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Project Grizzly 111

Posted by Hemos from the mommy-can-i-have-one dept.
theGEEK writes "A friend came across this article on Suck yesterday. I actually know this guy... and his Anti-Bear Suit is actually quite impressive. Troy is a very interesting, if somewhat dramatic guy-so much so the National Film Board of Canada made a movie about him, and his project. You'll never believe your eyes when you see him repeatedly get hit by a truck at at 50 KPH or when he gets beaten by bikers wielding axes and baseball bats." So, if anyone wants to get me a Christmas present, I'll take one of these.
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Project Grizzly More

Project Grizzly

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  • This is too cool (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It rules. I want one. Anybody know if the military is looking at these for foot soldiers (a la "starship troopers", the book not the movie). Couple hundread of marines pouring up onto shore with custom decorated (death-heads and all) suits like this would scare the bejesus out of the opposition.

  • The man deserves more credit (and funding) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I suggest you people snickering at Troy Hurtubise read the Suck article which interviews him. He reveals that he didn't get squat from the movie, which was one of CFB's top grossing films, and admits he is eccentric but he also has put a lot of science into his work but instead the film focused on mocking his eccentricities.

    The G Man suit itself might not be a stunning success, but I fugure it will lead to some very pratical applications in fire fighting, search and rescue, military, space, underwater, and who knows where else. Someone's got to develop this stuff eventually and the best ideas usually come from some eccentric out in left field rather than a government funded think tank.

    I hope this guy is not deterred by the snickering masses who don't have the balls to persue their own ideas with such enthusiasm.

  • Yet Another Server Benchmark? (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 1999 @12:01AM (#1670311)
    Gives me some ideas for some new server benchmarks:

    DrunkBikerWeb: Maximum number of concurrent biker-beatings server is able to sustain while still serving web pages.

    SleepyTruckerWeb: Maximum number of hits from a three-tonne truck travelling at 50 kilometres an hour while still serving web pages.

    FallingTreeWeb: Maximum number of collisions with a 136 kilgram (300 lb.) tree from a height of 9 metres (30 ft.) while still serving web pages.

  • most servers i know would manage about 1 on all of those. With the possible exception of an ol' dell 386 I used to use. It took tyre levers to get the case off. (I think it'd manage a 4/1/1)
  • The CBC made a video about him and it's funny in a very accidental way. It's bizarre and I must say, Monsieur Troy is a bit... what's the word... insane, but it's worth the four bucks to watch it.

    He doesn't ever get attacked by a bear (sorry to ruin the surprise) but the rest of it makes it worth it.
  • It may be expensive....but it has one thing going for it: Those movies of this guy getting attacked, beaten, run over, mauled, and living to tell about it are easily the funniest movies I've EVER seen. :)

  • They'll tranq the bear long before that happens. He's planning to get the bear out of the den, not go in after it. Then he just has to let the bear use him as a chew-toy for 3-5 minutes until the tranquilizer takes effect.

  • No, based on the 3rd Ed FAQ:

    AC 10 in 3rd Ed = AC 10 in 2nd Ed.
    AC 20 in 3rd Ed = AC 0 in 2nd Ed.
    AC 30 in 3rd Ed = AC -10 in 2nd Ed.
  • Be sure to buy this while at work so it makes it into your company's purchase circle.
  • This guy is FUBAR! His ultimate goal is to get the blood of a hibernating bear. If that bear decides to wake up, his suite better hold up to the challenge. Even if his suite holds up, the bear may not decide to let him go. His head would end up as a trophy in the bears den.

    His suit is pretty amazing though. Right now he funds a lot of his research through selling various types of armor as sports equipment. Even if no amazing bear research gets done, a lot of good will come from his armor breaktrhroughs.
  • Yes, they do grab. It's not a full-fisted grab, but it is enough to pull harder than one can possibly imagined. I've seen bears pull branches off trees, and that was a much smaller black bear. Remember that the den is a VERY confined space. If the bear starts an attack in there, the guy's limbs will be pushed and pulled in all different directions.

    I've seen this guys experiments. As impressive as they are, I am not convinced. If the guy was willing to attach himself to an inanimate object, then attach his arm to a truck, and had the truck pull the arm into some unnatural position without breaking it, then he might begin to convince me.

    Imagine this situation. The guy is laying on his chest, with his arm on at about a 90 degree angle with the hand pointing towards his feet and the palms pointing upwards (a very natural position for someone laying on their chest). Then the bear puts its weight over the guy's shoulder or anywhere near the upper arm, grabs the hand, then pulls it upwards. Can you imagine the amount of torque that would place on the elbow and shoulder?

    This whole bear suit deal reminds me of an experiment that was done with white sharks some years back. They were trying to develop this "shark proof" suit made from a very tuff metal mesh. They had successfully tested against smaller sharks, and had tested in the lab against penetration by a sharp blade driven at a force equivalent to a great white's jaws. So they put it on a test dummy, put some pieces of very bloody meat in there for bait, then threw it near a great white. The suit remained intact, yet the dummy was torn to bits by the ferocity of the attack.
  • Yes you're right, I didn't read the whole article before (don't need to go into the name calling by the way). I was relying on what I saw on National Geographic (Or was it the Discovery Channel?). I clearly remember him mentioning going into the den, and I remember him mentioning that he didn't want to use any tranquilizer in order not to contaminate the samples.

    But even in this case. So far, from all the high-impact tests that I've seen, I haven't seen a single test against high torque joint manipulation on the suit. Yes, the suit may be restricted to the natural range of motion, but how strong are these range limiters? Can they support the full power and weight of a charging grizzly on a lever as long as a leg? And what about torsional forces, such as taking a leg that is bent 90 degrees at the knee, then spinning it outwards? That is still within the "natural range of motion".

  • Not invulnerable. (Score:3)

    by A well known coward ( 2835 ) on Monday September 20, 1999 @11:40PM (#1670322) Homepage
    I saw this one on National Geographic. The guy basically wants to go into a grizzly den, and take some blood samples while the bear is hibernating.

    The two main problems I see with this are.

    1 - He has no mobility whatsoever in that suit. He can hardly walk, and forget about standing up after falling down. If the bear moves while he is in there, he will be trapped. Even if the bear doesn't move, there is a very good chance that he will be trapped.

    2 - The suit may resist a bear's punch and claws, but the guy is still vunerable at the joints. If the bear grabs his arm, and pulls it around his back or up and over his head, there is one broken arm right there. Same thing can happen to his legs. I wouldn't want a grizzly playing lever with my leg, or putting its whole weight over my bent arm, no matter what I'm wearing or how invincible I feel.

    Yet I wouldn't mind one of those the next time I go skiing. Tree? What tree? :)
  • He doesn't [mock] around with testing equipment; rather, he measures the real-world implications of the armor.

    ..Uh ...yeah ... bikers, tree trunks and 18 wheelers... real world grizzlys.
  • I saw that documentary a few years ago. You wouldn't beleive how much this guy is due for a long stay in a mental institute.

    His so-called "research" has been "recognised" by the IgNobel institute as "research that should not have been undertaken and should never be conducted again". See

    http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/ig_nobel/

    for info on IgNobel, and

    http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html

    for a link directly to the winning entries of last year, including "Project Grizzly".

    Dont take his "research" too seriously: his last suit (Ursus Mark VI) was so immobile that he couldn't even climb a small hill, as the hip joints would not allow his legs enough vertical movements. This forced him to abandon his research for that year (that's actually how the National Film Board's documentary ends...).
  • I saw this guy in his bear suit on TV...he went to a local trash dump and scared a bear to have it attack him and he was jumping down hills and having friends beat him with 2X4s ....too bad the thing costs so much otherwise I'd grab one just to say I had it. I can't remember how much they said but it was close to $100,000 I think. Only problem is its too bulky....if you were hiking through bear country and didn't want to get attacked this thing would surely protect you but you'd never get anywhere.

  • KPH? (Score:1)

    by Mawbid ( 3993 )
    I know Americans are just learning about the metric system so I'll try to inform rather than deride. You don't say kph (and certainly not in all caps). You say km/h. It would be nice if Americans could do things like everybody else this once.
    --
  • Perhaps we will :-)

    I'm very happy, however, to see the standardisation going on with dates. ISO-8601 is catching on in a big way. Finally, we won't have to wonder if 01(random separator)02 is February 1 or January 2. "1999-09-21 16:44:05.24 +00:00" and "09-21 16:45" are examples of ISO-8601 dates. (Most) Europeans give up their day-precedes-month convention, Americans give up the 12 hour clock, and everybody gains something much bigger.

    PS. Can someone answer definitively the question "Is noon 12 pm or 12 am?"? I once witnessed a long argument about that and I don't remember there having been a result.
    --

  • I hear lots of griping about lack of mobility, fatigue, stability, etc., all of which is highly justified, but you're not looking down the road, and you're judging a fledgling device against the staggering 'accomplishments' of science fiction.

    He's a lot closer to that ideal than you think, and VERY close indeed to something that could have viable military applications.

    Give the suit minimal powered assist and a lone soldier (with some specialized training and conditioning) could 'run' at a good clip for hours at a time, over almost any sort of terrain using minimal resources and leaving very little evidence (compared to a HumVee or whatever). Garage-level devices have been created that already do this sort of thing (no links off-hand, but I'm looking) without the 'armored' exterior.

    You could also fit it with a self-contained breathing apparatus for use in harsh environments or underwater (underwater, of course, VASTLY increasing the complexity of engineering if you want to completely seal the enterior, although you could have the occupant wearing an inner enviro/survival type suit and then just build the shell to drain easily and quickly upon exiting the water).

    Computer and electronic navigation and whatnot could be fitted, but I'd want to have manual backup (however primitive) for all vital operations (vision, hearing, etc.) I'd also want to be able to throw the suit into 'neutral' if the power plant is disabled, so I can move it under my own power, however inefficiently.

    Such a device would not be used in a massive 'powered infantry' style ground conflict, but would instead be used exclusively for recon and 'terrorist' type attacks in the midst of enemy territory.

    Weapons could easily be devised to thwart such a device (magnetic or sticky 'clingers' that stick to a hard to reach area of the suit and then drill or laser their way in to deposit a charge, armor-piercing missles and whatnot), but that would not negate its utility in specialized circumstances.
  • This guy deserves a major award from the hacker community. His spirit and determination is inspiring and admirable as he 'hacks' his way to a solution to a largely self-imposed problem is DIRECTLY comparable to the spirit of the original hackers twiddling away at that train set at MIT those many years ago.

    I see a lot of mean-spirited postings decrying this guy a looney, but those posters, in my view are missing the whole point. The man has a technological vision, and he's using whatever resources he can find to see it through. He has a LOT to show for his efforts, unlike a LOT of the vaporware crap [asi.org] that gets hailed as 'visionary' these days.
    Hacking is not specific to UNIX, C and shell-scripting. It's a state of mind.

    This guy's got it.
  • Mrs. Fletcher (the name of the woman in that ad - "Don't worry, Mrs. Fletcher, we'll be right there!") is my hero. One of my first MODs was called Mrs. Fletcher... it involved the infamous line, followed by "music" which sounded more like she was trapped in an alien mothership and being tortured or something. At one point, Church Lady says, "Could it be, I dunno, SATAN?!?!"

    Ahh, for the days when my music sucked in an inspiredly-stupid way. Nowadays it's just mediocre. :)
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • Bubblegum Crisis meets Yogi Bear (Score:4)

    by Pascal Q. Porcupine ( 4467 ) on Tuesday September 21, 1999 @01:29AM (#1670332) Homepage
    [Jellystone Park, 2035. An evil is stealing picnic baskets from camping families. And so, the Knight Sabers come to save the day!]

    Narrator: Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup-- wait, wrong series...

    [Narrator leaves]

    Yogi: Hey, Booboo, I see a picnic basket! Let's have lunch!

    Booboo: I don't know, Yogi, what if the Knight Sabers catch us?

    Yogi: Not to worry, Booboo! I am a bear! I can maul them easily!

    [Yogi reaches into a basket. Suddenly, his arm is shot off.]

    Priss: Eat death, evil!

    [Priss and Sylia swoop down from the sky, guns blazing. Yogi dies.]

    Booboo: Nooooooooooo! CURSE YOU, KNIGHT SABERS!


    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • Just put a small, durable computer in there(Image Recognition, targeting, et al...) and some weapons, and you'd have one heck of a marine unit.

    On the other hand, it would seem you'd take a big dexterity penalty wearing this thing, so the old covered pit idea still works.

  • This guy is fascinating (Score:3)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Monday September 20, 1999 @11:49PM (#1670334) Homepage Journal
    If you think about it, Troy's an amazing specimen. Here's a fellow that's obviously a little touched, but smart as hell, living in the woods, selling scrap metal, and building the most sophisticated armor systems on the planet. The guy has built, regardless of his motive, some amazing stuff, and he at least has an appreciation of his "eccentricity", and he understands why some think it's funny. He's a little bitter about the $$$, but if you go bust the way he has, that's got to leave a mark.

    The world needs more Troys out there.
    - -Josh Turiel

  • Just put a small, durable computer in there(Image Recognition, targeting, et al...) and some weapons, and you'd have one heck of a marine unit.

    Don't think so. Wear this plus the gear you've added, plus another 60+ lbs of personal gear and weapons, water, etc. and then go on a route march or assault an enemy position? Naaaah. Nobody's said this'll stop bullets and shrapnel -- just bears. Besides, like somebody pointed out, there's the "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up" factor.

  • Actually, it does say it'll stop bullets. Specifically, sabot rounds from a 12 guage shotgun.

    --
    Ian Peters
  • ahh, but the beauty of napalm ain't just the heat, it's also that it sucks up all the oxygen in the air. I'm not seeing an air tank in the current version of this suit.....
  • Amazon.com has it here [amazon.com].

    Jon
  • I guess he may have come to the conclusion that he couldn't accomplish what he wanted without the use of tranquilizers.

    As far as limb manipulation, as I said before, I'm sure his joints were wracked pretty hard with the previous testing. As for the new suit and it's 'class 10'(what type of system is that?) rating, well, no one can know how 100% how this thing will fare against a grizzly attack until it actually happens. Most grizzly attacks tend to be a mauling, and a bat to the head/torso (which can easily remove said head). Bears aren't too much into wrestling and figure-4 leglocks last time I checked. :) But like I said, the only real proof of any of this will be when it happens.

  • Read the damn article, idiot. (Score:3)

    by Griim ( 8798 ) on Tuesday September 21, 1999 @01:06AM (#1670340) Homepage
    1 - He has no mobility whatsoever in that suit. He can hardly walk, and forget about standing up after falling down. If the bear moves while he is in there, he will be trapped.

    If you read the article, you'd know he has no intention of entering the bear's den.

    If the bear grabs his arm, and pulls it around his back or up and over his head, there is one broken arm right there.

    Okay, I'll give you this one, because you haven't seen the suit in action. But if you had, his limbs are restricted to their natural range of motion. Don't you think that the force of being hit by a truck at 30m.p.h. would've broken something, or the 300lb. log, or perhaps the 150 ft. escarpment? If you see this in action, you'd understand. I mean, I watched Penn (or is it Teller? It was the big guy of the two) unwind on him *full tilt* with a baseball bat, that suit is so damn bulky, he doesn't even *flinch.* You'd think he was hitting him with a foam bat. Troy's my hero. :)
  • because if we did, this guy would be patrolling the streets at night, in his mighty suit of armor, protecting innocent civilians against the evils of... er... whatever supervillians happened to be around. Or something.

    Of course, without a super-reactive neural-linked set of motors in that armor to give him super-strength, he'd be reduced to standing there chortling in a super-hero manner as they wasted all of their ammunition/strength on him. Then he'd end up vainly yelling at them to stop as they beat a hasty retreat.

    >clunk!clunk!whew!CRASH!

    And we'd call him "The Indestructable (but not wholly effective) Man!"

  • This guy is FUBAR!

    Yeah, it's cool, isn't it?! :-)

    D.

  • kph makes perfect sense to me, man... all of you metric people will just have to get used to it :-P

    - 8Complex
  • Just think; this guy can raise his capital by offering "extreme cliff diving"!

    Bungie-jumping? Pfft, that's for wimps! What do you need a safety cord for? Just throw yourself off a 100-foot cliff -- and LIVE!

    Now there's an adrenaline fix...

    Jay (=
  • His trash dump is infested with wild bears? How frightening!

  • Wow! Double the fun!

    --

  • For the next time I get pulled over.

    "Yes, officer bitch, I have a driver's license."
    "Yes, officer pussy face, I have an insurance card"
    "Kiss my ass barney fife, I don't CARE how fast I was driving."

    "This ain't Miami Vice and you ain't Don Johnson. You and your piss ant 40 caliber can go to hell."

    "Hey, officer XXXXXX I went to high school with your daughter, I was there when she blew the whole football team. Did she ever get those teeth replaced? I know she's made many men happy over the years."

    Lord Kano
  • The bear suit was able to withstand a 12 gauge shotgun blast using a sabot slug. That is enough to kill an elephant. If that suit can protect against that, his next suit the G Man Genesis will have no problem at all protecting against the 9mm or .40 caliber bullets from a police officer's service pistol.

    Then for once I can treat cops with the same amount of respect that they treat the rest of us, with impunity no less.

    Any clearer now?

    LK

  • Actually useful (Score:5)

    by jabber ( 13196 ) on Monday September 20, 1999 @11:43PM (#1670349) Homepage
    I know a lot of people are snickering, having seen the film. But, at least show the man's dedication some respect, and read the article.

    He touches on some really good stuff there, and the potential for the new suit he's working on, the G-Man, is pretty awesome. 90% mobility, 120lbs!! As Troy says, it's the gear of a fully dressed fireman. Consider the SWAT/RIOT applications? The earthquake disaster recovery usage - where you don't have to worry about dying in a collapsed building, but you can still climb a crumbling stair case... The military apps, as some have said, approach Starship Troopers... Yeah, at $300K a piece it's pricey, but it's cheaper than a tank, and with some power-assist it might do just as much damage.

    Then there's the blurb about the suit enabling him to get a sample of Grisly blood during semi-hibernation, for use in NASA research into astronaut hibernation for extended, deep-space flights.

    At first glance at the vid this may seem goofy, but there's real potential there.
  • Sure, it's probably great if you're going out in the dangerous woods, or for messing with angry bikers, but how comfortable would it actually be when in front of the computer? Seems I won't be needing anyone...


  • wow,

    i remember seeing this in grade 13, which was 4 years ago. i remember seeing him get hit by trucks and thinking he was nuts.

    but as this nutty guy continues, think of the implications: "Welcome to the zoo. Please do not get out of your suits. please be careful when petting the lions"

  • Yo moron, read the article before you post. Using it to sweep for mines is one of the ideas he was planning on using it for.

  • K, what I wanna know is, could you walk through a mine-field in one of these and survive a blast?
    If so, it would be ideal mine-sweep armour.
  • Had a second look; missed that line.

  • Class 10 Armor??! (Score:5)

    by GOD_ALMIGHTY ( 17678 ) <curt.johnsonNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday September 20, 1999 @11:55PM (#1670355) Homepage
    >If I say it's got a Class 10 armor on it, which is probably four times the strength of any armor out there, that's because we've tested it in sections.

    Why would anyone think they could get away with selling Class 10 armor for 1.2 million ca (obviously that is a typo and they mean cp. Weird Canadians, why can't they use gp like everyone else). Sheesh anyone with a good old Player's Handbook knows that even a plain old cloak will get you a Class 9. Heck, you could get cheap old chain mail and get a whole Class 5 and that might cost 10000 cp (100 gp, but those Canuks?!). I personally would want some decent Plate Mail for a wonderful class 3 (and at only 30000 cp, a comparative steal).

    Is this thing some sort of artifact? Am I missing something?

  • Ahh safety (Score:4)

    by schporto ( 20516 ) on Monday September 20, 1999 @11:03PM (#1670356) Homepage
    (pardon the extreme wrongness of this but..)
    Think of the great uses:
    • Defense against bears
    • Walk through New York and live.
    • Walk through Beruit and live.
    • Wave a British flag in Northern Ireland and live.
    • Wave a German flag at a Arsenal game, and live.
    • Send messages toe the ATF stating you are a cult leader. And live!
    • Block a Neo-Nazi march. Holding up Black Panther, Gay Pride, and Isreali flag. And live!
    • Hold a disgrunteled Postal Employee's meeting. And live!

    Mommy can I have one for XMass.
    -cpd
  • So where can you buy the video?

    JW
  • 12 mid -> 0:00
    12:01 am -> 0:01
    ...
    12 noon -> 12:00
    12:01 pm -> 12:01

    12 Midnight corresponds to 0:00, which is the start of the new day, so 12 midnight is 12 am.

    Unlike with years, time counting starts with zero, because it's counting elapsed time. 0:00 doesn't mean the 0th second, it means that 0 full seconds have elapsed since the start of the day.

    Thus, because counting starts at 0, it's 0 -> 11:59 instead of 0:01 -> 12:00... Thus, if noon:01 is pm, then noon is pm too, because that cycle starts at zero.
  • I saw this one on National Geographic. The guy basically wants to go into a grizzly den, and take some blood samples while the bear is hibernating.

    The two main problems I see with this are.

    1 - He has no mobility whatsoever in that suit. He can hardly walk, and forget about standing up after falling down. If the bear moves while he is in there, he will be trapped. Even if the bear doesn't move, there is a very good chance that he will be trapped.

    If you read the article you would have seen the fact that he has no plans to go inside the den. He plans on the bear comming out of the den and darting the bear. The suit is just there to keep him alive for the 3-5 minutes it takes for the bear to be affected by the tranquliser(?spelling) dart. While the bear is out of the den his team will come in and do the plasma extraction and install cameras in the den.
  • What's all the heavy armor for? I can't think of a bear that doesn't roll over laughing when he sees this thing coming...
  • Wave a British flag in Northern Ireland and live.

    People do this all the time. I believe it's called, "Marching Season". It's kind of like the KKK marching through South Central LA with police protection.

  • A) bears don't have opposable thumbs, so it is hard for them to grab

    Bears usually attack people by claw swipes. Occasionally some biting. Probably the worst would be biting and hanging on then shaking it back and forth, which might produce some of the effects you are describing
  • But what happens when the bears get one of these suits? The larger weight and superior strength of the bear will enable it to prevail still.

    It's just another escalating arms race. Peace Now!

    No Suits! No Suits! No Suits!
  • Hmmm, Velocity * Mass / Stupidity = Bear Suit...

    In your subject line you show an inversely proportional relationship between Stupidity and Bear Suit.

    Meaning that more Bear Suits will decrease stupidity. Makes sense to me, it'd be pretty stupid to roam bear country without any protection.

    I assume you have no bear suits soooooo you have infinite stupidity. :-)*
  • The answer to that age old question - YES - it is possible to watch Robocop too many times?

    I hope this title makes it to my local video rental store - it's not something I would buy, but $5.00 overnight would be a small price to pay to see this little jewel.

    Just the mental image of this guy being piss-bowled by a small truck has me in hysterics, not to mention launching himself off an escarpment....it's gotta be like that super-sumo stuff they do in pubs and nightclubs!

    Sure there may be some legitimate scientific uses for this kind of tech, but the comedy value alone is outstanding...
  • Follow the NFB link in the story. They should have all the ordering information there.
    Not online though, so you may have to actually pick up a phone or write a letter ;)
  • Exactly.

    And that's what will happen. The bear will simply knock his ass down and wear him out. He'll pass out from exaustion. Then the heat will get him as the batteries to the fan wear out. Then the camera goes out.

    Then the bear will knock him around a bit every day as he slowly starves and dies in his hot dark supersuit.

    He is only a man. With the limited strength of a man. In a big heavy suit. Against a bigger, stronger bear with all of its mobility and strength.
  • I saw this guy on TV too, and he had one major problem with his suit. If he fell over, he could not get up. That would be a problem if the bear knocks him down, which is most likely to happen. He be like a turtle on its back.

    They should call it the "Bear Amusement Suit" (the bear's amusement, not yours)
    or the "Become a Bear Toy Suit".

    It may protect you, but how will you get away. Anyone know how well "bear repellent" works?
  • Oh do you mean this part?

    Bear deterrent sprays. You can buy them in stores in the States and Canada. You go into the store, you pay 50 to 60 bucks, you get a little can. And it's bear spray;
    you take it into the bush. Well, they don't work. I mean they wouldn't stop a dog, let alone a bear.

    There was three links to read, I read the last two, and skimmed the first. I do this at work so I don't have much time. Anyway, I thought I had read enough to post. I hate it when someone posts with out reading too, but hey I missed that "bear spray" part. I had to go back and read it again to see what you were talking about.

    Geeze, don't get so p*ssed off. I was just trying to make a point about the suit that I saw when it airred on TV.

    The "bear repellent" remark was just to say that I wouldn't count on it. And as the story says, It won't work.

  • Nothing irritates me more than people who post on Slashdot without ever previewing their comments to see if they are correct!

    ;)

  • Block a Neo-Nazi march. Holding up Black Panther, Gay Pride, and Isreali flag. And live!

    Do they make one for boom boxes? If so, I've got Der Fuerher's Face on CD.
    /.

  • His new G-man suit will fix that:

    It's 120 pounds versus
    147 for the Mark VI. See,
    120 pounds is a
    full-dressed fireman, and
    everybody knows what they
    can do. The flexibility is
    up to 91.5 percent. With
    the Mark VI you had 15
    percent. So I can drive a
    car, climb stairs, do a
    dive roll, run full tilt
    in the G-Man.
  • I hope he's paid enough attention to fastenings/closures. In my experience Brown bears do some pretty subtle things with latches and slide-bolts while quietly getting into smokehouses while doing no damage. The owners of the smokehouses usually blame kids or the neighbors until they stay up at night to find out who's stealing their fish!
  • I would think that police departments might take an interest in these as well (excepting for the high cost, of course). With the exception of certain flaws that others have mentioned (i.e. being knocked on your back) these things would seem to be ideal for riot gear, especially if his "bear repellant spray" arm cannon could be outfitted with tear gas (or maybe pepper spray) instead.

    Besides, the military has a tendency to be very traditional about the weapons it uses. It usually takes a crushing defeat or extreme circumstances (e.g. Pearl Harbor was a major factor in the rise to prominence of U.S. aircraft carriers) for the armed forces to adopt anything as radical as these suits.
  • It's pretty clear that nobody actually bothers to read anything linked to from slashdot these days.

    The article covers in some detail his plans for getting the bear plasma. None of it involves crawling around inside any den.
  • You should read the article. He would agree with you entirely. He's not planning on going in the den. As he says, that would be insane and suicidal. About all he's willing to do is get beat up by the bear outside it's den for the 2-5 minutes it takes for the tranquilizer shot to take effect.
  • He's using D&D 3rd Edition rules: AC 10 in 3rd Edition means -10 in AD&D 2nd.

    So this baby has a natural AC of -10. With a good Dex (say, 16), enough Strength to move this baby around, and say, a body shield, you're walking around with a -14 AC without magic adjustment. Fear the Barbarian wearing that thing!

    (Disclaimer: YES, I know he wasn't talking about D&D AC.)

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  • Insane, yes, so what? (Score:4)

    by Enoch Root ( 57473 ) on Tuesday September 21, 1999 @12:21AM (#1670379)
    I don't know, this guy doesn't sound so wacko. I mean, great geniuses had much weirder ideas than taking plasma from Grizzlies in order to promote extended space flight. (Hmm. Put that way, I have doubts suddenly.) Take for instance Tesla: he wanted to build giant towers to harness the Earth's magnetic fields. Madman? Yes. Genius? Yes, also.

    This Bear Suit sounds like it's an awkward approach to the problem it was designed to solve (sustain a Grizzly's attack), but it sounds like it has fantastic applications. Put a cop in that suit, and off he goes into a terrorist-laden building. Make this suit airtight, and you've got a Battletech-like elemental suit.

    I bet this suit will be useful down the line. His creator will be barely remembered, only perhaps as a footnote, as the guy who tried so very hard, but didn't quite succeed in the end. They'll look back on the wacko shaving with a Bowie, and smile, thinking the only application he saw was to tackle bears.

    I wish him luck. He may be insane, but the most remarkable men are.

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  • Hey, this guy is living proof on network television that the real wacko hillbillies are living north of the border, not in the Ozarks.

    Then again, the guy sounds more interesting in the interview than he seems as the two dimensional hick weirdo from the sticks portrayed on TV. So I guess he's really an inventive and innovative wacko hillbilly from north of the border.

    -M
  • I'm sure it could be useful for extreme environments (ie space/underwater work) where you don't want a simple accident killing you.

    I hope he's got the patents, he could make money on it.
  • If you are interested, I suggest looking at the ticket information [improbable.com] section of the IgNobel Awards page. From what I've heard from friends who have tickets, they may be gone by now. The ceremony is the 30th of September this year, although if you really want to see Troy, I suggest going to the talk he is giving tomorrow night at 7pm. Details are here [improbable.com]. It is worth it, I think. ...and the awards are certainly worth seeing at least once. Occasionally juvinile humor, but it's good stuff.

    As a side-note, they will also be live web-casting the presentation, although I sincerely hope it won't be slashdotted. I don't have tickets. :)

  • The IgNobel people don't think so (Score:3)

    by kniedzw ( 65484 ) on Tuesday September 21, 1999 @12:45AM (#1670383)

    I've actually been involved with the IgNobel people for several years now, and Marc Abrahams - the heart and soul of the Awards - genuinely respects him. Troy is leaps and bounds more scientifically respectable than the inventor of the plastic lawn flamingo or some guy who puts Barney dolls in formaldehyde (both of whom have received awards).

    What Marc and the others were stunned at was the fact that Troy tests all of this stuff on himself. He doesn't much around with testing equipment; rather, he measures the real-world implications of the armor.

    I, for one, think that there is something to all this. He's not someone to be snickered at and dismissed, even if he has won an IgNobel.

  • I saw this guy on TV too, and he had one major problem with his suit. If he fell over, he could not get up. That would be a problem if the bear knocks him down, which is most likely to happen. He be like a turtle on its back.

    They should call it the "Bear Amusement Suit" (the bear's amusement, not yours)
    or the "Become a Bear Toy Suit".

    It may protect you, but how will you get away. Anyone know how well "bear repellent" works?



    The new version of the suit is supposed to be almost as flexible as not wearing one, so you would be able to get up after beinf beat down. It's also about 50 pounds lighter than the last version.

    Bear spray works on the same principle as pepper spray, but mostly it just REALLY pisses the bears off. A good way to get killed is to spray bear spray at a bear that is wandering through your campsite....

    Kintanon
  • Can somebody say napalm? No more super marine.

    The newest version of the suit sustains a 4000 degree farenheit external temperature and is still cool enough to put your arm into. I don't think Napalm will stop it.

    Kintanon
  • It mentioned in the article that he is coming to Harvard on the 30th and to MIT sometime afterwards. Does anybody have info for those of us in that live in cambridge (but are not students), telling us how we can get tickets?
  • I was able to answer my own question.

    You can find the info about tickets here. [improbable.com] It has info about a free showing of a film about the bear suit at MIT tomorrow night (wednesday 9-22-99) and the ignoble award ceremony on the 30th at harvard. Plus some other related stuff.

    See you all there.

  • Suck.com is just too hip for its own good.
    Sure, its a nice place for hipsters to log
    on to and make believe good writing has
    to be 4.3 words per line with retro graphics.
    Oh, how I can see them holding their mouse
    in one hand and a martini in the other.

    Its not like formating that can be classified
    somewhere between wacky and stupidass is so bad,
    I mean this IS the WWW. Its that once you
    remove the pretentious air, arrogant attitude,
    and bad webdesign theres just no content.


  • Yet I wouldn't mind one of those the next time I go skiing. Tree? What tree? :)

    And if you lose your balance, you become a human sled.
  • (Score #: Funny) Huh??????
    I'm not sure , what the above poster described, is at all funny. This moderator must enjoy pulling the wings off of flies.

  • How about "Project Great White" - A set of water wings(Preferably rubber ducky) that resist being crushed by a Great White Shark.

    I think this has more practical applications.
  • Another Formula for you:Posting + Reply =YRADORK

  • Call it the "Homer J. Simpson" Award.

    Doh! That really Freaking Hurt...
    Doh! That really hurt..
    Doh! That hurt...
    Doh! That's a little better
    Doh! Not Bad
    Mmmmmmm...Bear Suit.

    Not a very scientific way to test. If it hurts like hell, then back to the drawing board.

  • Could somebody please explain to me what the hell this has to do with the Bear Suit Story. I'm sorry, I just don't get it????

  • It's not the cliff diving that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the bottom.

    Next BIG question... Does a Bear Suit bounce???



  • Velocity x Mass / Stupidity = Bear Suit (Score:3)

    by ushirageri ( 80820 ) on Tuesday September 21, 1999 @01:16AM (#1670396)
    Yes...but can he sustain being hit by a log, which is dropped from a truck which is driven by a bear? The big questions still remains. For God's sake...WHY???
  • you obviously didn't read the f*cking story because it talked about the effectiveness of bear repellent.

    Nothing irritates me more than people who post on Slashdot without ever reading the fucking material first.

    sheesh. sorry for that little rant.
  • Can somebody say napalm? No more super marine.
  • I believe it was over $150,000 total cost for the final model that he never found a bear to attack him in. I rented the CBC production video a couple of years ago. There must be a new one since he didn't manage to find any bears in the video I saw.

    Still worth the rent to hear the story of what inspired the suit and to see him getting hit with trucks,logs and 2x4's.

  • This was actually on Fox's Guiness book of record(?) show. It was really spectacular to see him get hit by a truck and going flying...

    Seems kind of bitter though, huh?

  • 1. If this specially designed anti-bear suit sees wide use, what's going to happen when the bears start carrying rocket launchers? Could a giant human vs. bears arms race be started?

    2. Will the suit run linux? I don't think I'd trust windows CE to protect me from bears.
  • That's because this version is designed to stop bears, and bears rarely use napalm. If you took the same basic design and changed it for a super marine, you'd eliminate some features and put in others. The Genesis suit mentioned in the site sounds flexible enough to get up if knocked over, bulletproof, Axe-weilding-Hells-Angel proof, heat proof, and it's got a prototype budget of $1.5 million. A military suit would have a much bigger budget, allowing for better materials, etc.

  • It's close to millitary application in a lot of ways- but I don't expect to see powered armor any time soon.

    One thing that people seems to be neglecting is that although this suit is proof against a lot of things- it can't stop bullets. That 12 gague shotgun (??) he tested it with is probably a gentle kiss compared to the kind of things that fly around a modern battlefield. Tanks use armor that's something like a foot thick, and there's now special ordinance to disable them with one shot. The entire "defense" lies in not getting hit- and since this suit would make it harder to take cover, you can kind of forget about that.

    OTOH, since it's immune to small arms, you could use it as a riot suit... but then you have the problem of someone pushing you over...

  • That's BS - nobody would have ever heard of him if he hadn't made the film, ergo no interviews, endorsment deals, action figures, etc. He will have action figures, right? (I want one)
  • Flamethrower. Next issue.

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