Slashback: Reuse, Rotors, Prairie Dogs

What to do with your collection of AOL CDs, an antique drill and a flourescent bulb? Anxious to know what happened to the missing Enigma rotors? Want to go digging with gopher, but with your Web browser? Read on for more info.

No sir, we can't keep sending you more. guido_sst writes: "The winners of the Great AOL CD Invention Contest sponsored by UltimateChaos have been announced at http://www.ultimatechaos.com/contest/. Winners include two lamps, a clock, and a 'scaled' car."

Also, the DVD-grabber style cases that AOL is spreading right now make a nice way to give your relatives pictures on CD-ROM, once you slip in your own insert sheet.

Now you can read all your letters from Mom again. Remember the Enigma machine cleverly stolen and cleverly returned from Bletchley Park? You may recall that though the apparatus itself was returned, the all-important Enigma rotors were not recovered at that time. Now you can stop holding your breath, because evilandi writes: "ThisIsGloucestershire, the website of the local newspaper covering UK spy centre GCHQ's home town of Cheltenham, have this story telling how the police have finally recovered all the missing rotors for the stolen Enigma historic wartime encryption device. Without the rotors, the Enigma device returned to the BBC would have been useless. This brings the stolen Enigma story to a close; a man was arrested and the entire Enigma device is now complete and back in safe hands. The working Enigma device should be back on display at Bletchley Park soon."

Yes, I'd like one copy of "Gopher Hunt," please? emanuel writes: "After reading the gopher:// manifesto, it got me to do something that I had been considering for some time: move my internet presence into gopherspace and out of the Web. The problem: few people have a gopher browser, and most Web browsers have poor (Internet Explorer) to non-existent (Netscape 6) gopher support. The solution: write a gopher-to-Web gateway which will allow anyone with a web browser to navigate gopherspace. And while I'm at it, why not add WML support to let mobile phone users into gopherspace as well (after all, gopher is well suited for wireless devices)? So after a few evenings of mad coding, I have something that works fairly well (but is far from complete). See the webgopher project at gopher://gopher.heatdeath.org/. It's Free, and I'd love some involvement from other gopherheads." Greetings to my 7th Grade English teacher Note that the next installment of Hellmouth Revisited is now online.

Comments

Fun with AOL mail.

[normiep]

Sorry this might be a tad off topic but...

So I don't have a cool use for AOL cd's (aside from the standard frisbee/weapon uses), but we did find a cool use for one of their mailings.

I was going through the mail one day and as I was flipping through things, I started hearing the familiar "You've got mail" voice... it was really strange... eventually I found a laregish card board box from AOL from which it was coming.

So brought it back from the lab and was fiddling around with it for a while to figure out what was triggering it (yeah I'm slow sometimes) and eventually one of my lab mates pointed out that it was light sensative, so whenever it was exposed to light (then dark again to reset it) it would go off.

So we cut the the speaker and the bit of electronics out (it had a battery attached to the board). Speakers are magnetic, so at first we thought, gee... cool fridge magnet, but then we had a better idea... we stuck the speaker to the inside of the fridge. So now whenever anyone in the lab opens the fridge... "You've got mail!". Its pretty funny, especially when new people rotate in.

Surprisingly enough the battery has held up pretty well for over 3 months....

Re:AOL CD + Microwave == Good Fun

[wowbagger]

Your microwave oven is just a 600 watt transmitter at 2.3 GHz. Normally, the water in food adsorbs the microwave energy, and heats up. (This, by the way, is why the 2.6 GHz ISM band wireless networks are very susceptible to rain fade). Now, if there is nothing in the oven, the energy has no where to go. The technical term for this is "high VSWR", high voltage standing wave ratio (pronouced vis-war like "his car"). The electrical field will build up to a very high level, enough to possibly arc over in the oven. Once that happens, the power will flow along the arc, and most likely damage something. Also, any leaks in the oven will become much worse, and you might get an RF burn if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Finally, even if none of the above happen, the magnetron (the device that makes the RF) will heat up inside, and may burn out or explode.

That said, the odds of this happening if you run your oven for short periods of time (tens of seconds or less) are pretty small.

If you want to help prevent this, place a small quantity of water in the oven. That way, the energy has a place to go (until the water boils away.)

Other "stupid microwave tricks" that I am in no way responsible for you hurting yourself with: Microwave an old florescent tube. Or an incandescent lamp. Light a birthday candle, and microwave it.

Remember, you are on your own if you do this. I didn't tell you to do it. If you get hurt, try to kill yourself so you don't breed.

And lastly, "Short, controlled bursts".