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Comment Re:How about... (Score 3, Informative) 636

That's not how it works. Simply saying "current kills, not voltage" is often quoted, but misleading. If I stick my finger in my car's cigarette lighter (12 volts, capable of pushing hundreds of amps) nothing will happen. That's because no current flows. The voltage is the "pressure" of the electricity. If a supply has sufficient current to maintain 24 kilovolts across the resistance of your body, you will very likely die. To use the water analogy, voltage is pressure and current is the amount that flows. Typically it's easier to think about constant-voltage systems, which is what your house AC is (yeah it's a sinusoid but it's a constant sinusoid). This is like a constant-water-pressure system, like the faucets in your house. Turn on a hose at low pressure, and I don't care how big it is it won't kill you- imagine a MASSIVE hole in a dam or something, underwater, with water juuuuuuust barely coming out. TONS of flow (i.e. current/amperage) but zero danger since there isn't enough force to push the water through your body. Now imagine a small diameter pipe firing water out of it- like a pressure washer. Very little flow, but enough pressure (i.e. voltage) to push the water through your skin. In short, current and voltage are related by resistance. Since you can't change the resistance of your body, for a given voltage (say 24 kV) a given amount of current will flow. End of story- there's no way to increase the current without changing either the voltage or the resistance of your body.
Robotics

Submission + - iRobot Announces Paperback Sized Military Robot (wired.com)

knothead99 writes: Introducing the iRobot Ember.

"iRobot has built over 2,000 machines for the military. Most of 'em are 50 pounds plus, and more than three feet long. But, lately, the company has been working on an itty-bitty version of its Packbot reconnaissance machine — one that weighs less than a pound, and is about the size of a paperback book."

Video included of the robot in action.

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