It teaches you how to turn a Mini Maglite and a DVD burner into a laser which can actually light matches and pop balloons (and blind you instantly). And it is possibly the greatest thing ever.
For extra fun, use a CD burner instead of a DVD burner. You can blind yourself with it without even seeing it! (The laser wouldn't be visible, if you use a CD burner, but it will still blind you.)
PS - The "now we need a shark to mount this frikin' laser to" joke has been made far too many times in relation to this article. Just don't do it.
The laser wouldn't be visible, if you use a CD burner, but it will still blind you.
That'd be great to use at school, because they wouldn't even be able to prove anything! And you'd be able to get back at the bastards who've been making your life hell for years!
I like how he makes it out as if everyone has a spare DVD burner and laser pointer laying around. Regardless, this is probably one of the best things ever.
If I'm not mistaken, laser pointers are banned on planes. Guns with Laser sights and all that. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't let you board a plane with a heavy, metal-cased flashlight, either.
As far as that goes, all they need to do is find some kind of organic substance that conducts electricity well. Make everything else out of plastic, and there you have an undetectible electronic device.
Anyway, I've heard of taking apart a weak green laser and buring out a certain chip to make a laser pointer that lights things on fire, but I've never heard of using a Mini Mag and a DVD player diode. I actually do have a couple spare DVD players and Mini Mag lights lying around...
Pure water doesn't conduct electricity by itself, but add any impurities and it will, so it would work. Problem is, that would require tiny tubes that would have to be sealed water-tight at the ends.
If they can find a flexible, solid organic substance instead, that would work better.
Plus, the microchips would definately have to have a solid material. Why use water if they have this other substance available that would work better? Thus, Water would be eliminated.
I don't know, but I wouldn't really want to try. I just keep having visions of old James Bond movies where they try to cut him in half using a laser. I don't really want to be missing my hand.
Red lasers are the weakest, blue lasers are stronger, and green are ridiculous. But green lasers are hard to come by.
If anyone has a PS3 laying around, though, you could finally get some use out of it by taking out the laser diode (which is blue; hence Blu-Ray) and using it to slice sandwiches in half. :D
Disclaimer: I have no idea exactly how strong a blue laser would be, so whether or not it would cut a sandwich in half is up in the air.
EDIT: The more I talk about this the more I want to try it and experiment with it. Just making a plain red one would be cool enough, but trying it out with a CD-burner laser or a Blu-Ray laser would be fun. (Or, God forbid, a green laser. But those are a bit too pricey to consider tearing apart for use in this anyway.)
I once saw a video on YouTube of a modified green laser that can cut plastic, and the description said it can also cut through thin (Well, paper-thin) steel.
What's funny is that these laser pointers skew Sony's numbers.
They think that every BluRay player they sell is being used to play BluRay discs.
And a laser pointer is enough to change these numbers significantly, considering how poorly standalone BluRay players are selling right now. They may account for a full 5% of BluRay diodes sold, if they're not getting them from the PS3.
Anyway, I was thinking the same thing. BluRay laser pointer, for even just $1,000, and you've got $500 per laser, or whatever the difference is between a grand and the cheapest PS3. Sony's crazy scheming has me confused.
But then you have to consider the cost of casing for them, as well as the chips and batteries, but that's still a lot of money.
