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Teens Arrested For Motorized Office ChairComments:338
Posted by
samzenpus
on Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:10 PM
from the crazyboy dept.
from the crazyboy dept.
German police have confiscated the world's fastest office chair and arrested its 17-year-old inventors. The duo added a lawnmower engine, brakes and a metal frame to the office chair and were reported to be driving it all over the streets of Gross-Zimmern. Police did not comment on the chair's handling or acceleration but I look forward to it being profiled on Top Gear.
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So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What did the cops get them for, speeding?
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Funny)
"I for one welcome our rocket chair creating overlords. "
In fairness, the picture is wholly unrelated to the story - unless they have started making Barcalounger shaped office chairs and 8 hp piston engines that shoot gigantic flames out the back. Both of which would be AWESOME!!
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, please. Making the chair is cool. Driving it on public roads is not so cool. I admit, I chuckled when I saw the picture, but they should have tested it out in an empty parking lot.
On the other hand, this invention is uber cool!!!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
>> they should have tested it out in an empty parking lot.
It's an office chair isn't it? I'd like to roll up to a departmental meeting in one of those.
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Funny)
It's an office chair isn't it? I'd like to roll up to a departmental meeting in one of those.
Depends on which company we're talking about. If Microsoft, I shudder to think what Balmer could do with one of these. It'd be as if millions of programmers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:4, Funny)
ICBC = Inter-continental ballistic chair
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>> Oh, please. Making the chair is cool. Driving it on public roads is not so cool.
If they were potentially causing a danger on those streets, then OK. But if they weren't being reckless and disrupting safe traffic, then this deserved a "hey kids, cut that out", not a pair of handcuffs.
If I made that chair, you bet I'd go find a nice non-busy stretch of road to haul ass on.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Motorized wheelchairs are allowed on the roads, at least the residential streets around here, I don't see much difference.
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Informative)
> I don't see much difference.
In Germany every motorized vehicle driven on public roads needs to pass a regular safety test*1 , has to have vehicle insurance and you'll need the right driving license.
Everything else is /very/ illegal.
The definition of "public roads" includes publicly assessible parking lots.
That's a set of laws that really makes me feel safer.
*1) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technischer_Ueberwachungsverein&oldid=230576541 [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How does meeting safety standards have anything to do with your method of propulsion?
In much the same way that riding a bicycle doesn't require insurance or a driving licence. I'm sorry, what is your question again?
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
not much chance of that but it's still cool :D
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the problem isn't that they invented something, it's that they were very irresponsible with it (driving a motor vehicle on the streets without proper training or safety measures).
And I wouldn't call a lawnmower-engine powered office chair "useful". Interesting, and amusing, but not useful.
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine how much less congestion there would be on our highways if we all drove office chairs to work.
Yes, I do understand that semi trucks would be an issue.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, there is a /slashdot/ use for them.
Sell them to Microsoft.
Enclosed building. Gas powered engines. Do the math.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You realize what regulations do? They enforce not only speed limits (wouldn't want some idiot to go 160km/h in a residential area), they also enforce basic vehicle safety standards. Easy example: Parts that fall off or increase the danger for other people in a crash. If your car is so crappy that your trunk cover falls off that's a definite safety hazard and can very well end up killing people. Adorning your car with spikes is a terrible idea, especially if it's done on the front (that you get arrested afte
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Solution: Use a roundabout instead of a 4-way stop.
Uh.. I have driven in roundabouts and I'll take a stop sign any day of the week.
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Good engineering accommodates the errors and omissions of users. Bad engineering relies on laws and conventions to overcome inherent systemic flaws. Laws and conventions are, therefore, indicative of bad engineering."
Good engineering accommodates errors and omissions INSOFAR as it is practical/cost effective. Your solutions all require significantly more capital investment than the ones in existence now.
There is also a similar hazard in that relying on engineering to make something idiot proof allows the idiots to have a false sense of security, inevitably leading them to strive to newer, previously unimaginable heights of stupidity that the engineers hadn't even thought possible.
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Use a roundabout instead of a 4-way stop.
You do realise that if there are no traffic regulations, then people are free to drive straight over the roundabout, go the wrong way around it, or use it as a meeting place for a pimped-out-bouncy-suspension car convention?
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Two people arrive at a 4-way stop at right angles to each other. Who has the right of way? Regulation: The person to your right. Solution: Use a roundabout instead of a 4-way stop.
Yes because replacing every single 4 way intersection in a residential neighborhood would be so simple, or in a city. EVERY intersection within 6 blocks of me is a 4 way stop, in at congested, 200+ year old city with small houses and tiny streets. PREDATING automobiles. I find your solution laughable and your assertation regarding engineering proposterous given that the road was developed before the automobile.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem with solution: now instead of a relatively cheap and easy-to-navigate 4 way stop, you have two weeks of construction to put in a roundabout that will cost much more (even assuming none of the 4 property owners object to replacing significant portions of their property with roads).
So as to make the regulation uneeded, you'll have to replace all 4 way stops with a roundabout. I have no idea how many 4 way stops there are in whatever city you live in,
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Aside from which, studies have shown that cultures without traffic laws have more efficient mobility and reduced accidents
[citation required]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There were some really good ones I've read, but they were on government run sites and have been taken down. Here are some articles that indirectly support what I'm saying.
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/ [motorists.org]
http://www.motorists.org/blog/red-light-cameras/red-light-cameras-increase-accidents-5-studies-that-prove-it/ [motorists.org]
http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html [ibiblio.org]
Enjoy.
Re:So much for the seeds of .... (Score:5, Funny)
Much like the shamwow, it's from Germany and you know those guys make good stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I second your last sentence.
Daring is a dying art. Someone - I forget who - said "Youth is wasted on the young."
Today I am thinking it is more of "youthfulness is suppressed in the young."
I want my kids to do things like this one day, and guide them rather than stop them completely.
Segway Competitor (Score:4, Funny)
Sure, you don't sit as highly as you stand but that's probably a good thing overall. Probably gets 200 MPG, too.
Re:Segway Competitor (Score:5, Interesting)
Rocket chair? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the picture misleading (i.e. not the chair referred to in the article) or did they do something significantly more than put a lawnmower engine on it?
How I yearn for the days (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose this is probably one of those "happy-days" fantasies, but how cool would it be to live back in an age where regulation didn't exist. Where danger was all around. Where you could invent, and wow people. Where accidents happened. Where imagination was your only limit.
The lawyer has replaced the priest.
Re:How I yearn for the days (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How I yearn for the days (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd most likely have died in infancy from improperly pasteurized milk. Pretty freaking cool, huh?
And yet, somehow they got by. People exercised their own judgment, self control and personal responsibility. No government body was looking out for them; they simply smelled the milk before they drank.
Re:How I yearn for the days (Score:5, Insightful)
>And yet, somehow they got by.
Sure did, except your mom had 9 kids of which 5 survived into adulthood.
Good old days!
Picture (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ahh, the nanny state. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. They kept shooting potatoes at all the motorized office chairs.
now this is a great idea (Score:3, Funny)
Yes. They kept shooting potatoes at all the motorized office chairs.
And a new Olympic sport is born.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
German police have confiscated the world's fastest office chair and arrested its 17-year-old inventors.
Re:disconnect (Score:5, Informative)
FAIL!
The AP story does not contain the word "arrested" anywhere, it only says that the device was confiscated and the individuals were being investigated.
Re:disconnect (Score:5, Funny)
"The AP story does not contain the word "arrested" anywhere, it only says that the device was confiscated and the individuals were being investigated."
Well, you apparently read the story - there's your first problem...
Re:Images on front page (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe you should just get over it. It's just a little picture, what's the problem? Did an image kill your dog or something?
Re:Images on front page (Score:5, Funny)
Give him a break. It takes a very long time to download an image over a 300 baud modem.
And I suggest you stay off his lawn.
Re:Images on front page (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I found a workable solution. I went to my user preferences -> Index -> sections and set the Idle section to display only headlines.
Re:ACHTUNG! (Score:5, Funny)
Well you gotta nip that sort of youthful "creativity" in the butt.
Remember that German kid who wanted to become an architect? They let it slide, and the next thing you know, he was annexing Poland.
Re:ACHTUNG! (Score:4, Insightful)
He was austrian. You know, we are very precise and stuff over here.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
yeah but I wonder what kind of time the Stig could set around the track?