From: Anton Aylward (anton_at_the-wire.com)
Date: Tue May 06 2003 - 06:09:04 PDT
On Tue, 2003-05-06 at 08:56, Joost van de Griek wrote:
> On 2003-05-06 14:25, Anton Aylward wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 2003-05-06 at 07:18, Joost van de Griek wrote:
> >> On 2003-05-06 13:03, Karel Jansens wrote:
> >
> >>> There is no technology to pick locks, crack safes or murder people. There is
> >>> technology that can be used to do all those things, but the same technology
> >>> can be used to save people's lives as well.
> >>
> >> You are of course right. Electric chairs were not designed to kill. :-/
> >
> > Indeed.
> > They were designed as a marketing tool by Edison to discourage people
> > from using his competitor's (i.e. Telsa's) alternating current and to
> > use his direct current instead.
>
> <http://www.skepticfiles.org/urban/electric.htm>
"The law of unintended consequences".
Yes, Edison was outspoken against AC and did use the Chair to
demonstrate AC was deadly. Direction of causality? I can't read
his mind.
Anyway, if you've ever dropped a metal screwdriver across the 5 Volt DC
bus-bar of a VAX 19-inch rack and been blown across the room as it
flash-vapourizes explosively, you know that DC is dangerous as well.
Like the old Ham said:
"Its the volts that jolt but the mills that kill"
/anton
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