Black Cat

I have a 1.5 amp battery charger. If I hook it up to my car battery, can I play the radio, without it draining the battery?

There is a story about a team of engineers that had designed some sort of device or electrical panel. They included a big purple button in the middle of it, with no apparent purpose. They presented it to their customer or bosses, who proceeded to question the need, and ordered it removed. This gave the customer/boss a sense of authority/accomplishment in having told the team what to do. This also allowed some of the other design flaws to get past.

So my question is, what company/project/time frame did this take place?

I belong to a club that meets once a month (always on a Saturday). The problem is that it is not a regular schedule. Sometimes it is the second Saturday, sometimes the third, etc. This means that it is hard to remember when the next meeting is, and also to plan personal activities to not conflict.

This Saturday (our next meeting) I will be proposing that we designate the second Saturday of each month as our meeting day. To me, this is obvious to do this, but we have several 'brain donors' in the group that need to be convinced.

What are a few advantages that I can list?

I have two 3/4" thick x 12" wide by 18" long, walnut boards. I want to glue them together to make one 1-1/2" thick piece for a project. I was planning on spreading on an even coat of Titebond wood glue, and clamping the two pieces together.

Is this the right approach? If so, how long would I need to clamp the pieces?

Holy crap! 99% of the questions asked here can be answered by doing a 15 second Google search. C'mon people!

Has anyone found a good spot to have sex in a car? I'm not looking for generic answers like "find a secluded road" or "a parking lot". I am looking for real suggestions, like "behind _______ store, at the corner of _______________ and _______________"

I've started flirting with a girl, and I really want to move it along and start making out with her. I just noticed that it looks like she might have a cold sore. I've never had one, and I know that it is a form of herpes, and once you get it, you can never get rid of it. How can I kiss her without getting herpes? I've seen OTC medications to reduce the effects of cold sores, but can they be used to prevent ever getting one?

I belong to a hearse club, and people ask us all the time if we are creeped out by driving them. First of all, we wouldn't be driving them if it creeped us out (duh), and secondly, people die in ambulances every day, and no one seems to be bothered by them!

I have a Toshiba MD9DM1R 9" TV/DVD combo that I bought used. The fuse that was in the 12VDC adaptor cord was blown when I got it, and every time I replace it with the same size, it blows in less than a minute. The TV works fine in AC mode, and if I hot-wire the 12VDC adaptor, the TV works, but I would like to replace the fuse with the proper size. Does anyone have an owner's manual, and can look up the right size fuse? Thanks.

The walls of older military and police rooms used to be painted a two-tone green. Why?

I have a car with recessed headlights, which means that I can not flash them to signal other drivers (for passing, etc.), but I have auxillary driving lights that I could flash.

I would like to wire them so that if they are off, I can hit a button (momentary switch), and have them flash on and off (maybe 2 flashes per second). But if the lights are already on, I would still like to hit the button, to have them flash.

What type of relay or switch can be used so that it doesn't matter if the lights start on or off, they still flash when I hit the button?

I am creating a fillable order form, using Adobe Acrobat 6.0. I am able to create text fields for the quantity, description and prices, and I can also calculate a sum of the quantity and price, for the total per line.

When the form is blank, the total columns show $0.00 in each of the totals cells. How can I set the box to be blank, when the value is zero?

I know that network adapters have a MAC address, and thumb drives do not, but two different people told me that they heard it was possible (with a piece of software) to assign a MAC address to a thumb drive. Of course neither one of them can remember where they heard if from.

Actually, I do not care what the address is, I just need my computer to think there is a device with a MAC address, when the thumb drive is in the USB slot. I can certainly get a USB wireless adapter, but that won't store any data.

So does anyone know what software can be used?

I have written several patent applications, so I am pretty well versed in the process. Normally, you claim that a certain shape of a device or feature makes it work, or is superior to other devices on the market.

I have a simple part that I designed, that performs a very specific function. Without giving away any proprietary information, I can say that it works exclusively on one particular automobile, and it works because of its particular size (not too big, and not too small).

An example would be a nut or a bolt that fixes the Toyota accelerator pedal problem. (That's not the invention, but it is a similar idea.) There is nothing unique about the nut or bolt, but it fixes the problem, in one vehicle, because of its dimensions.

So, I think that in my claims I can write "dimension x is no larger than xx.xx and no less than xx.xx." But can I make a claim like "Prevents accelerator pedal malfunction in a Toyota."?

Anyone successful in being granted a similar type patent? If so, can you post the patent number, so I can review it?

Thanks.

They can be old or new. I already have:

Weird Science - Oingo Boingo

She Blinded Me With Science - Thomas Dolby

Edison's Medicine - Tesla

The Future's So Bright I Have to Wear Shades - Timbuck Three

I have small 6061 aluminum parts. I currently use polishing compound with a buffing wheel on my bench grinder, but the extremely small size of the parts make it tough to hold onto them, and since I have several hundred to polish, it is very time consuming.

I borrowed a friend's vibratory polisher (the kind used to polish brass ammunition casings) but that did not work at all. Even after 24 hours, I did not see any results. I thought maybe the media wasn't rough enough, so I tried glass beads from my sand blaster, but that didn't work either. (It did however shine up some copper pennies I threw in there as a test.) I finally tried play sand, but all that did was smooth off the rough edges, and give my parts an overall "matte" finish (the exact opposite of what I wanted.)

Has anyone used a tumbler to polish aluminum with good results? If so, what media did you use?

I was also thinking of a rock tumbler, but again, what media would work?

Why is it that so many of the questions that people post here can be easily found at Wikipedia.com or Dictionary.com? Most times, it is actually faster to use those sites than typing the question, and it yields immediate results. If that doesn't work, there is always Google. Do they not try that first?

Yes, my question is a bit rhetorical, but I would really like to hear some opinions on this.

Is it laziness, i.e. the person would rather just ask a question to the entire internet, without doing any research?

Is it that the person doesn't know about those common websites?

Is it an age thing?

Are they just texting their questions from their phone?

A child that looses parents is an orphan. A person that never has children is childless. What word describes a parent that looses a child?

I am entering the Science Olympiad, and I have to "Activate a photocell that allows current to flow to a motor, which leads to the next action." I've been looking on-line for how to do this, but all of the diagrams I found use a transistor.

The tournament rules state that transistors are not allowed:

"Electric components shall be limited to batteries, wires, motors, switches, resistors, capacitors, commercial photocells (i.e., cadmium sulfide (CdS) cell, photoresistors or light dependent resistors), mechanical relays, lightbulbs, and LEDs. No computers or transistors will be permitted in the device."

I'm try to use a photocell, but nothing happens.

Help!