this week's puzzler

Possibly poltergeist (which to whatever extent actually is true is often involuntary/accidental telekinesis of a household member or very close neighbor, typically of age in range of adolescence to sexual maturity) or more likely result of very recent sleepwalking, but if you have goods that can bump into a lightswitch as a result of an earthquake barely small enough to not make the news or a severe vibration from a winter storm I would consider that to be the preferred explanation.

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

I can only make bad guesses as to what you think you are blithering on about.

What's Mo's side of the story?

DNA

I guess you were too drunk to feel the first shock of the 'quake which woke up Mo. She went to hide in the closet and when the real quake came you finally came out of your drunken stupor.

Do I get the prize or is there a better explanation?

Are Larry and Curly playing pranks on you and Moe again?

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the magnitude-7.9 Fort Tejon quake, which was blamed for just two deaths in what was then sparsely populated California.

Better explanation.

John

Hallucination ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

The ghosts of all the semiconductors he's sent to kingdom come?

Actually, I get those (and phosphenes, and auras, too) but not this time.

The explanation is electronic, thus on-topic.

John

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

A loud noise (car backfire perhaps) turned on the "Clapper" you use to control the closet light?

The "sleep number" beds seem to have an air compressor in them. They make a fairly noisy whine when the number is increasing, and are silent when the number is decreasing (getting softer).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I slept on one of those in a hotel in SoCal when my nephew was getting married... pretty nice actually.

...Jim Thompson

After a nice dinner you, your guest and Mo engaged in a stimulating Ménage à trois and you soon fell fast asleep. Your guest and Mo continued their encounter in the closet, as you awoken Mo turned on the closet light and scampered back into bed causing it to shake. You was awaken from a dream that you were living in a world where your designs contained no parasitic components. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Harry

Are you going to tell us ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

Sure. The lights in the closet are all on one dimmer. The dimmer was somehow left set to just below the "on" threshold, and some tiny line surge or spike tripped it. Cheap diac-triac dimmers have a lot of on/off hysteresis, so the lights came on pretty bright and stayed on. Mo is so skinny that I didn't see her under the covers, and I assumed she had gone into the closet and turned the lights on, so I asked her, pretty loud, if she was OK. She was right there next to me and jumped when I yelled.

Simple.

John

Sorry, but I like my explanation better. ;-)

I figured there was a cat involved... that's the source of all our extraterrestrial activities around here ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Aren't we all? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

The kitty sisters, Ajax and Comet, do tend to walk/jump all over us all night, and purr about 105 dB, but we're used to that, and they can't reach the dimmer.

They did make an enormous crash the other night. Somehow they knocked over the tripod with my Celestron C5 spotting scope on top. Ouch.

John