Slashdot Mirror
How To Turn a Mini Maglite Into a Laser
Lucas123 writes "Using the laser from a DVD burner, this instructional video shows you how to create a hand-held laser that is powerful enough to light a match and pop a balloon. There's some soldering involved and the Maglite's bulb housing needs to be drilled out to fit the new laser diode, but with some basic skill, most people could do this. Just plain cool." Update: 07/09 12:23 GMT by KD : Warning, the device that results from following these instructions will blind you if you look into it.
No. Decidedly, no. Information has never and will never cause harm. It cannot. I do agree that some information, like certain pictures, can cause bodily harm because they induce the reproduction of your last meal, but you're free to ignore said information and keep your ham and eggs with you.
If someone is dumb enough to use the information and blinds himself, he's the only one to blame for it. That something like this is harmful should be obvious. If it's not, this is due to the person having not enough information on the subject to see the problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think the point here is that a little itty bitty laser diode doesn't seem intrinsically dangerous to a lot of people. A knife, for some reason, is easier to understand that it can and will cut you if it is mishandled. But a little self-education on the dangers of a knife generally doesn't result in blindness.
The only saving grace in this article and video is that the beam will hopefully not be that well collimated over a longer distance and when idiots shine it at other people, the damage will be less and the people will have time to look away before they get serious damage.
Also, a laser like this would probably leave lines or dots burned into the retina. It isn't as bad as a pulsed laser that can literally rip the retina off the back wall of the eye because of what are essentially sonic booms in the eye due to the fast rise times and heating pulses. But if it can burn a hole in a piece of paper, imagine what it can do to all your rods and cones when your eye focusses the beam into an even smaller and more intense spot in your eye.
I agree with all the other posters who say the video should be removed and that this article should be pulled.
It's not so much the idiots blinding themselves, as a previous poster pointed out. It's them blinding everyone else around them that's more worrying. You know, the ones that bring laser points to movie theaters? One malicious person could go to the front and start randomly shining it over the crowd.
You mean to teach people with such crippled intellect and no social or emotional control that they would take from or harm people for their own fun ... well to teach them that there is no consequence to their actions? Good idea, that'll stop them.
Please, pull your head out of your ass. The lack of oxygen is causing brain damage. You are confusing a nice ideas with the reality of human nature. There will always be asshats who don't and won't care about others, will take from others or harm others to satisfy their own pleasures, and only avoid these avenues when they cause discomfort for themselves. So good idea, let's remove consequences for bad behaviour.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.