Because the US is chock full of people who amuse themselves like this. Good Morning Silicon Valley always has a quirky or humerous link at the bottom nder the label "Off topic" which is something that will amuse the geeks that are its normal audience. Today they thought it would be fun to link to a couple of enterprising geeks who decided to make a taser out of a $5 disposable camera.
Like probably half the geeks that read the article my first, instinctive impulse was to start asking how you could improve the thing, possibly by using two disposable cameras. I know that I'm not that abnormal for the technical minded. We're just like that, many of us and we're relatively harmless in that we limit our weaponeering impulses to intellectual exercises and web pages instructing how to make catapults, tasers, and other esoterica out of readily available items. We do this, not because we are incapable of violence, but because you have to generally have a long time horizon to absorb much geeky knowledge or culture and we're generally content with our political and social arrangements.
Free, inventive people with technical knowledge are best left alone with their amusements.
Posted by TMLutas at April 30, 2004 12:58 AM