Wapsi Square Forum

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/its-electric/

Standard ghost-busting equipment available in most electronic stores. Only thing missing is the IR camera to pick up things that go bump in the night as they bump into things.

Well, I think this definitely concludes positively that Scarlet is not aware of Castela's power levels. I don't think she'd hold her like that, if she did...

Opus the Poet wrote:Standard ghost-busting equipment available in most electronic stores. Only thing missing is the IR camera to pick up things that go bump in the night as they bump into things.

Hunh... wouldn't you know it... I built a similar magnetic-signal pickup and recording system a few weeks ago, mostly out of junkbox parts. The pickup coil came from an old-style reed relay, the amplifier is a surplus dual transistor from the local flea market, and it's all tack soldered together and hot-glued. The recorder/analyzer is an old Android cellphone.

It's for hunting electrical interference, not ghosts... but who knows? I might have to take it down to the Winchester Mystery House and see if I can locate the ghost of a carpenter or two!

One of the daily print single-panel comics recently showed a paranormal investigator using his gear while being taped by a full field video team (camera, lights, boom mic), commenting that he was reading higher-than-normal EM activity.

A lot of "ghosts" ARE electrical interference. A while back, I watched a story of a woman that though she had a poltergeist. The people that looked into it found an old well, with a steel pipe liner, in the basement. It was firing electrostatic blasts up the pipe, like a gun. We don't think about things like that, because we can't see it.

Also, I think Scarlett is channeling Ruth, from Dumbing Of Age, here.

Humm, Scarlett already has boobs. Seems to get joy out of manhandling other people. Talks down to her peers. I believe we are witnessing the birth and ascension of a self proclaimed, self anointed new Queen Bee of the school. Right up until either of the other two young ladies in the room decide to demonstrate it is safer to sand paper a wild cats rear end in a telephone booth than make either one mad.

Dave wrote:

Opus the Poet wrote:Standard ghost-busting equipment available in most electronic stores. Only thing missing is the IR camera to pick up things that go bump in the night as they bump into things.

Hunh... wouldn't you know it... I built a similar magnetic-signal pickup and recording system a few weeks ago, mostly out of junkbox parts. The pickup coil came from an old-style reed relay, the amplifier is a surplus dual transistor from the local flea market, and it's all tack soldered together and hot-glued. The recorder/analyzer is an old Android cellphone.

It's for hunting electrical interference, not ghosts... but who knows? I might have to take it down to the Winchester Mystery House and see if I can locate the ghost of a carpenter or two!

jeffepp wrote:A lot of "ghosts" ARE electrical interference. A while back, I watched a story of a woman that though she had a poltergeist. The people that looked into it found an old well, with a steel pipe liner, in the basement. It was firing electrostatic blasts up the pipe, like a gun. We don't think about things like that, because we can't see it.

Thinking about it further, I realized that the club already had what they need to do electromagnetic detection of ghosts with a sensitive detector. They've got Scarlet and Timothy: a long-tailed pair!

(That's definitely one of my nerdier jokes lately but it really does apply here. If you make a simple two-transistor long-tailed-pair differential amplifier circuit, connect a coil of wire between the two transistors' bases, and provide a bias voltage to one or both bases through a resistor, you end up with a very nice magnetic pickup. Sort of like a good microphone for magnetic fields... it's sensitive, but doesn't hum or buzz when your hand comes near the circuit. The one I built is quite directional... point it at the source of a magnetic field and it "hears" it from across the room, turn it at a 90-degree angle and the signal vanishes. Just right for hunting electromagnetic ghosts.)

oldmanmickey wrote:Humm, Scarlett already has boobs. Seems to get joy out of manhandling other people. Talks down to her peers. I believe we are witnessing the birth and ascension of a self proclaimed, self anointed new Queen Bee of the school. Right up until either of the other two young ladies in the room decide to demonstrate it is safer to sand paper a wild cats rear end in a telephone booth than make either one mad.

We still have only the vaguest idea of what Daylla is, let alone what she might be capable of. We don't know if she's a Pred or a Bevy, or something outside easy classification. And the one panel we saw of her long, long ago with a carnivorous-plant head could have easily been a glamour, since that seems to be one of the first spells everyone learns (for obvious reasons).

Scarlet isn't quite correct. A Ouija board works by the involuntary (or in some cases, quite voluntary) movements of those holding it. The system Daylla is describing relies upon permeating energy. Given the amount of background energy we've seen in that school, if they DON'T get readings it will be spooky!

eee wrote:Scarlet isn't quite correct. A Ouija board works by the involuntary (or in some cases, quite voluntary) movements of those holding it. The system Daylla is describing relies upon permeating energy. Given the amount of background energy we've seen in that school, if they DON'T get readings it will be spooky!

If they don't get readings any time they are within 30 yards of Castela it will be spooky.