[Elecraft] [Fwd: Dumb Things]

[Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ Elecraft]

A repost for Fred, K6DGW.

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The definition of a "dumb thing" often changes over time.  In Jr High 
electric shop in '53, we were given our choice of two projects:  An 
electric motor that would run on a car battery, or a hot dog cooker. The 
hot dog cooker consisted of a wooden base through which two long nails 
had been driven, about 2/3 of a hot dog length apart.  A lamp cord was 
soldered to the heads of the nails.  To cook a hot dog, you performed 
the following steps (in the order shown, please):

1.  Remove hot dog from package and push it onto the nails

2.  Insert plug on the end of the lamp cord into a wall socket

3.  Watch hot dog cook

4.  Remove plug from wall socket

5.  Remove hot dog

I chose to build the motor ... not because I thought the hot dog cooker 
was absurdly dangerous (although I had just been licensed as KN6DGW so I 
was on a first name basis with a few electrons, but dangerous never 
occurred to me -- after all, the teacher gave us the projects, no?), but 
because while harder, the motor looked like more fun ... stuff moved.

I would surmise that, given the general trend in product liability over 
the intervening years, the hot dog cooker is no longer a project choice 
in schools.

Fred K6DGW
Auburn CA CM98lw

"The problem with 'Lessons Learned' is that so few ever really are."
    Leo Endres


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