1. badass
The epitome of the American male. He radiates confidence
in everything he does, whether it's ordering a drink,
buying a set of wheels, or dealing with women. He's slow
to anger, brutally efficient when fighting back.
Quite off-topic, I'm sure, but I can't help but wonder if the central image in that letterhead inspired the look of Dr Who's Daleks. I love finding hidden references like that.
My grandfather, whose background was in economics, became very interested in science later in life and built a fully functional Tesla Coil [1] in his basement in his 60's (this was before wide-spread availability of information on the internet; he did research in libraries and universities and built it out of hardware store parts). I was about 7 at the time.
We would do experiments with it such as lighting up free-standing fluorescent bulbs up to 15 feet away, or affixing an ion motor attachment which would reach incredible speeds.
I am now 25, and like my grandfather, I never want to stop learning.
A few years ago he got involved in a pretty crazy project: Another friend (artist type) had heard that as long as you didn't touch the ground you could actually sit on top of a tesla coil and have huge sparks coming out of your fingers. He promptly went out and got some funding to make a 3 meter tall coil, and toured around Copenhagen sitting on top of it with lighting coming out of his outstretched hands. I'm somewhat surprised he survived, but it looked damn cool.
There's a man that went around music festivals here in new zealand for a couple of years - he'd put himself in a custom-made suit (faraday cage) and would then stand on a platform and hook himself up to a coupla thousand volts... Bloody impressive, except for the day he didn't do his suit up properly. He survived that one, but I haven't seen him perform in a while...
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 55.7 ms ] threadColleague: "What's amazing is that you're looking at it like that."
http://goo.gl/HGVl
Indeed, Tesla was a badass pimp.
We would do experiments with it such as lighting up free-standing fluorescent bulbs up to 15 feet away, or affixing an ion motor attachment which would reach incredible speeds.
I am now 25, and like my grandfather, I never want to stop learning.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_coil
A lot.
A few years ago he got involved in a pretty crazy project: Another friend (artist type) had heard that as long as you didn't touch the ground you could actually sit on top of a tesla coil and have huge sparks coming out of your fingers. He promptly went out and got some funding to make a 3 meter tall coil, and toured around Copenhagen sitting on top of it with lighting coming out of his outstretched hands. I'm somewhat surprised he survived, but it looked damn cool.
I hope these odd ventures haven't turned you into a horrendous nerd, because if they did then you should be very angry at your grandfather.