Hey Uncle Kagé

It's true for me.

But I'm an engineer. We're expected to make things flashy. (Shinra technology at its finest!)

 
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My LiveJournal - My Website

It certainly is true!

(and I don't use an accent. You just need to pronounce it the Japanese way)

there should be a third option where you grab a friend "hey try this"

I Must not be a normal person..lol. Or perhaps moderately sadistic in nature I suppose.

I'd be one to do that in a way, as something similar to that actually happened to occur a couple of weeks ago. See, I'd probably be inclined to take it apart to figure out why it does that.

What happened recently, was all too similar to this situation though. You see, we were going to fire up a big old HeNe laser that we had the basement. The power supply seemed to be malfunctioning, especially since it was making some loud banging sounds. While, at that point I was ready to leave it alone, the group decided to figure out if they could fix it, as lasers are meant to make pretty beams of light, and not go "Bang Bang Bang" (unless they're doing both at the same time in some sci-fi movie) After inspecting the innards of the power supply and finding noting particularly wrong with it, we decided to turn it on, case-off (from a safe distance), and lets just say that 10,000V of AC electricity sparking from one part of a power supply to another, sure makes an impressive spark... No one was hurt, but the laser's power supply seems too broken to fix unfortunately.

I'd keep trying it, hoping for a different result. I'd eventually mess up big time, like causing a massive Resonance Cascade or something...

Actually, my thought would be to wonder about the source of the electical shock. So the goal would be to use a sort of crash test dummy to touch the device while mounting observational devices to study the effect. In addition, the picture merely mentions the qualitative aspect of whether it is repeatable. Does the size of the shock increase or decrease with repetition? Exactly how much power is involved? Can anything trigger the effect by touching the sphere at the end of the rod?

Of course, such study requires planning. Perhaps a rubber suit inside a fiberglass protective shell which is contained in a Faraday shield. Overdesign is desirable in protective devices.

There was an incident where some researchers were trying to duplicate an explosion at an aluminum foundry on a much smaller scale. They placed the experiment in the middle of a field and surrounded it with reinforced concrete protective walls. When they triggered the experiment by remote control, the resulting explosion far exceeded their expectations and the only thing left of the concrete walls was a few small pieces in the ground. However, the researchers were a few hundred feet away and completely safe.

Inquiring minds would want to know. And knowing is half the battle to keeping other foundries from being destroyed.

Yep. The allergist was so astonished with the reaction (which was just a giant swollen rectangle for the fungus section) that they gave me a Benadryl and made me stay for an hour in case the test set off the anaphylaxis.

My immune system really doesn't like fungus.

This reminds me of Lisa Simpson's electrified cupcake. Her hamster learned a valuable lesson. Bart Simpson was stupified and continued to grab the cupcake, even though he was shocked repeatedly.

Therefore, I believe Bart Simpson to be a scientist, and that normal people are hamsters.

^_^