Friday, September 16, 2005

Power-Dressing Aussie leaves trail of destruction (Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.co.uk)

"It sounded almost like a firecracker", Clewer told Australian radio on Friday. "Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt."

I never heard erupting carpet before...

"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field metre and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said.

Well, current is current and voltage is voltage. This is reminiscent of the old Abbott & Costello "Watts is Volts" routine.

Firefighters took possession of Clewer's jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.

Giving off current? Where's the return path?

Sounds like a rather serious wardrobe malfunction to me. This could be a great terrorist tool. Just put on you favorite woolen shirt with a synthetic nylon jacket, color coordinated of course, and walk into the petroleum or natural gas plant of your choice.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by.