Why a Dead Alkaline Battery Bounces [video]

Due to a Feedly bug (I think), this actually makes it much harder for Feedly users to comment. When an HN story links directly to YouTube, Feedly omits the link to the comments that is normally present in its display of HN RSS.

I think this is a Feedly problem, not an HN RSS problem, because it works fine in Digg Reader.

I'm curious if others have noticed this. I believe when someone posted a poll question here asking what RSS readers people switched to after Google Reader went away, Feedly was one of the most popular.

Re: Why a Dead Alkaline Battery Bounces [video]

#5

Post by keeperofdakeys » Fri, Sep 05, 2014, 7:26 AM UTC

Probably not the best idea to open a battery without gloves and a mask (though lithium batteries are worse in terms of gases).

Still very interesting to see the electrolyte though.

Re: Why a Dead Alkaline Battery Bounces [video]

#6

Post by macromaniac » Fri, Sep 05, 2014, 7:46 AM UTC

It's interesting to me that using the height of the bounce against the ground for estimating the spring constant is worse than using the height of the bounce against the battery.

Re: Why a Dead Alkaline Battery Bounces [video]

#7

Post by haar » Fri, Sep 05, 2014, 7:55 AM UTC

I think one of the bits I liked most was "Romeo (Retired Old Men Eating Out) Club" - looking at its website it seems like quite a large thing over there. I know that my Grandma goes to something similar (restricted to just tea and bingo), but it makes me wonder if a similar organisation exists in the UK; a lot of the older folk I know just aren't very social any more, simply due to the fact that their social groups have died off or are spread out and have restricted travel options. Social interaction seems such a huge part of our existence to be missing for any individual (unless that's what they want of course).

Again, anecdotally; I've found amongst the older folks that those engaged in discussion and interaction keep their wits about them longer/easier than those bound by isolation.

Anyway, enough babbling on - time to go do some research.

Re: Why a Dead Alkaline Battery Bounces [video]

#8

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Sep 05, 2014, 8:02 AM UTC

keeperofdakeys wrote: post #5

Probably not the best idea to open a battery without gloves and a mask (though lithium batteries are worse in terms of gases). Still very interesting to see the electrolyte though.

The quantity and variety of things that I've opened up during my lifetime without 'gloves and a mask' would probably scare you very much. The worst mistake I made to date is grinding off the top of a BLY90 as a kid before I knew what a MSDS is. So far so good, I think these folks will be fine as long as they wash their hands afterwards before eating, cleaning up after you've dropped a fluorescent tube is probably a lot more dangerous than this.

Don't go and turn anything into a fine powder!

Probably the most risky thing they did here was cutting up the batteries with a hacksaw which will create a bit of sawdust composed of metal and some electrolyte. But that's pretty easy to get rid of and won't become airborne. Using a grinder for the same job would be much more dangerous.