Sure to be up for a future Nobel Peace (and Quiet) Prize, two Japanese researchers, Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada, have invented a new kind of gun that jams vocal output – apparently without injury – at a distance of up to 100 feet according to cnet.com. “The technology behind it is deafeningly simple. The gun listens in with a directional microphone and plays it back to them with a 0.2 second delay. This creates an environment in which one is simply unable to speak. The technical term for this is Delayed Auditory Feedback.” The potential practical applications boggle the mind . . .

Stuck on a plane next to a guy who won’t stop bending your ear? Have a mother-in-law whose voice makes nails on a chalkboard sounds like angels singing? Trapped in a three-hour meeting with a guy who just will…not…shut…up? Somehow find yourself in a Roseanne Barr concert? Finally the relentless advance of technology has given you a way to do something about it. There’s apparently no truth to the rumor that the device will be marketed commercially as The MarriageSaver®. Now if only we can smuggle one of these babies into the Senate viewers gallery . . .

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33 COMMENTS

    • Now I agree, they need a job. However, to assume that its ONLY about jobs is ignorant. They stand for much more. Corporations have had immunity from the damages they have caused to not only our fellow citizens, but our global economy. I’m not going to go into it much further, if you actually want to know, you would have already done your homework.

      • Good grief. There would BE no global economy without corporations.

        Do you really think we can go back to a world where everyone was individually responsible for producing everything they need?

        We don’t need to go further into it because we know its a sativa-induced pipe dream. When you wake up, maybe we can talk.

        • I’m pro-business, but I have a different take on Corporations. They’re ‘people’ until you try to charge them with a crime. Wachovia and BoA repeatedly were given consent decrees after enormous and blatant money laudering, because the the SEC was afraid to cause a run on either one. Several drug companies have committed felonies, but then HHS has backed off because a conviction would force ALL the companies drugs off the approved Medicare list. And so forth. Limited liability for business failure is a good idea. Limited liability for crimes is an awful concept.

        • Corps are good, government propping up massive failed corporations instead of letting the market cut them apart and recover so that specific small groups of political insiders can profit/get contracts/get reelection coffers refilled is the opposite of good. A rightie thinking the corps are out for his best interests because the media portrays the people against the corps as all lefties plays right into the hands of the dems who run big corporatism and the bailout machine.

    • Yup. Hecklers would be my #1 choice.

      Heckling isn’t about free speech, it’s about keeping the person they’re heckling from speaking.

  5. Its likely to be installed in the National Penitentiary Preparatory Sys… I mean public school system. FOR THE CHILDREN!

    Ugh..

  7. On other people’s car horns… I’m on the road for most of the day, every day. I get to where I’m going just fine, without speeding, without obstructing other people, and somehow manage to never have to use my car horn.
    I can’t even remember the last time I saw an accident avoided because of a warning honk – it’s all goddamned selfish impatience.
    In fact, there were about three occasions in which I would have gotten into a major accident if I had obeyed the jackass who was urging me to inject myself into traffic – all he had to do was wait an OMG 30 seconds until it was actually safe for me to go.
    To go even further, if someone “horn bullies” another driver into an accident, the offender shares moral responsbility for the accident, and should share legal responsibility, too.

    • Sounds to me like you are a real treat to share the road with. If you can be ‘bullied’ by a car horn, you have serious issues. Perhaps if you’re always getting honked at by different people, it is you, not them. 55 in the left lane? get over duuude.

  8. I’m not a fan of suppressing a person’s free speech, even if it doesn’t physically harm them, but it would be interesting if it could silence a gun range with some modification.

    • My thoughts too travis m. How about an electronic suppressor device that could be rail mounted and have the noise canceling delayed sound at volumes sufficient enough to cause silence. Would such a device even be considered a suppressor requiring the government red tape to own?

    • It can’t. It only works on people due to a behavior quirk that makes it so that people will automatically stop speaking if they hear what they are saying echoed back at them within a fraction of a second. I also does not work on non language noises such as screams, yells, or shouts.

    • This. + 100 Billion.

      I would go to every political debate within a 200 mile radius and shut those lying bastards right up. I’d be a Genuine American Folk Hero in about a week.

      • I don’t think this would work with Politicians. They only talk; never listen so the sound of their own voice wouldn’t have any effect. Probably wouldn’t work on those debate (arrangement) style “news” shows, either.

    • That would be excellent. M types the first typical BS and the letters keep duplicating, the spell checker can’t work, and instead of “guns are bad” it just says “guns are babababa…”

  14. You know you really need the Voice Silencer when:
    10-you’re walking toward City Hall and a group of Hare Krishnas approaches, chanting “Har… ECHO ON.
    9- you come in the door really late from “guys’ night out” and your wife opens the door before you touch the handle and says “what have….ECHO ON.
    8-you have a Glock in your hand and some guy walks over with a 1911 and says “don’t you miss the heft of a… ECHO ON.
    7-You’re unpacking your Colt Python at the range and some guy asks, “Do you really feel safe with only six…ECHO ON.
    6-your kid, home from college for the weekend, walks into the living room and says, “Dad, can I borrow fift…ECHO ON.
    -a cop stops you in traffic and begins “Sir, you do realize this highway is not a NASCA….ECHO ON.
    -your wife tells you at breakfast that her mother’s going to visit and asks if you could please…ECHO ON.
    -you’ve just finished your Sunday after-lunch beer and two missionaries knock on the door to tell you the good…ECHO ON.
    -some guy on TV starts saying the person you intend to vote for “is unelec….ECHO ON.
    And the number one reason to turn on the Voice Silencer:
    1-by pure serendipity the absolute woman of your dreams sits next to you at a hotel bar. After things seem to be going really well, you make your move and she says, “I’m sorry, you’re really fun, but I prefer wo…ECHO ON.

  15. Mount one outside of every prison cell. Imagine what the reform rate will be if they just shut the hell up and thought about why they are in there.

  19. I’d much rather have one of these than a $250 battle mug that you cant even drink hot coffee out of…..

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