AuGmENTor said:
You did mention one name I knew. Tesla? Did't he make a coil that grabbed electricity right off of wires? Making it so that you could use low load (amperage) devices inside your home? And didn't some bad shit happen to him behind it? Just vauge memories is all.
Tesla had 114 US patents, not counting the classified/denied stuff for our US Govt. and Nazi Germany. He had several generators and coil designs. Interesting bit if trivia- one of Tesla's original Niagara Falls AC generators is on display in the Smithsonian next to Thomas Edison's statue- WTF??? Tesla and Edison were pretty much enemies (Tesla being the much better engineer), and JP Morgan pretty well hung Tesla out to dry with funny funding. Edison went around electrocuting dogs and a horse to show how "dangerous" Tesla's system was in a literal electrical dog-n-pony show.
My college physics class had a Tesla coil demonstration that lit up flourescent tubes and a flashlight bulb wired only to a car radio antenna with no other wires used.
Tesla recommended very high voltage (18,000 - 30,000 volts if I recall) and high frequency 1800 cycles per second Alternating Current (AC) power. Edison wanted low-voltage Direct Current (DC)- problem is, you can't transmit DC power without huge losses. We pretty much got stuck with Tesla's early inferior (and more dangerous) Niagara Falls design for big business reasons, and we're still using 120 Volt AC, 60 cycle/second power to this day (1890s technology if anyone is keeping track). Your house typically has 3 wires running to every switch, lamp, and outlet (black or "live"/"hot" L1, white "neutral", and a green or bare copper earth ground (tied to your plumbing and the water table by ground rods and metal pipes). Your electric stove, welder, and dryer will also have a red "L2" that gives your 240 Volt AC, still at 60 cycles per second. Tesla's systems would have been much cheaper, especially the wireless one (no power lines needed).
If we would have used Tesla's later improved high voltage, high-frequency system, we would need only one wire, and it could be much smaller (and actually safer "high-voltage"- ironic, isn't it). He later invented a method to transmit power with NO wires (my physics class demo) and invented a remote control/wireless/radio boat demonstrated in 1898 (officially before Tesla's invention of radio, which was credited to Guglielmo Marconi- go figure).
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ins/lab_remotec.html
As far as Taser resistance, getting our police to wake up and smell the fascism around them is our best bet (some of them are pretty decent guys 'n gals). Blackwater on the other hand...UGH!! I'd think that "reinforced" motorcycle racing leathers or welding leathers would give improved protection against the metal taser prongs (15 foot range from what I remember). Or else those hard plastic motorcycle chest protectors that we used to wear to keep tree limbs out of our chest cavity when dirt riding, but none of these are too cheap. Most police will try to tase for the torso center of mass due to their pistol training, I'd expect. Electrically, the 50,000 volt DC (like Edisons idea, I think) taser will be hard to insulate- better to avoid the metal prongs&wires by either distance or armor (they may have dressed like that for a reason in "The Road Warrior" movie).
