Hong Kong protesters deploy a brick-throwing bamboo siege engine

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/07/steampunk-hk-af.html

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“… , the protests have swiftly proceeded from cyberpunk to steampunk.”

err, bamboopunk?

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Steampunk with Chinese characteristics.

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The protesters are gonna get all medieval on the Chinese puppet regimes’ ass.

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wouldn’t bungie cord rubber work better, ala giant slingshot for water balloons?

Hell, tie two balloons together, one with bleach and one with ammonia so they make good old anti-fascist spray when they hit

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Where’s Survival Research Laboratories when you need them? This feels ripe for the Pitching Machine.

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  1. Pretty cool. Wonder what kind of range we are looking at.

  2. In before someone lectures Hong Kongers about their use of violence.

Maybe, but they want to launch bricks.

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I admire the tenacity, ingenuity, and (especially) the courage of the pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong.

I wonder if the death toll will be measured in the thousands or the tens-of-thousands before one side or the other achieves its objectives.

:hong_kong:

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Bungie cords would work, provided you had enough of them and they were strong enough. But this is simple, cheap, quick, and easy to build with stuff that was literally right around the corner.

This is a variant of a kind of mechanical artillery called a traction trebuchet. The central beam pivots. The part of the beam behind the pivot point,k where you put the brick, is the throwing reach, the part in front of it where the user pushes down is the force reach. Leverage is key. The longer the throwing reach in relation to the force reach, the greater the range and power of the shot. But also the harder it is to make it move.

That said, this thing is probably less accurate than throwing a baseball. It’s awfully crude.

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I suspect that “accuracy” has a lower slot on the priorities list than “mass”; in turn, “cheap” and “simple” are higher still…

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Also useful for pumpkins

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Non-lethal would be better.
Dye packs?
You could drop dye with drones if you wanted to (hint, hint).
Bricks just give the police an excuse.

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So far, it appears to stands at five to eight (depending on source) suicides that occurred in response to the political situation. But I have to admit, throwing around hypotheticals like that does make it easier to keep a straight face when cheering on street fighting in a far away country from the comfort of my chair.

Absolutely. Makers with weapons, how cool is that? Only a totalitarian dickhead would be presumptious enough to even cautiously criticize such heroic and ingenious freedom fighters, for example, by considering such militant displays of a few might be a disservice to the peaceful protest of thousands. Meh. Those cops are only communist stooges after all and deserve to have their skulls crushed with blunt objects of freedom.

Thank you, that clip answers most of my questions about the situation in Hong Kong. So - will the protester’s victory song be ‘Yub Nub’, ‘Victory Celebration’, or a completely different song? Looking forward to hear your deep insights,

whatever’sathandpunk

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The police don’t need an excuse.

Engage in repressive actions and expect resistance. The communist part has nothing to do with it.

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The gun control there must be really effective there if they have to construct weapons out of bamboo.

I’d go with medieval. On second thought, post-apocalyptic.

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Hong_Kong_2nd

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according to messrs temple and company the china invented the fire and the work…