think this will be present in NYC, say around August 30?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/magazine/25WEAPONS.html?
th=&pagewanted=print&position=
The Quest for the Nonkiller App.
By STEPHEN MIHM
I recently was invited to the Pentagon to watch a film depicting field
tests of a new weapons program called the Active Denial System, which,
it occurred to me, could have been named by an unhinged cognitive
therapist. The live-action video opened on a vista reminiscent of Iraq
or Afghanistan. Scattered amid the scrub of a desert plain, angry
demonstrators howl unintelligible slogans and advance menacingly on a
handful of soldiers who nervously pivot their rifles back and forth
trying to deter the mob. For safety's sake during this test run, the
''crowd'' – played for the most part by off-duty soldiers – flings
bright green tennis balls at the uniformed servicemen instead of rocks.
As one member of the crowd hurls a ball, a soldier operating the Active
Denial System (it looks like a squat satellite dish) targets an unruly
protester in the weapon's viewfinder, squeezes a trigger that releases
a beam of energy and, in a split second, one ''civilian'' howls and
scampers away, fanning his rear end. Other demonstrators suffer similar
fates, yelping and fleeing in panic, as if they have encountered a wall
of invisible fire. After tumbling backward, the horde spins around,
pointing and hollering like a Stone Age tribe encountering modern
weaponry for the first time.
The Quest for the Nonkiller App.
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Type: discussion