One step closer to Ng's "wheelchair" from Snow Crash
December 10, 2014 2:40 PM   Subscribe

The Ripchair 3.0; a powerful vehicle which provides extreme mobility and utility to the wheelchair bound.
posted by quin (21 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Needs the Ripley exoskeleton forklift option for heavy lifting and the occasional xenomorph incursion.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:42 PM on December 10, 2014 [2 favorites]


Rip Torn should get one of these.
posted by stinkfoot at 3:33 PM on December 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


Of course it's a damn tank. With SNOWPLOW OPTION.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:50 PM on December 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


And gun racks!

Although your chances of sneaking up on a deer in that thing would be close to zero I'd reckon.
posted by tim_in_oz at 3:55 PM on December 10, 2014


*cough*
people are not "bound" to a wheelchair even if they use a seatbelt
*cough*
it gives them mobility instead of limiting their movement
*cough*

posted by Madamina at 3:56 PM on December 10, 2014 [10 favorites]


No offense intended. "...to people who use wheelchairs" would have been a better phrasing on my part.
posted by quin at 4:04 PM on December 10, 2014 [3 favorites]


It looks like a lightweight, ATV version of a skidsteer, and I suspect it would be serious fun to operate. We use four- and six-wheeled ATVs for work all the time, but this actually looks like it would be safer and better in a lot of situations with the zero-turn tracks, stability, and low ground pressure.

This is some really neat engineering.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:11 PM on December 10, 2014


As you were! People who use wheelchairs need giant rowdy gas-guzzling tanks just like the rest of us. Hell, I live in Wisconsin, and that snowplow attachment makes me jealous.
posted by Madamina at 4:12 PM on December 10, 2014 [3 favorites]


But can you put rims on it?
posted by oceanjesse at 4:20 PM on December 10, 2014


Someone add a YeeeeeeHaaaaaaw tag pls thx
posted by tigrrrlily at 4:31 PM on December 10, 2014


Am I just being paranoid, or is the fact that it comes with a fire extinguisher disturbing to anyone else?
posted by sotonohito at 7:31 PM on December 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


I tell three Neal Stephenson stories. One is true.

BLUFF THE LISTENER

P.J. O'Rourke: I worked for Ames High for nearly a year back in the aughts.

The woman running the library wasn't a librarian. She was a "Media Specialist" and as far as I could tell this meant "anti-librarian." That woman took a thousand square foot room and gutted it. There was hardly a book to be seen. Lots of wonderful shelf space, but few books. She'd delight in telling people about the future of media and how it was all going to be digital.

She donated all of the library's National Geographic magazines going back decades to the art teacher to make collages out of because "We have them all on a CD ROMS!" The internet was her excuse to basically have metaphorical book burning.

I brought a friend of mine (and former manager from when I worked at Waldenbooks) to work with me one night and he was all, "What is this place?" I tried to explain it was a library, a place of knowledge and learning and books, but he was having none of that. So I told him it was the Media room and he was satisfied, settled down.

We're leaving, and there is a hallway display of Ames High grads done good. One was on Neal Stephenson. It had all his books in there up to that point (and the ones he'd written with his uncle as well). My friend looks at me, looks at the display, back at me, says, "I didn't see any of his books on the shelves. Did they use those for this display?" I died a little inside and answered, "No, these are on loan from a student."

Mo Rocca: Back when I worked in the Waldenbooks a woman came in and her last name was Stephenson (people wrote checks in those days). I said, "Any relation to Neal?" She got excited and said, "I'm his mom!" (This is also how I met Paul Westeberg's mom and sister when I worked for Borders in MN, "I'm the waitress in the sky!" and how I met Steven Brust). Anyway, so I say to Neal's mom, "You have your son come in next time he's in town and sign some books!" and she did. Neal comes in some months later and says, "My mom says I have to sign some books."

Roxanne Roberts: I love the sci-fi genre—and this means even though I love Harlan Ellison I still call it that—and when the Sci-Fi channel rebranded as "Syfy" I wrote them a letter in protest. Anyway, I picked up "Snow Crash" and thought I was in heaven. The fucking main character is named Hiro Protagonist, and the only two things America excels at is micro-code and pizza delivery, and it has a ninja pizza delivery man working for the fucking mob! I'm in.

Best 50 pages of any book I've ever read. Then the bait-and-switch. It gets dumb and boring and I read another 100 and regret every one. I read more and hate myself. Finally, I break down and ask the person who recommended the book, "We're you serious?" He seriously says, "If you can make it through the next 300 pages the ending is amazing." I wanted to kill that man (I swear I didn't).

If there is one thing I learned from Time Enough For Love is there's not enough time in this life for bad books, so like that book I threw Snow Crash against the wall and swore if I ever met Neal we'd have words!
posted by cjorgensen at 7:59 PM on December 10, 2014 [2 favorites]


I've said it before and I think Roxanne is spot on. I don't care what the fanbois say, Snow Crash was a couple of really novel ideas buried in a pretty mediocre novel and the ending was execrable and insulting.
posted by kjs3 at 8:19 PM on December 10, 2014


Huh, I had nearly the opposite reaction to Snow Crash, I found the first 20 or so pages so painfully, self-consciously, cyberpunk that I could barely force myself to read them. Serously, "Hiro Protagonist", like for real? Burbclaves and mob pizza delivery ninja with guns that plug into the cigarette lighter to recharge? Yours Truly? Feh.

Once Stephenson got past his "ZOMG look at this guys, I'm so wikkid kewl writing cyberpunk" part he settled down and wrote a moderately interesting book with a kind of meh ending and a rather too mystic premise, but a moderately interesting book nevertheless.

Diamond Age was vastly better, and could even vaguely be considered a sequel.
posted by sotonohito at 8:30 PM on December 10, 2014


cjorgensen: all three stories are true, of course, but you're wrong about Snow Crash. It's based on a concept for a game that Stephenson wrote the outline for, which is why there are so many scenes involving crazy antics on the road with cars and motorcycles and souped-up skateboards and whatnot, not to mention the straight-up action scenes with swords and glass knives and Reason. For all that, I also see the book as a rather depressing check list of things that are in the process of becoming true.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:31 PM on December 10, 2014


sotonohito: "Serously, "Hiro Protagonist", like for real? Burbclaves and mob pizza delivery ninja with guns that plug into the cigarette lighter to recharge? Yours Truly? Feh.

Once Stephenson got past his "ZOMG look at this guys, I'm so wikkid kewl writing cyberpunk" part he settled down and wrote a moderately interesting book
"

So as I understand it, the first chapter or so was actually storyboarded. Hence the completely different paces of that scene and the bits of the novel where an Hiro interrogates an AI about the history of Sumeria.

But more importantly, I feel its important to realize the Snow Crash dystopian cyberpunk setting is intentionally absurd and comedic, rather than Gibson's cyberpunk, which is profound and speculative. Neuromancer's future is bleak and depressing: the US collapsed after losing the cold war, cybernetically enhanced violent criminals rule the streets, the 1 percent live in cryostasis space stations, and an AI tricks humanity into circumventing the safeguards we had placed on it. And of course, the was the color of television tuned to a dead channel. These are fears from a strange, far future.

In contrast, Snow Crash's future portrays the present in hyperbole. Gated communities, an internet clogged with advertising, and the greatest technology known to man is the three ring binder, which allows franchises to multiply. Godfather's Pizza, in this future, doesn't market with a Marlon Brando knock-off, they are literally the mob. Even when geopolitical circumstances are altered, it's in service of hyperbole. National debts grew so large that nations have gone bankrupt globally, but more importantly, the small government philosophies of conservatives like Reagan are taken to their extreme logical conclusion: the US military was sold to the highest bidder, and the US Congressional Library privatized and converted into what is basically Youtube. The primary requirement for becoming a citizen of the New South Africa franchulate is that you must be white, while Metazania only allows blacks. The primary villain is a Cable TV televangelist whose most dangerous subordinate keeps a rogue nuke in his motorcycle sidecar.
posted by pwnguin at 12:08 AM on December 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


I'll ad this to the list of "things that Snow Crash was improbably prophetic about."

the only two things America excels at is micro-code and pizza delivery

Either she forgot movies & music, or that's one of the fake ones.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:56 AM on December 11, 2014


as a person who uses a wheelchair, i have a very sour grapes response to this. i mean, groovy, as are the wheelchair tires for the beach that are like two thousand a pop, but look, i sort of gave up on hiking when i broke my back. however, i took up some major creative projects and lost myself in books and my mind goes everywhere so i guess i'm saying fuck the notion that i need a tank to be a more complete person. it's like the guy with a spinal cord injury used some sort of device so that he could stand at his wedding, and people were all o inspirational wow and it's like, how fucking uncomfortable was that dude, I bet?

if people want to help people who need wheelchairs, they could make it not so fucking difficult to get them. the amount of hoops and dollars that are involved in something that i need to get to the fridge and bathroom, to say nothing of my job, would be really fucking funny is it wasn't so fucking awful

wow i seem to have strong feelings about this; forgive the cursing
posted by angrycat at 8:49 AM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


angrycat, I'm sure you have the right to curse. I didn't know it was so hard to get a decent wheelchair, but I guess it shouldn't surprise me.

I did read a story once about a guy in a walking wheelchair, it had legs and could climb obstacles like that terrifying doglike load-carrying robot thing that was posted here a few years ago. Would be nice to see that technology exist and be used for good and not the likely army of robot dogs that will get us all someday.
posted by emjaybee at 10:12 AM on December 11, 2014


Would be nice to see that technology exist and be used for good and not the likely army of robot dogs that will get us all someday.

Can we please drop the Snow Crash derail?
posted by pwnguin at 10:32 AM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


"After that, it's just a car chase."

Saw something similar to this at a vehicle extrication (fire school, removing patients from cars/removing cars from patients) class, except the treads attached to the power-chair rather than backing the chair into a separate chassis. The person using the chair seemed to get around the muddy field full of wrecked cars pretty well and knew a lot of the instructors. Bet there's an interesting back-story there.
posted by Standeck at 11:25 AM on December 11, 2014


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