PSA: I am neither suicidal nor dumb

[maradydd]

Man, you take apart a monitor at a party and everyone wants to know what the hell you're doing.

I mean, L. and I had a perfectly good reason for it: it was a hacker party, we were working on hacking together a high-voltage power supply from a CFL and the flyback transformer from an elderly CRT, the setting and the task at hand seemed to go well together. Within a few minutes of arriving, we met a guy who had taken apart many, many CRTs before, and who was quite happy to hang back and give helpful tips. That was great, and I was equally happy to give the twenty or so people who wandered by in the next hour and a half a quick explanation of what we were up to. ("We're making a Jacob's Ladder, so we need a flyback transformer. Later we're going to use the power supply for another project, but a Jacob's Ladder seemed like a great way to test it.")

Where it got annoying, though was the couple or five people who basically demanded we justify our right to plunge our hands into the guts of a sacrificial monitor. "Isn't that going to release dangerous gases?" No, that's only if we break the tube, and we're not going to do that. "Those transformers can hold a lot of charge even after the monitor's off." Yes, and not only has this monitor not been turned on in two years, L. held a screwdriver across the leads to discharge any remaining charge. "But what do you need that strong of a power supply for?" A Jacob's Ladder sounded like fun, dammit.

The absolute best exchange, though, went something like this:

WELL-MEANING BUT ANNOYING PERSON: Does anyone here actually study electrical engineering?
maradydd, grinning: Not me!
L, grinning even larger: Why yes, in fact I do.

The irony, of course, is that L. is getting his PhD in electrical engineering because that's where they decided to put the cryptographers. Me? I build radios and do the odd bit of electrical work on cars.

I'm half tempted, if I do a hardware project at one of these things again, to print out a sign that reads YES, I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING, PLEASE DO NOT INTERRUPT ME.

Comments

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*pops her head up from decade-old layout editing*

Mad Science? YAY!

-- Lorrie

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

One of the next projects in the queue is turning an old 8" floppy drive into a centrifuge. (The salad spinner was cool and all, but when you need to centrifuge something for 15 minutes straight, your arm gets tired. Automation FTW.)

[bigby.livejournal.com]

I would opt for a Bernouli drive.. i think they were higher torque units as well as being high rpm.

Professional geek on closed course! Do not annoy!

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

When my dad (during his field archeologist phase) was on a dig, particularly digs which actually had visitors or tourists, we would often put out a sign or wear a T-shirt which said "NO, I HAVEN'T FOUND ANYTHING YET". On a particularly touristy site in some French caves, he wore the T-shirt and put up a cardboard sign saying "HOMELESS AND HUNGRY PLEASE HELP" (after the very common ones of that flavor in London at the time). He horrified some Brit tourists. "Ugh, even *here*!"

Re: Professional geek on closed course! Do not annoy!

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHA.

I want a "Professional geek on closed course! Do not annoy!" T-shirt. There could even be various yellow-triangle-sign designs, like a welder, somebody with a soldering iron, someone in safety glasses holding up a smoking Erlenmeyer flask...

Though of course the logo would really have to go on the back, for those of us who hunch over our benches.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I think that would be a highly justified sign. I recommend it.

You'll have to post vid of the Jacob's Ladder when it's working. Very cool!

BTW, you're on my shortlist of "the folks I want nearby when the apocalypse comes."

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Oh, I plan to. :) In the meantime, there is video (http://www.instructables.com/id/MAKE-A-HIGH-VOLTAGE-SUPPLY-IN-5-MINUTES/) at the page which has the instructions I'm following. (I didn't design the power supply myself, but I designed the circuit it will be powering. The Jacob's Ladder is a nifty intermediate result, and useful for testing.)

Re: Professional geek on closed course! Do not annoy!

[geekosaur]

I have to admit I'm kinda biased against spark gaps... comes of having hadf too many radio disruptions due to unrestrained sparking. (Ironic that radio started with spark gaps....)

Also, I consider things like this proof that we're descended from monkeys.

[miss-education.livejournal.com]

People freak out about EE stuff. My dad was an EE guy for a living - specifically power supplies and regulators, but you'd be amazed how often people would freak out in his [home] lab. My mother included. She was continually convinced he'd electrocute himself to death.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

I'm glad my mom was never particularly worried about that kind of thing. She was terrified that I would set the house on fire while cooking, and she got hella pissed when I spilled used phenolphthalein solution on the carpet (it's dark blue and stains permanently), but electricity was apparently okay.

Then again, my dad and granddad both are/were hardcore DIYers when it comes to electrical work. One of my fondest memories of my granddad is him and my dad fixing the automatic garage door at my aunt's place one Thanksgiving, a year or two before he died. He was in his late eighties, but he was right up there on the ladder, mucking around with wiring and telling my dad what to do. :)

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

I'm all for a shirt or sign that says, "If you can't tell that I know what I am doing, maybe you're not qualified to ask?"

[blue-estro.livejournal.com]

That is much nicer than my idea of "Just because you don't know what I am doing doesn't mean that I don't. Fuck off."

[kragen.livejournal.com]

That's a very nicely worded slogan.

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

Interesting. On the SuperHappyDevHouse site, I saw this image explaining what the event is supposed to be like:



I guess that only applies to software projects, not hardware projects... because, after all, this isn't Maker Faire.

(I can't help but wonder if there would have been so many questions if you'd both been male.)

But what do you need that strong of a power supply for?

"But what do you need your own LISP dialect for?"

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

It is definitely much more of a software event, although a goodly number of people seemed quite pleased to see hardware hackers there too. roadknight brought his robot, too, and graciously loaned us his long-handled Phillips when it turned out I'd forgotten mine.

I'm taking the long view, and looking at it as a matter of exposing people to things they're unfamiliar with (and might bitch about) in the hopes of (1) getting them thinking about things they haven't done before and (2) meeting people who I can learn from. Helpful CRT Guy was helpful, gave us lots of tips which proved valuable, and asked difficult questions which helped me refine my understanding of what I was doing, so that was great.

(I can't help but wonder if there would have been so many questions if you'd both been male.)

You know, I wondered that myself, but I decided pretty quickly that the best response was just to forge on ahead, regardless of what anyone else thought. I think if someone believes "oh, girls can't do X" and chides a girl for working on X, then sees her ignore their dire warnings and succeed, they might begin to realise that girls certainly can do X and are more likely to succeed if people don't get in their way.

(Needless to say, I'll be bringing the completed Jacob's Ladder to the next party.)

[kragen.livejournal.com]

I can't believe it took me until this point in the thread to realize that sexism might have been a factor in the inept people trying to be helpful.

[kragen.livejournal.com]

Um, pardon my deeply-nested grammatical structure. I'm sleepy and I've been hacking elisp.

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

I really don't think sexism had anything to do with it, myself.

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

YES, I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING, PLEASE DO NOT INTERRUPT ME.

This would make a great t-shirt. Would you mind if I used it?

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Feel free!

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Whoo boy, I know the feeling. From the tone of the whiny "justify it to me" crowd, it sounds as if you moved to Portland and didn't know it.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Heh. I guess something people just need to figure out on their own is that I wasn't looking for anyone's approval. I was, however, looking for something quite practical: better mains wiring than my 80-year-old building has. :P

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

(http://0x23.net/images/safety.pdf)

  Love,

--Ogre

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

SQUEE!

Thank you! (I opened the image in another window, since my dark gray background doesn't help here.)

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Oh, dang. I didn't even realize it was transparent.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

BTW: The source doc is an SVG, so the pdf should be infinitely scalable, and the raw svg file is available at the same location, just '.svg'. Though Firefox didn't have the right font to use with it, which is why I PDF'd it.

[secretagentmoof]

WTF kind of so-called "hackers" ask inane questions like that?

:(

[joel.livejournal.com]

Bleh, I'm sorry that you got so many silly questions...

Thanks for doing hardware hacking at this event! I wholeheartedly approve, we need more people who aren't into Web 2.0.

(Also, thanks for showing me your Hello Kitty solder box!)

Re: :(

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Eh, if I weren't willing to entertain questions, I would have just done it at home :) Maybe as more people get familiar with people taking things apart to use their components in other projects, they'll figure out that it really isn't that dangerous as long as proper safety precautions are followed. I mean, I wouldn't do anything in Tom's house that would run the risk of damaging it -- we brought an extension cord so that if we'd gotten to the point of testing it with live current, we could do it outside and well away from any other people.

In any case, though, it's good to know that hardware hacking is welcome at SHDH, and I'm looking forward to doing some more!

Re: :(

[joel.livejournal.com]

I think you are right about people not being familiar with "taking things apart". Thanks for helping educate people. Maybe you can give a Lightning Talk on this topic sometime? (Covering proper safety precautions perhaps?)

And yes, by all means, hardware hacking is welcome at SHDH!

[kragen.livejournal.com]

So speaking of when the apocalypse comes, it would be nice to have you around here. Not much of a local hardware hacking scene yet as far as I can tell.

[(Anonymous)]

A flyback transformer? Those are okay but really for general purpose mad-scientist fun with high voltage I've found that neon sign transformers make the best all purpose HV supplies. You can get them on ebay or something and they work quite well and go up to 30 KV+

Actually though, my favorite transformer that I currently have is out of a dental X-ray machine. it does a solid 80Kv.. it's just great.. wonderful little thing that could easily kill me.

-drbuzz0 from depletedcranium.com

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for dropping by!

I actually met someone at the party who offered me a neon sign transformer, though I haven't had a chance to get it from him yet. I'll definitely check out eBay, though!

My particular power need for this project is only 2.5kV, though maybe someday I'll need something beefier.

[(Anonymous)]

2.5 kV is not all that much. I had a 15 kV neon sign transformer connected to a jacobs ladder which would light an arc at about one inch and would go up to about 3 inches at the top of the ladder.

[sunneschii.livejournal.com]

I am studying electrical engineering, and I would have been one of the more or less scared people around. (Yepp, I know I need to work on that...)

Artificial Intelligence

[(Anonymous)]

You and Len would love this AI guy and his book, RAPTURE FOR THE GEEKS. You should be able to download the radio show here:

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2008/09/29.html

[(Anonymous)]

" "Those transformers can hold a lot of charge even after the monitor's off." Yes, and not only has this monitor not been turned on in two years, L. held a screwdriver across the leads to discharge any remaining charge. "

Did this person really say transformers hold charge? If so, that's the best gaff of the bunch.