[PLUG-TALK] reliance on technology (was: Redhat changes, fedora)
Russell Senior
seniorr at aracnet.com
Wed Nov 5 21:14:14 UTC 2003
>>>>> "Jeme" == Jeme A Brelin <jeme at brelin.net> writes:
Russell> On the subject of toys, my oldest was home from pre-school
Russell> with a cold yesterday, and I was less distracted than usual,
Russell> so we made a string telephone. I hadn't done that for at
Russell> least 30 years. Was a lot of fun. Works surprisingly well.
Russell> Simple physical principle.
Jeme> I remember having a terrible time with this when I was a kid.
Jeme> What did you use as a diaphragm? Standard paper cup technology?
Actually, they were plastic cups in this case. And nylon string.
Jeme> And just a regular knot inside the hole in the bottom?
I cut a small hole with the point of a paring knife, drilling it round
with the point. I used a figure-8 knot (learned from climbing), also
called a stopper knot. As long as the knot makes good contact with
the bottom of the cup, you should be okay. It may have helped a lot
to use the plastic cup because of the rigidity of the material (I
don't think the string material was as important). The string/cup
interface shouldn't have a lot of give or you lose signal strength.
You want the vibration in the string to translate directly into
vibration of the diaphram (i.e. the cup-bottom).
Jeme> Maybe we just didn't have enough string (resources were always
Jeme> an issue at my house), but I remember it was either so short
Jeme> that you could hear with the naked ear just fine or you could
Jeme> hear nothing.
Yeah, that's an issue. The string I used is about 15-feet long. One
nice feature is that you can tie a temporary knot in the string to
shorten it, and it still works.
Maybe I'll bring it the PLUG meeting tomorrow.
Russell> My youngest (under 2) still doesn't get that the string has
Russell> to have some tension in order to transmit the signal, so it
Russell> wasn't working very well for him.
Jeme> Yeah, he's just not going to get it. [...]
But you never know in advance just what they are going to get. They
often surprise you. Basically, you offer the information but if they
aren't getting it you don't dwell on it.
There is a classic scene from and old Seinfeld episode that my wife
and I refer to often. It was from the birthday-clown episode, where
George has a flashback to one of his childhood birthdays, where in
something like a home movie his father is growling: "Blow out the
candles! Blow out the candles!" and his mother is shrieking: "Stop it
Frank, you're killing him!" That would be an example of "dwelling a
little too much".
Russell> Personally, I think "magic" is okay but it is useful to be
Russell> able to explain the "trick" to them when they ask.
Jeme> And you just can't explain the trick when it's a PLC and
Jeme> ultrasonic evaporator.
PLC, sure, but I think I could give the ultrasonic evaporator a go.
As for PLC, when we first had children, I immediately thought back to
my favorite toys. One of them was the "See and Say", where you'd dial
the pointer to a farm animal and then pull the string: "The cow says,
Mooooo!". One of the interesting things was that if you changed the
pointer position at just the right time, you could alter things in a
funny way. The ones you can get these days aren't as hackable, and
consequently aren't as fun.
--
Russell Senior ``I have nine fingers; you have ten.''
seniorr at aracnet.com
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