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Give me your ideas.


MarkB

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As the thread title states, I'm looking for opinions and ideas. I've had a rather strange week so far, which, although the current results aren't very good for various reasons, it has been interesting. I'm hoping the rest of the week produces more randomness, so I'm throwing this open for your ideas.

Today, we had a thunderstorm in Glasgow, which is a pretty rare occurrence. I had a feeling it was coming as it was apparently very hot yesterday and today, and at about 4pm today, it started. Huge rainstorm, followed by thunder and lightning. Unfortunately, I assumed the large amounts of rain and thunder were being caused by trucks outside, which often pass my street as a shortcut to their route. Because of this, I only got one video, the most interesting point of which you can find here. I did miss the great majority of the whole thing as it was going on for at least 10-20 minutes before I actually realised what it was, so I'm disappointed I didn't get better or longer footage.

When I got back to my PC, I noticed that I had a "USB Device Not Recognised" error in Windows. Assumed it was just my mouse as it has done this a few times previously. Reseated the cable, still the same. Noticed the lights out on my modem. Reseated that cable as well, same again, nothing. Tried the mouse on my laptop, worked fine. Tried it on the desktop again on the same port - nothing, tried it on another port, nothing. Assumed the mouse had caused the system to stop recognising USB devices at all and restarted the system. Tried my modem on the laptop, "USB Device Not Recognised". OK, so it's not the mouse causing it. Mouse worked fine after the restart. Modem didn't. Tried modem on laptop again, same as before. Left it connected while I checked out Device Manager and tried a few things. A few minutes later, I noticed a very faint smell...like gunpowder from a cap gun.

Lightning + telephone cable = lightning travelling up telephone cable and frying modem. Much fun.

Luckily enough, I have a spare modem here, which I used to get back online. It took a few hours while I tested what was good and what wasn't - at one point, I thought the micro-filter on my line was dead because both cables seemed to be working fine and the phones were OK, but it's turned out to be just the modem that's dead.

So, here's where I need your input. This is my now-dead modem. A Sitecom DC-204. Originally purchased in 2003, it's a very effective modem, simple configuration and always reliable. Never had a problem with it. R.I.P. good friend.

dscf3249wu9.jpg

Now, the question is - what do I do with it?

I've noticed that if left connected to a USB port, it will emanate the same gunpowder-like smell as it did when I was testing it after the lightning strike and will become very hot, so obviously one of the components, probably a capacitor, has been damaged internally. I have a strong feeling that if left connected to USB, it will overheat, burn the capacitor, and slowly get hotter until eventually either melting the outer plastic and collapsing in a heap of small flame, or will burst into flames as the capacitor fluid explodes. One of the other ideas I had was throwing it off a wall for ultimate shattering. I don't pitch any more due to a bad knee, but the arm is still good. I may need to wait a few days due to an incident I've had this week with my back, but I'm hoping that'll clear up by the weekend.

That said, I'm open to ideas. Anything that doesn't harm me or any other human being or animal, get me or anyone else arrested (that would be very difficult, but I'm just covering myself), or cause undue havoc is a worthy idea. Most popular idea wins and is done, with results provided via video and photos. Anything that meets the above conditions will be done, as long as it falls within the constraints of common sense. Fire, disassembly, experimentation, utter destruction, it's all good.

The short version of the above is "Give me your best idea on how to destroy my modem".

Give me your worst...and best. :D

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Well, my idea depends on a few things. If you have a spare, unwanted computor,... take it to a safe fire proof location, plug in the modem, and wait to see if it melts down, catches on fire or just plain explodes. This may harm the computor! So only do it with an unwanted unit.

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Not a bad idea, but remember, he's in Scotland.

Mail it to me and I'll throw it for you. I feel like throwing stuff right now.

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No, you can't... or so says mythbusters

Yes you can! Just imagine dropping a penny from that height. The speed and force it will get on its way down will make that penny go right through you.

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you guys are making this way too complicated. the answer is simple: go office space on it. a simple baseball bat will do wonders for the soul, and at the same time, plenty of destruction.

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Yes you can! Just imagine dropping a penny from that height. The speed and force it will get on its way down will make that penny go right through you.

No no you cant. A penny has very low mass causing it to have a very low terminal velocity. A penny falling off a building will land with less speed then if it is thrown at you. So if you cant kill someone throwing a penny at them it wont kill them falling.

I did a little google search a penny's terminal velocity is somewhere between 30 and 50 MPH no matter how high it falls from.

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No fireworks on sale at the start of May. I like the idea though.

Dropping it from a height is an option, I live on the 3rd floor of my building.

However, just found out that it might be covered by my insurance, which would be pretty cool, considering I bought it 5 years ago. I'm going to call them and see what they say. If it's covered, they'll probably want to inspect it, thus killing any ideas of destruction, but either way works out.

Not covered - destruction. Happy days. :)

Covered - money back. Happy days. :)

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No no you cant. A penny has very low mass causing it to have a very low terminal velocity. A penny falling off a building will land with less speed then if it is thrown at you. So if you cant kill someone throwing a penny at them it wont kill them falling.

I did a little google search a penny's terminal velocity is somewhere between 30 and 50 MPH no matter how high it falls from.

Hmmm, well I guess you learn something every day. Thanks for filling me in.

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