Sound Generator Lethal From 10 Meters 314
penguinrecorder writes "The Thunder Generator uses a mixture of liquefied petroleum, cooking gas, and air to create explosions, which in turn generate shock waves capable of stunning people from 30 to 100 meters away. At that range, the weapon is relatively harmless, making people run in panic when they feel the sonic blast hitting their bodies. However, at less than ten meters, the Thunder Generator is capable of causing permanent damage or killing people."
Top news as it happens on Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sufficiently powerful shock waves can kill people!
Coming up next we ask an expert - what exactly is an explosion again?
Weather follows at 11.
Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuel-air explosion (Score:3, Insightful)
So how exactly is it surprising that a fuel-air explosion will scare, hurt and even kill people depending on the distance?
Pacifist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see the big news here. At close range it's easy to kill. Even something like a $5 potato cannon can kill people at close range. Being in close proximity to exploding things has never really been good for your health..
I dunno... 10 meters isn't really what I would personally call "close range." That's 30ish feet... Roughly the height of a three-story building. That's a good amount of distance between you and the target.
And I wonder what the area of affect is like... Is this a single-target thing, or a crowd-dispersal thing? Because if it's designed for crowd control, I'm imagining it's got a pretty big area of effect... And you can fit an awful lot of people in a 30' cone... All of which would be permanently injured or killed.
If you look at the article...
According to company data, the system generates 60 to 100 bursts per minute, each traveling at about 2,000 meters per second and lasting up to 300 milliseconds.
One standard 12-kilogram LPG gas canister (retail cost: about $25) can produce up to 5,000 shock bursts.
"That's more than enough for hours of continuous operation,"
Imagine the potential for misuse.
Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... (Score:2, Insightful)
wall of air = pressure wave
sound = pressure wave
therefore:
wall of air = sound
Please explain to this simpleton where I'm misinformed?
Re:TFA SAID, "RELATIVELY HARMLESS"!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sound Generator? (Score:4, Insightful)
A bomb is a sound generator too, and maybe we should this thing for what it is, a bomb. It is very loud when it explodes, and is world renowned for its ability to stun people at safe distances and kill them at closer distances.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yet Another Oops (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pacifist (Score:1, Insightful)
No, it's a weapon designed to lower the barrier of use.
You cannot fire guns into a crowd of protesters at a demonstration but you can use these non-leathal weapons. The dissent is stopped in its track and the majority of people will only say "who cares, it's non-leathal, nothing happened".
It's actually more insidious than leathal weapons because you can suppress protest without generating a lot of public outrage.
Re:Pacifist (Score:3, Insightful)
"Maybe I'm being a bit too much of a pacifist here, but why are we constantly spending so much time developing newer ways to kill ourselves.. seems like we could better use those resources."
Because then the people who spent their resources on developing new ways to kill use those innovations on the people that didn't.
Also, finding new ways or better ways to kill has been one of the great motivational forces for human innovation since the first caveman figured out a stone attached to a stick will hit harder then just the stone held in his hand. Societies that didn't keep up with metallurgical advances tended to be wiped out by those that did, so to them spending resources on ways to kill meant they had a chance to preserve (and expand) their culture and thus it was a very good use of their resources.
Re:TFA SAID, "RELATIVELY HARMLESS"!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Civilian harmless = You can't possibly hurt yourself with it. Examples include... Nerf bats... nope. Water... nope. Play dough. nope. Hmmm. have to find an example.
Military harmless = You have to be negligent or intentionally trying to hurt someone with it. Examples: Lawn Darts. Nerf Bats. Tear Gas. (Yes tear gas is unpleasant, but it is designed not to cause permanent harm.)
Rubber bullets are in the same category of mostly harmless. They leave bruises, but are not designed to kill. That doesn't mean they can't be intentionally or negligently lethal, just that they are not designed to kill, kinda like lawn darts.
Re:Permanent damage at 100 meters too... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't really have problems with them using it when they would have used 'other' less lethal weapons anyways, such as tear gas and water hoses.
This probably won't replace shotgun bean bags or tasers, they're individual weapons while this is a mass weapon.
The problem comes from proper usage - potentially violent crowds are often led by 'professional' exciters, and they'd be smart enough to know that if you can get people within that 10 meter unsafe zone the operators are a lot less likely to set it off, and it's not like they can have cops standing in the same area to prevent them. They need a clear line. A country/force that willing to kill has more traditional and brutal choices available to it.
My concern is that there's a lot of overlap between 'disabling that fit young man' and 'killing grandma'. An attack that will kill grandma might not even faze a fit young adult.
Re:Want this in my car! (Score:3, Insightful)
"How about those assholes that honk their horns and flash their highbeams behind me when I'm doing 5 over the speed limit but think I should get out of the left lane anyway?"
You should get out of the left lane unless you're passing someone. The left lane is for passing - you do not drive in that lane for any period of time or at any speed, unless passing. Why don't more people know/respect this law?
Re:Want this in my car! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Want this in my car! (Score:1, Insightful)
It isn't a law everywhere.
It is, however, a courtesy everywhere. But many people seem to be injected with a heightened sense of entitlement when they get behind the wheel. "Fuck you, this is my lane."
I treat other drivers the way I wish they would treat me: I don't pull out in front of the only car on the road; I stay in the right lane unless passing; I let faster traffic pass me before moving to the left lane to pass; I use turn signals before braking; I don't tailgate; and I rarely attempt to knock assholes into a concrete barrier.
Re:Jon-Erik Hexum (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yet Another Oops (Score:3, Insightful)
We already have water cannon, if the object is crowd control/riot control/etc. Why do we need something with what strikes me as considerably more potential for damaging people, since they won't be able to SEE it and get the hell out of its path?
Or maybe that IS the object.
Re:Want this in my car! (Score:3, Insightful)