Dan's Data letters #147
(page 4)
Publication date: 1-July-2005.Last modified 03-Dec-2011.
When Chris Carter directs your life
I have a question that no-one seems to know the answer to. Figured you might, since you know everything.
Whenever I walk to work, I pass under a streetlight. When it's dark, and the streetlight is on, it switches off as soon as I pass close enough to it. If (and it's only happened twice in around 80 passings) it's off, I can turn it on, too.
I can't turn it on during the day though - I presume there's a cutoff based on light levels, or a timer.
So, am I magic, or is this some kind of weird physics thing?
Daniel
Answer:
This phenomenon is well enough known among paranormal enthusiasts that it has a name
- Street Light Interference, or SLI (confusing, for computer
users, but there you go).
The prosaic explanation is that some street lights do turn on and off periodically - generally because their bulb's dying - and that this is a very noticeable event for anyone walking down the street, and that people remember when one happened to turn on or off when they were near it, but don't when it didn't.
There are, of course, people who reject this explanation and insist that certain people - "SLIders" - can consistently influence streetlights to turn on or off. And, heck, maybe they can, though it seems to me that proper research into this would be quite easy, and nobody seems to be doing any.
This is a not-very-critical piece which mentions some research allegedly being conducted by Dr Richard Wiseman at "the University of Berkfordshire". That institution does not exist, but that hasn't stopped people copying and pasting the text here and there; this is the kind of rigorous research we've come to expect from the woo-woo crowd.
The actual place where Wiseman works is the University of Hertfordshire. Judging from his publication list, it would appear that the SLI research hasn't yet produced any results. Or that it's produced negative results and so nothing was published; that's common enough. Or that he was never doing it in the first place.
More on the subject.
This, of course, is your chance to do some science of your own. Get yourself, an accomplice and a camcorder out there and see whether your proximity actually can influence the on/off behaviour of one or more lights!
Turbo-batts examined
I've found the information on your site very useful and interesting for quite some time. I noticed in one of your batches of letters that you mentioned having never encountered the Rayovac I-C3 battery system.
I shall contribute what information I have on them, from using the batteries and chargers for a couple years now.
First of all, I have no clue what circuitry's inside the battery cell. Supposedly, it detects the pressure inside the cell. I'm not sure how it connects to the outside world, or if it does at all. Perhaps it IS just a switch that cuts the current flow off.
There's a black band on the label of the battery cell, near the negative terminal, which is electrically conductive. When the battery's plunked into the charger, two small terminals press against it. My guess is that this simply detects that the battery's an IC3 to enable the 15 minute mode. Each negative terminal on the charger has a thermistor mounted in it, which is pressed right against the cell housing while it's charging. There are also separate contacts in the positive terminal to detect whether a AA or AAA cell is loaded, and another small one which I have no clue as to the function of.
The charger's cooling fan is a LOUSY sleeve-bearing unit. Out of the box, it's loud; after a while, it sits there and moans horribly. Your fan maintenance instructions worked just great for recovering it, though accessing the fan hub requires either massacring the plastic grille over the fan outlet (which I did) or unsoldering a bunch of leads to take the board out of the charger (too lazy!).
From the behavior of the fan, it's obvious that the charger cycles on and off near the end of the 15 minute charge cycle. It's especially obvious on the wall wart-shaped 2-cell charger.
Some testing done using the discharge mode on a Great Planes Electrifly Triton charger reveals that the batteries are charged to about 1450mAh if you take them out at the end of the 15 minute cycle, as soon as the light goes off and the fan stops. If you leave them in a couple hours after the light/fan go off, it's more like 1900mAh. (I allowed the cells to cool to room temperature before discharge, in both cases.) I figure that for most applications, the lower capacity wouldn't be all that noticeable. It's still an okay tradeoff for the 15 minute charge time.
I've heard that a new generation of the I-C3 charger can do the 15 minute charging on any NiMH cells, probably using temperature monitoring alone for current regulation. Haven't seen that one around, though.
The IC3 chargers are a GREAT improvement over the old Rayovac Renewal chargers which handled rechargeable alkaline, NiCD, and NiMH. On all three battery types, that charger would get the cells too hot to touch and keep them at painful temperatures for many hours. There was no temperature sensor at all! The Renewal chargers also had a great track record for causing explosive cell failure on the rechargeable alkalines, which were discontinued not too long after they first came out. Ahh, fond memories of cleaning up that gray evil goo...
The only real downside to the I-C3 chargers, I suspect, is that their charging of conventional cells may be dumb and done only by fixed current/timer control. They seem to take the full 14 hours to turn off the indicator lights, even if the cells are previously charged.
Now, if only they came in sizes other than AA and AAA...
Tom
Answer:
Thanks a lot!
I'm sure you're right about the conductive black band. Short the terminals that touch it, insert a regular rechargeable, and watch the sparks fly!
I'm suspicious about 15 minute charging of any NiMH, though. You can throw a partial charge into a NiMH or NiCd cell very fast indeed - that's how all of those tiny cheap R/C cars that charge by clipping onto their transmitter work - but even one hour is seriously fast for charging normal NiMH cells to 90% or better. 15 minutes for more than half a charge would, I think, be beating the poor things to death.
Mind you, ultra-fast chargers that beat the tar out of the batteries are far from a new innovation. The old "charge cords" that connect a 7.2V R/C car NiCd pack directly to a 12V car battery (and didn't always set fire to the engine bay) are a perfect example.
Test Your Credulity
I write to inform you of my surprise to see our company name inside the content of your report of the Batterylife Activator product. I wish to inform you that Batterylife and BatMax are not the same companies and that the products are not identical.
We know very well Batterylife and Mr. Korzilius, one of the founder. Unfortunately, Batterylife uses a lot of our information and marketing material without any authorization and the people are thinking that the 2 companies are the same one. As you can see on the competition website Batterylife.com.au (the Batterylife Australian representative) the design look like very similar but with the content of the German website Batterylife.de. I hope that you will understand where Mr. Aleman from Batterylife Australia got his inspiration.
Therefore, I would be pleased to offer you some samples of BatMax for your evaluation and test (so you can evaluate the difference between BatMax and Batterylife Activator). And I hope that you will obtain (and will publish) your results on dansdata website.
You can find attached, a short Quicktime movie (here) that shows the difference of negative ions production between our product (white) and the Batterylife Activator (that produces absolutly zero negative ions). You already notice, that everywhere on the Batterylife website, the Activator principle is based on the production of negative ions...that as you can see, is not true.
Please, could you give me your full address and I will prepare and ship you some samples.
I am looking forward for your feedback.
Best regards,
Alain Aisenberg
President
BatMax Corporation
Answer:
I honestly couldn't figure out why Alain sent me this e-mail. I supposed it could be
because he's really, really foolish, or perhaps because he's delusional and believes
his product actually works. I was in a quandary.
(...until Alain replied, and took the second option.)
I do not want to review any BatMax products, because I have already wasted more than enough time reviewing preposterous magic battery-improving stickers that'd be worth billions of dollars to their inventors if they worked, but which for some reason are never subjected to proper empirical tests by actual traceable organisations.
BatMax products have been "tested and documented by several prestigious institutions, laboratories and universities", have they? Name these testers. Tell us how to contact them. Put up, or shut up.
(I'll tell you all if Alain does. I made this challenge in mid-2005; Alain has not, as yet, responded.)
The explanation given for the BatMax's operation is, indeed, somewhat different from the explanation given by Batterylife. It is my considered opinion, however, that both explanations are what we professionals refer to as bullshit. BatMax appeals to phenomena unknown to science to do something contrary to physics and described with gibberish.
Hey, maybe it's true; I don't tell the world how to behave, and maybe I and all the electrical engineers and materials scientists and so on who've horse-laughed at such claims are completely wrong.
I'm damned if I'm investing another week in hunting fairies with a butterfly net, though. Once was enough.
The BatMax is, so far as I can see, exactly the same as the Batterylife sticker, and exactly as worthless (though, to BatMax's credit, they do seem to have thought of the scam first).
I note that Tom's Hardware promised to review your product; they've got more staff than me, so I suggest your future solicitations be sent to them.
As regards Batterylife's shameless poaching of your epochal discoveries... lying is a terrible thing, isn't it?
They could at least take down that stupid stock skyscraper picture of theirs. I note that they have changed its name from "espirito.jpg" to "miamibuilding.jpg", though. Smooth.
The cream of the crap
HELLO,
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EA 54400 SERIES GAS MASK 54401NBC TO MY MALL. SO I
NEED THE TOTAL QUOTE OF IT INCLUDING THE SHIPMENT
CHARGES COST TO THE DESTINATION BELOW WITH THE
CREDITCARD TYPE YOU ACCEPT FOR PAYMENT.
ITEMS DISCRIPTIONS BELOW
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USPS SHIPMENT
SHIPPING ADDRESS
#15,OLUFUNMILAYO STREET
MUSHIN LAGOS
NIGERIA
23401
HERE WAITING FOR YOUR RESPONSE.
THANKS
MR WALE
Answer:
Like many other people who do not actually run a shop, I get plenty of Nigerian credit
card scam spam, both from the unsubtle ones whose address is actually in Nigeria, and
the cleverer but still immediately obvious ones who onship from the USA.
Usually, though, they're asking me to send them something I've reviewed. Until now, the string "gas mask" has never even occurred on Dan's Data. Neither has "54400".
But there's more, from my old friends the link farmers:
Is there an echo in here?
Hello,
I have visited your site recently and I think that a link exchange between us could be of interest to users of both our web sites.
I think your site has some really neat stuff related to my site's topic of quitting smoking and would be a great resource for my visitors to use.
In fact, I went ahead and added your site to my Quit Smoking i Resource Directory at http://quitsmokingi.com/stopsmokinghints
Is that OK with you?
Can I ask a favor? Will you give me a link back on your site? I'd really appreciate you returning the favor.
Thanks and feel free to drop me an email if you'd like to chat more about this.
Best wishes,
Clare
quitsmokingi.comHi,
I took a look at your site a couple of hours ago... and I want to tell you that I'd really love to trade links with you. I think your site has some really good stuff related to my site's topic of guns and would be a great resource for my visitors.
In fact, I went ahead and added your site to my Guns Resource Directory at the http://www.guns-hq.com under http://www.guns-hq.com/capguns
Is that OK with you?
Can I ask a favor? Will you give me a link back on your site? I'd really appreciate you returning the favor.
I have created a list of all the sites i've visited but if you have recieved this email in error then please let me know and i will remove you from my list and apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.
Thanks and feel free to drop me an email if you'd like to chat more about this.
Best wishes,
Steve
info@guns-hq.comHi,
I took a look at your site a couple of hours ago...
and I want to tell you that I'd really love to trade links with you. I think your site has some really good stuff related to my site's topic of pumps and would be a great resource for my visitors as it deals with some great aspects of pumps that I'd like to give my visitors more information about.
In fact, I went ahead and added your site to my Pumps i Resource Directory at http://www.pumpsi.com/pumpshotgun
Is that OK with you?
Can I ask a favor? Will you give me a link back on your site? I'd really appreciate you returning the favor.
Thanks and feel free to drop me an email if you'd like to chat more about this.
Best wishes,
David
http://www.pumpsi.com
info@pumpsi.com
I really cannot contain my affection for sites about pumps that include pump shotguns, and sites about guns that include pricing guns.
