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“Sniper Country” web site
Dig this: A corporation has patented a new gun that imprints a tiny barcode on every bullet it fires. The barcode is only 50 microns wide, barely the length of a human hair. But it thus leaves an indelible calling card of who fired the weapons. This is a gun that fires information.
Of course, guns already leave distinct traces on bullets, so forensics experts have for years been mostly successful in matching bullets to a gun. But the inventors say barcodes on guns would massively improve law enforcement:
Except for its beveled tip, the entire girth and length of a bullet fired through a bar-code barrel would be inscribed with several copies of the code. According to Mr. Lawson, this will make it easier to identify bullets even if they fragment into many pieces, as they often do if fired from high-velocity rifles, like the one used by the sniper around Washington.
The weird thing is, the Washington sniper is already in a strange sort of information dance with the media and the police:
Television reporters daily ask police investigators to face the camera and address the sniper personally.
“The message remains the same,” Chief Moose said. “Think about what you’re doing and turn yourself into law enforcement.”
The long-standing, deconstructionist puns about “shooting” and the media here are almost too easy. We use cameras to fire information at the sniper; he does the same thing with bullets.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
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