Going crazy - How does this device work?

"Tom Lucas" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@iris.uk.clara.net...

formatting link

(Furby fails high voltage test).

Reply to
Homer J Simpson
Loading thread data ...

I am not aware of any public 'furby destruction' sites, although sites like youtube and google video seem to have a lot of footage on these subjects. Especially the microwave seems a popular way to mute the endless babbling.

In case you are interested, the remains of the furby which once lived at our office are still in use these days:

formatting link

--
:wq
^X^Cy^K^X^C^C^C^C
Reply to
Ico

Microwaves are so unimaginative though - any fool can nuke a furby. However, it is taken to another level once Tesla coils get involved :->

Marvellous. Also a highly useful tactic for explaining the disappearance of a noisy furby to a small child. "Well you showed it your Tonka truck and it got ideas..."

Reply to
Tom Lucas

I'm thinking this may be close. When you touch something metal, your body is in good contact with easy sources of oscillating electrons which can then travel via your body as an antenna and here's the key thing: bringing those oscillation energies outside the box. This brings to mind a fluxgate magnetometer. Each metal part inside the box is almost like a 'bell', ringing and reemitting energy inside the box in response to the magnetic field oscillations. But those must sum to zero when they occur within the interior of a pickup coil, no matter what the interior position of the metal happens to be. But if some of the induced energy can be made to leave that interior through your body, then the sum is no longer zero and can be detected.

But frankly, this is more up to you folks. I'm just a hobbist.

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

More likely the delta change caused by finger to metal contact - capacitance or ac hum being the determinant.

Reply to
Homer J Simpson

I hadn't heard of that one and I have all of the 'hacking Barney' resources that were released from the 'sweatpea' project (see ACM CHI '99). Too bad the authors wouldn't release all of their findings and the 'Barney Protocol Stack'.

Regards,

Michael

Reply to
msg

You need some accomplices who can repeatedly squeeze the feet and hands while you flick your hands in front of his eyes. Presumably it was thought that one child couldn't create that amount of input data at once and the software doesn't like it when it happens.

Once the fit is induced (and it doesn't always happen) then Barney shivers at a faily high rate but doesn't move far. Perhaps our Barney had an earlier cut of code and the bug was fixed later.

Reply to
Tom Lucas

How did anyone ever discover this? I think there are way too many people with too much time on their hands.

Reply to
rickman

Here, we call them "Quality Assurance testers".

I wonder if the same trick works on people in Barney costumes? I'll have to try it.

Reply to
larwe

You didn't know this?

Reply to
Homer J Simpson

A club, or a 357 works, in a pinch.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.