Potato Bazookas

Zog The Undeniable writes "The latest craze in Germany is "Kartoffelkanone" or potato bazookas. These use hairspray ignited by a spark to fire potatoes at colossal speeds. The authorities are not amused." Everyone needs a hobby I guess.

Odd.

[g(zerofunk.org)]

Bet you can't shoot just one!
g

Behind the times...

[Kintanon]

The germans JUST NOW discovered potato guns? Damn, get with the program people!
Just wait until they figure that if you fill a tin can with cement you can put a hole through a car, not just a big dent in the side.

Kintanon

Damage

[SPF6]

Potato's as weapons. You could supply an army and feed them at the same time. Kill two birds with one stone.

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

If Kartoffelkanone are outlawed, only outlaws will have Kartoffelkanone.

Re:So 1985

[ducman]

About 20 years ago, as a kid in Denver, we used to shoot tennis balls out of guns made from soda cans and fuled with ligher fluid. At least we did until I had the great idea to soak the ball with lighter fluid before we fired it. The first few times were great, but soon one of our flaming balls set the neighbor's yard on fire.

When potato guns are outlawed...

[Ratface]

... only the Germans will have potato guns! :-D

surprising

[Boromir son of Faram]

I'm sort of surprised to see this posted here, as potato cannon are made by almost every young boy when growing up. Especially engineery types who end up reading Slashdot, I'd think.

Funny also to see the authorities upset about it. In the US, our relative comfort with weapons of all sorts probably allows us to more easily accept that "boys will be boys."

While the danger of such a device is frightening, I cannot but believe that in the right hands, a potato cannon could be used as a weapon for good.

Re:Hardly new

[rmadmin]

I remember my neoghbor putting a hole in the garage roof misfiring one of these when we were little.

Foriegn exchange student program gone wrong!

[Monofilament]

Oh my I can see exactly how this happened.

Billy-Bob from Southern Louisianna (sp?) finally gets into the foriegn exchange student program to go study in Germany. Dieter from Germany does the same to come to Souther Louissianna.

Billy-bob gets bored one day with builds potato cannon and shows it to all his german friend. Crazy fad begins.

Dieter learns of said cannons in the US and brings idea back to find the fad already there. He then proceeds to spread the art of potato cannon building.

the FORTH REICH ENSUES!!!!! except now the BLITZKRIEG isn't their Major offensive weapon its the POTATO CANNON!!!!

Re:Damage

[trikberg]

> Kill two birds with one stone.

Stone? Surely you mean potato?

Re:Hardly new

[Cpt_Kirks]

Pity the poor Germans. Once they led the world in starch based weapons technology, now they have to play a distant game of catch up.

The Iraqis don't stand a chance against our mighty potato cannon, not to mention our highly intelligent french fry cluster bombs!

Its's not a spud gun officer..

[stephenisu]

Reminds me of the time a couple of Iowa State students got out of trouble for having a spud gun by claiming it was an internal combustion engine. When the officer asked where the piston was, they replied "About 5 blocks that a way.."

Tests have shown

[zeus_tfc]

My favorite part of the article:
German police fear that the youths will turn to more lethal ammunition than potatoes. Tests have shown that such a bazooka firing an empty film canister filled with sand and the cardboard centres of toilet rolls filled with cement could penetrate brickwork.

I can just picture these "experts" in a lab doing "testing".

It probably went something like "Whoa, that was way cool, lets see what else we can use. Hey, if we use something really heavy it'll be just like those cannons on junkyard wars!"

Those guys must have a cool job.

Stop! It's Deadly! ....but have you tried THIS?

[nettdata]

From the story:

German police fear that the youths will turn to more lethal ammunition than potatoes. Tests have shown that such a bazooka firing an empty film canister filled with sand and the cardboard centres of toilet rolls filled with cement could penetrate brickwork.

I love that... "hey kids, those potato gun things are WAY too dangerous for you! Don't try it, but THESE things are WAY more destructive!"

Ya gotta wonder.

Re:Damage

[BrokenHalo]

You could supply an army and feed them at the same time

I hope not... I wouldn't want to be fed by one of those machines :-)

Wow...

[new death barbie]

An apple fired from one of the guns almost took out the eye of a middle-aged man near the Baltic coast.

...that's got to be distance record...

OMG! They are killing potatoes!!!!

[Cyb3r]

I am currently growing a potato in my basement, and am documenting it online at

http://www.projectpotato.com :)

We made an olive gun

[Scratch-O-Matic]

when I was a kid. We took a used model rocket motor and duct-taped it to the top of a wooden gun, with the nozzle to the rear. We'd put a firecracker in the motor casing, with the fuse sticking back through the nozzle. We were fortunate enough to have an olive tree in our yard...fresh olives are about as hard as avacados. We put an olive down the tube, in front of the firecracker, and light the fuse. It could cause welts at 15 yards. Later improvements included a mounted lighter for ignition. Not one eye was put out that summer.

Potato guns, for great justice.

[revision1_1]

I went back to my parents house to build one (and test fire, since the apartment complex I was living in presented an environment a little too target-rich). After the PVC cement dried and I completed some test firing with a rag stuffed into the barrel, I managed to put a potato into the air, across the street, over the house across the street and smack into a humongous water tower that has loomed over my childhood memories for 20 years.

Talk about a thrill. It was early evening, and a little dark, so you could see the long tongue of orange flaming Aqua-net.

First a click (of the grill igniter in the trigger)...then a sort of "thomp" sound...then a long silence...then a huge, resounding GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG sound.

It was awesome. A childhood dream come true.

I need to build another.

Orange Fusion

[Tisha_AH]

So, if you put a bunch of these tubes together in a sphere with the barrels all pointed inwards and use Estes rocket motor ignitors so they all go off at the same time can you cause the oranges to fuse?

OJ, with lots of pulp!

Re:Odd.

[giel]

Sooner or later Iraq will have to prove they don't own potatoes.

Re:Obviously

[Waffle Iron]

ther German should immediately pass a homeland security act to combat these behaviour of terrorism.

Since potatoes are a munition, all potato sales must be strictly regulated. Henceforth, no potato shall be sold to the public unless it has been chipped, julienned or mashed at an approved and licensed facility so as to render it harmless.

Hash

[jefu]

I've long contemplated (without building one) building a "spam cannon" from fastened together spam containers and shooting the meat product - not the icky email.

Probably wouldn't make dents in most things, but my thoughts always work more toward the notion of a high angle shot (a "spam mortar" perhaps). Imagine standing in line to see "The Return of the King" and suddenly being bombarded with spam. Or maybe being that email spam king and having your back yard picnic, well, spammed.

Of course, combined with a potato bazooka, we'd have Hash Artillery (and not the kind you'd smoke or bake into brownies). Toss in a cabbage trebuchet and a flambe' (why didn't the ampersand-eacute-semicolon character entity work there?) thrower and you'd have mealtime covered.

And in other news...

[Alcohol Fueled]

Having heard of these new potato guns that fire spuds at speeds close to those of rockets, terrorists have begun flocking to Idaho, where potatos are grown by the millions and starting their own potato farms.

In a crazy incident, American soldiers came under heavy potato fire while during a training mission in the Middle East. The American soldiers managed to escape unharmed, except for one who was turned into a human mashed potato. The attackers were captured and taken to Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, where they are being held indefinitely and treated poorly. After ten hours of being asked where the odd weapons came from, one Arab replied, "We got the guns from Germany, but Habeeb the potato farmer in Idaho supplied the ammunition!"

And also in related news, Iraq has begun importing more and more potatos, under the cover of "food for humanitarian aid."

Great... just what we need. Instead of firing SCUDS, Iraq will just fire SPUDS at us. :)

The real question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

have they used them to invade Poland yet?

funny

[A Gremlin In Kremlin]

The authorities are not amused.

Well, I am! :-)

Re:Hairspray is for girls

[kc8apf]

And after you done with wussy air, you move on to better things like CO2. We had a friend at a welding supply shop that got up 80lb tanks of CO2. Hook that up to a potato cannon, add a 3/4 turn brass valve and you've got a lot better cannon than air.

The initial test of it shot it out the door of the place i was working, over the parking lot (12 cars), across 5 lanes of traffic, over a Kroger's and associated parking lot, and into the field behind it. We deemed it a success.

Now, propane we were a bit leary to try.

Homeland Security Responds:

[Strange Ranger]

"We will not tolerate this kind of terrorism! While we continue to hunt down the perpetrators, we are looking into a variety of defense options including but not limted to:
The Spud Missle Defense System.
The Total Tuber Alert Network.
The PATRIOT Act 2 or Potato Anti Threat Response Initiative On Terrorism.

Collectively these efforts will be part of Operation Potato Sack.

If you suspect terrorist activity, which could range from unusually large potato purchases to bioweapon threats like Suspicious Potato Salad, please alert the authorities immediately.

In light of this new information we are raising the National Alert Level to Golden Brown "

Violent Video Games

[Dr. Evil]

These kids need some violent video games to relieve their destructive tendencies and to keep them away from these "outdoors."

Re:Wow...

[Anne_Nonymous]

The offending projectile would have been the apple of his eye.

The *real* source of the problem

[pergamon]

And why is it they're not talking about stopping the supply of ammo? Surely no young person would have any legitimate (ie non-projectile) use for a potato, so they should clearly limit the sale of these at such covert arms markets as "grocery stores". They should be burning the fields of the potato growers to stop this tuberic menace to society!

Re:Odd.

[billybob2001]

Guess they'll be designated

Weapons of Mash Destruction.

Re:Home Depot.....

[stilwebm]

He probably figured that if he helped your friends, their parents would come back in and buy some repair stuff too.

Alternate ammo

[John Harrison]

One year driving back from winter break a large group of us stopped off at Circus Circus and actually had some fun there doing the carnival games. We ended up with a lot of small stuffed animals including several penguins. We discovered that the penguins fit very nicely in the barrel of our potato gun. They soon became standard ammo to be launched off our balconey at a variety of targets. You got the same boom of launching fruit but with less danger and less mess. Of course they didn't fly as far as that one legendary apple, but that helped them be a recoverable form of ammo, good for using again and again.

Now if only RMS had seen us launching little penguins... he would have made us call it a GNU/Gun.

Evidence will be revealed to the U.N...

[Inflatable Hippo]

... That Iraq has been openly farming potato crops.

Re:Its's not a spud gun officer..

[3waygeek]

Another good explosive mixture is solid welding fuel (contains potassium chlorate) and powdered sugar.

Back in my Iowa State days (81-87), my roomie and I mixed up a batch and set it off in an old parking meter pole -- made a great mortar. At the time, we were living across the street from Dugan's Deli; when we set off the mortar, lots of drunks came out and asked what was going on. We told them the university's physical plant blew up, and they, in their intoxicated state, seemed to believe it.

The resurgence of the Nazi Starch Machine

[soupmaster]

Watch out you crazy Brits... It's gonna be raining pomfrets in London before you know it.

Next it'll be the P-3 autonomous flying katoffel humming it's way at Big Ben....

Why this is newsworthy...

[Pii]

That some boys are playing with Spud guns is not what makes this a newsworthy story.

Nay, it is the fact that they are German boys that makes this a newsworthy story.

In the late 80s, Ronald Reagan issued a challenge to then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. During his famous speech in Berlin, he said:

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Shortly therafter, the Berlin wall was no more, paving the way for German unification.

People with no sense of history thought this to be a good thing, but myself, I saw these occurrances for their true nature. A unified Germany can mean only one thing... It's only a matter of time before massive, well equipped, well trained German armies are marching all over Europe.

Others deny this conclusion, and some have actually made statements to the effect of:

• Germany finally learned it's lesson during the last century...
• Europe has changed. The EU is proof that Europeans have come to value cooperation more than conquest... Or:
• Yeah, like Germany could just roll over France! As if!

Be wary, my Slashdotting friends. It's only a matter of time before the people of Germany grow restless, pretending to be friends with the rest of their European neighbors. Already, German youth have turned their attentions to the design and manufacure of inexpensive, abundant, starch weapons.

Heed my warning... It's only a matter of time...

Not that hard...

[Kjella]

Personally we've been using caps (like you use in cap pistols) to make non-directional "bombs" for fun. Use one as ammunition inside a pipe and you could do just as good as hair spray I'd think.

1 roll: Like a fire-cracker
6 rolls: Triggered car alarm several meters away...
18 rolls: Blow mail box to bits (confined space)
50 rolls: What can I say? The entire street noticed...
150 rolls: Felt serious shock wave at about 7-8m distance (ears protected)
450 rolls: We considered it, but dropped it due to strategic arms limitation treaties ;)

Kjella

Ballistic Fun

[Etrigan_696]

Potato guns are new to germans? Maybe that's why they came out on the bad end of two world wars...Rednecks in Kentucky are years ahead of them....

We've made potato guns of all shapes and sizes. We even made one out of 1/2" steel walled pipe that used a bottle of propane from a camp stove, an oxygen bottle from a welding torch and a BBQ ignitor magneto. That one (We called it "Big Bertha") weighed over 100 lbs and we never found any of the potatos we shot out of it. I think they ended up in low earth orbit.

My senior year of high school (1991) we decided to pull the greatest prank we could think of...Shell the high school with potatos. However, when we saw the dents they made in the roof of my friend's truck we decided against it.
SO.... We got a waterballoon ballista - basically a huge slingshot manned by three guys - two to hold the ends and one to load, pull back and fire.
So we waited till lunch, snuck out of school to my friend's house a block over and loaded up the ballista. Another friend was on a payphone at school which we called from the house - he was our forward observer. After a few shots, he had us zeroed in on the bench where all the "big haired" girls sat. We got two shots off before the first one hit, had them screaming and frozen in panic and soaked them perfectly. No one knew what the hell was going on. But because we were a block away, we didn't get to see the girls in the wet t-shirts. DAMN the luck!

Re:Why this is newsworthy...

[Pii]

It's a joke... Laugh.

Ahh Yes, The Good Ol Days

[Roofus]

When I was at Penn State, I remember reading a newspaper story about the prestigous Atherton Hotel. Apparently it had been under mortar fire from a potato gun for several weeks straight! I wish I had known who did it. I think the idea of urban potato warfare in State College would have been a blast =)

Re:Behind the times...

[carlos_benj]

The issue here is not that potatoe guns exist.

Dan Quayle reads /.?

Re:We made an olive gun

[cybermace5]

Not one eye was put out that summer.

Three, then? Four? Five?

Thank you.

[Unknown Poltroon]

THis looks like the perfect gift for my neice. Im trying to be a bad influence on her.

Re:When potato guns are outlawed...

[AndroidCat]

No problem! Potato guns are not the ne plus ultra of vegetable warfare: Man builds gun to fire pumpkin a mile [ananova.com] However, in hand-to-hand combat, nothing beets a good crisp stalk of celery!

Re:Hardly new

[seann]

game of "ketchup"?

Re:Hardly new

[macdaddy357]

Back in the seventies, the neighborhood pyros would use the top of a kids' swingset as a cannon. They would stuff a racketball in one end, light an M-80, and stick it in the other, followed by a dirt clod to plug it up, and launch the racketball. It flew like a bullet. Part of the game was to launch it horizontally, then have someone try to catch it with a baseball mit. The craziest thing about this story is that the guys doing this were adults, and the people watching were kids! Talk about setting an example. I think they were potheads, though.

Re:Damage

[carlos_benj]

Potato's as weapons. You could supply an army and feed them at the same time.

Wouldn't you be feeding the enemy though? Or are you suggesting we eat our own ammo and be overtaken by the Huns!?!?

Re:These have been around for quite some time

[Anonymous Coward]

You got one for Christmas?

You'll shoot your eye out!

Childhood Memories

[Inda]

Seems like a lot of people on here are reminiscing about their childhood so here goes: Coming from a farming village there were many things to play with on the farms in my area. One of the coolest things was a crow-scarer. It was a tube about 1.5 meters long that was connected at a 45 degree angle to its frame and storage box. Every 10 minutes the pressure would build up inside the tube and the propane gas would be released making a loud bang, scaring the crows. I don't think that the gas was ignited though. We stuffed all manner of things down the tube; turnips, cow pats, people's socks and shoes, gravel. Nothing really worked; it all got jammed about halfway down... until we found some empty paint tins. Putting these over the end of the tube kept the pressure in for longer, and boy would they fly. Using people's bikes as target practice was great fun The only problem was that we couldn't adjust the timing so waiting 10 minutes for each bang got boring after a while.

Re:The *real* source of the problem

[seanellis]

I guess it's different over in the US.

Don't you guys over there in the States have a constitutional right to keep and bear potatoes?

And I seem to recall Charlton Heston saying that "Potatoes don't kill people, people kill people" (only sometimes with potatoes). And "A society with potatoes is a polite society. Pass the fries, please."

Or something like that, anyway.

Re:Odd.

[chamenos]

if american legislators had their way potatos would be banned, and the men would come to your house and take away your potatos.

Re:California has banned these

[gokubi]

How are we supposed to build "The People's Cavalry" if they ban potato guns and Segways? How will we ever liberate the sidewalks of California?

Who guards the guardians?

[AndroidCat]

Are the police really conducting tests to determine how deadly these things can be, or how much fun?

Re:Why this is newsworthy...

[VivianC]

To quote Tom Lehrer:

Once all the Germans were war-like and mean,
but that could never happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918,
and they've hardly bothered us since then!
-From the Song "MLF Lullabye"

Re:Odd.

[HyperLemur]

You mean...SPUD missiles?

Imagine...

[ackthpt]

Bet you can't shoot just one!

Imagine Dirty Harry working in a fast food restaurant...

"You want fries with that?"

each generation....

[spazoid12]

It seems each generation does many of the same things the previous generation did...and then goes around believing it was a new and unique thing. Highly innovative and clever, filled with exciting danger and evil laughs.

But the Taco is still quite young and likely to accept many more such posts of things he believes are original wacky antics.

In a few weeks he'll be posting a submission from some guy that claims to have invented the funnelator [google.com] (the story will be duped the next day).

The Match-Head Surprise Potato Cannon

[PhilHibbs]

I spent more than one evening on the run-up to Guy Fawkes Night (Nov 5th) sitting in an attic, crushing match-heads between two 10p pieces (a bit larger than a quarter, I think), nerves stretched by the imminent possibility of a flare-up. Between four of five of us, we collected the crushed heads of about 4,000 matches.

On the big night, we rammed a 6 foot steel pipe about two feet into the ground, rammed paper into it until the paper reached ground level, then poured in the match-heads, jammed a potato in the top of the pipe, and lit a fire around the base.

Then we just got on with the business of lighting a proper bonfire, making punch, roasting potatoes, setting off fireworks, and drinking. Every time anyone walked past the pipe, they would glance nervously at it. A couple of hours later, there was a tremendous thundering BOOM, and the potato went up into the stratosphere.

Re:Potato guns, for great justice.

[TheMidget]

... and since that day, the tap water tasted of foul potatoes, and everybody wondered why,,,

Re:Odd.

[The_K4]

Yeah, at least when we made them at college we used PCV pipe parts, a grill ignort button, and an LP gas tank. Come on if your gunna make one, make a relly fun one. Nothing like cooking and shooting the potato at the same time.

You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

[catdevnull]

HA! I love all the references to people losing eyes! It sounds somebody's mom wrote that story.

Re:Odd.

[Old Uncle Bill]

Definitely. From the article: Local stores that sell hairsprays and pressurised lighter fluid, the favourite propellants for the DIY weapons, may also be asked to sell them only to adults. Failing that, police suggest that youngsters should have to explain why they are buying them.
I would definitely be suspicious of any teenagers buying hairspray. God only knows what they are planning.

In other words

[geekoid]

Germany Reunited! Coming to a France near you!

so Germany ir reunited, and there is talk of arming Japan. And Mitsubishi has Zero down financing. Why am I the only one that see's a problem here?

Redneck Fest Party Favor

[pmpddy]

Every year I venture down to the hills of Appalachia in southern Ohio for my brother-in-law's annual summer party (a.k.a. Redneck Fest). Invariably the one legged chicken from across the road ventures out to taunt the drunken fool with potato gun. I, er uh, we really hate that chicken. Do you know how hard it is shoot a one legged chicken with a potato gun when you're drunk off your ass?

If the US Marines Used These ...

[Mignon]

THIS IS MY SPUD GUN. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My spud gun is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life.

My spud gun, without me is useless. Without my spud gun, I am useless. I must fire my spud gun true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will....

My spud gun and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count.

We will hit...

My spud gun is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage. I will keep my spud gun clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...

Before God I swear this creed. My spud gun and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.

Re:Odd.

[Ralph Wiggam]

I'm imagining Dubya at the 2004 state of the union:

"The threat that Ireland poses to the stability of the world cannot be ignored. The vegatable inspection process has been a failure. Our only option now is to forcibly remove these dangerous foods from the hands of the evil Irish." ...
"And as part of my economic stimulus package, I propose cutting taxes from all Americans with the last names of Bush or Cheney. This will help all middle class Americans...somehow. God bless America. Good night."

-Barry

Re:m-80 (fun stuff to do with them..)

[cayenne8]

Yup...and they had waterproof fuses. They used to sell them as normal fireworks. Last box of them I saw was back in HS in about 1980. We got a box of them, took them to our neighborhood pool during the winter, tied them to rocks, lit them and dropped them in...like depth chargers. Found out that summer we had cracked the bottom of the pool. But, the best thing to do with them in school, was to find someone who was sitting on the can in the bathroom on one of the lower floors...run upstairs, light an M-80, and flush it...thing would blow up, and shoot water out of the john's down below...hehehe...talk about a wet suprise..hehehe. Had to quit that when the pipes at Central High suddenly got blow out a few times....

Anything to help. . .

[go3]

. . .the Germans out of socialism and restore their war loving pride.

Look out, France.

Re:These have been around for quite some time

[glitch]

from the amazon.com page [amazon.com] you provided:

Customers who wear clothes also shop for:
* Clean Underwear from Amazon's Target Store
* Ladybug Rain Boots from Amazon's Nordstrom Store
* Pet Socks from Amazon's Urban Outfitters Store
* Helicopter Sleepwear Sets for Baby from Amazon's Old Navy Store

i'm not sure which i find more disturbing -- that amazon has a way of determining when its customers are/aren't wearing clothes, that some geeks tinkering with potato guns are doing it in the nude, or that others are doing it in ladybug rain boots and pet socks...

Re:When potato guns are outlawed...

[John Harrison]

However, in hand-to-hand combat, nothing beets a good crisp stalk of celery!

Actually brussel sprouts grow on a stalk that is about the size of a baseball bat. You might actually be able to hurt someone with it. And by hurt someone I don't mean making them eat the brussel sprouts.

Firing chickens. True story.

[Jens]

Lufthansa is (or has been) testing new airplane designs and revisions by firing dead chickens from a special gun onto the windshields and into the turbines. They wanted to test whether the plane would survive a bird hitting the plane head-on at k*100 km/h in the air.

Some idiots once put the lower part of a mop (the thing you clean your bathroom floor with that looks like your mother in law's hairstyle) into this special gun and fired at someone about 200 meters away. Broke him both legs. (Try to explain that to the ambulance ... "this here mop did it! Really!")

btw: British Airways (or was it the USA? don't remember) caught up to this and copied the idea (not the mop idea though). They loaded the gun with a dead chicken, measured the distance like Lufthansa did, and fired.
The chicken went through the windshield, through the pilot's seat, through the console behind the driver (or whatever was there) and into the wall behind it.

British Airways (or whoever) complained to Germany. Germany sent two engineers there, looked at the setup, and advised them to un-freeze the chicken before firing.

Re:Odd.

[DrMaurer]

It's a Weapon of Minute Destruction.

"Not wearing a uniform? You're headed to Cuba, boy."

Idaho

[m.e.l.l.e.n.t.i.n.e]

Somewhere in Idaho, a potato farmer and his family are rejoicing.

Re:Best Onion Headline...

[Anonymous Coward]

Morgen dringen wir in Irland ein!*

*Tomorrow we invade Ireland!

Re:Hardly new

[Mr.Happy3050]

True this is hardly new. The Potato(e) gun was kinda a techy/nerd fad in the late 1980's and early 1990's in the midwest. I remember seeing a demonstration on the "Dangerousness of Potato Guns." What they did was shoot a potato through a car door. Obviously, it had the reverse effect; everyone wanted one after that.

The PIAA

[felonious]

The PIAA ( Potato (or Potatoe if you are Dan Quayle) Industry Association of America finds the current potato trend disturbing to say the least.

Hilary "I love big bags (of chips)" Rosen has issued the following statement in this leaked memo...

To be brief we have laid out the terms of the infringements so please look over the document and give me your input.

Begin Doc....

1. Contributory Infringement

Liability for contributory infringement attaches to "one who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another potato distributor. . . [L]iability exists if the defendant engages in personal conduct that encourages or assists the infringement." Lays, Inc. v. Spudster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1014 (9th Cir. 2001).

Knowledge

Bazooka Potato Bombs sought to obtain licensing from Lays and was referred to individual members of the National Potato Growers Organization.

NPGO wrote to Bazooka Potato Bombs and provided notice that its conduct was infringing and that it should obtain the necessary licensing.

PIAA wrote letter to Uzi Potato when it was an OpenPotato system and placed Uzi Potato on notice of infringing conduct. The same principals contacted by the PIAA are still in place at Uzi Potato.

In discussion with General Counsel of Potato Copyright.net, PotatoZaA CEO acknowledged exchange of copyrighted content and stated looking into filters, particularly for child potatos.

Press has raised issue of exchange of copyrighted content with company principals.

Widespread presence of copyrighted potato materials in supermarkets.

Message Boards discuss available Potatos, Genetically Engineered Spuds (Ges), and Potato Ordinance Delivery Systems (PODS).

Uzi Potato employees participate in message board discussions and CEO acknowledges Uzi Potato controls message boards.

[should we provide notice by letters and when?]

Material Contribution

PotatoZaA creates and licenses Potato Delivery Systems primarily used for the preparation and delivery of copyrighted potatos and weapon systems.

PotatoZaA created and controls boiling of said potatos that ensures that the potatos remain hardened and Potato Factory Fresh from outside influences.

Provides a dynamic list of available superspuds where potatos can be exchanged (possibly through the .38 spudspreader).

Continually updates the list of available superspuds and communicates that information to users (likely through the .34 spudspreader).

PotatoZaA, Uzi Potato and Potatokster maintain log-in spudspreaders.

Maintains the Potatokster.com spudspreader which acts as a superspud (and by definition maintains a spud index).

Resolves spudsplits and other spotato problems (likely through the .34 sspudspreader).

Vicarious Infringement

Vicarious liability arises when the defendant "has the right and ability to supervise the infringing activity and also has a direct financial interest in such activities." Ruffles, 239 F.3d at 1022.

Right and Ability to Supervise

PotatoZaA, Uzi Potato, and Potatokster all expressly reserve the right to limit the number of spuds that users make available or access and to terminate users who infringe intellectual potato rights or violate other laws.

Uzi Potato also reserves the right to remove or disable links to delicious potato recipe material.

Spudspreader limits Spuds to certain spudrate

Uzi Potato implemented a filter for child potatos.

Mr. Straight Pimpin' Spuds claims to have cooperated with police in limiting the exchange of child potatos.

Financial Benefit

Generate advertising revenue based on user base.

Mr. Straight Pimpin' Spuds expressed to head of Rock the Potato that he can't stop infringements so he intends to make money from it.

Spudstrom acknowledged to the press that PotatoZaA is making money.

The services have a rapidly growing user base and according to SPUDNET's spudload.com is the most popular potato ordinance delivery system blueprint software on the net.

Uzi Potato obtaining additional funding from Potato Venture Partners.

III. Recommendation

We have solid claims against PotatoZaA, Uzi Potato, and Potatokster of secondary liability for copyright infringement. The claims are not as strong as those against Spudster, but they are also not so remote as to be wishful.

Our claims would likely be strengthened by learning more about the designation of superspuds and the content of growing genetically engineered potatos within the system. However, the encryption of this communication precludes further learning absent cooperation from one of these companies or court ordered discovery. In that regard, we recently learned that PotatoZaA is very interested in exploring alternatives to litigation and its principals are willing to sit down with the potato companies to discuss ways of resolving any dispute. PotatoZaA is willing to sell the company and the technology, or enter into a licensing arrangement. PotatoZaA is also willing to implement filtering technologies to prevent potato infringements. We have also learned that PotatoZaA is looking for the litigation and would like for us to file suit.

Thus, we recommend (1) filing claims against PotatoZaA, Uzi Potato, and Potatokster, (2) immediately thereafter initiating discussions with PotatoZaA about resolving our claims in a way that will provide us with useful information and testimony against Uzi Potato, and if possible obtain PotatoZaA's cooperation in shutting down or converting Uzi Potato and Potatokster, and (3) continue forward with litigation against Uzi Potato, Potatokster, and potentially Potato Venture Partners.

We hope one day to have a world where people actually pay for their potato content and/or potato delivery systems. When users are using unlicensed potatos, spuds, and their delivery systems they are in a sense supporting potato terrorism of which the likes we haven't seen in a hundred years. We can't afford another Mashed Potato Eleven (MP11). Mr Potatohead was lost in that disaster as well as Mrs. Potatohead and that day will forever live in infamy. Please I ask everyone in our organization to help end this senseless crime.

Hilary "I love big bags (of chips)" Rosen

Wow, such advanced technology...

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome, Germany, to 1992 suburban Kansas!

Jim

When hairspray is outlawed, only ....

[mnemotronic]

Local stores that sell hairsprays ... may also be asked to sell them only to adults

And who's pushing the technology on these weapons of mashed destruction I ask??

German police fear that the youths will turn to more lethal ammunition than potatoes. Tests have shown that such a bazooka firing an empty film canister filled with sand and the cardboard centres of toilet rolls filled with cement could penetrate brickwork.

How do I get a job as Potatoe Launch Vehicle Tester? And not to be outdone, the toddlers are up to their old tricks:

A school in Weinstadt in Baden-Württemberg recently came under a potato barrage from children playing truant...

Ok, what exactly constitutes "a barrage"? More than one? Then how do we classify a handful of Julien frys? An arsenal? That would make McDonald's the biggest arms dealer on the planet.

A 16-year-old in the university city of Göttingen lost part of his ear when the firing chamber ripped open as he pulled the trigger.

I would say natural selection may play a part in thining the ranks.

An apple fired from one of the guns almost took out the eye of a middle-aged man...

Potato guns don't kill people - fruit salad kills people.

Re:Imagine...

[sharkey]

Imagine Dirty Harry working in a fast food restaurant...

"I know what you're thinking, 'Did he use beef juice, or only vegetable oil?' Well, seeing as how these are McDonald's French Fries, the most prolific French Fries in the world, you have to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"

Re:Hardly new

[TheGrayArea]

Reminds me of the old joke: Q: "What are a rednecks last words?" A: "Hey ya'll, watch this!"