Ever wanted to crack open the planet and throw the school bully into the resulting lava lake? Then here’s the device for you!
Tag Archives: Technology
Destroy All Academy Award Winners
0 CommentsMay 12, 2009 – 1:35 pm
It’s awards season again! Well, it isn’t really, but the point is that while others may cover the Oscars, the Baftas and of course, the Junior princess all-star frisbee throw off, Electric Spectre maintains it’s reputation as the planet’s best source for the news that counts by bringing you: The Robot Hall of Fame Awards!
To be honest, I didn’t have a bloody clue there even was such a thing, but Engadget have helpfully filled in the blanks in my CPU and informed me of this week’s event in that hub of technological progress-Pittsburgh.
Now, terrifying mecha-beast the Da Vinci Surgical System and Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity were inducted, and rightly so, but apparently so were Huey, Dewey and Louis from 70s Disney space-gonk fest ‘Silent Running’ (oohh ooohh George Lucas liked it a bit you know? ooooh that’s exciting, it must be AMAZING!!!! Ooooh oooh, I just spurted oil in my electric robot sex pants), and the T-800. Yes, the one in the picture above. The fact that Terminators aren’t like…real or anything obviously not deterring voters-ES would like to nominate Unicron for next year’s awards.
Here’s hoping that ‘Salvation‘ will be less of a waste of time than this.
LINK(Engadget)
Logged In, Bombed Out
0 CommentsJanuary 10, 2009 – 5:22 pm
Always quick to link to our own content, we at ES would remind readers that we recently tried not to trivialise the ominous goings on in the middle east right now. However it seems we needn’t have worried, as someone else has done it for us! As if hacking into your I.P and using it as a pro-Israeli platform wasn’t enough, seems that Facebook is fast becoming the next front in the cyberwar battleplan. Palestinian forces are using the social networks to rally groups of young people to the cause, with money raising events as well as propoganda and links to groups like the Red Crescent Society. Now having used Facebook, I can confidently state that it cant even get the Piccadilly tube line to stop nearer my house, let alone change the outcome of a war, but it does raise a freaky precedent, and if you can ally yourself with active combat units, surely it won’t be long before you can turn informant on your friends too. Man, you’d never get this on LiveJournal.
LINK (FT)
Multiple Kill Vehicle – Hovering Ball Ov Death
1 CommentsDecember 9, 2008 – 1:59 pm
The Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) system allows more than one kill vehicle to be launched from a single booster. The system consists of a carrier vehicle with on board sensors and a number of small, simple kill vehicles that can be independently targeted against objects in a threat cluster. The integrated payload is designed to fit on existing and planned interceptor boosters.
But just look at it. It has so many other uses. Imagine one of them hovering around a building taking out targets with a pair of miniguns strapped to each side. Or missiles. Or a big chainsaw. Imagine a big one. Its the first step towards hovering anti personnel death machines.
LINK (Missile Defence Agency)
The Atomic Punk
0 CommentsNovember 6, 2008 – 2:58 pm
In my spare time, I have often thought about powering my Marshall stack with a hydrogen bomb, but it seems I’ve been beaten to it by Andrew Murray, a physicist at the University of Manchester, UK., who has found a way to trap atoms using his old amps! Now, while this has obvious applications for stadium rock pyrotechnics shows, it may also help in the development of quantum computers. Previously scientists used a complex system of lasers and force fields (much like an Iron Maiden concert) in order to trap super-cooled atoms so they can be examined – very useful if you’re into your physics, but hard to do, and not terribly accurate. The solution? Use an old amp speaker instead! According to Murray:
“The alternating [magnetic] field can be used to trap atoms as long as we ensure that the laser beams change polarisation along with it,” says Murray. “We can switch the fields off about 300 to 500 times faster [than before].” That’s fast enough to ensure that the atoms have not had time to escape the trap when they are zapped with an electron beam.
Basically producing an instant, accurate atom-trap! Good news for physicists, and if can be adapted to hold punters still, then great news the next time I play a gig and the audience tries to leave!
