The Best Burglar Alarm In History

Sportsqs writes "When Nikola Tesla got creative with transformers and driver circuits at the turn of the 20th century he probably had no idea that others would have so much fun with his concepts over a hundred years later. One such guy is an Australian named Peter who runs a website called TeslaDownUnder, which showcases all his wacky Tesla ways, or rather electrickery, as Peter calls it." Very cool stuff, I wish I would have had something like this to protect my comic books from my little brother when I was a kid.

Comments

Idle

[MrMista_B]

Seriously, keep this shit in Idle, or get rid of Idle entirely.

Please.

Re:Idle

[TD-Linux]

I personally found the article interesting and relevant (at least from the description, the links have all been slashdotted), though the image thumbails must go.

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the (very sparse) editor comments whenever Slashdot's recent changes are mentioned, there's been a strong implication that they're doing these sorts of things to satisfy their bosses, not because they want to. Remember how idle was rolled-out with the slogan "Never go to idle.slashdot.org". I'd guess that the suits smelled money and told them to start moving things toward blatant me-too-ism in hopes of greater profitability.

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, keep this shit in Idle, or get rid of Idle entirely.

Please.

Lighten up you anal retentive grouch.

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

Darken down, you anally loose and cheerful ray of sunshine!

Re:Idle

[owlnation]

Agreed.

NO MORE. IDLE.
NO. MORE. STORIES. LIKE. THIS.

Please. Editors take a moment to realize you are losing all respect for your readers. This will all end in tears.

Re:Idle

[TFGeditor]

To parrot/paraphrase what others have already written, lighten up and enjoy the refreshing mix of tech, freshness, and humor.

Re:Idle

[trouser]

Actually the two personality traits commonly associated with neuroses arising from conflict in the anal stage of Freudian psycho-sexual development are anal retentive and anal expulsive but otherwise, hell yeah.

Re:Idle

[Kagura]

Who runs Slashdot, exactly? I doubt I'm alone in thinking that it's just a tight-knit group of editors.

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

So, rather than just ignoring this story on the main page, you decided that it would be better to click into it, then post a comment about how much you hate these stories.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people these days? Almost no effort to skip over the story, yet you choose to whine like a stepped on dog.

You're the problem with the internet, frankly. Too many people out there think other peoples' websites should be changed to suit them. As though Slashdot is made just for you, and its owners aren't allowed to post the kinds of stories that they want.

Jesus Christ.

Re:Idle

[CroDragn]

You both educated me and allowed me to fit you in one of those categories, all in one go. Nice!

Re:Idle

[ElectricTurtle]

It was probably more an insightful knowledge that people were going to, do, and will continue to bitch about Idle. Never mind that they were told not to go there, not only do they go there anyway, they still have the chutzpah to complain about the place they were told not to go.

I really just don't get the hostility. I may have a high ID, but that's just because I only registered to go to the 10th anniversary party, I've lurked since 1998, and dudes, this is what Slashdot was created for. For chrissake, if anybody can find some of that early footage of Taco talking about why and how he created slashdot, you'll be enlightened to find that it was supposed to be kind of obscure and somewhat nonsensical. That's why it's called slashdot! It was supposed to sound weird when you had to verbalize the URL! Now in the intervening decade we have all these guys with sticks up their asses trying to pretend like /. is serious business . Granted /. isn't an immature playground like Digg or others, but it's just not 100% serious business like a trade journal or something. Christ.

Re:Idle

[JWSmythe]

    I'm really not sure which is worse, that they post these things, or that they're so old. Really, I saw this years ago.

    Feedback is good for any site. It shows the direction which the users would like the site to go in. It's important for good growth of any site (or any company). Try something, see if the users like it. If they do, keep it and/or expand it. If they don't like it, file it away somewhere so the same mistakes aren't made again.

    But, posting what the site owner/editor/publisher wants is true. I run a news site also. It's a different format with a different target audience, but it's mine. I (owner/publisher) ran a story about men and their cats. My senior editor got a bit miffed. I'll paraphrase. "We're in the middle of two wars, the economy collapsing, and what could be the most detrimental US election ever, and you're running stories about f***ing cats?!?!"

    There was good reason that I did. Because the NYTimes ran it first. Because the regular news is absolutely depressing. Once in a great while you have to give a little bright news. Broadcast TV doesn't want to do the fluff piece on a doughnut shop making the county's largest doughnut, but when all they've run for the last week is car crashes, shootings, and world news on terrorist bombings and the body count in wars we're involved in, sometimes you have to give a little bright spot in the news, even if it is still out of line.

    I run what I want, when I want. I want real factual news run all day every day. I also want to keep our readers, so the fluff pieces are almost required. Silly things like the car with the tesla coil on it are good to bring in new readers too. Someone will ask someone else "Did you see the car with lightning around it on Slashdot?" Bringing in readers with fluff is fine. Keeping them around with real news is more important.

    Some days it's harder to find real news than on other days. That's why you'll see repeated news on TV and in the newspaper. They have time and space to fill (respectively). We have a luxury on the Internet, where we just have to remain active. We don't have to fill X number of pages to keep our advertisers happy, we only have to bring in X number of viewers. On my site, that's trivial. I don't answer to advertisers, so if I bring in exactly 0 viewers for a year, then I simply won't make any money. If I bring in 1 million users a day, well, I'll be much happier on my yacht, checking my readership numbers once a day. :)

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy Birthday, by the way - incase I don't see you between now and then.

Re:Idle

[jcr]

Geez, doesn't suck the way /. put a gun to your head and made you click on the story?

Oh, wait.

-jcr

Re:Idle

[carlzum]

Slashdot is owned by SourceForge, Inc (formerly VA Linux), an Internet media company that owns several sites like Linux.com, Freshmeat, and Thinkgeek. It's a publicly traded company with a CEO, SEC filings, and NASDAQ ticker symbol. SourceForge doesn't seem like a heartless corporation to me, they've done a lot of great things for the open source community and have generally stuck to their values, but as a public company they need to satisfy their investors (as seen in a recent management change).

Re:Idle

[Kagura]

Wow, thanks for the good info. Here's a quote from the article that you already linked:

SourceForge also said it "intends to take aggressive steps" to accelerate the growth of its core Internet properties: Slashdot, SourceForge.net and ThinkGeek.

"These sites represent a truly unique set of Internet assets and there is more we can be doing to make them better and more engaging for our users," said Neumeister. "We are focused on aggressively pursuing our plans for each of these sites and making opportunistic investments that will enable us to reach our objectives faster."

Thanks.

Re:Idle

[Max Littlemore]

I don't completely hate Idle, I go to Idle on a slow news day, but I don't think it belongs on the front page. I'd like to see a slashdot poll (I have just submitted this):

What would you most like to see done to people who think Idle should appear on the front page?

• Have their fingernails pulled out one by one without pain relief
• Have them fitted with a custom 1.3kW microwave helmet
• Covered in honey and placed on a fire ant nest
• Have their income wiped out by no one visiting ./ anymore because digg is better
• meh
• A week locked in the basement with CowboyNeal.

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough* not an immature playground? Sometimes I have the feeling that Digg is more serious than Slashdot. At least at Digg you can kick the endless clichés that Slashdot seems to suffer from faster down than people can post them.

Most of the times I visit Slashdot I've to wade through clichés (Beowulf clusters, In Russia, First Pots, etc.) and wannabe clowns to get to something useful. And each year that seems to get harder and harder.

Posting as AC because I can't even bother to look up my password..

Re:Idle

[DiegoBravo]

>> you'll be enlightened to find that it was supposed to be kind of obscure and somewhat nonsensical.

Maybe that's true from a historical POV, but I believe (sorry, no stats available) that most people were at the end just driven by the classic "News for nerds, stuff that matters". So "idle" is misplaced.

Re:Idle

[virgil_disgr4ce]

Holy shit, that is terrifying... D:

Re:Idle

[virgil_disgr4ce]

THANK YOU. I cannot stand this irritating get-off-my-lawnism that seems to think that the only "news for nerds" is gnome-kde flamewars. I mean jesus, people even bitched about the "interesting bash commands/scripts/etc" stories. Come on, if you really hate slashdot that much, start your own site solely for stories about how websites that aren't viewable on lynx are an abomination of nature or whatever it is you people consider "real" news for nerds. Idiots.

Disclaimer: I am aware that I am metacomplaining! :p

Re:Idle

[Architect_sasyr]

In Russia, First Pots

That's "In Soviet Russia" and "Frist Psot" you insensitive clod!

Re:Idle

[sg_oneill]

"These sites represent a truly unique set of Internet assets and there is more we can be doing to make them better and more engaging for our users," said Neumeister. "We are focused on aggressively pursuing our plans for each of these sites and making opportunistic investments that will enable us to reach our objectives faster."

Later in the interview, Neurmeister demonstrated his agression by biting a chunk out of his own arm. "Thats how dedicated we are" he said, before glassing a reporter, kicking out a window and barking at the postman.

Re:Idle

[pz]

Wow, thanks for the good info. Here's a quote from the article that you already linked:

SourceForge also said it "intends to take aggressive steps" to accelerate the growth of its core Internet properties: Slashdot, SourceForge.net and ThinkGeek.

"These sites represent a truly unique set of Internet assets and there is more we can be doing to make them better and more engaging for our users," said Neumeister. "We are focused on aggressively pursuing our plans for each of these sites and making opportunistic investments that will enable us to reach our objectives faster."

Thanks.

Why can't CEOs and such be satisfied with slow, even growth? Why does everything have to be aggressive leveraging of opportunity? Slashdot is never, ever going to be the next NYT or Washington Post. Why not just be satisfied with a job well done and a decent, reasonable profit?

The suits kill everything.

Re:Idle

[SQLGuru]

Better yet, alienate your existing client base by screwing up something they like. Watch those growth number switch to negatives. The thing about community is that they have a voice. In this case, if they screw Slashdot up too much, we can all just leave. Find the next "Slashdot".

Layne

Re:Idle

[greg_barton]

For crying out loud. Why do you even care? I just don't get folks getting their undies in a bundle over whether stories are properly categorized. I really don't.

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in! Corporations in a capitalist economy are motivated by profit!

Geez, you all act like this is "horrible" and "shocking" information.

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey asshole, who asked you?

Re:Idle

[epine]

Why can't CEOs and such be satisfied with slow, even growth?

Well, you can't write off your Palm Beach golf membership unless you achieve you goal of investing several million dollars at a guaranteed 11% for life. Slow is for putzwads.

Re:Idle

[religious freak]

I'm a capitalist - I don't think there's anything wrong with their objectives. But their methods suck. If they want to leverage this site, they can be a lot more creative than copying other sites and trying to sneak shit in the back door in miscategorized idle stories.

This story is kind of ok, I guess. The kind of thing I'd want to see in idle, if I felt like looking at it. It's not even the miscatigorization or the idle section (though idle does generally suck). The thing that bugs me is that I think they're just trying to jerk us around. Not cool.

Re:Idle

[shutdown -p now]

It was probably more an insightful knowledge that people were going to, do, and will continue to bitch about Idle. Never mind that they were told not to go there, not only do they go there anyway, they still have the chutzpah to complain about the place they were told not to go.

You don't have to "go there" - Idle stories are right on the front page. That's what's annoying.

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. This is the Internet. If you don't like it, you can always go somewhere else, instead of just continuously bitching about it. Srsly, it's the Internet. If you don't like it and you have no other place to go, start your own!

PS: I strongly dislike this article, but I wouldn't mess up a FP just to bitch about it.

Re:Idle

[zoefff]

First we remove the level 1 'opinion creating' words:

SourceForge also said it "intends to take steps" to accelerate the growth of its Internet properties: Slashdot, SourceForge.net and ThinkGeek.

"These sites represent a set of Internet assets and there is more we can be doing to make them better and more engaging for our users," said Neumeister. "We are focused on pursuing our plans for each of these sites and making investments that will enable us to reach our objectives ."

And now with with a small rewrite and further ommissions:

SourceForge also said it "intends to take steps" to grow Slashdot, SourceForge.net and ThinkGeek.

"There is more we can be doing to make them better and more engaging for our users," said Neumeister. "We persue our plans for each of these sites and make investments to reach our objectives."

And at last the essence of the quote:

We are going to make changes to our sites

Re:Idle

[bickerdyke]

Neumeister??? Sounds like a perfect name for the next Retro-Science-Fiction-Super-Villian. "Count van Neumeister" Or a made up villian as in in 1984...

Re:Idle

[bickerdyke]

Because they have 2 years contract and bonuses according to stock prices at the end of each fiscal quarter.

Steady growth is for people planning to stick with the same company for a rather long time. (read: company founded by their dad and son on standby for taking over in 30 years or so.)

Re:Idle

[zoefff]

or in other words:

HEY READER,
USE YOUR SECTIONAL DISPLAY SETTINGS. THEY WORK.

That would fix the idle part. We could have a debate about the value of the story and the section and the punching headline they use.
My opinion is that there is a lot of ranting about nothing and /. is doing just fine. I briefed book reviews and idle, for instance. Of course, I would like to see more science stuff or something, but I'm just one here.

Could Taco enlighten us about the current status of the editorial independence of /.? That would greatly influence the debate as to which people to rant to: editors or management.

Re:Idle

[Hognoxious]

Who runs Slashdot

Master Blaster!

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: You sucked your father's dick for candy, faggot.

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget middle management, for assisting in blowing positive unrealistic smoke up the suits asses, just to make them feel good.

CEO: So, how much revenue do you think you can get make in 2009?

Middle-Management: (Thinking to self)...If I come in with a low number, I am going to look like I am not doing anything. So I will say "One billion dollars"

CEO: Well that sounds great, but how will you support that much revenue?

MM: Can I hire more people to support that one billion in revenue?

CEO: Absolutely!

MM: Hire, Hire, Hire!

CEO (3rd quarter 2009): Well MM it doesn't seem like you are going to hit one billion this year, what are you going to do?

MM: Fire, Fire Fire!!!

And this goes around and around forever!

Re:Idle

[harry666t]

That explains a lot of the recent shit that is going on.

BTW, for those that don't like the new user info page:

http://slashdot.org/users.pl

I found it a few years ago and always preferred using it over the "~username" version, and it seems that my intuition hadn't failed me. Don't know how to get other users' pages this way, though ("?user=foo" doesn't work, any ideas?).

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not necessarily the CEOs so much as it's the shareholders. i.e. the people who have no connection to the company other than receiving a cut of the profits.

Re:Idle

[zifferent]

Ya'll know that you can edit what you see on your homepage, by going to Help & Preferences --> Index:Sections, right?

I can't believe you consider yourselves nerds.

Re:Idle

[genner]

Why can't CEOs and such be satisfied with slow, even growth? Why does everything have to be aggressive leveraging of opportunity? Slashdot is never, ever going to be the next NYT or Washington Post. Why not just be satisfied with a job well done and a decent, reasonable profit?

Bahahahahaha!
I'm sorry you were serious, let me laugh harder.

Re:Idle

[genner]

Better yet, alienate your existing client base by screwing up something they like. Watch those growth number switch to negatives.

Layne

Then retire in style from all the short term profits you made by making the tough decisions. Ahh... the American dream .

Re:Idle

[tehcyder]

Disclaimer: I am aware that I am metacomplaining! :p

I must protest about your metacomplaining, especially as you appear to be on my lawn.

Re:Idle

[Zwicky]

You can use the UID: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?uid=1062422

Re:Idle

[Zwicky]

Or, nick: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?nick=harry666t

(sorry to reply to myself there)

Re:Idle

[tnk1]

To be honest, I think a lot of CEOs *would* be satisfied by long term growth. The issue that they have is not so much a matter of choosing to act that way out of some desire for short term gain, but the fact that the entire market has moved in that direction.

Sometimes, the suit is running scared as much as anyone else in the company.

These days, if you do something that negatively affects the stock price, you can be faced with shareholder lawsuits, usually from the corporate raiders types who are looking to buy you up, whip your company into a short term profit machine and then sell you off for a significant profit.

Now, I'm not saying that CEOs in particular are absolved of all blame for the situation, and certainly they are the ones who manage to land on two feet courtesy of a golden parachute. However, if we want to address the issue, we need to put blame where blame is due and figure out a way to prevent short-term traders from ruining otherwise solid companies.

Re:Idle

[Bobb Sledd]

It's spelled "lose."

Re:Idle

[Anonymous Coward]

You know your site, and if your approach works then good for you. But for me you're doing something that would tend to drive me away from your site.

You're not talking about a newspaper or a TV show where you've captured your audience to a greater extent. It's a website and it has a different use-case.

If I want hard news I click my tool-bar to go to the sites with predominantly hard news (when I can find them nowadays). If I want fluff I go to fluff sites.

Your mix and match approach doesn't give me what I want, just dilutes the value of the rest of your offering, because you've de-focussed and I have to wade through the irrelevant stuff.

Just my four-penneth (although with the exchange rate the way it is in the UK perhaps you'd prefer four-euro cents).

cheers Alex/

Re:Idle

[Xaoswolf]

I wish I had mod points left. You win the internet today.

Re:Idle

[Xaoswolf]

And anyway you want to look at it, I fail to see how playing with a freaking Tesla Coil is not news for nerds?

Re:Idle

[JWSmythe]

    I shouldn't say anything, but I will.

    1) Your capitalization sucks.
    2) Your sentence structure sucks.
    3) Your rambling is pathetic.
    4) I'm not African American, or anything of African descent.
    5) I'm not Jewish, nor has any of my family ever been.
    6) I am not homosexual, bisexual, or in any other way going to have oral/genital contact with another man.
    7) If someone actually came close enough to cutting my throat, they'd be in for a big surprise.
    8) To further points 4 and 5, I am not racist, so race really doesn't matter to me. I am just clarifying the points.
    9) To further point 6, I am not homophobic. I respect others choices, as they should respect mine.

    So, out of what you said, I will accept "Good luck." Good luck to you too my friend, and have a beautiful day.

Re:Idle

[RockDoctor]

Why can't CEOs and such be satisfied with slow, even growth?

Because if they let things slow down even a little bit, then they might just possibly have time to get infected with the evil (but true) meme that "the world is a finite place ruled by an implacable law that you can't even break even" (second law of thermodynamics, in it's economic clothing) ; when a management type gets infected with that meme, they rapidly (or slowly, depending on native intelligence and mental flexibility) move on to realising that a global economy (and therefore no local economy) can continue to grow indefinitely. Shortly after, the spiral of consequences makes their head explode.

It's great fun to watch, like a game of Lemmings, but with blood and gore all over the place instead of arcing pixels and a pathetic squeak.

Must be a slow news day, this is old

[John Sokol]

I already seen this site like a year or two ago.
How can this make slashdot now.

Tesla's very cool, but there is little new here.

And how come we are not talking about the shoe that almost hit George Bush instead.

Re:Must be a slow news day, this is old

[Markspark]

because we're sad that it wasn't a frag grenade, and that it didn't go of? that'd made my christmas.

Re:Must be a slow news day, this is old

[all5n]

Or at a bare minimum we should be talking about the guaranteed Obama/Blagojevich connection.

What did he know, and when did he know it?

Re:Must be a slow news day, this is old

[againjj]

but there is little new here.

Especially since it isn't any good for the stated purpose. From his site:

Actual rotation speed is about 10 seconds per revolution which is easy for thieves to avoid I guess.

Re:Must be a slow news day, this is old

[TFGeditor]

"And how come we are not talking about the shoe that almost hit George Bush instead."

Uh, because that is a topic for another thread and not relevant to this one?

Re:Must be a slow news day, this is old

[crabboy.com]

How come we're not ending questions with question MARKS?

Re:Must be a slow news day, this is old

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. By spinning that wire/post a lot faster, the wire/post would have been a thousand times more effective at defending your car. He just made it... useless. And at actual working speed, it's boring as hell to begin with.

Re:Must be a slow news day, this is old

[drew]

Indeed...

In total 200,000 website hits and perhaps 1,000,000 people have seen this on other sites since Feb 2007.

One thing I don't get about this story...

[eln]

One thing about this story confuses me: Why is samzenpus allowed to post stories outside of Idle?

Slashdotted

[Yo-Yo-boy-wonder]

How crappy does your server have to be to get slashdotted by a handful of users?

Re:Slashdotted

[Dan541]

Pretty craptastic,

think free host.

Re:Slashdotted

[dword]

Define "a handful of users" and then define "a handful of Slashdot users" and as a sibling points out: imagine a kind of hosting plan that would be nice for "a handful of users," where you could publish what you wanted for free or just for a couple of ads, which isn't backed up by any big business (because this isn't business presentation site). Wow, that kind of hosting would be nice for the end-user that would spend more money on transactions than the actual price of the hosting, because the end-user doesn't have 10,000 visitors/day except once every 5 years.

The website seems DownUnder.

[MRe_nl]

Slashdotted, or rather electrickery?

Alarm?

[SIR_Taco]

I don't see how this is a burglar alarm.
Anti-theft device sure, alarm no.

Re:Alarm?

[mewshi_nya]

Burglar touches it, fries, starts screaming. There's your alarm.

Re:Alarm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Burglar touches it, fries, starts screaming. There's your alarm.

Let me reword that sentence for you, as it didn't make sense to me.

Burglar touches it, starts screaming, then fries. There is your mistake. You can't scream when you are already dead.

Re:Alarm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Burglar gets in. Alarm activates. Burglar stays in. Any passers-by is alarmed enough to call the cops/fire department. Either that, or the burglar is alarmed enough to call the authorities himself to get rescued.

Re:Alarm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, potential death traps are now classified as "alarms" ?

AWESOME!

Re:Alarm?

[Jarjarthejedi]

"You can't scream when you are already dead"

That's just what Jimmy kept saying...

Re:Alarm?

[rossdee]

I don't know about Australia, but in some countries, death traps for burglars are classified as illegal, and if you manage to kill a burglar with one you could be found guilty of at least manslaughter, maybe murder.

Re:Alarm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Burglar gets in. Alarm activates. Burglar stays in. Any passers-by is alarmed enough to call the cops/fire department. Either that, or the burglar is alarmed enough to call the authorities himself to get rescued.

That burglar is a pussy!

Re:Alarm?

[Tubal-Cain]

Tesla coils and Jacobs Ladders throw off an obscene amount of EM. He won't get a signal.

Re:Alarm?

[catbertscousin]

That's just what Jimmy kept saying...

"How is that even physically possible?!?"

Tex is bad enough - Tex with a Tesla coil is not something I want to contemplate.

Slashdit is idle.

[LoRdTAW]

Yea its cool but first its only a time lapse photo. Those sparks aren't arcing at 360 degrees. Every cool Tesla coil photo is time lapsed. Otherwise your just stuck with a single and sometimes dim arc.

What then hell is going on here? Like others have said is idle being merged with "regular" Slashdot? I turned off idle because of lame and non news items like this. Christ its like Slashdot cant be bothered to look for actual news for nerds or stuff that matters.

And whats with all the flame bait articles? Its like they enjoy whipping us into a frenzy and then sit back and watch the fire works. Slashdot is rapidly deteriorating into a faux news site that's more (lame) entertainment then actual news.

Re:Slashdit is idle.

[girlintraining]

Slashdot is rapidly deteriorating into a faux news site that's more (lame) entertainment then actual news.

No, management has simply determined a need to draw more readers to the site and so they've started creating one-off episodes that aren't part of the regular plotline to draw them in. Or as us BSG regulars call this phenomenon "Season 3". Don't worry, when the submitter's strike is over, things will improve. They already tried the webisode thing (aka Geeks in Space), and then quietly buried it.

Don't panic - everything is going according to plan.

Re:Slashdit is idle.

[asurry]

I was also quite annoyed when I saw this article.

Re:Slashdit is idle.

[Samah]

Slashdot is rapidly deteriorating into a faux news site that's more (lame) entertainment then actual news.

"oniondot", perhaps?

Re:Slashdit is idle.

[enos]

Time lapse is a video where the frames are shot much slower than they're played back. Speeding up the world, essentially.

This is a regular long exposure. Single frame. Looking at the EXIF data on the original JPEG, the summary's image was a 31 second exposure. Hence why the driver is a bit blurry (he twitched a bit).

Re:Slashdit is idle.

[recharged95]

What happens if you stick a heavy metal plate in the path?...hmmm...

Re:Slashdit is idle.

[LoRdTAW]

Ahh thanks for the correction. For some reason I had time lapse in my head. I used to do a bit of coiling and had a Kodak digital camera that was capable of taking longish exposures. They were blurry though.

Re:Slashdit is idle.

[VShael]

Don't panic - everything is going according to plan.

Would this be one of those plans like the one the Cylons allegedly had? But which seems have disappeared up its own plot hole?

I saw it .

[Samschnooks]

A bit sparse on details, but interesting non the less. A bit of physics, a bit photography and a bit of ingenuity.

Bad Video link

[RobDollar]

As the site went down after 8 hits, here's a dissapointing and annoying video from the authors of TeslaDownUnder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nRqbQr7VGk As has been said, anything other than a timelapse photo of this contraption just looks rubbish,

Tesla was a Slashdotter

[wdhowellsr]

While my day job is as a Computer Progammer Analyst, my love is researching everything else in my lab (with funding preferably). Tesla was a Slashdotter in that he did his thing without buying into the conventional wisdom of the time. He unfortunately trusted Thomas Edison, a man who was neither a scientist nor an original thinker and one who makes Bill Gates look like Mother Theresa. Why do you think the movie studios moved to Hollywood, CA?

I am currently working on several products that will replace current measuring instruments that use nuclear technology. Thanks to what may appear to be worthless patents filed by Tesla regarding resonance in solid bodies, I am having success beyond what I could have imagined.

It's unfortunate that someone with so much to offer is now regarded as a marginal creator of useless technology.

The next time someone promises $10,000 to increase the effiency of your DC Dynamos, kick him in the ....

Re:Tesla was a Slashdotter

[Orleron]

...nuts.

Re:Tesla was a Slashdotter

[Nefarious Wheel]

...AC

Re:Tesla was a Slashdotter

[initialE]

So Tesla is to the Woz what Edison is to "the fast talking one". I never thought of it like that before.

Re:Tesla was a Slashdotter

[phantomfive]

It's unfortunate that someone with so much to offer is now regarded as a marginal creator of useless technology.

I don't know that I would say that, they did name the measurement of magnetic flux after him. Having a basic unit of electromagnetism named after me is more honor than I expect to have granted to me in this life.

Re:Tesla was a Slashdotter

[DerekLyons]

Tesla was a Slashdotter in that he did his thing without buying into the conventional wisdom of the time.

Oh, Slashdotters have their conventional wisdom and groupthink too... Just because it doesn't match the mainstream doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
 
 

It's unfortunate that someone with so much to offer is now regarded as a marginal creator of useless technology.

Mostly due to the tireless efforts of generation of cranks who've spent their time wallowing in the more marginal of his creations and the more extraordinary of his unproven claims. Tesla's reputation is a victim of his success.

Re:Tesla was a Slashdotter

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes Thomas Edison was a dick to Nikola Tesla which is why he end up making a very sweet deal with George Westinghouse that would have made Nikola Tesla so wealthy that Bill Gates would look like a pauper in comparison. As a result of the "War of Currents," Edison and Westinghouse went nearly bankrupt, so in 1897, Tesla released Westinghouse from their contract, thinking that Westinghouse would graciously reward him with a return to the previous agreement once things settled down. But George wasn't having any of that, he was a business man, a "Captain of Industrial", no contract, no problem... for George. Nikola was a genius but had no business sense. Had Nikola got what he deserved there is no telling what wonderful advances would have come about because Nikola would have invested just about all his money back into research.

Re:Tesla was a Slashdotter

[dangitman]

While my day job is as a Computer Progammer Analyst

You analyze computer programmers for a living? That job must be either a real hoot, or daily torture.

Re:Tesla was a Slashdotter

[tehcyder]

Nice sig, I almost got hit by a kamikaze seagull a couple of weeks ago, God knows what that would have been like.

LOLbrothers

[Anonymous Coward]

Very cool stuff, I wish I would have had something like this to protect my comic books from my little brother when I was a kid.

Faraday Cage bro be stealin' ur comic buks.

At first my mind saw "Burger Alarm", and i thought

[davidsyes]

of guns, George Foreman punches, and air hammers against cow skulls....

Well...

[DarkShadeChaos]

I don't know about the best burglar alarm, but I'm pretty sure the best defense is... Chuck Norris

Can I get a smaller version?

[jemenake]

For about 20 years, I've daydreamed about a smaller-scale one which would zap any "parking enforcement" person trying to put a ticket on my windshield.

Umm, that's really not good for the car

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to imagine what a Tesla coil might do to your computer.

Now remember that virtually every car in the last 20 years has one of those.

Modern cars have hundreds.

They aren't HV hardened.

Re:Umm, that's really not good for the car

[Dan541]

I have always wanted to turn a Tesla coil loose on the street, unfortunately I can't find any Xmyth specials.

Shocking Story

[binaryseraph]

No, Really.

MagnaVolt?

[uniquename72]

Links are slashdotted -- is it anything like this?

Re:MagnaVolt?

[ahoehn]

I prefer the (real) South African Anti-Carjacking Device, shown here.

Sadly, it seems like the company is now defunct.

I'm sorry but this one is clearly better

[bjorniac]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFoUL_bIotw

Can I get this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently installed an Ademco burglar alarm in my house. Does anybody know where I can buy the Tesla ring expansion module?

Anyone else thing..

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one that thought yard full of doberman pinchers when I read the title?

Pinko commies!

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Tesla coils are a Soviet defence!

dog

[Anonymous Coward]

Best alarm is a dog

Re:dog

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.. my dog will let me know if anybody is withing 20 meters of the house.. and my Smith and Wesson 686 will do the rest once they're comfortably inside the doorway.

There's a better, more practical alternative

[johno.ie]

You used to be able to buy an anti-theft device for cars in South Africa that used a flamethrower to "dissuade" the thief. It was legal but never succeeded commercially.

Wikipedia Link
Youtube Link

I want the pocket-flamethrower

[Anonymous Coward]

that Blaster one wold fsck up the paint or melt a vette

from wikipedia:

By 2001, only a few hundred had been sold, and the inventor was instead marketing a pocket-sized "personal flamethrower".[1]

Hope you like prison

[Wee]

And someone with a pacemaker would bump up against your car accidentally while his shoes were wet, and possibly die. You get sued, all your possessions/savings are forfeit, and then you are (rightly) sent to prison.

That's if the "parking enforcement" person (you know, that guy who is just there to do his job making sure people don't park like self-absorbed asshats) gets a shock doesn't get you arrested first. Assuming something he touched was conductive, I guess. And he wasn't wearing gloves. And he made a good ground elsewhere. And stuff.

Not a good plan, I think. Better would be to park where you can't get a ticket, perhaps?

-B

Re:Hope you like prison

[qopax]

Better would be to park where you can't get a ticket, perhaps?

THOSE EXIST??

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I'm stock holder, are you?

[Anonymous Coward]

First rule of investing: invest in what you know. So, I bought SourceForge, Inc stock, and keep buying it. It is one of the few nearly pure play open source community orientated companies out there that is traded on the stock exchanges. There are not a lot out there.

You all do lip service to the wonders and future of open source and supporting, so invest in it. Supporting the growth of open source means more than simply downloading and installing your free copy of a distro. It means supporting the entire ecosystem while it is still young.

Let me put it another way. How many of you have ever downloaded, used, or otherwise use a piece of software that the project is hosted on sourceforge.net? I bet you most people reading this have at least one piece of software running on their computer right now that has roots in a sourceforge hosted project.

Re:I'm stock holder, are you?

[PalmKiller]

A stock holder that is obviously ashamed to admit it :).

Force field

[AeiwiMaster]

At first, I thought he had managed
to make a force field around the car using a tesla coil.

But then I saw that he was just rotating a pole connected to a tesla coil around the car, what a disappointment.

It might actually be possible to make a force field with a Tesla coil if you can find the correct field harmonics.
See http://amasci.com/freenrg/audwall.html

You might also have to know something about
quaternionic electromagnetism to pull it of.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4445/quaternionic-electrodynamics

Also if you think that slashdot stories have been
to low quality lately then maybe you should try http://crowdnews.eu/

Uggh

[Anonymous Coward]

You fit the previous poster "in" ... ? Ouch...

Just one shoe thrower? Not news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because a single individual throwing a shoe at Bush, no matter how amusing, isn't really news. Especially not if he misses.

Tin-foil hat

[johndmartiniii]

I think this is a little ridiculous to be on the front page as well, but did anyone happen to notice the picture in the pool with a tin-foil hat?

I think that this might be the nugget that got it on /. in the first place. Then again, I could be totally wrong. But really, how often do you see pictures of people actually wearing tin-foil hats?

idle: kill it with fire

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, oh please, when will someone stop the samzenpus reign of terror and bullshit with idle (and idle-quality stuff) being dumped onto the main page? At least, at *least* put it *on idle* so I can completely fucking ignore it. And stop putting idle shit on the main page!

Not only that, but this is such an ancient, ancient link resurrected on a social networking site and reposted on slashdot waaay past the sell-by date. It's so old that by this point it's not even rightfully grave-robbing; it's more like digging up fossil fuels and filling the air with unbreathable cancer-bearing smog in the name of a few bucks.

That's right. samzenpus causes cancer. There, I said it.

Yes, that's a really good anti-burglary device...

[Idaho]

...right up until you meet a thief smart enough to simply pull the plug first.

Re:first we had grammar nazis

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we have adequacy nazis.

For every Slashdot post you seem to have a sizeable commentary devoted to nitpicking word choice or spelling.

WHO FUCKING CARES?

For every Slashdot post you seem to have a sizeable commentary devoted to discussing the acceptability of the topic.

WHO FUCKING CARES?

Seriously, some of you need to shut the fuck up. It's mediocre to obsess over grammar and topic adequacy.

It's not mediocre to occasionally pick the wrong word or spell it wrong or not have proper punctuation, really. It's not mediocre to have a cool story on a guy's Tesla hobby rather than "LINUX UTILITY GOES VER 3.4!", really.

Now, just die already, adequacy nazis and grammar nazis. Your minds are mediocre, the filth you post is well below concerns about messy informal communication and odd topics.

Fixed that for you.

Love the advertising on the article page

[Dekortage]

One of the article pages had an ad for "The Tesla Shield: Transformational Technology for Mind Body and Soul" (courtesy of the Google Ad Network on that page). Wow. It's a nice reminder that people still buy this crap. Only $200 for the base model, although you can spend up to $2000 for the "Eye of Horus" version which "Incorporates Upgraded Internal Componentry PLUS Hyperspace Radionics Function PLUS 12 Specially Selected Precious Gemstones Chosen For Their Therapeutic And Metaphysical Properties: Diamond, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, Amethyst, Lapis lazuli, Garnet, Turquoise, Quartz, Opal, Aquamarine, Topaz."

It's been done

[Timberwolf0122]

Right here there's one that fits in the car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2ismEjTFI4
No embarrassing alarm noise, no need to call the police and it wont even run down your battery!

uuuh

[Friendly Pyro]

Sorry but this doesn't really tell me anything about the best burglar alarm in history. This is more an ad for this guys site.

Idle: That's not the point.

[GlobalMind]

And in classic /. style, half the thread is bitching about Idle and whether or not this story should be main page news because it isn't geeky enough or whatever the pathetic standard is supposed to be...instead of actually discussing the story. Ahh yes, great stuff.

So, which one is better: KDE or Gnome ? *runs*

[Foske]

Oh come on, you must have an opinion !

Hmmm missing feature on slashdot: Modding yourself away

Link to original site

[Anonymous Coward]

http://tesladownunder.com/

Re:Yes, that's a really good anti-burglary device.

[quarterbuck]

Even simpler, toss a metal rod in there first. Wait, short out the circuit and THEN drive out with the car.
And BTW, BBC top gear had a show where they put a guy in a car that was then hit by a simulated lightning. The person was alive, the car was not damaged and the car started on the first turn of the key. So even if you never short out the circuit, as long as you can get inside the car somehow (by providing a high conductivity metallic wire far away from you), you are safe.

Best?

[pubwvj]

Pretty but I have a better burglar alarm - dogs.

sh*t

[Irvan]

da*n now i have to use my rubber pants and boots