eno2001's Journal: DIGG: WTF?

I was over on Digg dirtying myself with the hoi-poloi. OK, just kidding. I was over there with "the rest of us" and was shocked to see that a feature story was a link to this site about using a magnet and wire to generate electricity. The title on Digg was something like "Making Electricity in your Hands". I was hoping for something pretty earth shattering as I assume that at least 75% of the online population is aware of induction, magnetic fields and the concept of a generator. I, previous to today, thought that most civilized people who use electronic devices understand how moving magnets work when placed within a coil of wire. But, the fact that such a simple article was featured on Digg and also on someone's blog linked on Digg reveals to me that we've gone so far backwards it's frightening. I mean seriously... I've got at least fifteen ideas to do thing with the magnets, wire and various mechanical configurations that I think are kind of neat but ultimately nothing special and they're light years ahead of the linked article above. Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe I'm the Nikolai Tesla of my generation? (Doubtful) Suffice it to say that there is a lot of really cool and simple stuff you can come up with in this day and age using wires and magnets, and making electricity is a minor and basic element of all of them. It's a given really.

Where were these people during science class in grade school, junior high and high school? Now I know that not EVERYONE was into this stuff, but surely those people who like to think of themselves as technically knowledgeable today have SOME inkling of the inner workings of their tools? Because if it is as woefully lacking as the Digg link suggests, then we really have reached the point where humanity are approaching the status of Eloi (reference to H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine". What?! You never read that but saw only the film!? Vagrant! Go to Project Guttenberg or your local library right this instant and read it)! I shudder for the future.

Wait

[nizo]

Next you are gonna tell me that people gave their old motorized toys away instead of tearing them into the smallest bits to see how they worked???

I had quite the curved magnet collection when I was a kid :-) And I bet that the garage that my grandparents owned when I was little still has the scorch marks from my "test" that consisted of a little DC motor connected to an AC cord and plugged directly into the wall.

Re:

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Hehe, reminds me of the time I doubled the number of batteries in a RC car and got quite a nice speed improvement. Of course, that caused its little plastic gears to wear out in about a day. Good times!

Re:

[eno2001]

Oooh oooh!!!! I can top both of you! I stuck a hair pin in an outlet when I was two and a half and after being knocked across the room against my parent's mattress thought, "Quite exciting. I must find out more about this substance called E-lec-tricity"! Soon after came the experiments that continue to this day... ;)

Re:

[nizo]

Err, I remember doing that too when I was about 3 or 4 :-| Must have been fun to find the bobby pin still stuck in the outlet later (hopefully not by brushing up against it with a bare leg or touching it). And my SO wonders why I am paranoid about outlet covers with our three year old.........

Re:

[eno2001]

We've got those outlet cover replacements where the outlet is covered by a template that you have to twist to align the prongs on your plug with the outlet behind it. So far it's worked for our two year old. But get this... her absolute FAVORITE thing in the whole wide world is... outlets! She loves to look at pictures of them in daddy's home wiring books. She always wants me to draw them on her aquadoodle and then she tries to draw them too. Her second favorite topic is batteries. And her third? Li

Re:

[nizo]

Hehe, plus everyone knows nothing is more fascinating than forbidden and/or inaccessible things :-)

Isn't it obvious?

[OctaneZ]

They're from Kansas, they don't believe in the Right-Hand Rule there!

So here's something you can write about ...

[tomhudson]

... guaranteed to freak them out.

Hey everybody, your homes are contaminated with dihydrogen monoxide.

Its in the acid rain that falls from the skys. Its in the pipes that bring fresh water to your house. Its even in the baby formula that you buy from the store. Direct contact with too much dihydrogen monoxide will cause you to stop breathing. Ingesting too much of it will bring on dilutional hyponatremia, which also can kill you.

The good news is that drinking sufficient alcohol will actually reduc