Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Robot Living and Lethal Toys: Every Healthy (Sick?) Boy's Dream Come True!

It's still the middle of the Obon summer holdiays and I'm at my folks in law's house. They don't drink, smoke nor gamble so I am having a merry Christian time (they aren't Christians and neither am I!)


This sitting around and doing nothing besides eating and napping all day gives me the chance to catch up on the back log of cool websites that I've wanted to introduce over the last year but just didn't have the time.






Well, today my geeky friends, you're in luck! Today I want to introduce a site called "Robot Living." Good blogs are supposed to be focused on one topic and this blog certainly fits the bill. My blog is, unfortunately, all over the place. If you are interested in robots and stuff like that, then at Robot Living you've died and gone to Robot Heaven!


At Robot Heaven they have updates on all sorts of robot stuff... Things you'd never even dream about. It's sort of like the Jetson's come true.


In a recent posting, they introduced a drone helicopter that you can buy. This, my friends, is a very disturbing toy. 

The Vanguard helicopter. Is that a mean looking
toy or what?

Now, every boy wants a helicopter that they can fly by remote control. Every kid dreams of flying in the skies. Every kid dreams of having a drone helicopter that has a 37mm grenade launcher and a 12 gauge shotgun on it that you can use to kill other kids or your neighbor's cat... Wait!.... What!? 


From Robot Living:


A new robot helicopter by Vanguard Defense called Shadowhawk has been released.  Shadowhawk has a range of 35 miles and can fly up to 70 miles an hour.  It can come equipped with a turbine or piston engine.  All models come with a Sony FCB EX-980 CCDTV camera as well as a FLIR Photon UTAM-32 Thermal Camera.

If you are in the military, then you have the option of adding a Taser XREP40mm, 37mm grenade launcher or 12 gauge shotgun with laser designator.  Yes, you can now get a robotic helicopter with a grenade launcher!  Now hold on a minute, get those ideas of launching hand grenades at your neighbor out of your head.

We are not quite sure how this will play out in regards to licensing if you as an individual want to use one.  Considering the News Corp’s The Daily has a drone and may or may not need licensing. Kashmir Hill from Forbes states:

Hobbyists are basically free to use drones as long as they keep them under 400 feet. At this point, civil and commercial use of drones is only allowed for research and development purposes. “Not for compensation or hire” says one FAA notice. To get government permission to use a drone (for non-hobby purposes), a private entity has to jump through hoops including getting an airworthiness certificate — meaning the thing is safe to fly — and an experimental certificate, approving the planned use of the unmanned system (uses are currently limited to research and development, marketing surveys, or crew training).

See? I told you that this was a disturbing toy... Not only is this a lethal toy (no problem there - I loved dangerous toys when I was a kid) but the idiots in the government have to make these toys have licenses too. Talk about being anal retentive!... I have to fly my toy helicopter so that it can "jump through hoops" in order to get a certificate!? Who needs a certificate to fly a stinking toy helicopter? What a bunch of jerks!


Hell, it's probably more fun to build your own dangerous toys by yourself than buying this piece of crap and then having to get a license for it. These morons in our government have to tax us for everything! I just hate it!
Vanguard Defense has already won a bid to supply Mongomery County in Texas with the Shadowhawk for it’s Homeland Security efforts.

Oh, now the story gets even more disturbing! Think about this: Why in the hell does Homeland Security need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on toys that can fire hand grenades and shoot shotguns at the domestic populace?

Now that I read this sh*t about this idiocy, I'm pissed off. Judging from a different model that doesn't have lethal abilities and sells for $50,000 each, I'd guess that this toy sells for over $70 ~ $80,000 each.


Lethal toy helicopters for domestic police work!? Seriously, the United States has gone completely stark raving mad. I'm glad I left that nuthouse decades ago...

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. Robot Living is cool. There's stuff there everyday that will either blow your mind or make you think "WTF!?" I suppose either one is more interesting than 97% of all the other stuff on the Internet you see nowadays.

If you go there don't tell them Mike sent you. I'm trying to hide my identity! ;) 

2 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Haha... you forgot to tell them the US will be too insolvent to buy the grenades in a few years. So why worry?

    Here is a 2007 interview with a father/son team building a robot called King Kizer. Family fun on a smaller budget: http://www.hulu.com/watch/23335/wired-science-technology-geek-dad-japanese-robots?c=News-and-Information/Science-and-Technology#s-p1-so-i0

    Just like computers in the late 70s, hobbyists are catching up to the big guys: "It's just great that in this field the 'hobbyists' develop and improve their robots faster than in the corporate world," http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-544949/Karate-kid-takes-wrestling-chicken-robot-championships.html#ixzz1V9di6Wtq

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Comments must be succinct & relevant to the story. Comments are checked frequently and abusive, rude or profane comments will be deleted. I’m just one of many bloggers who answer questions online and sometimes for the press. I usually handle questions about Japan, marketing or the economy, so in those areas I’m more likely to make sense and less likely to say something really stupid. If I post something here that you find helpful or interesting, that’s wonderful. This is my personal blog. If you don't like what you have read here then, just like when you go into a restaurant or bar that allows smoking, if you don't like it, there's something at the front that has hinges on it and it is called a "door."