h a l f b a k e r yNot so much a thought experiment as a single neuron misfire.
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Jousting looks like a lot of fun. I imagine it's less
popular now than it used to be because of the
cost of horses and their upkeep, and the risk of
being impaled.
This idea solves these
problems and brings jousting to the masses. Firstly,
the horse will be replaced by a bicycle.
Secondly,
the lance will be replaced by a small
hand-held laser pointer and radar transceiver. Each
player wears a small target on their front which can
detect a 'hit' from the other's laser pointer. Each
player rides towards the other, keeping to the right
of a line drawn on the ground, and tries to
score a hit on their opponent's target. The
radar is to measure the distance between the
players and a hit will only be deemed valid when the
players are a precise distance apart (i.e. the
length of a lance).
Tudor cosplay optional.
[link]
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If you're going to use a laser, why not one that can simply
measure distance also and drop the radar? |
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Yes, that might be better. How do laser distance-measuring
devices work - are they sending out pulses of light and
timing the delay for them to be reflected? |
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But you can still finish them off with a few blows
from a heavy cudgel? |
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No it isn't, quite the opposite, because it's a pointless, sissy non-contact sport for pansy wimps. |
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Jousting = blood or you're just making a mockery of the whole thing ... even in scooter jousting, arms* & stuff can get broken... |
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[-] for socially-acceptable politically-correct dilution of a brutal, vicious gladiatorial combat. |
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// you can still finish them off with a few blows from a heavy cudgel? // |
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Yes, of course. You may have to do it in the car park after everyone else has left and there are no witnesses, but yes. |
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*actual upper limbs. Ironically, being a squire and successfully competing in a joust - even if you fracture said limbs - can result in your being made a knight, thus allowing the College of Heralds to grant you Arms, because your arm(s) is/are broken... |
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Boggles my mind how they can get that precise by bouncing
light speed and measuring time lapse and interference. I
would think that some sort of pulsy-wave thingy that had
encoded time from start, combined with some type of long-
wave interferometry could make laser distancing much more
precise. |
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That may prove useful for calibrating a halfbakery standard for mental boggleability, or then again probably not. |
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So I could have a promising career as the average halfbakery
test dummy? I have to warn you that my center of inertia has
moved in the past 15 years. |
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Yes. By force, if necessary. |
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// I could have a promising career as the average halfbakery test dummy? // |
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Much as we hate to have to bestow something resembling a complement, you're probably more the sophisticated, highly-instrumented end of the market, rather than the dumb, simple, expendable [xenzag] end ... |
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// all those years of prior art from before you posted your idea. // |
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Mean-spirited underhand retrospective editing, is all ... fake news. |
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Yes, with a smattering of those yellow-and-black quadrant transfers, applied to skeletal articulation points, so that on the slo-mo replay the effects of the violence can be measured with accuracy. |
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But we're only going to do it because it's technically necessary, and we're certainly not going to compliment him ... |
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This is true. And then afterwards, he'll look positively smashed. |
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But there's no need to mention that until we've got the data. Apparently there's this thing called "informed consent". We take that to mean that we should tell him that he's agreed to consent to whatever happens, and has automatically waived any legal rights he may have thought he had. |
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I don't recall signing anything. But then again, with
all of these mysterious dents I've somehow picked
up in my forehead and this odd target-shaped thing,
I don't recall much... |
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//a much higher, incinerating burst// |
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OK so, solar parabolic mirror jousting. |
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Each contestant wields a lightweight 20-ft solar mirror mounted on a convenient carrying handle. |
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They have to cycle towards each other |
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If one contestant manages to flash the focal point of the mirror onto the other contestant's luxurious facial hair there will be a satisfying smouldering smell and cry of "ouch" from their opponent. |
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Mirror- approximately 7m diameter. |
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The cyclists will be about 1.5m above the ground, so the mirror will need to be on the end of a long pole. |
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Aerodynamic drag will be huge - the mirror is nearly 40m2 - and will act like a sail. |
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Merely staying upright will be a task in itself. The cyclists will inevitably fall off and quite likely be injured. This is in keeping with the true spirit of jousting. |
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// I don't recall signing anything // |
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It's in the small print... "reading this document indicates that you unconditionally accept all the terms and conditions, and any subsequent unadvised changes" |
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Retaining Buchanan & Buchanan as our legal advisors has been somewhat of a curate's egg so far, but now and again they come up with a real gem*. |
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*Usually misappropriated, and the property of someone else. |
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Have the two tracks filled with stage smoke so you can see
the beams and you've got something here. |
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Then have the beam sensor on the person's chest activate an
ejector seat and you're REALLY got something there. |
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Good point - stage smoke would really make a difference |
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Real smoke would make even more of a difference ... |
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In general, I think it would be quite easy to hit a chest-
sized target with a laser pointer while on bicycles.
Wheels are notoriously smooth, when compared to
galloping horses at least. So, we need wheels with off-
center hubs to make the rider & target move up and
down in a speed-sensitive manner. |
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//have the beam sensor on the person's chest activate an
ejector seat and you're REALLY got something there.// |
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Ejector seat, and ejector handlebars activated by the
beam striking the target only at the precise lance-like
relative distance. This would give a pleasant knocked-off-
backwards motion. |
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"Igor, quadruple the amount of Sodium Azide in the next batch !" |
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