On Friday, October 21, 2016 at 1:29:18 AM UTC-7, somebody wrote:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...ediately-vomit



A man approaches a bicycle, handheld electric saw at the ready. He
powers it on, starts to drill, and is shot in the face with a noxious
spray that makes him vomit uncontrollably. This is the dream of the
inventors of SkunkLock.

“Basically we were fed up with thefts,” said Daniel Idzkowski from San
Francisco, one of the inventors of SkunkLock. “The real last straw was
we had a friend park his very expensive electric bike outside a Whole
Foods, and then went to have lunch and chat. We went out and his bike
was gone.”

Idzkowski’s friend had used two locks, each $120, whose inability to
stop a thief outraged him. “I blurted out, ‘why didn’t it blow his
balls off?’”
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He eventually landed on a less violent and more legal innovation. “I
realized there really is no solution to this problem,” he said. “The
biggest problem in this industry is that people don’t know that the
lock that they bought for $20 is absolutely worthless. It costs at
least $100 to have at least somewhere close to where you can at least
curb the chances of a thief wanting to steal your bike.”

With the right tools, Idzkowski said, a thief could cut through most
locks in less than a minute. Thieves, he said, “talk in seconds: a
15-second bike, a 20-second bike, and it goes up to 30-60-second
bikes, with Kryptonite locks that require two cuts, each about 25
seconds”.

With his co-inventor, Yves Perrenoud, Idzkowski created a U-shaped
lock of carbon and steel with a hollow chamber to hold one of three
pressurized gases of their own concoction, including one called
“formula D_1”. When someone cuts about 30% of the way into the lock,
Idzkowski said, the gas erupts in the direction of the gash.

“It’s pretty much immediately vomit inducing, causes difficulty
breathing,” Idzkowski said. “A lot of similar symptoms to pepper
spray.”

The inventors have not yet tested the device on an actual would-be
thief, but have tested it on themselves and volunteers at distances of
two feet (60cm), five feet, 10ft and 20ft. “At two feet it was pretty
bad. It was absolutely vomit inducing in 99% of people. At five feet
it’s very noticeable and the initial reaction is to move away from it.
At 10ft it’s definitely detectable and very unpleasant.”

Bike thieves have had virtually free rein around San Francisco and the
Bay area for years, stealing thousands every year, turning warehouses
and underpasses into chop shops, victimizing residents and city
officials alike. Last year the thefts prompted a 20/20 news segment,
and city police estimated that eight in 10 bikes in a chop shop are
stolen. Anecdotal evidence supports the statistics: on Thursday, a
Mission resident told the Guardian that thieves had recently strolled
into his garage and cut three bikes from their locks on the wall.

Idzkowski said their chemical had passed compliance tests and was
legal, and that its variants were designed to be compliant according
to the varying rules of 50 states, major cities and EU nations.

He admitted the lock was not foolproof. It could be picked, for
instance – and many bike locks can be picked with something as simple
as a cheap plastic pen. Idzkowski argued, though, that the widespread
use of advanced disc-cylinder tumbler locks, including in the
SkunkLock, meant it might take even skilled lockpicks up to half an
hour of tinkering – long enough to draw attention.

A thief could also simply return to the spent lock, though Idzkowski
insisted this would not be easy, because the noxious spray clings to
skin and clothing.

“You’re basically just puking on yourself the entire time,” he said.
“They could change all their clothes, shower, if the bike is still
there come out and cut the remaining 75% of the lock. You can’t
prevent a theft 100%, so that’s why we call it a deterrent lock, not a
solution.

“All you have to do is be better than the bike across the street.”


Here we go again-

With all the acrimony that's been passed around about bikes vs. cars, I thought it would be a good time to talk about a really interesting ride....
It was a Friday. Fridays are usually good days because you have a lot of teenagers drinking and driving, plus a lot of people who are in a bad mood and in a hurry to get home from work. The factories usually pay on Friday, so you get a fair number of beer-commercial types cruising around in their 4X4s looking for some butt to kick while they're knocking back a few brews. A cyclist's paradise.

I stuck a full mag in my MAC-10 and put another one under the saddle. The gun fits into the water bottle cage pretty well, and it's fairy light. I stuffed a couple of grenades in my jersey pockets and slipped my Rambo-knife into its sheath on the front fork. Just for good measure, I grabbed a thermite grenade and dropped it into the remaining jersey pocket. This is a little more weight than I usually carry, but it was Friday night after all.

I caught the first one just a mile from home. It was a type-A, businessman-yuppie-semipsychotic in a BMW, who didn't like the fact that I was occupying two feet of the lane in front of him. He let me know with his horn and his middle finger. It's pretty hard to hit a moving car from a moving bike, even with a machine gun. I must have fired four bursts before I put one in the gas tank and the "Bimmer" erupted into flame. Fortunately, this bozo managed to get the car off on the shoulder before it blew up, so I didn't have to find a detour around the fire.

The next one didn't come along for another five or six miles. This was a couple of punks in an old Camaro. They pulled alongside me and the passenger barked out of the window like a dog. Then the driver floored it and screeched off in a cloud of burnt-oil smoke. I got lucky for once. The punks got caught at a stoplight, so I didn't need the gun. I pulled into the center of the road so I would pass the driver. As I rolled past, he started talking some punk talk. I don't know what he said, because he stopped in mid-sentence when he saw the grenade go through his open window into the back seat. I caught a glimpse of both of them frantically scrambling after it just as it went off. It looked like some of the glass and shrapnel did some damage to the car ahead of them, but it couldn't be helped. Every war claims some innocent victims.

I'd had enough of the city traffic, so I headed out into farm country. As I went past a barnyard, two enormous dobermans took off on an intercept course. I dropped them both with one burst, and put a couple of rounds through the farmhouse windows to remind the farmer about the leash laws in effect everywhere in the county.

A short time later, I heard the roar of knobby tires behind me. I looked back to see a huge Ford pickup truck, one of those jacked-up monstrosities with the undercarriage about three feet off the road. As it pulled closer, I heard loud country music blaring over the din of the tires. There were two men in the cab. They both wore Stetsons, and they were both drinking beer from cans. An archetypical redneckmobile.

I felt like just blasting them right then and there, but I waited to see what they had planned. Sometimes these guys just pass you without giving you a hard time. Not this pair, though. The guy in the passenger seat had a styrofoam cooler full of icy water, which he was preparing to dump out the window on yours truly. That was all I needed. As soon as the truck pulled even with me and the guy started to toss the water, I put a burst through the window. This brought trouble, though, because the cab was so high that I didn't get the driver. The truck continued down the road, and I tried to finish them off through the blood-spattered back window, but wouldn't you know it, the mag was empty.

I couldn't reload while I was rolling, and the driver of the pickup had by now stopped the truck and was turning around to come after me. I had, maybe, two seconds to make up my mind what to do. I reached into a jersey pocket and pulled out the other grenade. Then I did a time-trial turn, pulled the pin, and looked over my shoulder at the truck which was now speeding towards me. This would have to be timed just right. I let go of the handle and dropped the grenade, then sprinted for everything I was worth. I heard the blast and felt something graze my right arm. Turning around, I saw the truck in flames and out of control. It did a spectacular flip as it went into the ditch, then overturned. There was a second explosion as the gas tank went up.

I decided to cut my ride short, since my arm was bleeding. The wound was superficial, but it was nasty enough to cause a lot of discomfort. I thought back to the ammo I'd wasted on that turkey in the BMW, and regretted it. One of these days, I'd have to get some tracer bullets for the MAC to help me aim. Oh, well. I reloaded the gun since I was bound to come accross a few drunks & punks on the way home.

A few miles passed and I heard a siren behind me. I decided to play it cool, hoping they weren't after me. I was disappointed. The sheriff's car slowed behind me and I heard an amplified voice telling me to get off the bike and lie face down on the ground. Damn. I hated the thought of wasting a cop, but if they'd go out and do their jobs, I wouldn't have to ride around doing my part to rid the area of its rat population. But I had an idea. I still had a thermite grenade. I yanked it out of my pocket and tossed it on the hood of the patrol car. I'd hoped for the element of surprise and got it; the two deputies inside the car were too startled to shoot at me. The grenade went off and started burning its way through the engine compartment. The deputies managed to stop the car, and by the time they got out, I was a good quarter mile down the road. I heard shots behind me, but they'd never hit me at this range with .38 Smith & Wessons.

My escape was short-lived, though. I saw two more sheriff's cars up ahead with riflemen crouched behind them. I heard more sirens from behind. This was it. I pulled out the MAC and fired wildly at the roadblock, crouching to make a smaller target. If I had to go, I was going to take some of them with me. It had been a good life. I'd had some good times. I just regretted that they were getting the wrong guy. I felt something hot tug at my shoulder.. I reached up, expecting to pull my hand away bloody, and found my office-mate's hand instead. "Bob..Bob!.. Wake up! You fell asleep at your desk! C'mon, it's Friday afternoon. Time to go home!"

I went home, firmly resolved never to eat that cafeteria chili again.