Hmph.
Now that I think about it, I did have a childhood hero who I wanted to be- Thomas Edison.

Yeah, I know. Geek. Total.

The thing is, when Edison was a kid in the 1800s he could get access to all kinds of cool shit that we who were born a hundred years later have no access to. He got hold of some sulphuric acid and used it to generate lots of hydrogen- and nearly blew himself up. He obtained a chunk of phosphorus, which needed to be kept under water lest it spontaneously combust, and was experimenting with it in his little lab that he set up on a railway car- and did in fact end up destroying said railway car when the phosphorus spilled.

But mostly he always seemed to have some sort of workshop where he could tinker around with odds and ends and make cool shit, get it patented, and make a living at this. With the exception of the phonograph- his only truly original invention- he took things that others had made, figured out how to improve them, then patented the improved model.

How cool would that be?

Of course, this isn't the Victorian age, so most of the simple stuff has already been done, dammit. To do as he did you need to be an engineer.

Many years and one engineering degree later, here I am...

I can say this much- I did in fact design an electromagnetic pulse bomb. Sadly, the electrical engineer in charge of the project doesn't understand the concept of inertia, so when they go to launch this thing it'll blow up in their faces... but hey, I warned them, so my hands are clean.

Length? Just far enough to stay out of the blast radius.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 2 Apr 2007, 17:00, Reply)