HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jrd5@po.CWRU.Edu (Jacob DeGlopper)
Subject: Re: Emergency Traffic Light Interrupts?
Reply-To: jrd5@po.CWRU.Edu (Jacob DeGlopper)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 15:50:37 GMT


In a previous article, koziarz@chinet.chi.il.us (Louis Koziarz) says:

>Here's something that crossed my mind on the way to work today.  Most of the
>stoplights on busy intersections in my area have this doothingus on the top
>that is a receiver for the stobe light placed on top of emergency vehicles,

It's an Opticom traffic light control system.  

>Does anyone have more information about how these work, or any key frequencies
>involved?  I'd love to rig up a maglite with a strobe or something and be
>able to point it out my window on mornings when I'm late.  If this thing can
>detect a strobe on an ambulance 200 yds away, why can't it detect a small
>strobe held in your hand inside your car?  If possible, is this illegal to
>do?  Has anyone tried this? 

The strobe is strobing in a particular pattern to trigger the reciever;
you need to use an Opticom strobe rather than just any white strobe light.
The light is a box about 4" across with aluminum cooling fins and a circular
stobe reflector on the front.  I think if you check your motor vehicle code,
you'll find it's illegal for you to display a flashing white light.  
Professional emergency vehicle strobe systems run in the range of several
hundred dollars.

-- 

           Jacob DeGlopper, EMT-A, Wheaton Volunteer Rescue Squad
            -- CWRU Biomedical Engineering - jrd5@po.cwru.edu -- 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: cs341227@umbc5.umbc.edu (Joseph Reagle)
Subject: Re: digital alarm clocks
Keywords: digital alarm clock
Organization: University of Maryland Baltimore Campus, Academic Computing Services
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 02:35:08 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.010934.24591@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> treincke@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Tim Reincke) writes:
>umland04@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Peter A. Land) writes:

>On my alarm clock, if you press the alarm set, hour set, and minute set buttons
>together, it resets the alarm time to 12:00 midnight.  Pressing the minute
>set button while setting the time resets the seconds to :00.
>
>>Anyone else notice this?  I find it useful for setting the exact time on my
>>  clock radio. And why is it not in the manual that comes with it?
>
>Umm...it's too complicated for most users to set anyway, and the "extra" 
>features would just confuse them more?

	My guess on this would be that perhaps the designers of the 
simplistic chip had peculiar input conditions go to reset states, such as when
one button and another unrelated button are hit, instead of "don't cares"
they just designed it to do a reset to 12:00, or some other thing.
						Joe
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Eggs (was re: vernal equinox, too)
From: geoff@satori.equinox.gen.nz (Geoff McCaughan)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 19:14:18   M
Organization: The Equinox Network CHCH NZ (Node SATORI)

robin@lsl.co.uk (Robin Fairbairns) writes:

> A few years ago, we had a hen who laid `floppy' eggs.  They weren't 
> exactly rubber, since you could feel some calcium deposition on them as 
> you handled them, but they definitely weren't hard.

Reminds me of a story I heard about a hen that laid eggs that were
normally hard, but rather elongated and bent [like a stubby banana]. The
hen in question was named 'Adelaide', as in 'Adelaide a bent egg'.

| Geoff - Sysop Equinox (equinox.gen.nz) +64 (3) 3854406 (4 Lines)
| Email:  geoff@satori.equinox.gen.nz
|         "If I post something lucid, is that satorial eloquence?"
From: saevans@l_ecn17.icaen.uiowa.edu (Scott A Evans,,,)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Why do snooze alarms do +9 minutes?
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:37:03 GMT
Reply-To: saevans@icaen.uiowa.edu

> Right.
> Time:	6:00	01  02	03  04	05  06	07  08	09
> Minutes:  1	2    3	 4   5	 6   7	 8   9	10
>
Wrong??!?!? 
You're wrong here.  I'm not sure if you meant to use elapsed minutes since the
alarm went off, but that's the only thing that I can figure out from your 
notation.  However, try this experiment and tell me if you still stand by those
figures.  Take a stopwatch.  When the alarm goes off at 6:00, start the stop
watch and hit the snooze button.  When the snooze alarm goes off, stop the
stopwatch.  You'll notice that indeed only 9 minutes have elapsed.

Scott

--
                                              / /  *\  
          Scott A Evans                      /0/ __O/  
     (saevans@icaen.uiowa.edu)      |TTTTTTTTTTTTTT\\T| 
       Grad Student For Life        |IIIIIIIIIIIIIII\\|  
     Sparks and Magic forever!akes! |      / \      / \  
                 o                  |     /  /      \ |\
              _ /-_                 |                 |  
             (_)>(_)             -------------------------- 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: Re: Why do snooze alarms do +9 minutes?
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 21:41:05 GMT

In article <100870001@hpcvra.cv.hp.com> andyg@hpcvra.cv.hp.com (Andrew Gryc) writes:
>I think that an alarm snoozes for 9 minutes because it uses the frequency
>of the AC line (60 Hz) as a time measurement, and it is using an 9 bit
>counter.  1/60 * 512 = 8.5 minutes, so this is about right.  I remember 
>reading this somewhere, but I can't recall exactly where.  I think that
>9 minutes was chosen as a human-convienent amount of time to snooze, and 
>since it has a machine-convienent representation, most alarm clocks do
>it that way.  But I could be wrong.

My snooze alarm goes off at precisely the second the minute changes.
I don't think that I always hit the snooze button exactly 28 seconds into
the minute.
-- 
Ted Frank          + "He wanted to be the car rather than the thimble or the
1307 E 60 St, #109 +  hat."  -- District attorney explaining Marc Cienkowski's
U o' C Law Skool   +  murder with bow and arrow of Michael Klucznik in
Chi, IL 60637      +  Doylestown Borough, PA over a game of Monopoly.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: Why do snooze alarms do +9 minutes?
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 08:41:54 GMT

> On all the alarm clocks I've used, pressing the snooze button causes
> the alarm to go off in nine minutes.  I've always wondered why it's
> nine minutes, instead of ten, which would be a more intuitive number
> to ordinary people.

I figure it's this way.  If you're deeply asleep you might not press
the button at once; it might take a minute or so for you to wake up
enough to do it.  But probably not longer -- so the TOTAL time for a
snooze cycle will probably not exceed the "more natural" 10 minutes.
I miss my old electromechanical clock-radio, though -- with that, you
could press the button part way down to obtain, say, a 5-minute snooze.

(Unfortunately, these days I find I can sometimes turn the alarm off
altogether, without ever waking up enough to realize it.  No snooze
system helps then!)
-- 
Mark Brader		   "You guys have your own pagan religion...
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto	    Instead of sacrificing sheep, you sacrifice sleep."
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com					-- John Cramer

This article is in the public domain.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: MEDELMA@cms.cc.wayne.edu (Michael Edelman)
Subject: Re: Pressure
Organization: Wayne State University
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 11:57:45 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.022901.3743@ceilidh.beartrack.com>
dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com (Don Nichols (DoN.)) writes:
 
>	[ ... ]
>
>	But, if the interior pressure of the sub is one atmosphere, and the
>ports of a sub are designed to withstand pressure (they open out only), how
>did they ever get the ports open?  (Did they shoot the poor divers from the
>torpedo tubes? :-)
>--
Similar. As with torpedo tubes, the drill is flood the chamber, open the
pressures as the chamber floods.
                           --mje
From: s082@brems.ii.uib.no (Ketil Malde)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Pressure
Date: 7 Apr 92 13:17:52 GMT
Organization: University of Bergen, Norway

Recently, people (well, navy crack(ed) soldiers) exited from a sub
submerged to 180 meters, and rose to the surface.  And lived.
(One of them accidentally swallowed a gulp of air at 180m, which
on the way up expanded to roughly 19 times its volume, and ruptured
his stomach, but apart from that, things seemed to go 'well'.)

Is this a record?

Are there any limits how deep this can be done from? (We're talking 
about going from 180m to surface in a matter of seconds..)

What are the medical problems that can arise? (except from teh obvious
ones of holding your breath and blowing up!)

    ; Ketil Malde,           In real life: s082@ii.uib.no +
    ; ISO-8859-1 rules         Honk if you love unicorns! +
From: moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Why do snooze alarms do +9 minutes?
Date: 16 Apr 92 19:11:05 GMT
Reply-To: moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com ()
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


In article <20288@castle.ed.ac.uk>, asr@castle.ed.ac.uk (Angus "Fluffy" Rae) writes:
|>Alarm clocks don't use the AC frequency at all. There's no point, it can
|>vary too much for any sort of accurate timekeeping. And anyway - the
|>first thing that your AC input hits is a transformer, bringing it down
|>to a sensible number of volts and then it goes into a rectififier,
|>changing it to DC. No AC frequency at all.

Wrong.  I built a digital alarm clock (as a kit), it used the power line as
a frequency reference.  The power line frequency in the US is very accurate
over the long term (your mileage and frequency may vary in certain third world
countries), since the power grids in the US are interconnected and the power
companies will vary the frequency slightly to keep the total number of cycles
over a long period such as a day very constant.

This digital clock used a commercially produced clock chip, and the AC power
all went through a transformer, then while most power went through a standard
bridge rectifier, a special diode-capacitor-resistor circuit produced a
special signal as clock input.

-Mike
From: richard@harlqn.co.uk (Richard Brooksby)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Bouncing eggs (Was: Eggs and vernal equinox)
Date: 8 Apr 92 08:22:04 GMT
	<1190@lysator.liu.se>
Distribution: alt
Organization: Harlequin Limited, Cambridge, England

chrisp@lysator.liu.se (Christer Pettersson) wrote:

> ... I have tried the experiment afterwards, from different
> altitudes, and unless the egg hits something too rough, it will hold
> together. It is also important that the egg doesn't tumble too much.
> A straight down-drop is best. When I think of it, I have failed the
> experiment more often from lower altitudes than from higher. Maybe
> the tumbling evens out more easily above a certain height.

If you're going to try and impress someone with this trick it's
probably best to use a smaller egg laid by a free-range chicken.
Smaller eggs generally have tougher shells and free-range chickens
tend to eat more grit.

--
richard@harlqn.co.uk              (Internet)
RPTB1@UK.AC.CAMBRIDGE.PHOENIX     (JANET)
Articles composed without care for punctuation and layout will be ignored.
If you share this sentiment please copy these lines into your signature.
From: robin@lsl.co.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Why do snooze alarms do +9 minutes?
Date: 15 Apr 92 11:14:31 GMT
Organization: Laser-Scan Ltd., Cambridge

In article <1992Apr14.092955.19395@hellgate.utah.edu>, tolman%asylum.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:
> 
>>The snooze alarm uses a special counter that only goes up
>>  to nine.
> 
> You all are being silly.  The reason that snooze alarms take some X amount
> of time is because of this:
> 
>   When you press on the snooze alarm, it sends out a radio signal to the
> satellites that orbit the earth.  This then is forwarded down to 
> telecommunications lines which hook into the central data computers.  These
> send back a signal via wire, which is shot back up to the satellite, which
> then tells your alarm to go off again on the next minute.
>
>[more in the same vein] 
> 
>   I hope this has resolved the issue.

I'm inclined to think it has.  After all, no-one could _possibly_ follow 
up your posting, could they?
-- 
Robin Fairbairns, Senior Consultant, postmaster and general dogsbody
Laser-Scan Ltd., Science Park, Milton Rd., Cambridge CB4 4FY, UK
Email: robin@lsl.co.uk  --or--  rf@cl.cam.ac.uk

I didn't vote for them either
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: tolman%asylum.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Subject: Re: Why do snooze alarms do +9 minutes?
Date: 14 Apr 92 09:29:55 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept


>The snooze alarm uses a special counter that only goes up
>  to nine.

You all are being silly.  The reason that snooze alarms take some X amount
of time is because of this:

  When you press on the snooze alarm, it sends out a radio signal to the
satellites that orbit the earth.  This then is forwarded down to 
telecommunications lines which hook into the central data computers.  These
send back a signal via wire, which is shot back up to the satellite, which
then tells your alarm to go off again on the next minute.

  The various times of these depend on the distance to the nearest satellite,
and the switching times of the various transducers.  Sometimes the signal
is lost, and your alarm never goes off again.  (Now you know)

  Why all this effort?  Well, this was set up by the government to get
a better grip on the problem of people sleeping in. They have hard statistics
now, and know that criminals tend to hit their alarm snooze over and over in
a lame horrible torture to whoever is sleeping in the same room.  Also, the
government sells this information to corporations who produce hair dryers.
Sometimes this information is sold to your landlord/neighbr, so that they may
know when to use up all the hot water ahead of your showers.

  I hope this has resolved the issue.
From: asr@castle.ed.ac.uk (Angus "Fluffy" Rae)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Why do snooze alarms do +9 minutes?
Date: 16 Apr 92 11:15:24 GMT
Organization: CATHY_VoiceMail_Project

dogbowl@acme.gen.nz (Alan Brown) writes:

>andyg@hpcvra.cv.hp.com (Andrew Gryc) writes:

>> I think that an alarm snoozes for 9 minutes because it uses the frequency
>> of the AC line (60 Hz) as a time measurement, and it is using an 9 bit
>> counter.  1/60 * 512 = 8.5 minutes, so this is about right.  I remember 
>> reading this somewhere, but I can't recall exactly where.  I think that
>> 9 minutes was chosen as a human-convienent amount of time to snooze, and 
>> since it has a machine-convienent representation, most alarm clocks do
>> it that way.  But I could be wrong.
>> 
>OK what about the parts of the world using 50 line frequency?
>(most clock chips have a 50/60Hz select). This would give a
>result of 10.24 minutes, and I've timed my clock at exactly 9 minutes 
>every time. ( New Zealand uses 50Hz )

Alarm clocks don't use the AC frequency at all. There's no point, it can
vary too much for any sort of accurate timekeeping. And anyway - the
first thing that your AC input hits is a transformer, bringing it down
to a sensible number of volts and then it goes into a rectififier,
changing it to DC. No AC frequency at all.

The snooze will just be a simple timer chip feeding into a counter. When
the counter overflows it will set the "ring alarm" signal high, so when
the clock comes round to the next minute the alarm will go off. As far
as I recall, alarm clocks actually look for the time one minute before
the setting, then set the "ring alarm" line, thus preventing any
possible timing problems.

I could be wrong - I'm doing an enginerring degree in computer science,
which makes me jack of all trades, master of none....

-- 
Angus G Rae, the Cuddly Vampire Teddy Bear [asr@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk]
CATHY VoiceMail, Computer Science Dept., Edinburgh University
"I'm on the run from the Facist Police with a murderer and
 a mass murderer and a man in a bri-nylon shirt."  Rimmer, Red Dwarf V
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson)
Subject: Re: Bouncing eggs (Was: Eggs and vernal equinox)
Organization: Hewlett-Parkard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 00:09:51 GMT

glen@slate.cs.wisc.edu (Glen Ecklund) writes:
: In article <1992Apr2.233752.16666@pta.pyramid.com.au> bob@pta.pyramid.com.au (Bob Vernon) writes:
: >Take an egg.  Place it in the palm of your hand.  Wrap your fingers
: >gently but firmly around it.
: >
: >Now squeeze.
: >
: >Squeeze harder.
: >
: >Come on.  Harder.  Squeeze it.  Break that damn sucker.  Can't do it
: >can you.
: >
: I heard this when I was 16, and tried it in my girlfriend's kitchen.
: I think I made some small effort to control the potential mess, but the
: egg shot quite a ways.  Her parents never liked me.
: 
: I think I must have used my fingertips.
: 
: If I try it again, I'll put my hand, with egg, inside a bag first.

It is easy to break if you just squeeze the egg from the sides. Try it
by only squeezing the ends - e.g. along the long axis.

Bill
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: peterd@polari.com
Subject: French found Atom Glass in Algeria!
Summary: Frogs find Fossil fused sand, here we ga again?
Keywords: abombs, french test, nuke algeria, green glass
Organization: Seattle Online Public Access Unix.  (206) 328-4944 (all lines telebit-equipped)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 08:05:57 GMT

When I was a lad, and atomic testing was done above ground,
by all the leading testers, there was a stroy that the
French (?) Austrailians (?) Evil Genius's for a Better Tomorrow,
discovered buried in the sands of the test site, the self
same 'glass' thats formed in sand when exposed to thermo
nuclear processes.  The only problem was a complete lack of
any records of test shots in the neighborhood (or several
gazillion hectare), and the glass lack any appreciable
induced radiactivity.

What Iwant to know is: any more "facts" on the matter,
or was this just something that I confused with a 
asteroid impact.

chus
pyotr
ps next week: how psychic time warp missle defenses 
	caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and
	the Ice Ages.
From: de@moscom.UUCP (David Esan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: New legend: Daffodils
Date: 10 Apr 92 20:05:04 GMT
Reply-To: de@moscom.UUCP (David Esan)
Organization: Moscom Corp., Pittsford, NY

In article <12996@bwdls58.bnr.ca> Henry.Troup@BNR.CA writes:
>I believe that the King of Denmark wore a yellow star...

I have recently learned, to my dismay, that this cherished story is 
actually an UL.  The resistance that the Danish people showed toward the
Nazi racial was exceptional with nearly the entire Jewish population 
moved to Sweden, but this story has no basis.


-- 
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 -->     David Esan      de@moscom.com  
 
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: dsc@gemini.tmc.edu (Doug S. Caprette Bldg. 28 W191 x3892)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Earthquakes
Date: 10 Apr 92 19:58:36 GMT
Followup-To: alt.up.yours
Organization: NASA GSFC CDP VLBI

In article <kubr1tINNpm6@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> linden@positive.Eng.Sun.COM (Peter van der Linden) writes:
>
>
>                             ...  When we have temparatures "up in the 80's"
>(Fahrenheit), this is a different 'smaller' fahrenheit than other parts of
>the world.  When our "surf's up!" it's not up as far as it is in Texas, say.
>
>And when "calculus is harder" it's a softer form of harder than other places.
>
>----------------
>Peter van der Linden     linden@eng.sun.com    (415) 336-6206  Frank Zappa:
>"May God have mercy on the English, for the terrible food they must endure"
>A man without two apothegms in his .sig is like a metaphor without a bicycle
>

Very funny.  I can do selective editing too!  Could you, perhaps use a library
and look up for yourself how the magnitude of an earthquake, on the Richter
scale, is determined?

--
 |  Regards,         |   Hughes STX                |    Code 926.9 GSFC        |
 |  Doug Caprette    |   Lanham, Maryland          |    Greenbelt, MD  20771   |
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Why are we born, only to suffer and die." (paraphrased) -- Simon Wagstaff
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: larryh@cabezon.uucp (Larry Huntley)
Subject: Re: Rocky Mountain Oysters (Was Re: Scallops: Seafood or Spinefood?)
Organization: Logic Modeling Corporation / Beaverton OR & Milpitas CA
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 01:35:14 GMT

In article <32989@darkstar.ucsc.edu> unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (resU nwonknU ehT) writes:
>
>In article <1992Apr14.150952.25957@anasaz> morris@anasaz (Bob Morris) writes:
>}In article <2678@monarch.array.com> kenm@array.com (Ken Murphy) writes:
>}>bulls = steers with testicles.
>}steers = bulls without testicles.
>
>	And that concludes the arithmetic lesson for today.  Remember the
>moral of the story: You can subtract the same value from both sides of an
>equation and you will still have a valid equation.

	But the operator changed from "with" to "without".

	BTW, I was told we wouldn't have to do any arithmetic in this group.
        Or maybe it was that we'd never see "It follows from the above..." and
        "The solution is left as an exercise for the student." in this group.

    Larry "Rhymes with Terry" Huntley
>-- 
>/unknown@ucscb.ucsc.edu GS SIMM mem card & trackball WANTED  Apple II Forever!\
>\Mail me:Get INFOCOM GAMES RERELEASED,ULT VI GS done,for UNIX GS&CHEAP CD info/

	I'm for it; my family and I are big "Leather Goddesses of Phobos" and
	"Planetfall" fans.
-- 

    Larry Huntley / Logic Modeling Corporation / Beaverton  OR
    Fire and Chains and/Fire and Chains and/Fire and Chains and...
                      [Stop Continental Drift!]
From: linden@positive.Eng.Sun.COM (Peter van der Linden)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Falling bullets (was: Ask Marilyn? Not if you want the right answer!)
Summary: No it ain't.
Date: 7 Apr 92 03:42:17 GMT
Organization: When Harry met Sally and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.
NNTP-Posting-Host: positive

I said:
> Note especially that the fatal round entered through the roof of a car;
> clearly this bullet came down onto the victim from above.  

-Matthew "the curse of machines named after composers" Wiener rejoined:
> Of course not necessarily.  Peter's "clearly" remains garbage.

Well, with the greatest possible respect and sympathy for your point of
view Matthew, I put to you the suggestion that, any time an object falls
through the roof of a car and embeds itself in the body of a passenger, most 
commentators would feel entitled to say that it "clearly came down from
above".  After all, the roof is over the heads of the passengers.

I have a second suggestion for you, that I hope you will give the fullest
possible consideration.  Namely keep up the good work!  The operation of
incisive minds like yours keeps us all on our toes, even when their logic is 
(occasionally) clearly garbage.

PS.  All looken-peepers: note the "Normal Form" for separating quoted
pieces of text, according to who said them.  This is far superior to the
"insert more chevrons" lunacy, in which after two levels, no one can tell who
said what any more.  I think I'll name this form after the grammer system
used to define PL/I, namely "Vienna Definition Language".  vdL for short.
Has a nice ring to it.

--
----------------
Peter van der Linden     linden@eng.sun.com    (415) 336-6206  Frank Zappa:
"May God have mercy on the English, for the terrible food they must endure"
A man without two apothegms in his .sig is like a metaphor without a bicycle
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban