective with the box cutters.
So I wouldn't discount what you can do with a SAK on a plane. Things have changed and an attack of this kind again is extremely unlikely. But an attack of a different kind is not just likely but inevitable, and the law enforcement authorities are trying to cut off as many possible avenues of attack as they can. Often stupidly and ineffectively (you can't do any damange with toenail clippers that you can't do with your teeth), but they have good reason to be paranoid of tiny potential weapons.
I have to agree with you, I have had a leatherman wave for a while. My roommate showed me his gerber and I almost died of jealousy. Seriously, the Leatherman is a nifty toy, but the Gerber is a piece of engineering mastery. It's the little things that count.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
Sure is nice with this combination, but a nail file?! I mean, which geek out there regularily needs and uses a nail file? I would much rather have those small pliers to pull jumper tabs with.
Truth is, my combo of choise is a Swiss army knife, Space Pen (HP schwag), a LED Lenser flash lite and a USB memory fob that plays music. The USB memory will be outdated in about a year and a half and the flash light has already dropped the little rubber thingy on the switch. But i have had that same Swiss army knife for ten years, used it and abused it (and happily pulled little jumper tabs with the small pliers) and i won't leave home without it. Well, except for the plane.