This brought back a great memory from my childhood. When I was a boy, in fourth or fifth grade, my dad showed me how to give my friends an electrical shock with a transformer and a 9-volt battery.
I made the design my own by mounting the transformer to a 4x4 piece of scrap plywood, and then cutting out two square 'finger pads' from a tin can, and screwing those into the plywood also.
Add in some wire, a switch, a battery, and a little patter, "place your two fingers on the shiny pads and this will make music....using your mouth as the speaker" and your parents get a call from the principal.
Honestly, I always thought I was the only one who did this. My dad was a practical joker with a sense of humor that only he understood.
My dad died last February. This was a wonderful memory that made me smile. Thanks Hacker News for two memories in a weeks time!
My cousins did this to me as a kid. I thought it was great that a little battery could give such a huge jolt simply reversing the input side of a step down transformer to the output side.
As kids we had rudimentary knowledge of what a transformer did since our country used 220v but most of our electronics came from the U.S. and needed a step down transformer.
...and it really is a pretty good jolt if I remember correctly. After reading this post I considered rebuilding my project and showing it to my wife....but that's probably a bad idea lol.
Wow. Thank you for posting this. I am fifty years old. In 1989 my best friend, Geof Allen, and I spent an entire year planning to walk the AT after high school. During long nights in my parents basement we literally mapped out every step by figuring out how many steps were in a mile, and then multiplying. Life happened. He walked the entire AT from Spring Mtn to Mt Kahdin. I reluctantly followed my parents wishes and went off to college.
Even in high school Geof was unlike anyone I ever knew. He did not have the best life, but he always smiled. When we were winter-camping together Geof knew how to make your frozen feet not-so-bad. When we were lost deep in a cave in Newport, Virginia, Geof showed no signs of worry, while I openly panicked.
After walking the AT Geof joined the Navy, and when a slot opened up he became a Blue Angel...not a pilot, but still a prestigious position with a flight suit as a uniform. He married his high school sweetheart, and after the Navy, moved back home and became a police officer.
I had totally lost contact with Geof, and was working in IT across the street from my local police department. As I was walking to my car one afternoon I saw Geof standing in the parking lot. We chatted and caught up a bit, and then lost contact again.
The next time I heard Geof's name was years later. He had committed suicide. I almost want to say that he didn't have a choice. You see, he had watched all of the other males and one female in his fathers bloodline be taken away by Huntington's Disease. I found out later that Geof was in the early-stages, and it was easy to deduce that he needed to take action while he was still able.
We were all from the same hometown. I knew his Uncles and his Aunt, and watched what Huntington's did to them, and I was there the day his father committed suicide.
I found Geof's picture on athikerpictures.com. He is second from the left. Blue pants and white shirt. I am certain that he made life easier for the three hikers pictured with him. His trail name was Alpha. Alpha Geof Allen.
Thanks for the story about your friend Geof. It was touching and made this archive just that much more valuable. Hope you have a few more good memories today.
What a moving story. I am younger than you but also had a friend die on me and now I wish I spent much more time with him.
I hope you don’t mind that I link directly to the photo so that it’s easier to find. https://athikerpictures.org/hikers/4119
I'm sorry for how this affected you, and for the situation your friend found himself in. It sounds like he lived well, was loved, and (however sadly) took his leave on his own terms. Thank you for telling us about him.
I'm sorry for you loss. Thanks for posting the story - I volunteer with the AT Museum to maintain this site, and it's always nice to hear some of the stories behind the pictures.
That was a very touching anecdote that stole away the mundanity of reading the morning news. I had to go look. These are the things that make life so human. Thank you for sharing with us.
One of my favorite books! If I remember correctly, Grant had no aspirations of being a soldier, and was not one of the best students at the Military Academy, and even after he graduated and became a soldier was still...green for a long time.
One thing I found intriguing was how gentlemanly he was able to conduct himself in war, when dealing with his own men (who sometimes barely had any training at all) and when dealing with the enemy.
The manner in which he writes his memoirs, his manner of speaking, is much different than how I speak, but is pleasant to read. There are sections that I reread many times. If I recall correctly he had no confidence at all in his own writing ability, and only began writing to pay the bills (writing short stories about the war for the newspaper).
This is a great read! I am fifty years old now, but for many years during my twenties I supported myself as a one-man Mac/PC repair shop...in a college town. I made house calls almost everyday, and every evening was spent in my home shop working on drop-offs.
I got to meet a ton of different people. There were the computer-illiterate business owners with ridiculous expectations; the lonely middle-aged guys with esoteric hobbies who talked my ear off; the single moms on a tight budget raising three kids; the ultra rich people wanting to keep a ten-year-old PC alive; the author who had lost years of data and would pay "whatever it takes"; the religious father with gigs of porn; the helpless college students whose lack of basic computer knowledge actually impressed me....and more
This was like a trip down memory lane. Great read. Thanks for sharing!
I made the design my own by mounting the transformer to a 4x4 piece of scrap plywood, and then cutting out two square 'finger pads' from a tin can, and screwing those into the plywood also.
Add in some wire, a switch, a battery, and a little patter, "place your two fingers on the shiny pads and this will make music....using your mouth as the speaker" and your parents get a call from the principal.
Honestly, I always thought I was the only one who did this. My dad was a practical joker with a sense of humor that only he understood.
My dad died last February. This was a wonderful memory that made me smile. Thanks Hacker News for two memories in a weeks time!