38820923
submission
MindPrison writes:
Let's face it. We're not getting any younger, and I was thinking here the other day, I've been working forever with computers — and although I make a pretty decent living, I'm a wage slave like most of you. The pension doesn't cut it as I'm a bit of an international citizen that moves between the different countries, and investments seem unsafe these days. Banks doesn't pay much interest, so what is a Geek to do? Invest in gold? Hide my money under the mattress? Buy land?
So I ask you, the Slashdot audience, what do you do to ensure a rock solid Geek retirement?
7753184
submission
MindPrison writes:
After a long time with that annoying downstairs neighbor playing too loud music, I've been contemplating HOW to deal with it, being a teenager AND a female — you know the drill — asking nicely is NOT an option, teenagers usually get angry because you should NOT tell them what to do etc...so I came up with a quite devious way to solve the issue, and the trick is fighting fire with fire, for once :)
Here's how I did it:
I made a small low-frequency microphone amplifier, hot glued an electret microphone to the floor, and made sure there were no leaks around the microphone (to avoid audio-feedback). I connected this to an active subwoofer (this is a subwoofer that has an power amplifier built in, typically the thing you have in your average surround amplifier, and placed the subwoofer in the room next door to the mike (to avoid feedback!). Now — it's very important to disconnect any surround speakers as you ONLY want the BASS to distribute into the structure of the building itself, this makes it IMPOSSIBLE to locate the sound from YOUR flat, and the penetrating middle-tones that comes from your noisy neighbors stereo — will reveal that it is YOUR NEIGHBOR that plays the loud music.
It worked flawlessly, the entire building shook with the sound of the neighbors stereo, and the teenager had to turn down the sound several times due to multiple complaints from the ENTIRE neighborhood.
Revenge is SOO sweet ;)
