[OT] From the "Why Didn't I Think Of This When I Was A Kid Department" . . .

.. . . I present to you the Solar Death Ray. My God, think of the havoc
someone like Pat could wreak with something like this. ;-)

http://www.solardeathray.com/

It certainly seems like a more fun and practical use for conic sections
than those we learned about in high school Algebra II.

--
Herb Schaltegger, GPG Key ID: BBF6FC1C
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759
http://www.angryherb.net

Herb Schaltegger wrote in
.com:

http://www.solardeathray.com/

SOLAR death rays? In _Seattle_? HA!!!

Well, maybe in summer. The existance of the
Sun is debatable any other time of year, except
as 'sun breaks' wherein Seattlites break out the
sunblock to ward off those death rays and double
their consumption of coffee.

Yeah, I shoulda had one of these as a kid, too.
I did pretty good converting my dad's blowtorch to
a flamethrower...

--Damon

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

. . . I present to you the Solar Death Ray. My God, think of the havoc
someone like Pat could wreak with something like this. ;-)


Pat had an idea that made this pathetic thing look like a joke...from
Oct 13th, 2003:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...50fc8b9fe3f913

You should easily be able to get signals from the sun- as it jams the
geosynchronous TV satellites around here every spring and fall as they
pass in front of it; And I would think you could probably get some
signals from Jupiter's lightning storms as well. Pulsars? Quasars? Don't
know.
Now me, if I had one of those dishes... I'd chrome it and stick a water
cooled fiber optic cable at the focal point; then with the other end of
the cable held in a converted rifle stock with a collimating lens in
front of it, I would aim the dish at the Sun, and stage a dramatic
recreation of H.G. Wells' "The War Of The Worlds" with my yard's
anthills standing in for British towns. As I gimbal and gambol about the
yard mechanically, while emitting "Ulla...Ulla..." sounds, and frying
every anthill in sight...the neighbor kid's rubber duck floating in his
wadding pool looks far to much like a torpedo-ram to suit me, and the
mistake my Martian brothers made in allowing the "Thunder Child" to draw
near to them shall not be repeated; the duck- and then the wadding pool
itself- shall be destroyed in a conflagration of burning vinyl and
steam. But that's just me, and maybe you would be satisfied with
listening to the Sun.
But when you tell your neighbors that you "like to listen to the Sun"
you are going to get looks every bit as odd as I'll get when I have to
explain to junior's parents what happened to the little brat's wadding
pool, and why my yard is a smoldering ruin reeking of burnt ants.
Then your neighbors are going to ask you if you like smelling the Moon
also... and when the boys in the white suits with the butterfly nets
show up, you aren't going to have a heat ray to incinerate them with. So
you just remember THAT little fact, buddy boy!
Pat