Way COOL!!!
I read a blurb in "WIRED" a year or so back that described something similar -- only it was an ion stream that provided the "conductive medium".

All we need now is quantum time-travel, [ a la "TIMESCAPE"] & everything'll be alright....

Well Joey, the dancing couldn't get any worse, why not?

If there's a way to make the smoke that comes from dance club smoke machines conductive, we could have a grand old time at the goth club...

What I don't understand is that the article talks about using an aerosol, not a continuous stream.

I guess if you used a high enough voltage, you'd get little arcs between all the drops, but that voltage would also probably be high enough cause the droplets to disperse (from electrostatic repulsion). I don't know.

Edited by author 05-21-2003 06:28 PM
When I was 12 (in 1965) I responded to neighbor-bullies harrassment by squirt gun when I was coming home from school with my laboriously typed science fair reports (this was BEFORE word processors!). I built the "Tickle Stick" from Popular Electronics (about 5KV IIRC) and connected it to the brass nozzles of two squirt guns mounted on a crude stock, fired simultaneously by a lever. I put salt-water in the squirt guns, and as long as the streams had not broken up into droplets... it was quite effective, probably more from being utterly unexpected than anything else. I have since thought of a stun-gun and two cans of CS or mace, but I'm just not a violent guy.

Still, looks like I need to send them a C&D... prior art!

Can't wait to see someone operate it against a sudden gust...

http://home.howstuffworks.com/stun-gun4.htm lovely explanation and diagrams. howstufworks.com is fun.

The Googles do nothing for it now, but I think I remember some company recently got a govt contract to make a crowd-control device called an "electric firehose". Kinda reminds me of that.

Cool!

Let's see, water pistol, salt water solution, a few automotive ignition capacitors wired in series...

Next clown who tries to swipe my parking space is going to be doing a little dancing.

They've had something similar for a long time... ones that use water (with some additives to help conduct electricity). The problem with those is they're bulky, like a big super soaker, you have to carry around a supply of liquid. So presumably this would require less liquid to work and take up less space.

Hm. Reminds me of the time I accidentally peed on the third rail of the elevated line.