Does anyone know about...

[Jasper]

A way to turn radio static into usable energy?  I know I don't know very much EE or Physics, but there's got to be a way to convert it into current.

If that topic fails, what would you do with this?  Ideas for GASMs, pranks, or useful stuff.
http://www.xenotechresearch.com/solfurn1.htm

[Triple Zero]

you might wanna read up about thermodynamics, as that it where radiostatic comes from (heat noise). you can't really turn it into power/energy, as it tends to cancel itself out. you need heat potential differences to generate power.

maybe also see Maxwell's Demon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_Demon

but if you have something cold and something hot near eachother, you can use the heat difference for generating power out of this (dunno exactly how it works, but there's a device for it, i can't find it on wikipedia right now). anyway, a cool plan i heard about this, if you have a highway with huge water basins below it, during summer, cold water is pumped up to cool the road, improving efficiency of the cars driving over it, this water warms up by cooling the road and is stored in another basin, during the winter, this warm water is pumped up to prevent the road from freezing, and the cold water is stored in the basin for the summer. the best part about this plan is that the energy that can be generated by the heat difference is enough to power the pumps and also power streetlights for that road. it's just that it's about 100-1000x more expensive than a regular road, but it's hella cool no?

finally, the solar furnace is very swote. i wanted to build one once with a parabolic mirror, but i couldn't really figure out an easy way to make a parabolic mirror that would work, and i'm not really the DIY-type either..

[Jasper]

Oh well about the radio noise.

Yeah, I'm thinking about devising a summer barbecue system with the solar furnace.  Maybe use heating coils or clay bricks as the heat diffuser under the grill.

[Bharlion]

Radio noise is like anything other wavelength I would suppose. All you would need to do is find a way to properly harness it or amplify it to usable strength.

Reminds me sort of like dune where sound can be used as a weapon to

"Shatter bones, paralyze nerves, set fires, suffocate an enemy or burst his organs."

I mean we could also logically harness all the crazy wave lengths we pick up coming from space that the UFOologists constantly try to decipher. Or even cosmic rays.

Anything is possible if you  just Imagin-engineer it!

[Jasper]

The military has already Fun-gineered feasible sonic weaponry.

[Bharlion]

I mean if you could find a frequency that would cause people without special ear protection to mentally buckle riots would become pretty pointless and you could logically control your population with speakers and sound.

OBEY! OBEY! OBEY!

Fun-gineered pixor for mine destruction.





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[Jasper]

I mean if you could find a frequency that would cause people without special ear protection to mentally buckle riots would become pretty pointless and you could logically control your population with speakers and sound.

OBEY! OBEY! OBEY!

Fun-gineered pixor for mine destruction.

I'm telling you they have.  Riots ARE pointless.

[Richter]

The military has already Fun-gineered feasible sonic weaponry.

I fun-gineered one of those back in '98.  It was difficult to tune, and only reliable for scaring off wildlife and housepets.  This and the "Don't tase me" fread has me wondering where my plans are.  (Probbaly still on 3.5" floppy)

I'm NO expert on the science of it, but as for the radio waves, simple homebrew radios form the cult of DIY need no batteries, presumably picking up enough juice from the signals.  The issue would be the resistance invovled / getting enuff to store / power things efficiently with the minimal current available.

[Jasper]

See DTM,B! thread.