Grrl Power #396 – Eat lightning and crap expletives
Woo! It’s good to be getting back to Sydney, up to her usual… antics is really the only word for it. If they ever make a reality TV show about Sydney, she should be fighting crime while traveling across the country and they should call it the Antics Roadshow.
13 panel page too. Yup, everything’s back to normal. :/
Apparently normal Army bootcamp starts you at 4:30 which is just painful to think about. The last time I was up at 4:30 it was because I hadn’t gone to bed yet. Archon starts their day off a little later because they stay up later. Arc-Boot doesn’t take place in isolation, they knew from the beginning that even the recruits would be in high demand for interviews and public appearances. The second wave of recruits might follow a more traditional route, but by the time they roll around the public will probably be champing at the bit for new super celebs.
I live in Texas, so naturally I hate hot weather. “Jacket weather” or colder is best for me, but it comes with a major drawback. I shock the crap out of myself about 50 times a day when it’s cold. Doesn’t matter if I’m walking around in socks, wearing shoes or slippers with rubber soles, or if I’m barefoot (which admittedly is rare cause my toes get cold.) I once actually destroyed a mouse by zapping it so bad something inside it got fried. Well, I zapped it a zillion times and one time the buttons suddenly stopped working. I learned to shock myself on something not attached to my computer first to avoid any more expensive replacements.
Something I’ve decided to start doing is posting double resolution pages over at the Patreon for all supporters. ($1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :) Unfortunately Patreon doesn’t have a way to schedule posts as far as I can tell so I’ll post it as soon as I get up today and link it here.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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finally back to our regular scheduled zanny awesomeness
It’s good to be back!
Hey, what happened to my regular Deuspower comic?
Ok, the (obvious) joke has been made. Move along, nothing to see here.
(Comic related comments follow)
That’s way more static shock than I’ve ever experienced. But honestly, how has Sydney survived so long without learning if you think you’re charged, you touch a metal surface with the BACK of your hand. That way if you get a largeish zap your hand will automatically clench into a fist thus breaking the contact. One largish and one teeny zaps are much better than one very large zap.
Oh, When DaveB (all praise the author DaveB) mentioned he killed a mouse with static shock, my first thought was of some form of rodenticide (the following text explaining that “something inside it got fried” didn’t really help either). Fortunately rodents do not have buttons, so the confusion was brief.
And I got ninjaed on both points. Go me :-(
You think that’s bad, try having a cat. Our cat takes in so much static electricity, I call her scorpion. Every time she touches us with her tail, it’s like a defibrillator went off. Love winter. Love it so, so much.
I didn’t get out of that confusion until he said about zapping something other than the computer.
Also, when you touch something metal with the back of your hand (flat) as opposed to your finger (pointy) the charges don’t gather as much and so you’re less likely to get breakdown voltage (a spark) when that happens.
Delicate electronic components, such as computer components and mice, can be damaged by about a 5,000 electron volt discharge. The typical static shock that you might feel from touching a doorknob or other items can be 15,000 to 25,000 electron volts. So you can fry something and not realize it. That is why static bands are recommended whenever you’re going to be working with items like that. That said, you’d look rather funny with a plastic bracelet that trails a metallic chain to the ground to discharge any static build-up on while walking anywhere you go. The back of the hand suggestion works, as does the ‘hop before you touch the metal’ trick. In cars, a good trick is to grab a hold of the door frame BEFORE you put your foot to the ground; you do it the other way and you’re likely to get zapped. Grab first and any discharge is either gone, or goes through the foot and is nearly impossible to be felt. Inside, I have found that grabbing hold of a desk when you start go get up will often drain any charge before you reach a door handle. Of course the best advice, and least likely to be followed when you first wake up, is DON’T SHUFFLE YOUR FEET WHILE WALKING!
Holding onto the car door before stepping out does not work for me. I still feel that awful shock through my hand.
I repair computers for a living. Depending on what you touch, electronics can be damaged by as little as a 30 electron volt discharge. (However, that’s touching the circuit board directly.) Remember that everything inside a computer runs at either 3.3 volts, 5 volts, or 12 volts… that’s part of what makes them so sensitive to static discharges.
And a static shock you can actually see is closer to 50,000 electron volts. You’re absolutely right, though… you can destroy electronic components with a shock you’re not even aware of.
Nah, the smartest thing I ever heard was hold onto your metal key and touch the car with the key. You are already grounded and the spark happens between the key and the vehicle. It makes pretty (:
I’ve done the hold your key and use it to discharge through. I still feel the jolt.
Some poor redshirt is right outside wondering if they should ask if everything is ok.
What we can’t see is that Sydney is being attacked by the static electricity based villain Evander Graaf.
codenamed generator
Halo, things are about to get rough, and you should know it. NEVER wear glasses in static-filled places. I have home-video proof that all of the static shock that goes onto glasses strikes both sides of your nose!
The best way, I learned, to cancel static is to touch things with your hair first. Sure, there’s still some shock, but it’s not directly on your nerves/sensitive skin.
How? Glasses aren’t grounded, so how are they going to give a shock to your nose?
You only get shocked if you touch something grounded, so the electricity can escape. That doesn’t apply to glasses
You know that metal wire that houses the glass pieces in your glasses? The one that connects to your ears and nose? It’s not electric-proof.
Someone else has probably already said it, but: Discharge static thru a resistance to avoid zap. Standard solution when working on static-sensitive electronics is basically just a skin contact (beaded chain works fine), a one-megohm resistor, and a wire from there to the ground plane — high enough that you can’t hurt yourself with any normal voltage, low enough that the kilovolts of static go away slowly enough not to create a spark.
And yeah, I too was visualizing singed fur. But you need a lot more voltage for that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDy8IOc8ZkM
I detect someone wise in the ways of Ohms Law, well met.
Oh, and for the obligatory super hero reference: https://xkcd.com/643/
That comic still makes me laugh every time I reference it.. :-)
And if I recall correctly, to make a spark about 1 inch long requires 1000 volts potential, I do remember that color TV cathode-ray tubes took about 26,000 volts between electron gun and phosphors. I had the experience of accidentally popping the main anode cable off the top of a powered-up color TV. The spark was magnificent, almost a foot long, but my lab partners and the teacher were less than impressed.
Not more voltage. More current. Which you can get from more capacitance, in a case like this.
Probably not THIS much, though:
https://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/bigjarsspark.jpg
More fun zappy stuff:
https://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/electrostatic.html
Probably would have been harder to draw, but if Sydney really was having so much trouble with Static, strands of her hair would be flying around on their own. Know this from personal experience. Though that might get worse if she tries to comb her hair out.
That is, unless she hasn’t washed her hair in days….
I’ve never experienced this frequency of static shocks…is this a regional thing? (I live in the UK.)
Also, first time I read the description I thought you meant, like, a mouse as in an animal, like you just murdered one with electromagnetism once. Which would be a distinctly different tone to the one you were going for.
Also also, Sydney, just use the lighthook orb to open the door…?
for this problem it has to be cold and very dry, at least one of those conditions isn’t usually associated with the U.K.
If she uses the Lighthook to touch things, she’s worried she’ll keep building charge all day till accidentally touches something and blows her hand off.
Just goose Dabbles, she’d get off on it. Probably.
Westinghouse was using Van De Graaff generators in the 1930s to power particle accelerators. The best results were found using two in series, one positively and one negatively charged. They got pretty big. The Wikipedia article states:
“One of Van de Graaff’s accelerators used two charged domes of sufficient size that each of the domes had laboratories inside – one to provide the source of the accelerated beam, and the other to analyze the actual experiment. The power for the equipment inside the domes came from generators that ran off the belt, and several sessions came to a rather gruesome end when a pigeon would try to fly between the two domes, causing them to discharge. (The accelerator was set up in an airplane hangar.)”
Mornings seem to be a particularly difficult time for our heroine. I’m sure we all remember “yesterdays” Falcon Punch? And today, she’s electrocuting herself! Archon is supposedly covering her insurance needs now, but they may be kind of shocked by how high our accident prone heroine’s premiums are.
What you did there, I see it…
Hmm. Some computer components come with a grounding strap to wear while changing them. Paper clip that to a corner of the sheet and then tape the other end to the metal bedframe. Grounded sheets.
On a related note. Winter, wear a grounding strap if walking around in socks. . .
Can’t do a Sydney Reality TV show, Dave. Unless it’s either on HBO, Showtime or the creators love playing Diablo II with the censor button, there’s no way syndication will EVER let it on the air.
This program contains scenes with adult situations and course language that may be disturbing to some viewers, and hilarious to others. We think we managed to bleep everything, but we might have missed something. I hope not, but mistakes do happen. Parental guidance and viewer discretion is advised.
On the last episode of Archon: Recruitment. Well, the team survived the press conference and the live fire demo. Too bad the restaurant did not later that evening. Sydney Scoville is actually fitting with the recruits, more or less. What a mouth on that girl! It might be more dangerous than her Pew-pew orb. Jiggawatt is sidelined due to hearing damage in the fight at the restaurant, and we left Sydney in one of her more dignified poses, on the bedroom floor. Let’s follow the recruits as they are put through their paces in another day of training.
Have you been speaking to one of my friends? Because this sounds an awful lot like her. XDDD
I’m surprised she hasn’t started using the skyhook/tentacle orb to open things for her. Maybe she’ll think of it after she pulls herself up off the floor.
Resistors.
Carry a bunch of 1 MOhm resistors (they are a few cents each) in your pocket . Before touching a grounded surface, take a resistor by lead end and touch the surface with the other lead. You get a gentle static charge flow, charges balance painlessly, no zap.
Resistance is futile!
Your ass will be laminated.
Resistance is HIGHLY effective
If less than 1 ohm.
But resistors are cheap, get a cheap, high value resistor, and it’ll be your friend around static.
Anvil is seen coming out of her room. Hiro comes out of his room down the hall.
Anvil: Good morning Major. So you’re waking up the boys today?
Hiro: Yup. I remember having sergeants doing the wake-up calls when was a recruit, not officers.
Anvil: Well, once we get some sergeants in charge of the recruits, we can delegate this duty.
Hiro: Oh, you have to wake up Halo. Have fun! I wonder how much she spazzes out when you suddenly wake her from a sound sleep.
Anvil: Come on. She’s a cute kid. She weighs what, a hundred pounds? Those big bruisers two nights ago couldn’t hurt me; there’s no no way she can.
Hiro: Unless she grabs that red laser blaster ball of hers. That tank slicer would put a hole in you too.
Anvil: I don’t think she is that reckless. She’s scatter-brained, not insane.
Hiro: Not that you can tell the difference sometimes. So what’s your plan? Just open the door and shout “Wakey-wakey?”
Anvil: If she isn’t up already by the time I get there, I’m picking her up and dumping her in the fountain out front.
Hiro: Remember how Max landed on her butt at the bank? Make sure all the orbs come through the door with you or you aren’t taking her anywhere. Or maybe you will be punching holes in the walls, if you aren’t careful.
Holding a key between your thumb and index finger and touching the door knob with the key discharges the static charge safely. Depending upon the amount of static charge, it may take more than one tap to fully discharge. For example, some friends bought a house in Lubbock and had new carpet put down before moving in. The combination of very dry weather and new carpet meant that a large static charge built up just by walking on the carpet, even in shoes. I did the key trick to avoid shocking myself and discovered that it not only took about six taps before I stopped causing a spark, but the initial spark happened at a distance of about 2 inches from the handle. They had to get anti-static mats to put under all of their computers to avoid damaging anything. It took about three months for all the static to finally ground out.
Like the earlier comments of carrying a 1mohm resister in your wallet, holding a key will also limit the current flow (the electrical resistance between your fingers and the key can substitute for a resistor quite well). Of course if you have naturally rather oily skin, or are sweating a lot, it’s not so great an solution as this increases conductivity and rather defeats the purpose.
Spray a diluted mix of water and dish soap on the carpet to help dissipate the static.
I have to infer she is at home, as the ARC building would have climate control, and thus the sleeping quarters would not be so lacking in humidity.
And RE what many others have said about static charges. Comedy gold, true, but Syd is letting a fairly common problem with common solutions whump her.
Yup, definitely at ARC. Bed has a different headboard, and her home bed is in the corner of the room, so she couldn’t slide out of it on its right side as is shown in todays strip.
Also no posters on the wall
Couldn’t you just touch the door (wood) before touching the knob (metal), thus canceling out the shock?
Nope, wood is a non-conductor.
Yay double resolution versions!
How about Milky Way?
There’s a candy bar called a Big Hunk that could apply to almost any of the guys, except maybe Achillies or Math as they are more slightly built, although just as well defined.
There’s another called a Big ‘Mo that could also be applied to most of the guys.
Maxima could be a Bit ‘o Honey, as it matches her skin color fairly closely.
Sydney could be a Wonka, given how scattered and zany she is.
And we’ve seen the girl with the sweet tooth (whose name I do not recall) eating a Marathon bar. I dunno if that’s appropriate with her power set, but given that it is named for being a rather long candy bar that takes a long time to consume, and given that she likes to eat candy often, it seems reasonably fitting.
I have no idea how this got placed here…
Since Valentine’s day is coming up this weekend I thought it would be a good time to ask what types of candy would be appropriate for each of the characters in the cast.
Sydney, of course, would be Nerds.
Maxima would be Atomic Fireballs.
Harem would be Take Five.
Heatwave would be Red Hots.
Arianna is definitely Pay Day.
Maybe Laffy Taffy for Amorphous.
Anvil would be Mounds because..um..she is tall! Yeah, that’s it.
For Dabbler I might suggest Mars Bar, but that is not nearly far enough away.
Any other suggestions?
Sydney would be going to get the Ghost Pepper Watermelon candies, or maybe the Ghost Pepper Candy Balls.
Achilles would be working on a Jawbreaker.
Dabbler gets the Milky Way bar.
Jiggle-Watt goes for Pop-Rocks.
And unlike most people, he actually chews them.
How about Milky Way?
There’s a candy bar called a Big Hunk that could apply to almost any of the guys, except maybe Achillies or Math as they are more slightly built, although just as well defined.
There’s another called a Big ‘Mo that could also be applied to most of the guys.
Maxima could be a Bit ‘o Honey, as it matches her skin color fairly closely.
Sydney could be a Wonka, given how scattered and zany she is.
And we’ve seen the girl with the sweet tooth (whose name I do not recall) eating a Marathon bar. I dunno if that’s appropriate with her power set, but given that it is named for being a rather long candy bar that takes a long time to consume, and given that she likes to eat candy often, it seems reasonably fitting.
Dangit, wanna see what the spheres are doing hen she’s sleeping.
If they did the same thing as the previous evening, the drop onto the bed when she loses consciousness. Which, now that I think of it, is likely both a safety mechanism AND a weakness…
Brings forth the idea of her getting knocked unconscious during a fight, and she loses a couple as they roll away. Or is there still a proximity rule even while they’re not ‘active’?
Yeah, I’d say the proximity thing is permanant. They were “Deactivated” when Sydney first tried to reveal them (she had to poke them to reactivate them), unwilling to float up for her, yet minutes before they stopped Max in her tracks, despite her strength, & sent her crashing to the ground.
I recon she’s stuck with them till death, or finds out how to unbind them to herself/pass them on to someone else…
At first I thought you destroyed a mouse, as in the living creature. I was impressed and saddened.
You’re definitely not the only one that has accidentally killed electronics with the power of Thor. Several years ago during a cold, dry winter I was burning a CD in my computer while I was playing on my Xbox. The CD finished so I got up to eject it. I could feel a static charge building as my hair started going super saiyan so I touched the light switch to ground myself and got a shock. Figuring it was now safe I went to push the eject button and watched a three inch long blue spark shoot from my finger and hit the USB port on the front of the computer. Which immediately shut off.
I pushed the power button and thankfully it turned on. After going through the unsafe shutdown checks it finally booted back up. So I went to effect the disk and once again I shot a lightning bolt from my finger that shut the thing down again.
So after throwing my house shoes into another room and grounding myself I switched it back on again. It made some angry noises but eventually booted back up. Several system checks later and everything was fine except for the front USB ports. Apparently two bolts of lightning will fry them.
I was able to get them repaired under warranty though. Which does prove I’m not the God of Thunder after all because as we all know warranties do not cover Acts of God.
As opposed to the cheap insurance they sell college students, which only cover Acts of God and the common cold.
(Seriously… when I was in university, if you read the small print of the insurance they offered to students, it would’ve been a much shorter application if they just listed the stuff that WAS covered. And that was back in 1988-1992.)
Dave,
It has probably been posted before, but what does the motto on the Arc shirts translate to?
Never mind, I just asked my friend Hominis Araneus.
Another trick that I use at the hospital that I work at is I touch the metal doorknob with one of my keys. You can still feel a jolt as the electricity is discharged, but it doesn’t hurt, because the arc point isn’t your skin, it’s at the key.
This is going to be a long day for Sydney – and for us if Dave stays true to form.
So when does tomorrow start for us? 2018 or 2019?
One solution I have found to always work for me is to just quickly grab something full-contact. Having the lager surface of my palm discharge the static is infinitely more bearable than having the entire shock going through only one nerve cluster in my fingertip.
Although when I was younger I used to sometimes grab the live wire when climbing through the electric fence, so I clearly have some flaws in judgement.
??? No one has mentioned it yet? You don’t ground the sheets/blankets, you ground the mattress pad…
dave why not just wear an anti static band when you are at the computer?????
I don’t shock things while I’m at the computer, it happens when I get up to get a drink or hit the can and sit back down again. Maybe I drag my feet when I walk.
Eat “lighting”? Is it supposed to be lightning?
Nah, you need the lampshades in your diet for the extra fiber.
First you eat the light bulbs. Then you get the lightning.
Oh geeze.
Sorry dude. :D I’ve driven a Lightning for the past 15 years, so I notice when it’s misspelled.
https://i.imgur.com/rS6GHKd.jpg
Now the question here is this normal static, is one of her orbs secret powers trying to make itself known. (or she’s now the new Static Shock)
At least she isn’t wearing earbuds connected to a computer.
Ever been repeatedly sparked inside the ear?
I have similar electrical problems due to an odd predisposition to store electricity. Mom has it too. Anyway my tip is to hold something conductive in you hand and touch that to the ground (doorknob etc.) The current will pass from you through the conducting object (I use a house key.) and arcing between it and the ground.
When I lived in Reno NV. years back, and would have to go to the casinos to see family, yeah, I had to meet them there, I always got shocked, so I got used to shutting the car door by pushing on the window glass and never touching the metal, unless I was still sitting and would hold onto the door until I got out of the car. Took just a few weeks to learn that trick.
Interesting. I love cold weather too (wouldn’t live where I do if I didn’t), but I never have the slightest problem with static electricity. Never have, no matter where I lived. And trust me, as a kid, I TRIED. Maybe I’m naturally grounded or something?
So, Dave – where does one go to acquire that t-shirt, anyway?
ARC boot camp?
And probably the Archon Gift Shop, as well. Given all of the promotions and merchandising Arianna wants to do, there absolutely must be a Gift Shop.
Event Horizon Comics has an extensive, but not exclusive, distribution deal. Head over there for all your Archon merchandise. Unfortunately, the line is not available on their website as yet.
Sydney is fairly flexible, based on that final panel. Not exactly a full split, but a bit more than some people can comfortably do.
thats just what i was about to point out.
rolling out of bed, short of sleep, no stretches done, nearly a full split.
and more bothered by the possibility that the routine is an indicator of the day to come.
Astrophysicist here. The trick is not to lead with only one or two fingers. Lightning is just a big static discharge, after all, and it looks for a nice point reaching out at it (or from it) to discharge.
Slap a conducting metal surface with the hand flat; it will discharge across the whole hand, reducing the point-to-point voltage drop and current, and it’ll be a lot more endurable.
And yeah, stay away from electronics until you’ve discharged properly.
Speaking from personal experience, stay away from cats until you’ve discharged properly, too…
I’ve found that the real trick is to grab something ELSE, maybe metallic, but non-metallic often works as well(plastic though, not wool or something). You then touch the grounded metal object with that. The vast surface area of your grip minimizes the schock, while the object is the point zap.
I’ve popped my cats a few times on accident, but nothing too severely. My problem is with metal things. Maybe my cats have a counter charge and we cancel each other out.
Are those deadpool boyshorts?