A Replacement For the Humvee?

In case you hadn't noticed, the Humvee is a wholey inadequate means of protection against road-side explosives over in Iraq. As someone who lives right next to Walter Reed, every weekend I get a pretty intimate view of just how poorly armored these vehicles really are.

Well, in comes Force Protection, Inc., with a potential replacement for ailing jeep replacement.

The Cougar is nothing less than an armored, mil-spec monster truck that while still kind of cool-looking, doesn't seem all too realistic. One look at the size comparisson to the Humvee and you'll understand why. I mean, what real use does the Army have for a jeep that's bigger than a duce-and-a-half (2 1/2 ton truck)? The logistical support required to maintain these things as a Humvee replacement would be absurd.

Anyway, here's the description from the product site:

The Cougar is a family of medium mine-protected vehicles which can be supplied in 4X4 or 6X6 layout. It can be configured for a wide range of tasks including troop carrying (up to 14 in the 6X6), EOD (4 troops and a large EOD robot in the 4X4), command and control, artillery prime mover, recovery and ambulance duty. Cougar is in production.

Technorati tags: Cougar, Humvee, Military Technology

How To Forward Gmail Messages To Your Cell Phone

From The Republic of Geektronica.

I found myself needing this today and just thought I'd share. It's pretty simple, actually. All you need to do is set up a Gmail filter to forward a certain message or messages to another email address. Then, just enter the address for your phone.

The phone address system seems to be pretty standardized and the following list should cover most services:

Verizon: 10digitphonenumber@vtext.com
Former AT&T customers: 10digitphonenumber@mmode.com
Sprint: 10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: 10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net
Nextel: 10digitphonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
Cingular: 10digitphonenumber@cingularme.com
Virgin Mobile: 10digitphonenumber@vmobl.com
Alltel: 10digitphonenumber@alltelmessage.com OR
10digitphonenumber@message.alltel.com
CellularOne: 10digitphonenumber@mobile.celloneusa.com
Omnipoint: 10digitphonenumber@omnipointpcs.com
Qwest: 10digitphonenumber@qwestmp.com

There is a drawback, though. Text messaging apparently has about a 100 character limit, so depending on the length of the email, you're gonna get a bunch of messages. Not too big a deal if you're just getting a quick note, but it could add up if you abuse it.

Technorati tags: Gmail, Cell Phones, SMS

The Complete List of Lost Related Posts

I'll be updating this list after every new Lost related post, so check out the sidebar under my profile info for a permalink.

• Lost 4x01 - "The Beginning of the End"
  
• Lost 2x20 - "Two for the Road"
• "Lost" Wiki
• Lost 2x19 - "S.O.S."
• Lost 2x18 - "Dave"
• Lost 2x17- "Lockdown"
• Lost 2x16 - "The Whole Truth"
• Lost 2x15 - "Maternity Leave"
• Lost 2x14 "One of Them"
• Lost 2x13 - "The Long Con"
• Lost 2x12 - "Fire + Water"
• Lost 2x11 - "The Hunting Party"
• Lost 2x10 - "The 23rd Psalm"
• Lost: The Obligatory Post
• Lost 2x09 - "What Kate Did"
• Lost 2x08 "Collisions"
• Lost 2x07 "The Other 48 Days"
• Lost 2x06 "Abandoned"
• Lost 2x05 - "... And Found"
• Man, ABC is a Quirky Bunch
• Lost 2x03 - Orientation

Technorati Tags: Television, ABC, Lost, Entertainment

Lost 2x20 - "Two for the Road"

Well, that was some crazy shit. Refreshingly crazy, though. It's been a while since Lost gave me a good mind fuck moment.

And with that, on to the batshit insanity:

• Ana Lucia was in Australia with Jack's dad. I'm not really sure what kind of explanation I was expecting as to how she got there, but it certainly wasn't that she met Christian in airport bar and, on a whim, decided to accept his invitation to accompany him half way around the world as his bodyguard.
• And speaking of Christian, what a strange character. In every instance that we've seen him he has been so open and free with what he's feeling that I really can't figure out why he had such a problem talking to Jack. Maybe it was just the booze talking, but he seemed like the kind of guy that would have never hesitated to tell you what he was thinking. And the confidence on him, too. I mean, what kind of person just up and asks some chick half his age to come with him to another country? Those are some balls, right there. Really makes me wonder if there wasn't something more to the fallout between him and his son.
• Ok, well I guess there was since we found out last night that the elder Sheppard fathered a daughter with some Australian chick. She looked familiar, but I could place her. Anyone know if she's appeared on the show before? She looked a lot like Claire, but was clearly old enough to be her mother. Could Jack and Claire be siblings?
  
• Another flashback connection with Sawyer, there, out in front of the bar. Not so much a big deal that he ran into Jack's dad once again, but now we've seen that he's also run in to Ana.
• So, Sawyer's running connection tally is: Jack's Dad, Kate's Mom, the lottery girl who pulled Hurley's winning numbers, Boone in the police station, and probably Locke's dad, who I am convinced is the real Sawyer.
• Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Ana and Locke are alone in the hatch. Locke is asleep in one of the bunks, snoring away like a bastard, signaling to Ana that this would be the perfect time to go talk to the crazy jungle man they've been keeping locked up in a closet for the past week, you know, with only an unconscious cripple to back her up in case any goes wrong.
  
• Henry Gale gives us a couple of choice little bits of information, though. 1) He knows that the survivors are responsible for the deaths of two of the Others and that Ana is the one that killed Goodwin. 2) Goodwin thought Ana could be saved. - Whether Henry was just screwing with Ana about the being saved part is up for debate, but after she claims that she killed Goodwin because he was going to kill her, Henry asks her if that was really the case.
• Now, maybe this is all true and Goodwin really was trying save Ana, but he did kill that other taillie dude who Ana originally thought was an Other. So whether or not Goodwin was really out for Ana's blood isn't really the point. Everything he had done up to that point had been either overtly violent or subversive. That he was there to kill Ana or one of the other tallies was the logical conclusion. Oh, and didn't he throw the first punch when Ana called him on being an Other?
• So, yeah, as if in on cue, Henry tries to kill Ana, only to be stopped at the last moment by a swift crutch to the head courtesy of John Locke, who, apparently, despite being sound asleep and somewhat immobile, manages to make it all the way across the bunker in mere seconds.
• Later, when John goes in to talk to Henry about trying to kill Ana, Henry starts babbling again to screw a little more with Locke's mind. This time he goes on for a minute or two about how the leader of the Others is a great and visionary man, but that he's not very forgiving. Henry is apparently convinced that he's going to die no matter what because even if the Others agree to a prisoner exchange, once they get him back they're going to off him cause he failed his mission.
• "What mission?" asks Locke. "Oh, the mission to wander over to the camp and kidnap you because you're a good person," responds Henry.
• Enter Jack and Kate with the newly returned, but unconscious, Michael, abruptly ending Locke and Henry's happy little conversation.
• Ok, so at this point, one of characters make the highly unusual leap to a logical conclusion. It's sort of ironic that it turns out being completely wrong, in the end, but what the hell? Ana asks Jack how they found Michael, to which he responds that after hours of sitting in the jungle screaming at the top of his lungs about prisoner exchange, Michael just happens to come wandering out of the jungle after a two week absence. Jack apparently realizes just how coincidental that sounds after Ana gives him an utter bullshit kinda look, but, in true Jack fashion, refuses to believe anything other than what he's already decided.
• Ok, so at this point I should probably mention that Ana left the hatch in search of a gun after Henry tried to kill her, and wasn't present for Locke and Henry's little exchange, arriving a few minutes after Jack and Kate came back with Michael.
• Well, she gets her gun, and gets it from Sawyer, too. How? By distracting him with sex. Somehow, this seems to fit in just fine with her character, what with the unnecessary revenge killing and spur of the moment globe trotting with strange, older men.
• Anyway, Michael wakes up and starts talking. I knew something was wrong when he said that the Others were a primitive bunch that didn't even wear shoes. The pan to Kate at that moment was like a smack in the face. As we saw in the Claire episode a few weeks ago, the crazy jungle primitive thing is just an act. Michael was either tricked, or is lying for some reason.
• Ok, he was lying. I've kinda get the feeling, based on his hesitancy at the very end of the episode, that he's under some sort of duress. Like maybe the Other's are making him do all this shit in exchange for Walt. I guess we'll find out, though.
• So Jack, Kate, and Locke leave to hatch to get the guns from Sawyer, leaving Ana and Michael alone with Henry. Sawyer, of course, refuses after Jack burns the end of the manuscript he was reading (anyone catch the name of it, by the way?), so Jack pulls a gun on him. Sawyer reaches for his gun only to find out that it's gone.
• Cut back to the hatch and Ana is about to shoot Henry, but doesn't. A short time afterward, Michael comes in and says he'll do it, but instead, apologizes to Ana and shoots her dead. And yeah, she's dead. Then Libby walks in, Michael freaks, and shoots her twice in the stomach. Still kinda freaked, Michael goes over and unlocks Henry's cell, stares at him for a moment, and then shoots himself in the right shoulder/heart area.
• Yes, yes. I know. Holy shit, where the fuck did that come from?
• Thinking about it after the fact, Ana had sex in this episode, so she had to die; just like Shannon. I guess that's how the writers avoid having to deal with a bunch of pregnant female castaways.
• I dunno if Libby is dead, though. Two gunshot wounds to the stomach seem like something she would probably die from, but I have a hard believing that the show would introduce two new, regular characters and then kill them both off within a single season. Something to do with them both being involved in that DUI thing a few months back, maybe?
• Still, since Hurley once again mentioned in this episode that he knew Libby from somewhere, I'm still not convinced she's gonna die.
• And speaking of Libby and Hurley, when Libby got shot she seemed to be holding the blankets for their picnic. That's pretty sad. But at least it explains why she was in the hatch.
• And about the picnic; that whole segment didn't really seem all too important at the time, but now I'm wondering. Aside from setting up Libby's reason for being down in the hatch and getting shot, were we supposed to get some other stuff out of this?
• One of the things that jumps out at me is Sayid digging that hole. Why was he digging a hole? Also, when he told Hurley about the picnic spot over on that secluded beach, how is it that he knew about the beach? I know he said he took Shannon there once, but I assume he knew about the spot before hand. And what did happen to that radio they built? Where are they even keeping it?
• And Jin is great. It's nice to see that even though he still doesn't speak English, he's got a pretty firm understanding of what's going on the island. The thumbs up and smirk to Hurley about being with Libby was a good bit of character work for him, even if it was ever so brief.
• And here's a thought about the whole good person / bad person thing that the Others seem to keep throwing around: what's their basis for comparison here? If Henry was telling the truth and Ana was borderlined, does having killed someone not automatically disqualify you? That would seem to be the case considering that the Others have killed a number of people on the island and have seemingly assimilated Michael, who has now killed at least one person. But what are their other criteria? I can understand Locke being considered a good person; everything we've come to know about him indicates that he's been a victim all his life. It's hard to tell with the rest of the cast, though. Two survivors have been outright declared as not good people: Eko and that dude Goodwin killed. It's easy to understand Eko, even though he's been trying to make amends, but we don't know anything about the other guy. They also didn't seem to want Kate and were ready to ditch Claire after they got her baby. Now, children are automatically good people and I can understand not wanting Kate, but what's Claire done other than be terribly annoying? But what do we know about the rest? Are we to assume that all of the remaining taillies were not good people just because they hadn't been taken with all of the others? Then what happened to the flight attendant? And how is Bernard not a good person?
• Jeez, I think I'm done for now. Only other thing I can think of is that Hanso Foundation commercial. Stupid thing snuck up on me and I didn't realize what it was until the end. I also missed the phone number. I've heard mixed things about it, though. Like that it's just a busy signal or that it's not in service. Still, I'd like to try for myself. Anyone catch it?

So, until next week, then.

Technorati Tags: Television, ABC, Lost, Entertainment

Functional Lego Crossbow

If there's one thing I love more than nifty little Lego contraptions, it's niftly little Lego contraptions that are also fully functional weapons.

Behold, the Lego Crossbow.

I can't imagine that the folks over at Lego would be all too thrilled that someone figured out how to make a lethal implement out of their happy little Sweedish architectural learning toys, but really, who cares? As some one who's spent days and days on end designing and building absurd scale models of various things out of the blocks, I can really appreciate just how god damned hard making this thing must have been.

Now all we need is a Duplo trebuchet and we could have ourselves a siege!

Via TechEBlog.

Technorati tags: Functional Lego Crossbow, Gadgets, Stupid Products

Apple - Trailers - Superman Returns

Quicktime has the new Superman Returns trailer up and running and I've gotta say, bad ass. Bad ass, indeed.

Comic fanboy or not, if this and the teaser don't stir a little something deep down inside you, there's something wrong.

June 30th can't come fast enough.

Technorati tags: Superman Returns, Comics, Movies