Made By Monkeys

No wonder banks are having such a tough time of it these days! Mike Meakin sent in this head-scratching HSBC advert from the Sunday Times:

"I'm fascinated by the 3 pin in-line plug - never seen one of these in my travels! What do you suppose the graphic designer thought this adaptor was supposed to do? Or am I missing something?"

Besides loads of useful stuff over at www.microwaves101.com, the authors have posted what they call a "politically incorrect"  microwave slang glossary.  While it predictably features some of the usual crude and sophmoric lab humor, there's a lot of amusing terms that will ring familiar to most engineers -- myself included.

A Simpsons fan, I'm particularly fond of Bart's Head: 

"'Bart's Head' is the colloquial term for the waveform in the frequency domain of a CDMA signal as viewed on a spectrum analyzer. When operating correctly, it looks a lot like Bart Simpson's head. Square sides, kind of choppy on the top. You might hear something like; " I looked at the Bart's head at the antenna port, and it rolls pretty sharply, I think the duplexer is tweaked" "

                                                                                                         Thanks to Jon Titus another contribution to our photo gallery of cockeyed construction work -- or is someone just having fun with photoshop?

Nathan Herbert sends proof that he owns and uses a three pin, inline plug and has lived to tell the tale, though it's questionable as to whether he can get through airport security with it! He writes: 

"It's not quite the death trap artistic device as imagined by some people. Each of the plug-prong 'faces' is removable, and only one of the cube faces has live connection pins inside. The face opposite the live one has a standard UK socket on it. It's not bad (or lethal!) to use, just a pain to pack, as it's like packing a caltrop in your suitcase, and just as much fun to step on while jet-lagged in the night!"

Apologies to the artist who designed the HSBC advert!

File this one under "mislabeled."

Last time we picked on Burton upon Trent for this leaf-shrouded parking ticket machine. Now, we turn our attention to Herriman, Utah, where Jon Titus snapped a shot of this inconveniently-located solar-powered street sign. Wonder how tall those trees get?