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Steaming Pile of Sunday Quickies
Finally a chance to break in my cheesy little "Quickies"
icon *grin*. First up is
Miguel "Mr GNOME" de
Icaza who wrote in to point us at Open
Resources which looks like a pretty nice site.
NiceGuy wrote in to say that
Propaganda 6 is out if you happen to be
sick of your desktop- some of the finest textures I've seen
yet.
Rob Biggs wrote
in to say that Transmetta has
opened up their website. *cough*.
Aurik sent us linkage to
some geek toys like a
plasma fire saber and
mass drivers and rail guns
Jowey
wrote in to say that ReBoot has been
bought by the
cartoon network and will be re-aired. Now I gotta get a dish.
broken sent us a link
to the Pig Dance. Is
anyone else really sick of these?
Brian Fair sent us
linkage to a sticker that I guess you could
put on
your big truck if you have one. Those things amuse
me. I've seen them with Ford Logos and stuff, I guess it
was only a matter of time.
Ah well, thats it for me. I'm gonna wail on some
badly tuned power chords, watch Futurama and just take it
easy for a bit.
Oh man do I have a story to tell...
For the past 9 years I've lived with computers all around me. At first I had the black background of the VT terminals and Apple IIs. Next I migrated to the multifinder on a MacPlus. This was a big transition for me, with the new 'grey' background and all. I mean, who would ever want such a fancy background.
Well... I soon got over my shock at seeing that horrible grey. Later, when Windows and MacOS 7 came out, I was able to switch back to lovely solid colors. I mean, those are the bomb. Don't get me wrong, but solid is cool. It doesn't clutter a thing. It reflects zero personnality. It's blah!
That is, until I saw propaganda. I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, just to think that I was being un-American with my desktop! For all I know, my desktop color was the cause for the war in Kosovo right now. Well, I'm glad to be rid of my old plain desktop.
I suggest to all you conservatives who live for the green on black to go to propaganda. Check it out, you'll learn something.
Speaking of the 300,000 V generator, you might find this unbeleivable, but it still might not be harmful to people. Why? Because it's the current, not the voltage, that kills. This is (if I remember right) the principle of the VanDeGraff (sp?) generators you'll find at science museums. They statically generate a huge voltage, which causes your hair to stand on end (I thought it was 1,000,000 volts... am I wrong?), but so little current, you couldn't hurt yourself on one... unless you let go and released the static energy all at once on a grounded object (this would be the reason why you have to still hold on for a moment after the experiment. they dischage the energy slowly from you... still very little current).
;-)
So, you might ask why a 12 V car battery shouldn't hurt you if you touched both of its terminals, but a live electrical socket could, even though the battery has more current. This is because Ohm's law prevents it. People's resistance varies wildly, but mine was 400k the other day, from finger to finger. This means that the 12 V battery could only ever push 30 uA through me (Current = Voltage / Resistance). At 120V, it's 300 uA, 240V 600uA, etc... The higher the current, the more dangerous. Of course, these calculations are inaccurate, since Ohms' law doesn't necessarialy apply to liquids, but it's a good start.
If I remember right, 10 mA is the sense threshold, 30 mA pain, 100 mA fibrilation, +300 mA burning. Interestingly enough, our teacher told us that 100-300 mA is the most dangerous zone, since above 300 mA "all" that happens is internal and external burning... between 100-300 mA your heart beats very irregularly and might as well be stopped. Another jolt of electricity is required to start it working properly again... Hence those zapper thingies parmedics apply to heart attack and fibrillation victims.
Funny I remember this stuff. I had hoped I'd never need it (I usually forget stuff I don't need...
Lastly, on to why the battery makes your tounge tingle, but not your finger. If you measure the resistance of your tounge (may be bad... don't sue me for any effects it causes. mind you, if you've licked 9v batteries, you're probably OK), you'll find it much lower than that of fingers. Lower resistance means more current. More current, more "danger. I bet you'll find the resistance of your toungue to be in the 1k - 10k range...
Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
[Warning: Offensive, moderately out-of-normal-slashdot-character post following.]
:-)
OK.
I'm not one to bitch about CmdrTaco's posting methods usually, but I just gotta say:
Fully functional lightsaber-like portable plasma unit for *SEVENTY BUCKS* and it's just a *QUICKIE*? Oh my. I know of Star Wars addicts who would buy three: Two for the wall in the classic sword formation, and one for doing things that are illegal in the state of Alabama.
Hurm. Maybe that explains it. Malda has a better grasp of the Dark Side of the Force than the rest of us...
Another clip from that site: One of the Railgun capacitors has a kilowatt capacity and, *I QUOTE*, will "Explode Small Wires".
Another device will create 300,000 volts of usable current--i.e. not a stun gun. I wonder what that would do to your tounge; 9 volt batteries are already pretty tingly. (Note to PsychoGeek Community: You're better off with the aforementioned lightsaber.)
Very cool--they have a hand-held negative ion generator. What's cool about these things is that the static stream can be modulated to do some really funky things. Place a large metal mixing bowl on top of a negative ion generator, in contact with the leads. Fill with salt or flour. Slooooowwly put your hand in, and the salt/flour will literally fly off the bottom of the bowl and coat your hand. Get too close to the bowl and you'll get a small shock though
Of course, if you think that's bad, turns out these guys will, for a hundred dollars, sell you a small, easily concealable hand shocking unit--no, not a buzzer, actually a small shock unit. Too bad shocks can hurt you sometimes more than they hurt the target, or else certain crimes would become much more interesting. (Imagines attempted rapist yelping away after picking the wrong target.)
Quote:
"Plasma Guns"
"Projects high frequency waves capable of igniting lights and producing energy fields without wires or contact! Excellent for testing neon or fluorescent tubes without removal from this sockets."
'Nuff said on that one.
"Caution Man-Trapping Is Illegal!!"
--Notice on stun guns from this site. Am I the only one who gets this hilariously updated image of the old Caveman-Get-Girl-By-Bonking-Her-On-Head, then Cavegirl-Get-Man-By-Bonking-New-Man-On-Head scene? Heh baby, I've got your ExplosiveSparkDischarge(TM) right here...
From the Big F'in Potato Gun Department: "Beer Can Mortar"...hurm, launch me a six pack from a state where twenty year olds can drink...
Alas, I'll have to suffice with the Neon Geekware that these guys peddle. Nice stuff, I gotta say--eighty bucks for a neon clock that changes through two sets of two colors as time goes on. Changing from pink to blue, though? Great, I already have to mention to out-of-staters that, even though I'm from San Francisco, I still prefer women...
I can just *see* Rob: "What part of Commander *TACO* *don't* you understand?"
Being a geek has its perks.
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
But unfortunately there were no funny comments in the html. Thats the best thing about Transmeta's page
It's the ONLY thing in the transmeta web page
United Media can get all over his ass about this for all I care (though I doubt they will, since it isn't hurting their Calvin & Hobbes sticker business).
.
I doubt that Waterson gives a whit about them either. His objections to licensing the image were
a) It would take his time and attention from drawing the best comic strip he could,
b) It would necessarily put him under pressures to water down the strip to make it more palatable to potential licensees, and
c) Seeing the characters shilling for products would simply degrade their impact in the strips.
A case in point is that other comic strip that's used to sell Met Life insurance here in the U.S. Does anyone else find it in the least ironic that A Charlie Brown Christmas complains about how Christmas is getting too commercial in between the Dolly Madison Bakery commercials? (Make no mistake, Peanuts was deep and intellectual for a comic strip back in the '60s, much more so than it is anymore.)
While I'm not exactly ecstatic about these guys trying to make a buck on Waterson's creation, I don't see these stickers similarly degrading the impact of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. When I was in college, I saw an ad advertising a rock band appearance at a local bar. It had Calvin going apoplectic shouting "Rock and Roll!!!" while Hobbes strummed a guitar in the background. Probably not exactly what Waterson had in mind, but not nearly as out of line as shilling for milk
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This was definately NOT "newsworthy" material.. It's bad enough I have to see ads here and elsewhere, but to knowningly direct th Slashdot Effect to a domain-name pirate with POP UP ADS is pretty obscene.
:-(
Now, if there had been something even remotely funny about the page that would have been an interesting diversion. But this guy just made a killing at our expense.