Posted by Dave Thewlis on August 18, 2003 at 14:24:03 from 148.78.245.13 user dthewlis.
In Reply to: Re: Conservation of Environment : Another tack posted by John Nichols on August 17, 2003 at 18:47:19:
John, a possible alternative for camping in sand would be a concept I am told the U.S. Army investigated in the early 1960s -- self-driving tent pegs. The basic idea was a flat iron plate with a shaped-charge driving down through it and pulling a hook end round which the loop for the peg would be placed. Since each "peg" with shaped charge etc. would have weighed about 15 pounds, and alerted anybody within half a mile, they never entered into production. Possibly a coincidence considering some of the things that HAVE been built, however bizarre.
However the term "self-driving tent peg" is occasionally used in the U.S. to refer to a person of a particular type of aggressive opaqueness compbined with total cluelessness, perhaps in unknowing reference to the idiocy of the original proposal.
Just as well they don't exist -- I think the sand plume thrown up by one would be a few hundred feet high, and you'd have vertical sandstorms to add to your misery.