Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!bierstadt.scd.ucar.edu!hpoppe
From: hpoppe@bierstadt.scd.ucar.edu (Herb Poppe)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Zap, fry, and sizzle
Message-ID: <6442@ncar.ucar.edu>
Date: 27 Feb 90 18:33:05 GMT
Sender: news@ncar.ucar.edu
Organization: Scientific Computing Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Lines: 66

In article <3176@optilink.UUCP> elliott@optilink.UUCP (Paul Elliott x225) writes:
>
>...
>In retrospect, it seems rather amazing that we (I am referring here to
>most of the engineering community, perhaps all males in general, or perhaps
>all humans) ever survive adolescence.  I wonder what the mortality rate is
>for related accidents.  Is this behavior more typical of engineers or other
>"technical" types than, say, for lawyers?
>
The following story is not of an electronics nature, but is germaine
to this hypotheses:

After World War II many returning servicemen brought home souveniers
of that conflict. Many homes in our neighborhood were decorated
with those grim reminders.

One of my eldest brother's friends, probably to raise his level of esteem
within the "gang", "borrowed" a few of these items from his veteran
dad, and passed them out at school. My brother received two rifle
cartridges, about 30-30 gauge. He had a great curiosity, my brother
did, and took them up to his bedroom. It was June and the windows were
open. The window sill looked like a good place where you could do a little
"materials research" without marring the furniture. This research
was conducted with a hammer. The shrapnel from the resulting explosion
severed the last joint of his thumb and forefinger and blinded one eye.
He was 10 years old.

I was only four at the time, but this incident made a big impression
on me. I can still remember walking into the bathroom after my mother had
whisked him off to the hospital, and finding the bloody remains of
his fingers still sitting on the sink. The window sill had a 3-inch
crater in it.

My brother went on to become high school valedictorian, college Phi Beta
Kappa, and nuclear physicist.

My brother taught me a lot of things by example; I still have all my
body parts. The only thing I remember (selective memory, no doubt) that
I did, was to burn down the tree house that our dad built for us
out of an old outhouse. (This came from the side effects of drilling
out the end of a small CO2 cartridge, filling it with match heads, taping
the cartridge to an arrow, and launching the affair with a bit of Jetex
fuse.)

I went on to become high school salutorian, college Phi Beta
Kappa, and marine geophysicist cum software engineer.

My little brother was too small to have profited by
my oldest brother's misadventure. I remember the time we were
playing in the kitchen and he took a scissors to the line cord on the
electric clock. The resulting shock knocked him all the way across the room.
(He also managed to get hit by a car when I chased him across the mouth
of an alley in a game of tag; he bounced on the ground three times, just
like a rubber ball.)

My little brother became an ecologist.

Our other brother never did any of these things. He went on to become an
actor.

QED

--
Herb Poppe      NCAR                         INTERNET: hpoppe@ncar.ucar.edu
(303) 497-1296  P.O. Box 3000                   CSNET: hpoppe@ncar.CSNET
		Boulder, CO  80307               UUCP: hpoppe@ncar.UUCP