OT, intersting things you know others might not, cool things

Ok, most of us do things for work and fun that are not just firearms related. I thought it would be interesting to learn new stuff from others who get to do things I do not and share alike. Might become a popular thread, might be stupid, but here goes

I travel extensively now and this means I get to drive lots of new cars as rental agencies do not keep them very long. So my "cool thing" comes from a Chrysler 300 I drove a couple of weeks ago.

We are likely all familiar with cruise control, this might be old but since I drive 4wd's personally, CC is not a big deal one way or the other, but I do like it. Well fooling with this electronic gizmo'ed 300 I found they now have ACC aka advanced cruise control so instead of just speed monitoring, they have some kind of sonar device on the front of the car that allows you to follow someone at a given distance (3 settings, close, med, far) and instead of maintaining 70 mph it will accelerate, decelerate and even brake as needed to maintain the same distance!

Now I do not work for any type of car company, I ain't spamming, just thought this was really cool. I am not by any means endorsing it and frankly I doubt I would buy it on any car of my own as I kind of subscribe to the "its just more crap to break costing a lot of money" theory myself. I am not too sure I would be able to let go and trust it much and tend to think it promotes inattentive driving habits, but still think it is cool and a step forward to cars that drive themselves lol.

Useless thread, but thought it might be fun to learn about other cool stuff some of you come across, add it at your leisure

I have heard of that. Don't think I would trust it either as I like to be in full control of my car at all times. But it is kinda cool....

It seems like a most of the high end luxury cars are getting this these days. Mercedes debuted it in the S class [what else?] in 1998. Most of them use radar, if not a laser. I'd think sonar would be too easily fooled.

I have two, one that's probably more well known than the other. The more well known is thermal imaging cameras displayed on an in-dash screen. My parents test drove a Hyundai Sonata a while back that had one in the rear that turned on whenever you put the car in reverse. It was pitch black out and I couldn't see their car behind me. I didn't even bother looking back-I just looked at the screen on the dash and was easily able to come within a couple feet and turn around. I loved it.

The other one is, AFAIK, only found on the Euro spec Land Rovers. They have an in-dash screen with some sort of polarization in the screen the allow it to show two images at once, but one viewable at only a certain angle. To the one side it displays the SatNav picture to the driver, and to the other it displays a dvd movie to the passengers-all on the same screen at the same time.

Here it is in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEyLsZeNOCY

Jim40Cal said:

I have heard of that. Don't think I would trust it either as I like to be in full control of my car at all times. But it is kinda cool....

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've seen it on commercials for the last couple years. I agree too; no chance I'd trust it.

SovereignAxe said:

The other one is, AFAIK, only found on the Euro spec Land Rovers. They have an in-dash screen with some sort of polarization in the screen the allow it to show two images at once, but one viewable at only a certain angle. To the one side it displays the SatNav picture to the driver, and to the other it displays a dvd movie to the passengers-all on the same screen at the same time.

Here it is in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEyLsZeNOCY

Click to expand...

Now that's incredible. Haven't seen that before.

My first cool thing is a handheld 3D scanner. (such as: http://www.artec3d.com/) We had similar laser scanners at my high school that I got to use quite a bit. They're super fun.

Second is a 3d printer. In high school, I also played around with these quite a bit. I know they have been around a while, but the modern ones can print moveable objects inside of parts. (The older ones I used required you to print the parts separate and assemble them.)

Lastly, a pen that you can scan colors and use them (like the "eyedropper" tool in editing software): http://dornob.com/creative-scan-and-draw-color-changing-pen-design/ This website just shows a rendering of the concept, but I have seen some not-so-portable prototypes. A common large-scale example of this concept is the color making machine for paint at hardware stores. Same concept, but this would be a pocket-sized pen.

The 300 had that nite vision camera thing but I am not sure it was a lot more than just well placed reverse lights and a night setting on the camera vs actual infrared or thermal stuff, it was fantastic though to have. When I bought my Jeep I looked at the yota FJ's and it had a camera in reverse that popped up in the mirror, really cool, but i did not buy one of those, had to go with the heep!

That 3d scanner and printer stuff is really cool, I will have to look into it a lot more, never heard of it before this thread.

Got a yota Matrix for this trip, no frills model, comfy seats though. Not sure what kind of gas mileage it gets, but they will go 100 on the turnpike ;P

LMTD said:

That 3d scanner and printer stuff is really cool, I will have to look into it a lot more, never heard of it before this thread.

Click to expand...

It's not all that new, but the technology is constantly evolving and drastically improving. They're super fun to play with, too. In fact, somebody just made an AR15 lower with one: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133514-the-worlds-first-3d-printed-gun I have seen/heard many libtards crying about the end of the world now that "anyone can easily and cheaply print completely functional mass killing devices on their personal printers in seconds." I major face-palmed after hearing that one.

HighFlyingA380 said:

It's not all that new, but the technology is constantly evolving and drastically improving.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it is neat stuff that is for sure.

Adding to the thread in general, I have not had an adult beverage in around three months and thought a nice ice cold bud light would slide down kind of nice last night, but not in Kansas. After 8:00 pm n Sunday, one may not buy a beer, or any other type of alcoholic beverage. I thought all of the blue laws had disappeared. Seems to me if one was indeed an atheist one could file suit for discrimination as what is legal on Saturday should be legal on Sunday etc.

Certainly no big deal at all, I just thought it was an interesting factoid I learned last night

LMTD said:

Yeah, it is neat stuff that is for sure.

Adding to the thread in general, I have not had an adult beverage in around three months and thought a nice ice cold bud light would slide down kind of nice last night, but not in Kansas. After 8:00 pm n Sunday, one may not buy a beer, or any other type of alcoholic beverage. I thought all of the blue laws had disappeared. Seems to me if one was indeed an atheist one could file suit for discrimination as what is legal on Saturday should be legal on Sunday etc.

Certainly no big deal at all, I just thought it was an interesting factoid I learned last night

Click to expand...

I absolutely agree that those laws are dumb. I think in MO they can't sell any day between like 1:30 and 7. (Not sure on the exact times, but it's something like that.) To me, that whole thing relates back the the separation of church and state. They claim to be separate, but then why are these archaic religious laws still on the books? If a private business feels the need to abide, that's fine, but the gov't has no place in the matter.