OT: Found a kewl thing

I've been entertaining thoughts of an aluminized umbrella, or an aluminized umbrella hat, so I've been thinking about getting my hands on some aluminized mylar to do the experiment. Global warming or not, if it's 75 degrees at equinox, what's it going to be like at solstice?

So, anyway, I was out for my walk yesterday, and there's the carcass of a dead birthday balloon, and it was kinda shiny on the inside side, like the dull side of foil, so I pick it up, shake the dew off of it, and it starts singing "Happy Birthday To You", in Tickle Me Elmo's voice, with a little instrumental backup.

I was somewhat surprised - I just wanted the mylar. So I tore into it, and here's what I found:

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The styrofoam is about 1/16" thick - it was bonded to the inside of the balloon by the "front" side.

Damn, those Chinese must be innovative, to sell these for a buck or two! There's aparently four batteries, the little spring at the bottom of the PCB is the "whap to turn on" switch, and, of course, it's got the chip-in-a-blob.

I don't know quite what to do with it, but I think "scope it out" is a good idea. I just brought it into the office, so haven't had a chance to put meter or scope to it, but I just thought it was way kewl, and wanted to share it. :-)

I also got two nifty round pieces of the mylar, which I'm going to tape to my brolly, and see if I can sell them for fifty bucks or so as "Environmentally Conscious" or some such BS. ;-P

Cheers! Rich

That depends on where you are. Also, was this temperature especially warm for solstice day, about usual for solstice day over the past couple decades, or especially cool? A hot spell usually does not last 3 months. I know a few lasting years, but if things run 10 degrees or more either way from normal they usually do so that extremely for only a day to a week, rarely as much as a few months.

One more thing: early spring and very late winter is a time when it appears to me that temperature can vary the most. For example, in March in Philadelphia: Dawn hours of 3/15/1993, in the cold air mass drawn in by (and also in part causing) the famous "Blizzard of 1993", the temperature bottomed out at 9 degrees F, record latest in the season for single digits. A couple to a few days earlier in the year are some single digit records caused by the cold air mass associated with the "Blizard of 1888". That time of year in 1990, Philadelphia was experiencing a heatwave that caused the temperature to reach 80-plus F 5 days in a row. The peak of this heatwave was 85 degrees F on 3/14/1990. Maybe 3 or so weeks later, a shower of mixed rain and snow hit at what is usually the warmest time of the day. I have to check back to a newspaper article on a wall where I work to see what date that was, but I do know that the official high in Philadelphia on 4/7/1990 was 45 F. The pendulum was swing wildly that spring in Philadelphia in 1990, and on 4/26/1990 the official high there was 92 F, first of 3 days 90-plus.

As for another year when Philadelphia had wacky weather getting into the record books: 1976. The highest temperature of that year was on April

18, at 94 degrees F. The highest temperature in summertime there that year was 93. This is unusual; in Philadelphia the peak "official" temperature in summertime is usually 96-102 F.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)