26 Jul
2004
26 Jul
'04
8:11 a.m.
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Mon, 26 Jul 2004, Lyle Bickley wrote:
OK; note to self: Stop using dead ants in circuits where fire or arcing
might
cause problems.
On Monday 26 July 2004 09:01, Vintage Computer
Festival wrote:
---snip---
They can also carry quite a bit of current I've just found out.
Earlier I sprayed some insect death into the ports without first disabling
the ports on my hub and phone system. I didn't think there would be an
arcing issue, and there wasn't.
Well, I just went to clean out the carcasses with the tip of a pencil
(duh) and it arced something fierce (ok, in relative terms, but enough to
light up when the ants started to combust) when I was trying to brush the
dead ant remains across the pins. The ant bodies were definitely
conducting through the pins. The second jack was an analog phone port
and it started smoking when an ant's body made contact between the tip
and ring!
Speaking of bandwidth issues, how much data can an
ant carry? The little
fuckers were streaming out of the data and phone port in my kitchen this
morning.
A LOT. I've seen them carry large quantities of bits. I've noticed from
time
to time chatting with you on the phone that your voice breaks up - now we
know the source - the nasty li'l ant bit stealers.
Stupid critters.
Fortunately there was no permanent damage. I just had to re-seat the
digital line card in my PBX and all is well again :)