Embarrassing Mishaps: My Latest Key Fiasco and Office Lockout Adventure

[Ivan Seeking]

On a side note, I still have that battery. Till date, I could never find a proper way of disposing it, so I kept it with myself. It hasn't leaked, by the way.

Well if you hadn't blown out the fire you wouldn't have this problem.

How long ago was this?

 

[jbriggs444]

There was the time I pipetted concentrated hydrochloric acid. Turns out you can hear your teeth fizz.

No long term ill effects.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The battery story reminds of something that happened when I was just a toddler. Because of the location I know I was 4 or younger. I remember finding a Bobby pin and realizing it might plug into a wall socket. I remember pushing it into the socket and getting a serious jolt, but nothing after that.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

How long ago was this?

Twelve or thirteen years back, most probably.

 

[wukunlin]

Selected the wrong week when buying train tickets, found out half an hour before the train I was meant to board departed

 

[DaveC426913]

I remember pushing it into the socket and getting a serious jolt, but nothing after that.

For how long did you remember nothing after that? I assume you were revived.

 

[DaveC426913]

When I was about twelve, I decided I wanted an alarm on my bedroom door.
I pulled the cable out of a desk lamp and split one wire, which I tied (tied!) to the ends of two steel shelf brackets.
One bracket I taped to the underside of the door, and the other I laid on the shag carpet. (the shag carpet!)
When the door was closed, the lamp was lit, if someone opened it, the lamp went out.

Having proved the concept, some guardian angel instinct in my head said maybe laying a live piece of metal buried in shag carpet in my doorway was not conducive to keeping the house standing and the people in it alive. So I disassembled it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

For how long did you remember nothing after that? I assume you were revived.

I have no idea what happened. It is just a flash of sticking the Bobby pin into the socket and my arm jumping. And that's it. I was between 2 and 4 years of age so it is just a fragment.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

When I was about twelve, I decided I wanted an alarm on my bedroom door.
I pulled the cable out of a desk lamp and split one wire, which I tied (tied!) to the ends of two steel shelf brackets.
One bracket I taped to the underside of the door, and the other I laid on the shag carpet. (the shag carpet!)
When the door was closed, the lamp was lit, if someone opened it, the lamp went out.

Having proved the concept, some guardian angel instinct in my head said maybe laying a live piece of metal buried in shag carpet in my doorway was not conducive to keeping the house standing and the people in it alive. So I disassembled it.

Well darn! You reminded me of something I did when I was about 12. To this day it haunts me. I was sooooooooo lucky no one got hurt. But as I typed out the last sentences explaining what I did, I realized that I had just written instructions for how to produce and distribute potentially deadly hardware all over the neighborhood, for some dangerous 12 yo! DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!

 

[Twigg]

In dumb things I did very recently, I thought I could walk to work in the Colorado sun. Gonna need some aloe...

 

[Leo Liu]

I forgot to bring my calculator with me on the day of my high school statistics test. So I had to calculate every question by hand. When it got returned to me, I found out that the guy sitting beside me got the same mark with a calculator.

Conclusion: Calculators are useless.

 

[DaveC426913]

Conclusion: Calculators are useless.

Conclusion: You are as fast and as accurate without a calculator as a random guy is with a calculator.

 

[Tom.G]

Well, if we can ignore the 'recently'.

Sort of a toss-up between these two.

1)
I was a teenager with a Model-T Ford Spark Coil (ignition coil). The interrupter (ignition points, on the primary side) was tightened down to remain closed and it was connected to a step-down transformer from a toy electric train. Could still draw a spark from the secondary. Somehow I ended up with my hands on opposite ends of the secondary (high voltage winding). Hand and arm muscles stayed contracted so I couldn't let go. Fortunately I was experimenting while sitting on the bed and used the remainder of my body to throw myself away from that alligator.

2)
Again as a teenager, I was replacing the CRT in a neighbors TV. As was common, it was a rebuilt tube where the rebuilding was done by cutting off the neck with the electron gun, then welding on a new neck with a new electron gun. (The usual failure mode is lower electron emission from the cathode making for a very strange picture, some picture areas are negative.)

Having installed the new CRT, I was directly behind the set adjusting the deflection yoke position. Then I heard air leaking into the new CRT. The weld had failed and the neck of the CRT was pointed at the middle of my chest. Now the 'common knowledge' of the day was that those tubes implode, with the back going out the front and the front going out the back. At that point my hindbrain kicked in, I froze in position. Fortunately the leak remained small and the CRT remained intact.

After an 18 mile round trip to exchange for a working CRT, it was a successful install. Whew!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Twigg]

Any of y'all ever tried to chase a squirrel out of an optics lab? It's a singularly humiliating experience.

 

[hutchphd]

I was a teenager with a Model-T Ford Spark Coil (ignition coil). The interrupter (ignition points, on the primary side) was tightened down to remain closed and it was connected to a step-down transformer from a toy electric train. Could still draw a spark from the secondary. Somehow I ended up with my hands on opposite ends of the secondary (high voltage winding). Hand and arm muscles stayed contracted so I couldn't let go. Fortunately I was experimenting while sitting on the bed and used the remainder of my body to throw myself away from that alligator.

I performed the same experiment at the same age with the same predictable outcome! As I recall, my coil was from a run of the mill 1950's auto with my American Flyer transformer on the primary, and I was using my bed as a lab table so the jolt knocked me off my knees, breaking the circuit.
It seems to me this was occasioned by a book called maybe "The Young Experimentalist" or something similar copywrite ~1930 . I also remember that the same book described how to attach an X-ray tube to your model T spark coil in order to produce radiographs. Luckily I was lacking sufficient funds.
Anyone recall this book?

 

[Ibix]

Any of y'all ever tried to chase a squirrel out of an optics lab?

No, but I know a guy who broke a very expensive mirror while trying to prevent a fly from landing on it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Well, if we can ignore the 'recently'.

Sort of a toss-up between these two.

1)
I was a teenager with a Model-T Ford Spark Coil (ignition coil). The interrupter (ignition points, on the primary side) was tightened down to remain closed and it was connected to a step-down transformer from a toy electric train. Could still draw a spark from the secondary. Somehow I ended up with my hands on opposite ends of the secondary (high voltage winding). Hand and arm muscles stayed contracted so I couldn't let go. Fortunately I was experimenting while sitting on the bed and used the remainder of my body to throw myself away from that alligator.

During the Christmas break my Freshman year of college, I got the idea of making a loudspeaker that moves air molecules directly using electric fields. The idea was to ionize a region of air and operate on that with the electric fields. So I needed high voltage DC. I managed to conjure up a DC circuit but had to build my own 50,000 volt capacitor. So I made an oil capacitor using metal plates. It was crude but functional.

The first efforts seemed to get results of a kind but I wasn't sure what was happening. As I was moving my ear around to determine the source of the sound, I got too close to my capacitor and took 50,000 volts right up the nose!

 

[DaveE]

Any of y'all ever tried to chase a squirrel out of an optics lab? It's a singularly humiliating experience.

What was the problem with that guy? Wouldn't wear his safety glasses?

 

[Twigg]

That little punk had his butt in the beampath! I was wondering why my trapped atoms suddenly disappeared, looked up and saw him, and I thought I was hallucinating for a second. Had to clean his hairs off the optics! And his misaligned stuff scurrying around.

At least I wasn't using a YAG. The whole lab would've smelled like squirrel flambé.

 

[nsaspook]

Spend a week in Vegas drunk at various pools during a 110+ heat wave.

 

[Ibix]

At least I wasn't using a YAG. The whole lab would've smelled like squirrel flambé.

A friend of a friend had partial sight loss from an accident with a high power laser. The dumb thing was having a beam path you could walk through.

My friend had just joined the lab and was told he was volunteering to be laser safety officer. He was exactly the right man for the job - the kind of person who had no problem telling senior types that no they were not doing X any more.

 

[DaveE]

A friend of a friend had partial sight loss from an accident with a high power laser. The dumb thing was having a beam path you could walk through.

My friend had just joined the lab and was told he was volunteering to be laser safety officer. He was exactly the right man for the job - the kind of person who had no problem telling senior types that no they were not doing X any more.

I worked at one of the big laser companies for a long time. Everything we did was Class 4 stuff. I was always surprised at how cavalier the older laser guys were their laser beams. Many had stories of retina damage. The one I remember most was the story of a guy that saw red stuff coming out of the wall, that was the blood leaving his retina. The de facto rule for safety glasses in the R&D labs was often "you put them on when you think you are doing something really dangerous and you're not in a hurry". There were a couple of guys I didn't want to be in the room with; a couple of labs I didn't really want to go in unannounced. No warning lights, interlocks, etc. People would come and go into the labs when ever they wanted, nothing was locked up. On the manufacturing floor (open plan) the techs would often yell out "mode check" and put a concave mirror into the beam path of big ion lasers (1 - 30W) and shine it up on the wall far away.

When I started in the 1980's the whole laser business was a cowboy/start-up environment. Our power supplies (up to 50KW, 480V 3 phase) had no safety approvals, for example. There were some pretty close calls with bad designs. However, when I left after 20 years the safety attitude was completely different, very well controlled. That was after they decided they had to hire a safety officer.

 

[Twigg]

A friend of a friend had partial sight loss from an accident with a high power laser. The dumb thing was having a beam path you could walk through.

You're right. There was no YAG (or any other high power laser) on the experiment I was talking about, and if there was the beam path would've been enclosed. I just mentioned a YAG as a joke.

I was always surprised at how cavalier the older laser guys were their laser beams. Many had stories of retina damage.

To be honest, I won't say I'm perfectly safe with low power beams (I don't mess around with high power or high levels of other risk), but man I didn't think that level of deviance existed...

the techs would often yell out "mode check" and put a concave mirror into the beam path of big ion lasers (1 - 30W) and shine it up on the wall far away.

That's just nutters. Sure, I've done procedures like that where I look at the mode far away from the table, but never with anything even logarithmically close to that level of power, I do it when there's low traffic, and I put up signage and I tell people ahead of time. I'm sorry you had to work with people who thought so little of their coworkers wellbeing.

There were some pretty close calls with bad designs.

I feel like we could have a very long conversation about interlock designs haha Even some of the modern ones I've seen have left me seriously scratching my head. There's nothing worse than a safety feature that doesn't keep you safe AND is still annoying!

Also, on an unrelated note, I've never liked the laser power class system. I've seen it lure people into a false sense of security, and get them worked up over well-controlled systems. The classic story I've heard several times is when people underestimate low-energy, fast-pulsed Ti:Sapphs, when in reality they're some of the sketchiest lasers that are commercially available. (They can produce light anywhere in the visible at high instantaneous power, meaning if you wanted safety goggles that give you full protection, you wouldn't be able to see anything through them.)

Anyways, there's my rant of the month

 

[DaveE]

I'm sorry you had to work with people who thought so little of their coworkers wellbeing.

I'm not sorry. It was more fun back then and I learned a lot. Much better than my previous job of ultra hi-rel power supply design. I did one design that took a 6-12 months to do and then I spent most of the next year analyzing it to prove it met all of the Mil-Specs for it's intended use; then I quit. We weren't allowed to use any "new" devices, they didn't have proven reliability (ugh!). In their defense, that was the sort of thing where you don't get any second chances, it HAD TO be right.

 

[Twigg]

I hear you on that. I honestly don't think I could stay sane in that kind of position.

 

[LCSphysicist]

Lost a book from the library of my university...

 

[DennisN]

A couple of days ago I put five of my camera lenses (not super expensive, but still expensive) on a table since I was about to measure them in order to get some proper boxes for them. I also put a cup of newly brewed coffee on the table.

Before I even had a chance of drinking the coffee, I managed to strike the cup with my hand and ALL of the coffee poured out on the table. Luckily, only one lens got "coffee damage". It could have turned out much worse.

 

[gmax137]

camera lenses

I was taking pictures one Sunday morning on a rocky beach in Maine. I came across a lens case, with "Canon" printed on it, just sitting there in the middle of the rocks. It proved to be a new and very expensive lens. Just then, I saw a car enter the parking lot at high speed, skidding to a stop. A young woman jumped out and ran across the beach. She took the lens and case out of my hands, "oh thank you thank you THANK YOU so much..." Then she ran off towards the car, saying "I'm late for the wedding." Finally burning rubber leaving the parking lot. It was all over so fast, I wondered if I imagined the whole thing.

 

[DennisN]

new and very expensive lens

I've only got quite affordable lenses, many vintage lenses (except the kit zoom lens and two other, I think). One advantage besides being affordable is that I wouldn't be very upset if I damaged or lost one. The only thing I would mind damaging or losing is the camera.

High-end lenses can be RIDICULOUSLY expensive.

When I bought my mirrorless Sony camera, I remember finding a small note inside the box which offered some discount when buying a new Sony lens. That made me a bit excited, and I went to the Sony page to look at the lenses. The prices were ridiculous, many or most of them were more expensive than the camera. So, no new Sony lens for me.

Edit: By the way, here is a RIDICULOUSLY expensive vintage lens, the Nikkor 13mm f/5.6, the "holy grail" of lenses. Pricing info here (at KenRockwell.com).

Pricing. You don't want to read this part. This was Nikon's most expensive of all its expensive lenses. [...]

 

[pinball1970]

I've only got quite affordable lenses, many vintage lenses (except the kit zoom lens and two other, I think). One advantage besides being affordable is that I wouldn't be very upset if I damaged or lost one. The only thing I would mind damaging or losing is the camera.

High-end lenses can be RIDICULOUSLY expensive.

When I bought my mirrorless Sony camera, I remember finding a small note inside the box which offered some discount when buying a new Sony lens. That made me a bit excited, and I went to the Sony page to look at the lenses. The prices were ridiculous, many or most of them were more expensive than the camera. So, no new Sony lens for me.

Besides my kit at work ( which is actually works) my portable personal tech kit is quite old and make do. My device for pf for eg is a Hudl, it's old and does not charge so well. I decided to spoil myself and bought a brand spanking new charger, £9 no less.
I got to the pub, table with a near by plug, beer on table, newspaper on table, charger in Hudl, phone, hot spot, lots of stuff small table. Anyway the Hudl hit the ground end on, max force right on the usb port. I extracted it at 45 degrees expecting it to snap right off. It was out of the packaging for 20-30 seconds? It's still going but I am VERY careful with it now.