Do you need a key to start an F-16? –Dave Johnson, Chicago
Well, you’re one jump ahead of the late, great Dan Quayle, who, if memory serves, thought Latin Americans spoke Latin. Actually it’s called Latin America because the countries of the New World from Mexico on south speak languages descended from Latin, namely Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
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A while back someone wrote asking if there wasn’t some effective device to render car stereos and boom boxes inoperative when they were turned up to a certain volume [February 26]. Your reply referred to something like nuclear bombs or cosmic forces or some other sad expression of comic overkill rather than taking your correspondent’s question seriously and answering it accordingly. You could have advised the gentleman that several such devices have already been invented and are already available on the open market. One good example is the very handy Smith & Wesson .38 caliber Police Special. For fine-tuning accuracy the five- or six-inch barrel is recommended. In a steady hand, this tool is also effective on explosively loud motorcycles with hollowed-out tail pipes instead of mufflers. –B.J. Merholz, Los Angeles
Another device which is being considered for use against electronic systems is High Power Microwaves (HPM). These generators use sources such as very intense beams of electrons (typically currents of several kiloamperes) to produce microwave radiation at powers of over a gigawatt. HPM radiation can either temporarily confuse or scramble computers, or at high enough powers, actually melt the electronics and permanently disable the system. Neither method is cheap or likely to be available at Radio Shack anytime soon, but maybe the government can be persuaded to test one of these devices at the next Whitesnake concert. –Dan Revelle, Washington, D.C.
