As a PhD who has tried doing home improvement projects, it’s the most believable thing in the film.
Actually some of the most naïve people I've ever met were theretofore academically successful.
My fiancee has a couple degrees while I just graduated high school. She's incredibly smart but I'm definitely more street savvy. She grew up a bit sheltered.
Some pleeb shouted at me, "I thought you were an engineer!" And I shouted back, "A software engineer!" while I hammer a nail with my shoe.
Ah, a C programmer.
I’m a regular engineer and yeah I pull such shit. Listen, there’s a reason I tell everyone not to do what I do.
The difference between a regular idiot doing a dangerous job and an engineer doing a dangerous job is the engineer knows which parts of the job he's risking imminent death on. There may often be no other difference.
Really?
Genuinely asking, I'm just an engineer... with very very bad grades. Passed was enough for me.
Once a professor asked me if I wanted to take the exam again because it was clear that I knew more than what I showed on the exam (a lot of 2 + 2 = 5 mistakes, I was fairly good at that and owe most of my low grades to that). I asked him if I passed, he said yes. Fuck that shit, I'm taking that grade and parading it across town, wooohoo 🥳.
As they say, a PhD is about learning more and more about less and less. Some of the smartest people at conferences I've attended legitimately risk death crossing the street.
A high voltage electric fence. At some point even standing in front of the thing is enough.
Air only has so much resistance itself. High enough voltage and the closest path to ground is where the charge will go.
Just like with Lightning
My arm once got pulled into an electric fence when I was a kid and I couldn't stop getting shocked until someone physically pulled me away. It was more of a self-control issue than accidentally bridging the gap.
That was the day I learned that some pain can be pleasant. The owner of the property didn't seem as pleased with my discovery as I did. He had to shut off the fence and yanked my arm away and then told me to go explore my perversions somewhere else. I was too young to understand the word "perversion," and I'm now eternally grateful to that poor unprepared rancher.
For more fun form a chain with other people and be the furthest from the person touching the fence.
At approx 3kV/mm, you would have to be pretty close to a 10kV fence.
Humidity plays a big role as does the frequency that the fence is running on. But you would be pretty safe standing a meter away, on that dry sunny day in the picture.
Also above a point, the high voltage causes the conductors to buzz.
With enough voltage, everything is a conductor.
I have a 10KV electric fence. 5KV to 15KV is typical electric fence voltage in a farm or bear prevention fence. Can't feel a thing unless you actually touch it.
They are also not lethal. Very low current, just very high voltage. So it only hurts like fuck, but won't kill a human, cow, or any other mammal that touches it.
At 10kV, a random stick would be all it takes to start an arc. He knows what he's doing.
True, True… Hay who thought it was safe to run 10,000V Wire through a flammable overgrown jungle?
Just because you're very good at one thing doesn't mean you're good at another. Sometimes the further you go down one path, the less you know about everything else.
IIRC, he was messing with the kids and knew it was off because the lights were off. He proceeded to put his hands on it and convulse wildly as a joke.
As someone who has worked with academics, the more specialised the person, the less common sense they seem to hold onto.
As such, if this was outside their PhD specialisation, then it'd absolutely make sense that this wouldn't occur to them.
Clearly his PhD is not in electrical engineering or biology
It's actually a PhD in trombone. Someone misheard it one time, and nobody has ever thought to follow up.
"Oh, Alan? Yeah, he has a doctorate in bones or something."
He must have skipped all of the Electrical Engineering classes in his Paleontology program.
Yeah that’s people with PhDs in my experience
Yeah, in this case it's so high voltage that the resistance of the dry stick wont mean as much.
Wet wood from the ground is probably a better conductor than dinosaur scales
Did dinosaurs have scales?
I dont think so, bananas are a relatively new thing iirc.
Mmmmmh, nom nom nom nom.
That's exactly the right amount of dopamine hit I'm scrolling for. Now I can turn off my phone and roll over to sleep. Thanks bud 👌
I don't remember the scene, but personally I'd test an electric fence with a nonconductor. You'll probably get some sparks but won't die. You do you, ppl in this thread.
Well, I have an EE Degree specialized in Digital Systems - pretty much the opposite side of Electronic Engineering from the High Power side - and I would be almost as clueless as that guy when it comes to testing a 10,000V fence for power.
On the other hand I do know a lot of interesting things about CPU design ;)
Is his PhD in Electrical Engineering?
He is already standing too close and that stick would arc with that many volts flowing through it. The most likely outcome in reality if it had been energized. The arc would have jumped from the stick to him and no more New Zealand guy.
Hey it's a "It's a UNIX system" movie, isn't it?
Did you know the weird 3d file system navigation thingy was a real program (just not widely used)?
But I can't get over the way she held the mouse lol
The funny thing about that quote is that it really was a Unix system that was shown on screen.
Yep. Very domain specific knowledge but couldn’t pour piss outta a boot with the instructions on the heel.
Why people gotta hate on a movie three decades old that remains perfect?
Gotta meme to keep it alive
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