On Sun, 29 May 2005 21:39:51 +0100,
A colleague of mine some years ago had to have some scientific gear fixed
in Switzerland. By the time it was finished he was in Switzerland himself
and so decided to just take the thing back with him. Of course at the
airport he had to unpack his case, and when he innocently told the
security people that they were looking at an "ion gun", there was some
commotion. I forgot if he missed his flight or not, but for the story,
let's assume he did.
Now that you mention it, I have a similar story. I had designed a little
piece of logic for a product some guy had come up with the brainstorm
for, an "SOS light". It was quite simple, really - just a flasher, like
on those warning signs, except instead of just on-off, it flashed "S O S"
in Morse code:
_ _ _ ___ ___ ___ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ ___ ___ _ _ _
___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ________ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ____ etc.
The point was, if your car is disabled, you just pull over and turn on
your flashers. But! If a person in the car needs mecical attention _STAT_,
you put the SOS Light in your back window, so they know to bring
paramedics.
I had built the guy a prototype, which had 4 "C" cells, my little
circuit board, the light bulb, and a switch lash-up.
They stopped him at the airport X-ray machine, because it looked like a
bomb. Luckily, this was only in about 1992 or so, so they didn't lock
down the whole friggin' airport. And when they looked at my lash-up,
which was, I swear, literally held together with rubber bands, it turned
into an amusing anecdote for all.
Cheers!
Rich
