Real-Life Weirdness

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by L.J.Steele

When straws are outlawed...

Traveler arrested with "vampire straw" at Boston airport. (Seems to be a titanium straw with a beveled edge which can theoretically be used as a weapon) Lacking a grip, I'm not sure how decent a weapon it could be.

https://www.police1.com/bizarre/arti...ST_EMAIL_ID%5D

To be fair, such "vampire straws" are specifically marketed as self-defense weapons, so it's not so much "This could theoretically be used as a weapon" as it is "This is a weapon." It's not likely to be a terribly effective weapon, and good luck actually hijacking a plane with it post-9/11.

As for the lack of a proper grip, I'd expect it would work fine in an icepick grip with your thumb over the flat end (it's also got some texturing where you'd grip it to prevent slippage). Again, though, it's not likely to be a very effective weapon.

[L.J.Steele]

Originally Posted by Varyon

To be fair, such "vampire straws" are specifically marketed as self-defense weapons, so it's not so much "This could theoretically be used as a weapon" as it is "This is a weapon." It's not likely to be a terribly effective weapon, and good luck actually hijacking a plane with it post-9/11.

As for the lack of a proper grip, I'd expect it would work fine in an icepick grip with your thumb over the flat end (it's also got some texturing where you'd grip it to prevent slippage). Again, though, it's not likely to be a very effective weapon.

Having seen "tactical" applied to nearly everything imaginable just to jack up the price, I'm dubious about this thing's claim to be a weapon within any reasonable definition of the term.

[L.J.Steele]

This is a PC plan -- Portland (Ore) area youth takes date to prom in a WWII tank, escorted by a kilted Darth Vader on a unicycle playing bagpipes.

https://ksltv.com/545840/washington-...ands-unipiper/

[adm]

That's a Honey of a ride.

[cptbutton]

Something bad has happened to the Angel with the Word of Pasta:

'Mission Impastable:' New Jersey Town Finds 500 Pounds of Pasta Dumped in the Woods

Calling it “Mission Impasteable,” Jochnowitz posted photos of the scene on social media, saying 500 pounds of pasta had been dumped in the woods. Her photos quickly went viral and shed light on a bigger problem the town has–an absence of bulk trash pickup. She said the pasta had been left there for several days before she received a call to help clean it up, telling CNBC News, “That’s kind of funny, humorous, everything else.” She continued, “Because we don’t have pick-up, we have dumps. The funny dump this time was pasta.”

[Anders]

Need a treasure for your After the End campaign?

1.4 billion lbs. of cheese sits in a cave in Missouri.

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Extra Arms Advantage becomes real - Japanese Company develops "backpack" with attachable, AI-controlled robotic arms:

https://interestingengineering.com/i...lled-by-humans

I am sure nothing will go wrong.

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by Dr. Beckenstein

Extra Arms Advantage becomes real - Japanese Company develops "backpack" with attachable, AI-controlled robotic arms:

https://interestingengineering.com/i...lled-by-humans

I am sure nothing will go wrong.

As long as nobody starts using them to control an open-air fusion reactor, things should be fine... :)

More seriously, I think the end of the article is right - their true future is in prosthetics for people with entirely missing arms, or with nerve damage to the point that standard prosthetics for partial arms won't work.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Dr. Beckenstein

Extra Arms Advantage becomes real - Japanese Company develops "backpack" with attachable, AI-controlled robotic arms

Nah, it's "Jonah Hex". "Doc Hex" just doesn't work.

[Anaraxes]

30 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate has gone missing from the rail car in which is was being transported, somewhere between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the Mojave Desert, en route to a destination in California.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to discover who took it, why, and how. Ammonium nitrate was the explosive used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, as well as the 1947 Texas City disaster, one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions. So terrorism is an obvious thought. The mundane use of the chemical as fertilizer was banned by Pakistan in an attempt to keep it out of the hands of militants there. It's also been used in rocket propellant, in case you need amateur skullduggery IN SPACE, and refrigeration and cold packs as its dissolution in water is highly endothermic, if cold is the best way to keep the Mojave Elder Thing in torpor. Possibly appealing locations along the likely route could include Colorado Springs, Los Alamos, and Las Vegas / Hoover Dam.