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Pirates Thwarted by Sonic Weapon
Kristian Hermansen was one of dozens to submit a story about would be pirates attempting to take control of a cruise ship of the coast of Africa, only to be twarted by some sort of
sonic weapon known as an LRAD, or Long Range Acoustic Device.
And if it wasn't for you pesky kids and your LRAD, I would have gotten away with it too!
How many times are we going to have to read stories about music labels putting up false album tracks containing dreck such as Ashlee Simpson in place of Metallica? We get it, the labels don't like pirates....
I think it would be more effective than just giving them a headache.
Pirate:Argggg we've popped our pants. Run.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
I imagine that the RIAA is calling the Navy about how it can get some sonic anti-piracy weapons of its own.
I find that most of the music put out by major labels these days is a painful enough torture, but hey, that's just me.
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This is kind of like death metal to hippies!
Or may be Neil Diamond..
Global Warming is having a direct and measurable impact on the endangered pirate population according to The Flying Spaghetti Monster theory,s ter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_spaghetti_mon
"Global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct consequence of the decline in numbers of pirates since the 1800s. A graph showing the inverse correlation between the pirates and global temperatures was also provided. This component of the theory highlights the logical fallacy of correlation implying causation. "
I sure hope the pirates didn't record the noise made by the LRAD for sale as bootleg CDs on the asian market...
Didn't know Doctor Who was battling pirates now.
Wikipedia reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_whore
Oddly enough, my wife has one of those built in.
A man without a God is like a fish without a bicycle.
Only to be thwarted by? From TFA, "The subsidiary of Carnival Corp. was investigating whether the weapon was successful in warding off the pirates, he said. The ship's captain also changed its course, shifted into high speed and headed out into the open sea to elude the pirates, who were in two small boats, he said. He had no further details."
I'm sure it certainly contributed, but they're not even sure it actually was the reason why the pirates weren't able to catch them.
We simply cannot afford to kill any pirates, since the worldwide decline in the number of pirates is clearly responsible for global warming.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Pirates, man! I mean, a real actual honest-to-$deity story. On Slashdot. About pirates! I mean, PIRATES. The ones with hats. And parrots. I never thought I'd see the day.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
I really was hoping that a LRAD was going to be a giant Airzooka.
So a pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel and an active LRAD device on his crotch. The bartender says: "There's a steering wheel and an LRAD device on your crotch!" The pirate says: "Yar, I know! They're both driving me nuts!"
Oh yes. Pirates are as active as ever. Only nowadays they have machine guns and RPGs instead of blunderbusses and cannons...
Just read IMB's Weekly Piracy Report for an idea of how active and how dangerous modern pirates are.
...this didn't result in anyone getting an Angry Pirate :D
Game dev and music blog
Timbers Shivered by Shivering Timbres
zork% mv *.asp
283 files eaten by a grue
me? I think the parent post is hillarious. Military and cruise ships using 150 decibel brown noise weapons? Now that's an idea!
Reminds me of an old joke... Now this isn't the exact version, but its as close as I can remember...
Whenver the captain of an old spanish galleon was heading into battle, he always asked his assistant to fetch him his red pants so that if he were to be injured and bleed, his crewmen would not see the blood and lose hope. One day, they were heading into battle against a massively powerful enemy. The captain saw the assistant already going to fetch the red pants and shouted, "Stop! This time, get me my brown pants!"
Has anyone had a chance to play with one of these? (Or been played with by someone with one of these like at the 2004 republican convention in NYC? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LRAD)
Since it is just sound, and apparently high-frequency sound (thus relatively low-energy vs low-frequency sound) I wonder if something as simple as noise-cancellation headphones would provide significant protection against LRAD usage.
Will we see pirates wearing Bose noise-cancellation headphones and listening to pirated music while they pirate real ships now?
"It can be as loud as about 150 decibels..."
According to this decibal chart, that's somewhere between "jet at 100 feet" and "death of hearing tissue." I used to go to a summer camp near an air force base, and A-10 warthogs would frequently fly overhead. I doubt they were any closer than a few hundred feet, but they were still incredibly loud. It was near impossible to hear anyone speak/yell until the aircraft had passed. As for this weapon, my guess is that the pain of the sound it produces (while the most noticeable of the effects) is probably no more important than the fear and confusion it imbues.
The article seems to omit the fact that this is possible and effective against the pirates, because they play COUNTRY 'MUSIC' through this thing.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
A bit OT but fun to know...
Pirates do exist, and account for nearly $16b in losses annually. If you're interested in a career like Han Solo, piracy is an option.
Most pirates today work between Eritria and Mumbai. Seychelles is very casual about accepting boats without valid port histories. The pirate ships are often large yachts with fast ciggy boats for docking. Glocks and Kalishies are the norm. The dress is much like the old pirate look -- bandanas, beards, loose shirts, etc.
Pirate robbers make the news often, yet most pirates are smugglers (food, drugs, medicine and health equipment). Countries with US/UN embargoes pay well -- 400% over the white market rate.
Cuba was easy money until 9/11, now we have our Coast Guard pretending to fight terrorism but actually destroying the free market in smuggling.
Malaysia has a growing piracy need as the government gets more religious. Somalia and Sri Lanka both ignore the pirates like Seychelles.
Take a trip to Dubai or Seychelles. Hook up with the right crowd and you can make 6 figures easily.
Arrrrr!
You don't hear much about them here in St. Louis, MO
That would be because there aren't many of them in St. Louis MO. I'm not sure, but it could be the lack of high seas. ;-)
But why is the rum gone?
It's a freaking cruise ship, not a destroyer. Do Ma and Pa really want to spend their 50th wedding anniversary watching people getting slaughtered? Why does everyone on slashdot think life is just one big FPS?
...to stop using their terminology. It's not *piracy*, it's infring... hold on, wait a sec... this is about real pirates, you say?!? Can't ... I don't... how to proceed...
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Something you left out from the wiki content:
"At maximum volume, it can emit a warning tone that is 151 decibels (1000 W/m) at 1 metre, a level that is very capable of permanently damaging hearing."
I'm not sure I'd call that "an ideal use of this technology in private sector" as you put it... ethical concerns don't just go away if you're "private sector".
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Anyone who uses Mythbusters as a real source of proof of something working versus not working either don't watch the show, or don't understand the things they're testing.
Its entertainment, not science. The fact that it could be used as a source to declare something an urban legend is a sign of the risk using Wikipedia as an authoritative source.
Hard to believe right? I am from the coastal city of Bosaso on the horn of Africa, and some of my relatives took pride in their high-seas piracy. I have always heard of illegal Japanese and Norwegian ships illegaly fishing in our shores, while Somalis, with not central government and coast guard, sat around in anger and frustration.
9 733&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
This piracy started as a way to defend our coast-lines from illegal international fishing. Somalia hasn't had a government since 1990, and our fish resources became the loot of international fishing conglomerates. Others have used our coast to dump their waste, even nuclear waste.
After the fall of the Somali government, our coast guard's ships and vessels were looted by tribes. Some of our ships and boats were sold to illegal fishing companies, which didn't go far but stayed to fish in our waters! While other boats stayed in the hands of tribal leaders and warlords who used them for piracy and people smuggling to the middle east, although more often as a vehicle for products and trade with Yemen, our neighbor to the North.
It's funny how companies registered in Democratic developed nations, and pay their taxes there, are the ones looting our natural resources and using our sea and land to dump their waste.
http://gurukul.ucc.american.edu/ted/somalia.htm
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=24
http://somalinet.com/news/world/Somalia/1063
I wish the international community would deploy high-tech sonic weapons to defend us against real theives, not just pirates, blinded and deafended by greed.
- Mahammad Darwish
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Because of the Coast Guard. US waters are essentially free of pirates. Now I suppose that could depend on your definition, some peopel considder smugglers that use ships to be pirates and we do have drug smugglers that come in by sea, but in terms of pirates attacking ships it's essentially zero. The Coast Guard has a very active presence and there's little that can be done about them. An attack on a Coast Guard ship is an act of war and they then can (and will) scream to any navy ships in the area for support, and they navy will come and sink your ass (also some CG ships have reasonably large deck guns).
However in many areas of the world, particularly Africa but also South America and Asia to an extent, where there's not sucha powerful sea patrol, it's more common than you'd think.
I'd like to test the effects of this when it's used to play Wayne Newton instead of the high piched sonic squeal. Although, there may not be much difference...
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
Can you elaborate?
;-). ) Air at high volume is not linear. For example you can compress air to several atmospheres. The reverse is not true. You can not draw several atmospheres of vacuum. You are limited by the hard limit of pure vacuum. Air compressing and expanding is non-linear.
Yes.
Sending a 1Khz tone a long distance would require a large reflector to produce a relatively tight beam. Sending a 30 KHZ tone requires a much smaller reflector to deliver the acoustic power the same distance. The small dish sends high power signals. For example if we sent 30Khz and 31Khz, they would both travel in a well defined beam as a ~30Khz signal. Unfortunately we can't hear 30 Khz ultrasonic signals (except for a few audiophiles
Now enter a couple very high intensity sound waves of two frequencies. Now you have non-linear mixing. In non linear mixing (just like in a radio reciever) you get out the 2 original frequencies + the sum and the difference. Therefore 30Khz + 31 Khz is 30Khz, 31Khz, 61Khz and 1Khz. Now you have delivered a very loud and painful 1Khz sound using the tight beam delivery of 30Khz with a small dish.
The truth shall set you free!
The article seems to omit the fact that this is possible and effective against the pirates, because they play COUNTRY 'MUSIC' through this thing.
That was the first model. The new enhanced (super-secret) model plays WESTERN too!
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.