There may be none as obsessed with world domination as the USA (in part because the USA has Rupert Murdoch poisoning our minds) there are others who are mildly interested in world domination.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that George W Bush Jr was widely known to have never traveled outside CONUS before taking office.
Semiautomatic assault weapons are not machine guns of the sort used by Al Capone. The sale or transfer of fully automatic machine guns, which automatically feed ammunition into the chamber so that one depression of the trigger automatically sprays multiple bullets as long as the trigger is pulled, were restricted by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (see The Six Federal Gun Laws). These fully automatic machine guns are still available, but acquiring them requires the payment of a significant tax, a thorough FBI background check, and the approval of local law enforcement officials. Moreover, as replacement parts for these truly military guns become harder to find, the price of these weapons has steadily increased while their availability have declined.
Semiautomatic assault weapons are only slightly less deadly than machine guns. Pulling the trigger on these guns fires a single bullet, but also automatically loads the next bullet into the chamber, so that the user can fire up to 30 bullets in five seconds by repeatedly pulling the trigger. The best-known semi-automatic weapons, including the Israeli UZI, the Chinese-made SKS rifle and the Soviet AK-47 were all developed for military use, and are ill-suited for hunting.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 allows the government to prohibit the import of guns not designed for sporting purposes, which most certainly includes assault weapons. As crimes committed with assault weapons increased, President George H. W. Bush took the first step in controlling these weapons by banning certain imported assault rifles in 1989.[...] Although it took four years and enormous public support to overcome the National Rifle Association's implacable opposition, the 1994 crime bill specifically banned the future manufacture and importation of semiautomatic assault weapons with no hunting or sporting purpose. The crime bill defines semiautomatic assault weapons both with a list of 19 specifically banned weapons, and with objective criteria designed to ban the futher production of these weapons clearly intended and accessorized for military or criminal use. The crime bill also banned the future manufacture and import of large-capacity ammunition magazines holding more than 10 bullets.
The point is that you have at least two known psychopaths with shotguns in a room full of other people of dubious morality. The room is getting rapidly hotter and you are running out of food. There was an escape stairwell, but it's dangerous, broken and expensive to fix.
You are one of those two shotgun toting psychopaths. You've already shot at least one person to prove a point (but nobody liked that guy anyway) and your colleague has done likewise a few times as well. People in the room are very worried about you.
Do you:
a) Become repentant of your sins and mend your ways and then tell the other psycho to do likewise?
b) Blow the guy's head off, before he shoots you or somebody you like?
c) Talk to him quietly while waving your gun around to stop other people in the room getting ideas? I mean, if the two of you team up you could eat all the other people in the room and not go hungry, right? Yeah, let's eat them.
I know that this view of the world is really screwed up, but if you look at world events, I think that this is the world that our leaders see.
The politician's job is to tell the task force what changes the people can bear without going into open revolt and releasing the CO2 in the business people's bodies as smoke.
The business people are there to agree to actually do the changes.
I bet that the critical point could be pushed upwards of 400ppm if we were to agree to radical changes like no more combustion engine technology whatsoever for the next million years, and the immediate reduction of the earth's human and bovine population to a few key individuals who will be transported to Mars via nuclear steam rocket for the duration it takes for earth to recover.
Well, one important goal of any space program is prestige for the organisation that funds it. Why not get some prestige now and build the rocket later? After all, he's shot his mouth off now so he has to build the rocket eventually, or he'll look like an idiot.
They're going to build a huge pair of AI called Icarus and Daedalus. They will merege to form the AI Helios. You will be given the choice to merge with Helios - using your Google branded brain implant, or stop using Google alltogether - causing a new dark age.
If the gun was out of batteries, you could still fire it on dynamo power.
The gun discussed on the link used a dress ring as the user identifer rather than the palm grip pressure system used in the gun discussed in the article.
Final smart gun designs will probably use multiple systems to recognise the owner(s).
Well, with the metal storm gun there are no moving parts except the trigger.
that's right. No moving parts except the trigger. Nothing to clean. When the bullets (which are factory loaded into the barrel with electrically operated primers behind them) are expeneded the barrel unit is thrown away, or sent back to the factory for repacking.
The grip recognition system works on pressure patterns rather than optical fingerprint scans... but nobody's fired it in anger yet, so we don't know if adrenaline dump could cause a false negative.
We have guns because at some point some crazy-wako guy at the GHQ said:
"If the soviet attack, we need to be able to stop them. Alone."
Wasn't that said thousands of years ago in your country, only it wasn't the soviets, it was "If anybody attacks..."?
Wasn't that the reason the Nazis didn't do to you what they did to France, etc...?
Wasn't that nutrality, born of the fact that everyone around you is afraid of you, the reason you are one of the most prosperous and stable nations on earth?
And if you look at it that way, can't the concept be implemented on a micro-scale? You don't bust into and rob the house of a guy with a gun, no matter how much gold is in the house, if the guy with the gun is definitely not treating the gun like a toy and can stop you... Alone if need be.
Wouldn't somebody with a VoIP phone servuce provider like http://www.usbphone.com.au/ that has a call relay station that can call land lines not be considered to be Universally covered?
After all some places are too expensive to do last mile wiring for for pots, but you can justify using wireless links to cover that area for wireless internet.
In this case, the govt might be able to achieve 911 and universal service without spending a dime, and pushing the cost back onto the consumer... which is either a bad or a good thing depending if you're blue or red... but the services will not need to disappear.
(ps... is it just me or is it odd that "red" meant "communist" last century and "freemarketeer" today?)
Slashdot Mirror
And probably have really bad compatability issues with their exoskeletons causing them to crash and die untill all the bugs get worked out.
you've been watching too much Dark Angel
I agree with most of your points, but if your second point is true and you can prove it, you must be the greatest paleontologist that has ever lived.
No they wouldn't! They'd get jobs living on a giant computer designed to find out the Question of life the universe and everything.
Maybe by next week they'd figure out what colour the "Wheel" should be.
Disgruntled Defence Signals Directorate employee, will exchange secrets for diet coke.
Are you Aussie?
If so, wtf happened with that Tampa Crisis thing?
mpeg. or quicktime.
There may be none as obsessed with world domination as the USA (in part because the USA has Rupert Murdoch poisoning our minds) there are others who are mildly interested in world domination.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that George W Bush Jr was widely known to have never traveled outside CONUS before taking office.
(I'm writing this from Australia.)
Semiautomatic assault weapons are not machine guns of the sort used by Al Capone. The sale or transfer of fully automatic machine guns, which automatically feed ammunition into the chamber so that one depression of the trigger automatically sprays multiple bullets as long as the trigger is pulled, were restricted by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (see The Six Federal Gun Laws). These fully automatic machine guns are still available, but acquiring them requires the payment of a significant tax, a thorough FBI background check, and the approval of local law enforcement officials. Moreover, as replacement parts for these truly military guns become harder to find, the price of these weapons has steadily increased while their availability have declined.
Semiautomatic assault weapons are only slightly less deadly than machine guns. Pulling the trigger on these guns fires a single bullet, but also automatically loads the next bullet into the chamber, so that the user can fire up to 30 bullets in five seconds by repeatedly pulling the trigger. The best-known semi-automatic weapons, including the Israeli UZI, the Chinese-made SKS rifle and the Soviet AK-47 were all developed for military use, and are ill-suited for hunting.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 allows the government to prohibit the import of guns not designed for sporting purposes, which most certainly includes assault weapons. As crimes committed with assault weapons increased, President George H. W. Bush took the first step in controlling these weapons by banning certain imported assault rifles in 1989.[...]
Although it took four years and enormous public support to overcome the National Rifle Association's implacable opposition, the 1994 crime bill specifically banned the future manufacture and importation of semiautomatic assault weapons with no hunting or sporting purpose. The crime bill defines semiautomatic assault weapons both with a list of 19 specifically banned weapons, and with objective criteria designed to ban the futher production of these weapons clearly intended and accessorized for military or criminal use. The crime bill also banned the future manufacture and import of large-capacity ammunition magazines holding more than 10 bullets.
The brady campaign website - the people who designed the assault weapons ban of 1994
The point is that you have at least two known psychopaths with shotguns in a room full of other people of dubious morality. The room is getting rapidly hotter and you are running out of food. There was an escape stairwell, but it's dangerous, broken and expensive to fix.
You are one of those two shotgun toting psychopaths. You've already shot at least one person to prove a point (but nobody liked that guy anyway) and your colleague has done likewise a few times as well. People in the room are very worried about you.
Do you:
a) Become repentant of your sins and mend your ways and then tell the other psycho to do likewise?
b) Blow the guy's head off, before he shoots you or somebody you like?
c) Talk to him quietly while waving your gun around to stop other people in the room getting ideas? I mean, if the two of you team up you could eat all the other people in the room and not go hungry, right? Yeah, let's eat them.
I know that this view of the world is really screwed up, but if you look at world events, I think that this is the world that our leaders see.
The politician's job is to tell the task force what changes the people can bear without going into open revolt and releasing the CO2 in the business people's bodies as smoke.
The business people are there to agree to actually do the changes.
I bet that the critical point could be pushed upwards of 400ppm if we were to agree to radical changes like no more combustion engine technology whatsoever for the next million years, and the immediate reduction of the earth's human and bovine population to a few key individuals who will be transported to Mars via nuclear steam rocket for the duration it takes for earth to recover.
(NB: Getting rid of the cows is important.)
What the hell would Noah want with a boat?
Tell you what. The most gruesome, most nauseating images I've ever seen in games are from moulage simulations designed to train real trauma surgeons.
a good selection of them can be found here
Trauma Moulage - Ever wondered what they do to you when you're bleeding and unconscious?
More resources here, including a virtual autopsy
If you continue you are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Well, one important goal of any space program is prestige for the organisation that funds it. Why not get some prestige now and build the rocket later? After all, he's shot his mouth off now so he has to build the rocket eventually, or he'll look like an idiot.
They're going to build a huge pair of AI called Icarus and Daedalus. They will merege to form the AI Helios. You will be given the choice to merge with Helios - using your Google branded brain implant, or stop using Google alltogether - causing a new dark age.
Or you could just go to a rave.
I think the idea is that it's a weight trade of steel for brass (and whatever your magazine is made of).
The other downside is that you can't handload them on your home press, so you're stuck with factory loads.
your whole barrel-and-ammo unit is the reload. There is some talk about just carrying multiple guns.
metal storm's first live firing smartgun involved a detatchable battery, a detetchable barrel unit and a frame to hold the whole thing together.
No gun cleaning. Ever.
If the gun was out of batteries, you could still fire it on dynamo power.
The gun discussed on the link used a dress ring as the user identifer rather than the palm grip pressure system used in the gun discussed in the article.
Final smart gun designs will probably use multiple systems to recognise the owner(s).
excellent post.
Well, with the metal storm gun there are no moving parts except the trigger.
that's right. No moving parts except the trigger. Nothing to clean. When the bullets (which are factory loaded into the barrel with electrically operated primers behind them) are expeneded the barrel unit is thrown away, or sent back to the factory for repacking.
The grip recognition system works on pressure patterns rather than optical fingerprint scans... but nobody's fired it in anger yet, so we don't know if adrenaline dump could cause a false negative.
We have guns because at some point some crazy-wako guy at the GHQ said:
"If the soviet attack, we need to be able to stop them. Alone."
Wasn't that said thousands of years ago in your country, only it wasn't the soviets, it was "If anybody attacks..."?
Wasn't that the reason the Nazis didn't do to you what they did to France, etc...?
Wasn't that nutrality, born of the fact that everyone around you is afraid of you, the reason you are one of the most prosperous and stable nations on earth?
And if you look at it that way, can't the concept be implemented on a micro-scale? You don't bust into and rob the house of a guy with a gun, no matter how much gold is in the house, if the guy with the gun is definitely not treating the gun like a toy and can stop you... Alone if need be.
The 911 hijackers are taking over a plane. The president presses a button and all boxcutters in america retract their blades...
You mean, adapting people to make them more like those found on earth?
Who's side are you on, anyway?
Which raises some interesting CGI... possibilities.
Does that mean that this whole show will now be run by the G-Man?
How much traffic in a given area's actually VoIP and not, say, MMORG or bitorrent?
Great. More ways for people to claim that EverQuest and pirated movies cost lives.
and treat VoIP calls and pots calls the same?
Wouldn't somebody with a VoIP phone servuce provider like http://www.usbphone.com.au/ that has a call relay station that can call land lines not be considered to be Universally covered?
After all some places are too expensive to do last mile wiring for for pots, but you can justify using wireless links to cover that area for wireless internet.
In this case, the govt might be able to achieve 911 and universal service without spending a dime, and pushing the cost back onto the consumer... which is either a bad or a good thing depending if you're blue or red... but the services will not need to disappear.
(ps... is it just me or is it odd that "red" meant "communist" last century and "freemarketeer" today?)