Gosh, how about the perameters ALREADY ESTABLISHED in the initial example? I highy doubt this guy working with fluorescent light bulbs was toting around a military grade sat-com uplink radio.

I simply can NOT believe no one else sees the overwhelming fact that YOU CANT POWER A FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULB WITH A WALKIE TALKIE!

Power a house with a big antenna? Fine. Touch a generator and power a light bulb? Okay.

Those examples proove (and the dozen other irrelevant examples) absolutely nothing to convince me that you can power a fluorescent light bulb with a walkie talkie.

I did, however, used a small walkie talkie from work and touched a cool white fluorescent light bulb with it. WITH the talk button down AND fresh batteries.

Would you like to take a guess what happened? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

I also touched it with a cell phone antenna. Nothing. I even touched the end of a battery directly to the bulb. Nothing.

There's a Mythbusters episode where they show that it would be utterly ridiculous to try to power anything using this technique. They barely got a volt meter to even register a fluctuation, and they had their whole warehouse thing stretched full of wire hooked up to the magic "turn radio waves into energy" device. Completely unfeasible.

(No that's not the only place it's been debunked. Yes that's the only one I'm giving, because frankly, if you don't watch the Mythbusters, you aren't allowed to discuss science myths. )

Also, it requires a very high current to start an older fluorescent bulb, and very little current to keep one lit. This is why the fixtures have a very powerful capacitor in them, and why when you flip the switch, there's a split second delay and an audible noise when they kick on (if the area is quiet enough). You are not going to power one up by pushing to talk.

With the newer ones (as referenced in a linked article earlier in the thread), they are kept constantly charged (in some cases) and therefore warm enough to start quickly, or

The science behind both of these types of bulbs refutes the idea that you can power them with something as minute as the radio energy emanating from a walkie-talkie antenna.

As to Tesla coil experiments and showing off the "light a bulb" trick, this was also covered on Mythbusters (go figure, eh?). If you aren't grounded, you can run all kinds of "deadly" current through your body. Yes, you can even light a bulb. However, it's very dangerous, and were you to just stand next to a T-coil, hold a bulb, fire it up to generate enough current to light a bulb, and grab hold, you'd be cooked.

Exactly. On Mythbusters they produced half a volt using a 100ft horozontal antenna. With a larger antenna they's probablt be able to produce more. The size requirements are somewhat prohibitive. You would need a warehouse full of wire to power a pocketwatch.

You can ignite blasting caps with a walkie talkie. It isn't too much of a stretch to assume that you can ionize gas with one. It probably wouldn't be very bright, just a faint flow but a faint glow is better tha nothing.

Never much cared for mythbusters, a lot of their stuff is just dumb and crappy. I mean really, what kind of moron is stupid enough to believe you could get decapitated in a regular ceiling fan? And their episode about "MRIs don't cause burns to tatoos" then why did the technician ask me if I had any tattoos and why did I get minor burns afterwards (actually it was more like an itchy red rash but still)?

why would anyone read the thread, or use logic and reason??

this is dumpshock. come on.

firmly established? All I read was a walky talky radio at his hip. That was about it, that's still broad. I'd rather be sure what type it is before just jumping into the whole conclusion. That might be good enough for you, but really, I'd rather be sure of what's up.

Anyway, I talked to one of my EE friends and another who's a senior engineer over at Lockheed. Both says no to the probability of that happening with the power from a standard 6V walky talky. Though, the engineer had a funny story back in college about the distance, something like 200 m, from the radio tower before the bulb they had in hand stopped glowing because of the RF field.

edit: I think mainly you had me a bit peeved off because of the tone of your messages. Chill out dude, there's enough stress in real life, do you really need to have more over some internet forum?

They really had that about the tattoos? geez. It really depends on what ink is used, as some especially awhile back had heavy metals. Here's an interesting article here.

here's also a wikipedia article about tattoos in general, but in the middle there's a blurb about it and MRI's.
and another article itself about burning.

I think it's a rare risk and also, it really depends on the ink you used though, they don't used metal pigment inks as much anymore. But I think as an industry wide practice, they have to ask.

Just like a friend of mine told me how they were ask whether or not one has worked in a workshop that had lots of metal filings in the air. Supposedly, the reason the technician gave was the results are not pretty since the metal particles get into the eye socket over time and well... anyway, it's all just hearsay, but I did notice the listings of what you can't have for MRI's, which includes metal filings in the eye. Hmmm...

I particularly like the coincidental forum-related pun in the last name.

"If anything happens to you, anything at all, I swear to you, I will get very choked up. Honestly, there could be tears."
- taken and distorted from the Movie, Serenity.

for all I know it could have been purely situational specific.

I'm going in to find out how high my blood pressure is officially, so that I know whether I'm going to be on meds from now on or not. They've said it was "high" five or six different times, but as it wasn't the direct problem I was there for, they refused to give me more info on that.

I rarely get enough sleep or rest. See "work environment".

Family environment, well, I live on a farking rock in the ocean with my wife. We're doing well, but we miss our families like hell and can rarely justify the expense to go see any of them. We're both fairly depressed people in general, so none of this helps us out any.

My job is hell. Not physically, mentally. It gets tough. Rather, the work is fine, I actually enjoy it. It's the environment, the extra bullshit I have to do for the Army (since my "job" is different depending on whether we're talking administrative or operational), and the fact that no matter how intelligent you are, they manage to subconsciously indoctrinate you to the point that you become terrified of "life without the Army". On top of that is the corporate mentality at my workplace. I DESPISE it. I can't take it. It drives me up the wall.

It also doesn't help that when I get out, I'll be a poor college student, with very little (if any) health insurance or life insurance, and am re-entering a field in which having a degree does not mean you'll have a job (moreso than usual, I'm a musician).

Thanks for wondering though.

Silly string would only work on regular trip wire, mono wire would slice right through it.

But what else is as important to shadowrunners as B&E, almost every job includes it somewhere in it.

But for the other parts of runs:

Get a mage to use the trid spell to make your vehicle look like a DocWagon one, or just get one of theirs. Can be used to gain acces to a building or person, to get out of areas fast, to draw attention away from yourself etc.

To get close to a constantly protected individual, get a face to pose as a fixer, and offer the assassin as a bodyguard. Might not work, but could be funny.

Or, for the christmas spirit, have a more "plump" runner dress up as Santa, and attempt to gain access to a building through its ventilation shaft.

Or use the old joy boy/girl/thing approach, find out what their tastes are, and dress up a runner, or a close contact.

I'm playing a courier right now that has a right lower arm and right leg that are cyber. Every time he gets asked about them, he gives a different answer. I'm actually keeping a list so as not to re-use something.

Those are the gems that make some characters more real-life than others.

And another few basics:

rope
zap-straps
super glue
gum

depends on where and how you wrapped the plastique, you might have a chance if you manage not to get any residue on the outside.

A good wash in bleach or hydorgen perxoide/baking soda will get rid of the residue.

Exactly the scene I was watching while reading this thread.


And for the plastique, if anyone is up on their demolitions class, just use the bleach to make plastique.

Well, I'll tell you right now, your list is missing a towel.