That's not really DIY given that it takes a solid background in RF/microwave engineering to do something like that. There is a slight error in the video; satellite communications use circular polarization because the ionosphere introduces an unpredictable rotational distortion in microwaves passing through it.…

@Cheetah Eldrick Woods:

@jmellars: No, not at all. Not at all.

@OtherTimes: It's actually only ~50GW from lightning.

@CaptainJack: They all work on wall street.

Emacs

@science is sexy: I love that show.

@DWD: Generally if you try to blow up an explosive, you get a sympathetic detonation. That's more or less the only way to detonate secondary explosives and how detonators work.

@soldstatic:

@MayorBloomberg: And if they do put this patent to practical use - and not just after someone else has done all the hard work - then that's awesome. If they don't, then your point is irrelevant.

@leptonette: So what you're claiming is that my argument is attributing special value to coincidence (i.e., continued existence due to the lack of international nuclear war). Which is a fair point, and I can't really argue past it, although all that really comes down to is that post-hoc analysis sucks.

What I hate about patents like these is that the devil is in the details. Or as Thomas Edison said, genius is 1 part inspiration and 99 parts perspiration.

@Benny Profane: There is a problem with this logic. Ground bursts produce far more nuclear fallout than air bursts, because the neutron flux from the blast turns the surrounding soil radioactive, which is thrown up into the air (and then falls back down to earth).

@SteveJobsSexLife: One could argue that at a point, tools of war becomes tools for peace. Gattling underestimated human tolerance for violence, but it's also worth noting that since the development of nuclear weapons, there has not been an international conflict of the scale observed during the preceding millennium.

@thechansen: The other problem with biological weapons is they're uncontrollable. A nuclear bomb does a very predictable amount of damage. A chemical weapon is less predictable, but there's still a limit to how far it will spread and how long it remains dangerous.

@superdemon: Neutron flux does not work that way. You can't "dial in" what nuclei will capture a neutron and transmute into a radioactive isotope.

@Daniel Yakobian: Uh, no. All forms of radiation dissipate immediately after their source has disappeared. But neutron radiation, unlike all other types, actually makes things radioactive. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

@Benny Profane: Source the PhD fact without linking to wikipedia (or something that quotes wikipedia).

@MTVAH: One has to wonder where the information from Wikipedia comes from, as I can find no source for this fact.

@Greg Krynen: An unsourced sentence, which says his PhD is from UCLA. Other sources say he got his bachelors from UCLA, but I can find no other reference to a PhD.