Re: Power out hack

Article: 7533 of alt.hackers
From: gregc@fullfeed.com (Greg Corey)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Power out hack
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 95 23:53:50 CST
Organization: CPU Wizards
Lines: 52
Approved: By golly, it is!
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In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.950319131413.24763C-100000@kelly.teleport.com>
on
Sun, 19 Mar 1995 13:21:14 -0800, rootbeer@teleport.com (Tom Phoenix) wrote:

>ObHack: I'm getting some work done on my house. I came home last week to
>find that the outlets and lights didn't work, but I had power at my
>furnace. A little checking showed that each outlet had two hot wires, and
>no neutral, so I decided to leave those alone until the contractor came
>back, but I rigged an extension cord to let me use my refrigerator, TV,
>and alarm clock overnight. Still don't know what the contractor could
>have done to give me two hot wires, though...

Actually, that's easy.  In a WELL wired house, neutral isn't tied to ground.
 If nothing was plugged in (or if nothing grounded the neutral line) you
could plug a HOT line into a NEUTRAL line and not blow the fuse.

In fact, that's almost certainly what he did, he hooked a HOT wire (black)
and a NEUTRAL wire (white) into the same side of an electrical outlet or
something he was wiring.  Not tough to do... but hard not to NOTICE!

Tell your contractor to get a wiring checker.  $3 at the local hardware
store.  Actually, tell your contractor to take a hike!

Damnit, I went and posted again, which means it's time kids for an:

OBscalperHACK:  I'm a cheesehead.  I'm not proud of it, but the fact remains
that I love all UW-Madison and sports (also GB Packer football, but enough
of that for now).  Well, I was in St. Paul last Saturday with my wife and
talking to a guy at the Mall of America who mentioned that the Badgers
hockey team had WON the previous night and were facing CC for the WCHA
Playoff Title that evening IN St. Paul, and that tickets were only $5.  I
hadn't actually been following WHERE they were playing, and hadn't seen the
paper in 2 days, so I said, "This has to be fate".  So we cruise
down to the
game to discover (which I really had anticipated) that the tickets were $20
each, not $5.

Well, $40 was much more than my wife wanted to spend, so I counted the
scalpers and discovered there were 5 or 6 guys trying to unload tickets 25
minutes after the game had started.  The stadium wasn't even close to sold
out.  So I went up to a scalper and said "$10 per ticket."

He gave in so quickly, I now realize I should have said $7 or $8.  He might
even have taken $5.  Ah well, still cost me $20 less and I got to see
UW-Madison beat CC.

(Stay tuned next week for another edition of: "No Hack Too Small")

--
 -- Greg Corey     |      Because I don't really want to get sued...
gregc@fullfeed.com | All opinions are my own, no warranty made or implied.

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