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"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
- Frank Herbert

Garbage-can Banger  
  An elaborate noise-based weapon.  

This non-lethal weapon was dreamed up by PKD in 1965.

"...Frankly, I think we ought to drop a Garbage-can Banger on New Moscow.
"It's a missile that wide-cracks in the atmosphere... above the popcen - the population center - which it's aimed at. We place the Judas Iscariot IV above New Moscow, set to wide-crack at half a mile, and it rains down minned - miniaturized - h'd, that means homeostatic -"
"...They're about the size of gum wrappers. They drift throughout the city...
"They're cam - that is, chameleon; they blend, colorwise, with whatever they land on. So you can't detect them. There they lie, until nightfall, say around ten o'clock at night...
"they start. Each pellet, fully cammed, begins to emit a sound... a horrid sneering sound. Buzzing... The point is, it keeps you awake... I mean wide-awake. Once the noise of a Garbage-can Banger gets to you, for example... you never sleep again... You can't perform your job. You're no good to anyone, yourself included."
Technovelgy from The Zap Gun (Project Plowshare), by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Galaxy Publishing in 1965
Additional resources -

As it turns out, our government is hard at work on the Garbage-can Banger. The long range acoustic device sonic weapon developed by American Technology Corporation is a non-lethal means of crowd dispersal. The device weighs about forty-five pounds and emits its beam from a 33 inch diameter pad (not yet minned). At its maximum volume of 105 dB at 300 meters, it creates an intolerable noise similar to that of a smoke detector.


(LRAD Long Range Acoustic Device on USS Typhoon)

The LRAD device has been tested in Baghdad, Fallujah and New York City. The luxury cruise ship Seabourn Spirit used an LRAD to repel pirates who attacked the ship off the coast of Somalia in November, 2005.

Found this connection here.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Zap Gun (Project Plowshare)
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to The Zap Gun (Project Plowshare)
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick

Garbage-can Banger-related news articles:
  - Cognitive Enhancement (For Us) Vs. Degradation (For The Enemy)

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